The Great Equalizer
“The most important thing you can get Jubec, is education.” my grandfather declares. His words float in the stale air of the living room, smothered by his clumsy Polish accent. It seems so noble a proclamation: education, the great equalizer, education, food in your children’s mouths, education, the form of happiness only the successful may obtain. It is this ideal that is mashed down our throats from a young age, that being “educated” will deem us worthy human beings. We students follow the voices of administrators, these pied pipers, with the thick blindfold of success draped over our eyes. We take their deeply trodden path, trust its validity, and let it infiltrate all institutions, but how can actual thinking occur in the presence of complacency?
Perhaps we need to stop interpreting learning as a sort of final destination, but rather as a continuous journey. In viewing our education as a formal diploma and the accreditation it signifies, the process of becoming more knowledgeable is only a checklist, with each completed assignment a mere box to cross off. Instead of embarking on an enlightening opportunity, students merely choke down information declared by a stranger as important, losing sight of its significance altogether. When this personal comprehension is disposed of, any learning that occurred is abstract- a massive jigsaw puzzle to be assembled, only to stuff it back in the linen closet when the blizzard has passed.
Becoming educated is not a definitive arrival at point B but rather an eternal plunge into cold ocean waters. It is knowing how to question, how to conjure ideas not splayed across the table before us, how to utter the words social constructs deem immoral, and how to utilize such skills. We live in a world of zombies- humans drilled on how to think through two decades of schooling until their brains are tenderized into pulp. People taught to drift, to let their thoughts frolic inside the safety of societal expectations, finding a false sense of rebellion in a scandalous novel or “leftist” opinion.
These people, the indoctrinated, are not men and women of education, they are livestock in a world that needs their efforts to meet its corrupted demands. Just as previous factory laborers of the Industrial Revolution were instructed to sit rigid at desks, prepared for the uniformity of an assembly line, the students of today are molded to function in a modern office, through an absurd emphasis on collaboration. Why should students be subjected to a hinderance on their learning, restrained by the lack of ambition amongst their group members? Well, one might say, “You will have to work with others in your job someday.” Collaboration is profitable, more efficient, it encourages individuals to move with the desires of the masses- in essence, impeding on opportunity for independent thought.
Take any group project, for instance, and you will find a washed-display of ideas. Rather than following my own conviction and passion for a particular topic, I constantly find myself silenced by a group of students with vastly different concerns. Either they are disinterested with the task at hand and are determined to execute the project in the easiest way possible, or the variety of opinions on a subject are so divisive that all ideas are silenced. Ultimately, we all compromise, selecting a topic that we are indifferent to. This indifference only discourages risk-taking, if there is no investment in the work, its laborers will only do what is necessary to have the task completed. These are the constant motivations of formal education- to produce humans that will integrate into the corrupt workings of society, rather than question them.
From the first weeks of kindergarten, children are sculpted into the likeness of cubicle dwellers, forced into conversations with distracted peers that interrupt opportunity for personal growth. Even as children move on to collegiate life, their false sense of independence is undermined by immense pressure to make their education profitable. “What will you do with a doctorate in history?” my mother snaps, interrogating me yet again on my plan for the next stage of my life. It is my dream to become a college professor, writing and speaking on the complexities of American History. Analyzing these patterns of the past, more than anything else, makes me feel whole, satisfied, a completed version of myself. And yet, I am constantly being dragged away, threatened by a meager salary as an educator and the mounds of debt to be created in acquiring the credentials needed to bring me there. To me, my education is not supposed to be solely a financial investment, it is of little importance to me whether I am paid for it later.
What then, is education, if not a means to melt into society as a contributing citizen? The more corruption and misconduct I observe as I reflect upon societies of past, the more information I encounter of human mass consumption destroying our planet, the more instances of discrete racism and sexism I notice in all walks of my life- the more I realize that to be educated has never been a matter of belonging. The truly educated are those whose thoughts are divisive, they are people who are willing to contemplate, rather than accept, the information they gather.
