On education and ‘Educated’ by Tara Westover
Life of one’s own is widely based on the reality formed through one’s experiences, including the information they have been able to gather. What we call an education is simply the information that is ‘universally’ accepted. Still, for the most part, it doesn’t equal to absolute truth. In having those information, people gain the ability to become better suited to live the life preferred by the ton. That is to say that the system we live in is more accommodating towards the people who knows more about how it works, i.e. people with more education. While it certainly allows us humans to be productive and create more things, I do wonder whether it absolutely has to be this way.
Just as a machine learning algorithm would change its output the more data it has, people change as they come to obtain more information. That seems to be the power of education: changing the way one views the world and in turn, also altering the actions they would take. In a world where the goal is to become more efficient and experience more growth, it may be the right tool. But, if the goal is for the humans to live more happily and enjoy life, it seems hardly efficient. Even the story of the author kind of proves this point. There are tons of people who have wealth but suffer to become happy. While it is true that in today’s world, one needs at least some capital to satisfy their basic needs and more education leads to more capital, after a certain point, I think it becomes meaningless to chase after wealth and to some point, education.
What was discussed in the book was the diversion of family members who do and do not conform to the standards of the society. While it is certainly true that the father was in no right to harm his children and deny them the choices they want, I do not think that he has to be bashed because of the lifestyle he chose for himself. There are many ways to live a life and if we are to truly have liberty, one should be able to choose any way and be free of judgment. But then, there are limitations since the way we live life is deeply interconnected with each other.
The father was, I guess, content in living differently and the daughter wanted to belong, so their way did not collide and further diverged. The tool used in the way of belonging and the divergence was education. Even though it only seems right to be in the side of the daughter, I cannot bring myself to wholeheartedly support her. After all, if it is absolutely wrong of the father to live that way and the most people know it, why did their business flourish? Didn’t their business flourish due to countless people believing in and supporting it? Being right or wrong is highly subjective and dependent upon the varying experiences and beliefs of people.
In the end, I think I couldn’t find the point of the book. I do not know why but I expected more of the book and it just didn’t quite reach it. I think I expected more ‘contemplations’ and wanted to hear more about the author’s thoughts rather than the accounts of what events took place in her life. I guess the disappointment is mostly on me as the book is clearly categorized as a memoir.
I believe that being open-minded means being accepting towards all ‘deficiencies’ of people and embracing our differences even if it is evidently wrong. We do not know how one came to be and when all the sides to a story is known, it often becomes hard to distinguish the right from wrong.
At this point, I cannot seem to clearly think or write so let me just end it here.
