David Foster Wallace is an unusual thinker among men, he comes up with unconventional ideas that can change the way a person looks at themselves as well as the world. After reading Friere’s idea of “The Banking Concept of Knowledge” I had decided that the purpose of an education is not to convey facts or information, but to teach students how to think and interpret the world. Wallace takes a completely different approach when he tries to put value on the students of Kenyon College’s “liberal arts education”. He maintains that the purpose of education has never been to “teach people how to think”, he is insulted by the idea that a student who has been accepted to college would not yet know how to think. He uses a parable of an atheist and a Christian, the atheist views the help he received from eskimos in his dire situation as proof that God did not intervene when he had prayed for help. The Christian hears the story and interprets the appearance and help of the eskimos as an act of God, and therefore, a miracle. Wallace uses this story as a way of explaining that thought is highly personal and that even an event that is purely factual can be understood in completely opposite ways by people who come from different backgrounds and different ways of thinking. At the end of his parable, Wallace continues to explain that the idea of “teaching someone how to think” does not refer to influencing their thought-processes or interpretations of the world, but to think with less arrogance. The purpose of pursuing a degree in the liberal arts is to open the mind to other ideas, and to learn to recognize the difference between certainties and our own personal beliefs or knowledge. He values humility and throughout his speech there is a prevalent sense of humbleness that Wallace carries. For instance, when he uses the metaphor of a wise fish and two young fish, Wallace is quick to inform the audience that he does not view himself as a wise, old fish. The purpose of the metaphor was to demonstrate that sometimes our minds are too weak to see what is right in front of our face, but if we can accept the fact that we know little of the world, we can broaden our minds and someday perhaps we will become old and wise. Humbleness and willingness to learn from one’s ignorance are the purposes of pursuing true education; Socrates once said, "If I am the wisest man, it is because I alone know that I know nothing." I believe David Wallace would agree.
Asimov, Isaac. The Relativity of Wrong. New York: Doubleday, 1988. Print.
The wise/knowing nothing goes back to Socrates--who claims that he went out to talk to some of the greatest minds to see if these people were really wise. He ended up defeating them through on-the-spot arguments/questions.
ReplyDeleteI tell people I have "Socrates syndrome," which means that I try and act as if I know very little because it puts one in that "humble" position.