These thinkers have always been the real determinants of history. Galileo, who ventured beyond religion, beyond everything the society he lived in stood for, did so without warrant. With a mere curiosity and a desire for proof of the way human beings accepted the natural world, this brilliant man discovered the now accepted theory of heliocentrism, an unprecedented finding that would make astrological studies more compelling for people of the future, eventually flinging mankind as far as the moon. There was Charles Darwin- who violated his own upbringing of creationism when faced with hard facts- the concept that species do not emerge, they evolve. This theory is the groundwork for modern biology, the motivation for the study of genetics and preventative medicine. The educated do not merely stretch boundaries in their discovery- they inevitably snap them.
This concept of contemplation, of questioning what is truthful despite what we are taught, is more important now than in any previous era. We are in the midst of a society that prioritizes technological advancement, seeking exceptions to all natural law- new inhabitable planets, immortality, genetic engineering, cures for paralysis; and yet, we struggle with the stagnant social inequity of the past 1000 years. As science has taken us to greater depths of ocean than ever thought necessary, and across our globe in record time, beggars-human beings- continue to stumble across disease-ridden streets, children continue to dodge fire bombing, and men are hypnotized into believing that walking into a suicide mission for a country that fails to represent them is an honorable way to die. For humans, all obstacles of the physical world seem manageable no matter how enormous. Yet, as soon as we are faced with ourselves, with our own harmful nature, we suddenly become indifferent, deeming social issues too complex to resolve, even as the most intelligent species on earth.
From my limited understanding of myself, being only 17, I believe this is where I come in — as one of the educated who demonstrates concern for human beings. Recently I had an emotional breakdown in the middle of my Spanish class. I was seated at the back of the room watching attentively as the film Una Vida Mejor flashed across the projector screen before us. As I watched the characters I had grown to love in the past few days of viewing struggle in the final scenes of the movie — particularly the honest, hardworking illegal named Carlos handling his deportation and the forced abandonment of his son- I felt wretched with sadness. In the cloak of darkness that hung in the room, I began to weep. Streaming, warm tears that ran onto the desk guiltlessly. Even as the credits rolled out and the stinging fluorescent lights overhead were flicked on, I cried. Raw, honest, crying, a sadness so sharp it felt unreal.
I cried for all of the tragedies that were casually flung at me in history classes, I cried for the abused children my mother is responsible for rescuing in her career, I cried for the inequity that has bound human beings for centuries- biting chains that have only been gripped harder in the past few years. I cried because I live in a world in which money dictates your power and your worth, and I belong to this system of oppression and mindlessness.
The common man does not wish to end social oppression — this threatens his model of monetary obsession and violent hunger for power. It is the duty of the educated, people willing to stare at, question, and reflect on their own appalling, human selves. Is this truly the best version of ourselves?
I do not wish to be one of these common men. I want to be aware. Not in an informed sense, in the tainted ways in which the media tells us the “truth”. My own reality will exist in critical thought, in constant analysis, as a means of escaping the corrupted manipulation that permeates civilizations. As I gather more information on American History throughout the years, I want to contemplate it- to seek out its implications in the modern day. When I notice a typical interaction on the street-an unphased “how are you,” for example, I will work to understand why they ever felt the need to ask in the first place. This shall be my form of being educated: exercising thought on the idiosyncrasies of human beings, the habits exhibited by man for the past 400 years. Engaging in the job of a historian, sociologist, philosopher, questioner.
In this commitment to thought lies hope for the planet we dwell in to steer in a more righteous direction. If we are capable of considering our actions as well as those of others, we can face the issue of humanity. Subconscious faults: racism, sexism, anger, greed, could all be tended to through mindfulness. Perhaps with the right mindset our society can finally achieve the level of equality enlightenment thinkers once imagined.
There it is, then — contemplation — our great equalizer.
