Education is supposed to give you this over what your parents can teach
you. Take the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic and move onto the
university. There your basic skills are expanded by questions of philosophy and
theory and perhaps making you think.
As you become an adult, you gather your knowledge or perceptions of truth
and follow a rocky road supporting your ideals. Family and friends and
workmates and partners and social adjustments will tweak your ideals until they
become prejudice and perhaps bigotry.
Yet few can quote Shakespeare or Socrates or Jung but can spout
word-for-word Monty Python’s sketches. Many have learned to appreciate the
works of Martha Graham or Willem de Kooning or Frank Lloyd Wright or Jean-Luc
Godard or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart but have posted selfies on their social media
pages and can sing the words to Taylor Swift.
Questionable journalism overwhelms each and every day with publications,
books, talking heads, established new venues, and pods, streams, and whatever
new electronic wonder can be invented. Bites and snippets reinforce our ideals
and biases like Pavlov’s dog.
Are we still broadening our horizons with animated movies, law and order
series, reality shows and dancing with the stars? Have we lost the curiosity of
exploring new adventures?
Could we pick up a book by an unknown author on an unknown subject? Are
we bold enough to pick up a paintbrush or a golf club or a musical instrument
or sign up for a marathon to expand our horizons with an open mind?
We don’t need to be well read to be able to immediately search facts or
interpretations or opinions at a push of a button. Maybe we are not as smart as
we think we are?
Or let’s go down the rabbit hole and see what the next generation will
come up with.
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