"The State of Nature"

In an article for the philosophy blog of the NYTimes, "The Stone," Steven Nadler writes insightfully about the 17th century philosopher Spinoza's unprecedented commitment to freedom of expression.  He notes that Spinoza's conviction arises from the basic fact that beliefs and thoughts cannot be regulated.  As the German volksong puts it: Die Gedanken Sind Frei, wer kann sie erraten. Thoughts are free, who can guess them.  The song goes on to say that no one can know then, and no soldier can shoot them with powder or lead.  We think what we like, no one can take away that freedom.  Spinoza's (and Nadler's) argument runs that with such individual agency taken for granted, any attempt by government to keep people from expressing these free thoughts will only cause resentment and tyranny.  Here is the final paragraph of the blog:

Well before John Stuart Mill, Spinoza had the acuity to recognize that the unfettered freedom of expression is in the state’s own best interest. In this post-9/11 world, there is a temptation to believe that “homeland security” is better secured by the suppression of certain liberties than their free exercise. This includes a tendency by justices to interpret existing laws in restrictive ways and efforts by lawmakers to create new limitations, as well as a willingness among the populace, “for the sake of peace and security,” to acquiesce in this. We seem ready not only to engage in a higher degree of self-censorship, but also to accept a loosening of legal protections against prior restraint (whether in print publications or the dissemination of information via the Internet), unwarranted surveillance, unreasonable search and seizure, and other intrusive measures. Spinoza, long ago, recognized the danger in such thinking, both for individuals and for the polity at large. He saw that there was no need to make a trade-off between political and social well-being and the freedom of expression; on the contrary, the former depends on the latter.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/spinozas-vision-of-freedom-and-ours/?hp

Interesting to me was a tiny phrase earlier in the piece, "state of nature".  This came from a moment in the blog when Nadler was analyzing Spinoza's idea of restricted freedom of expression: sedition can still be banned when free speech steps over the bounds of civility and into the realm of inciting violence.  Nadler claims this is because of the "social contract" that all citizens have tacitly entered:  

 As individuals emerged from a state of nature to become citizens through the social contract, “it was only the right to act as he thought fit that each man surrendered, and not his right to reason and judge.” 

This all seems well and good, but that little phrase "state of nature" seems worthy of investigation.  What is the "state of nature"?  It seems here to indicate some savage, purely self interested sovereignty of cavemen.  But that picture is surely invented, for all social groups even of animals today operate within bounds of affection, selflessness, and mutual responsibility (they probably don't call it that).  Grounding the narrative of such a right in some imagined time period when all people were free and independent seems suspect.

So my response to this right is part classically conservative: what about the deep traditional mores of public discourse? Ought they not be maintained, with a countenancing of certain speech as allowable but deplorable? (Example: Holocaust deniers.  We let them have their say, but don't give them credence).  On the other hand I certainly believe that the minority voices, especially those condemning of the instruments of power, ought to be carefully protected, whether Rush Limbaugh or the Occupy Protestors.  We can disagree with their messages, but must support their right to say it:

Libertas philosophandi, the freedom of philosophizing, must be upheld for the sake of a healthy, secure and peaceful commonwealth and material and intellectual progress.

21st Century Education

Full disclosure: I am old fashioned by disposition.  I rankle at the thought that "new" is always a selling point.

So, reading an article in the Sunday New York Times*: What You Really Need To Know, I went into curmudgeon mode.

The premise of the article is all too familiar.  We are living in a new age, we need a new education.  Information is more prolific and available than ever, collaboration is more important, we know more about how the brain works, data is king and so on.  The failing point of this sort of Information Age exceptionalism is that fails to recognize several enduring truths.

The first, so often overlooked in the world of smart phones and data mining, is that information is not knowledge.  Lawrence Summers, author of the article and former president of Harvard, conflates these two terms his first bullet point of his hopes for education: "Education will be more about how to process information and less about imparting it. This is a consequence of both the proliferation of knowledge--and about how much of it any student can truly absorb--and changes in technology" [emphasis added].  The trouble is, while information may easily be said to increase, knowledge is a more amorphous thing.  Knowledge, after all, is that which is known.  And for anything to be known, there must be a human involved; a know-er.  That is to say that while one may understand how to search for a book in a library, one does not know all the information which is contained within that library's shelves.  One may be able to access millions of books via Google, but one does not know what they say, or contain, or mean.

Summers's wish seems to be that students will be taught how to use a search engine effectively, how to sift through the sea of data to find the pertinent factoid. Perhaps they even made to do so several times--writing a few topical term papers to regurgitate information on assigned topics.  Then they will be pronounced to have the ability to "process" information, like so much pig flesh becoming bologna.  The trouble is, no one will know anything more than how to find information.  Which information to find, which information pertains to the question at hand, which questions ought to be at hand for any given situation, and the knowledge of principles, are skills that are conspicuously missing.  A person may be able to look up texts on bridge design, but we don't wish them to build our bridges unless they know the principles of engineering.

Next Summers goes on to criticize the tendency of students to be asked to achieve on their own.  Collaboration, he states, ought to be the focus of education.  Of course, groupthink has achieved many wonderful things; among them IBM computers, the hydrogen bomb, and thousands of ads and political campaigns (a telling linkage of the various uses of 'campaign').  Unfortunately, he forgets the fact that all learning is a collaboration.  It is taking part in the great conversation of ideas through history.  The best classes are collaborations between students and instructor, between texts and discussion.  This is one of the most beautiful aspects of human creativity.  And he also overlooks the fact that even in collaborative undertakings, individual achievement is the backbone of any success.  Newton, Herschel, Goethe, or even current darling genius Steve Jobs were all individually driven.  No matter how collaborative society may be, it is still incumbent on the individual to make extended, solitary intellectual effort.  To work hard on what they believe in.  Then they will inevitably share, and their ideas will be extended by others.  But all students should be thrilled to hear that it is in the crucible of the individual mind that all ideas are put to the test.  This is one of the most empowering aspects to be found in the history of ideas or education.  Any individual can change history with ideas: Luther, Kant, Newton,  Einstein.  It would be a pity to quash the responsibility of the individual student because it is easier to track students' likes on facebook than ask them for sustained, lonesome thought on important subjects.

My final reason for dismay is his insistance that technology is a savior.  Sure, some aspects of technology are great for opening access to scholarship, various ideas, allowing a democratization of dialogue.  But as a teacher in the classroom, I can say that at times tech is a more a distraction than a help.  The leg work which goes into maintaining most class websites, troubleshooting glitches, entering data &c. would be better spent planning lessons, reading texts, or conferencing with students.  Most students want more content, and less flash.  When they have to learn a new system of updating blogs every semester, they are less liable to really put thought into their reading.  Technology might be useful certainly, but its invocation as a panacea has gone far enough, in the classroom and need not go further.  It is more important that we ask "why" than "how much".  One of the great aspects of reading great literature, philosophy, or history is its timelessness--not its reveling in the usefulness of print or the efficacy of letters.  Ideas are the technology that is most likely to outlast obsolescence.



*which I get physically, on newsprint, delivered consistently to my neighbor's driveway, despite attempts to inform the delivery person of my actual location.