Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. - Will Durant
I have lately been reading a book that admonishes the American dictate that the "gut" is superior to the intellect. As a result, we listen to an unreasoned group who endeavor to speak loud enough, to get enough people to believe what they are saying, to create a fact where there is only opinion. We run into a huge risk of a self-imploding society when intelligence and the pursuit of truth through educating ourselves is overridden by an impulse to believe someone just because they are on the television. We don't realize what it is that we don't really know, but claim to through opinion over fact. There are those that call the educated elitist, out of touch with the rest of the population. But it is the educated who can discern what is fact from fallacy. It is the educated who are not so easily fooled.
Albert Einstein once said, "The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know."
Truth be told, I will never know everything. Nor will you. But that pursuit of knowledge through investigation is as exhilarating as any action film you'll find at your local theater. You will never get this education from watching a documentary or listening to a political pundit on cable news. It's my hope that education will have the prestige it has for the poor children of many third-world nations and that it once held here in the United States. It's my hope that the book will once again be favored over the television screen. That is where education is.
I have lately been reading a book that admonishes the American dictate that the "gut" is superior to the intellect. As a result, we listen to an unreasoned group who endeavor to speak loud enough, to get enough people to believe what they are saying, to create a fact where there is only opinion. We run into a huge risk of a self-imploding society when intelligence and the pursuit of truth through educating ourselves is overridden by an impulse to believe someone just because they are on the television. We don't realize what it is that we don't really know, but claim to through opinion over fact. There are those that call the educated elitist, out of touch with the rest of the population. But it is the educated who can discern what is fact from fallacy. It is the educated who are not so easily fooled.
Albert Einstein once said, "The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know."
Truth be told, I will never know everything. Nor will you. But that pursuit of knowledge through investigation is as exhilarating as any action film you'll find at your local theater. You will never get this education from watching a documentary or listening to a political pundit on cable news. It's my hope that education will have the prestige it has for the poor children of many third-world nations and that it once held here in the United States. It's my hope that the book will once again be favored over the television screen. That is where education is.
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