16 – NatGeo Year Million

Comment on the National Geographic Program Year Million

Below is a self-explanatory comment I made on the NatGeo program Year Million, aired over the past several weeks.  But it is a much modified version of the original comment.  The reason for publishing it is that it relates to the central problem discussed on this blog – which relationship, though, is limited to the narrow area of the program identified below.  

The comment is specifically aimed at episode four of the program, which has six episodes.  The reasoning underlying the comment is that (the first part of) the episode was based on a fallacy – equating communication with being connected.  (In fact, the talks of several of the contributors to the episode – and to the program in general – inadvertently alluded to that discrepancy.) 

Communication is based on shared meaning and not on just being connected and the speed of that connection – though, obviously, connectivity is a necessary condition for effective communication.  (Communication Theory would classify talk that does not make sense to the connected parties as “noise” – also known as “gibberish.”)  The meaning we attribute to anything or event is shaped by the experiences of our interactions with the environments in which we grow-up, both natural and human, and will vary from person to person, even in the same culture.  It is such variation that is responsible for a large part of our humanity; it is also the basis for much of the misunderstanding and conflict of our messy world – for which deplorable outcomes we do not have an effective solution to-date; in fact, we don’t seem to be even aware that there is a compelling need for one.  

Further, today’s explosion of knowledge and the need to specialize into increasingly narrower fields to cope with that explosion** (which is a self-feeding and exponentially expanding process, like an uncontrolled nuclear fission or chain reaction) renders that we will have increasingly less shared meaning.  (Those who find the premise given here insufficient to reach the conclusion drawn from it may refer to the quote from the Preface of Professor Will Durant's book The Story of Philosophy at the end of posts #2 and #6.)  This means that people will have increasingly less meaningful communication (and thus would result in an increasing range of more problems and on a global scale, about the nature / scope of which we can only speculate) regardless of the increasingly sophisticated gadgets / means we may have at our disposal – unless a suitable mechanism is found to counter the downsides of increasing specialization, which is precisely what the recommendations of this blog aim to achieve, among other things (see the last two paragraphs of article #15).  

Naturally, the increase in connectivity leading to access to a wider range of information and more frequent interaction among people and nations would necessarily broaden shared meaning (they could also lead to information overload – render us unable to process and make much sense of the deluge***) but the extent to which it can better human mutual understanding remains to be seen. 

For more info along this line of thinking, please refer to my blog www.rifatafeef.blogspot.com.  I suggest you focus on articles #13 and #15 – which will provide an illuminating/sobering insight.  

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**  This is how complexity grows in nature – and societal evolution through specialization and increasing complexity is the natural process of its growth.  If we can't cope with its downsides, it is a problem, and a dire one, since evolution also leads to extinction, if objects of that evolution cannot cope with stresses induced by the process.  Mentioned in the article are symptoms of such stress, which we must reduce to survive – along with other downsides cited on the blog.  

***  The process began in earnest with the Scientific Revolution (Greek philosophy had paved the path) – after the world had been a simple place in which causes of events were assigned to higher powers, it had become an increasingly complex one by virtue of events began to be seen requiring logical reasons, the pursuit of which, after having wavered for a time, had finally gained traction over the past century and the momentum had been increasing at an accelerating pace ever since.  This is besides the technological proliferations it had helped spawn – from the Industrial Revolution to nanotechnology and the vast range of gadgets and processes in-between that embody them – at even a faster pace.      

15 – An Email and Two Parallels

Email to Professor Jared Diamond, and

Two Parallels to the Dynamics of the Proposed Program

Below is the body of a self-explanatory email I sent to Professor Jared Diamond, author of The Rise & Fall of the Third Chimpanzee and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, among other books.  It is being shared with readers (with permission) because it sheds significant light on an aspect of the topic of the blog – more specifically, on how the human condition brought about by downsides dwelt on in the blog articles affects the mechanisms of decision making by people’s elected representatives, which decisions impact their lives for the better or for worse.  This also elaborates on account under the subheading “Public Policy Making” of Article #13: “World Basic Education System” (2015).  The email was dated March 3, 2017; some minor changes were made later.  The two parallels follow the email – the second part of the article/post. 

I stared reading your book The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee and found it very informative and interesting.  The purpose of this email, however, is to provide a comment on the book. 

The problem of “the lack of political will,” towards eliminating/minimizing of which the book aims, has deeper and more intrinsic/subtle and also more benign roots than you seem to realize.  The writings on my blog www.rifatafeef.blogspot.com, especially article #13 labelled “World Basic Education System,” would provide significant insight/illumination into the matter. 

My point will become clearer if we note an implicit theme/premise underlying that quote – that human action has a knowingly irresponsible side, which implicitly implies that they are aware of the consequences of their actions.  My argument, given the way the human mind works (see article), is that they don’t know what they are doing, by and large, and whence the long-term consequences of their actions; they are just unable to see beyond the immediate horizon, if that!  (This is not to say that humans do not have an irresponsible side, but it is mostly a secondary factor and more often than not would not contribute significantly to their ill-advised actions.)  Of course, the fast pace of change of the world we live in and the resulting complexity would make necessary long-term thinking doubly difficult, besides shortcomings of their ability to begin with. 

To drive the point home and as an example (which just popped to my mind) I urge you watch Gone with the Wind with a focus on the mindset of the Southern elite on eve of the outbreak of war, and note that sensible advice/accounts (by the movie’s hero) fell on deaf years.  (Margaret Mitchell had admirably described a complex socio-psychological situation, and the movie was faithful to the novel.)  This is a direct outcome of the fact that we make sense of the world based on the info bases in our brains, which are drastically limited (see article).  Thus a foremost reason they were unable to comprehend the reality of the situation and take the advice they received was because they did not have the necessary info for understanding and thus meaningfully evaluating that advice and hence were unable to give it its due weight.  (To be sure, there are other significant factors, but most of them would likely be related to the problem we are considering here.) 

This state of affairs also by and large describes the state of mind of those in positions of power, say those in the US Congress, regarding their stances on contemporary issues of significance.  This is, of course, besides vested interests and obligations to toe the party lines, forms of which they currently take are most likely the outcomes of their lack of the needed knowledge – if endowed with right kind of knowledge, they would have been able to satisfy both, by and large, without necessarily jeopardizing the right decisions beneficial to their nation as well as humanity at large.  (In this regard, please note that their being given “explanations” about issues – in the form of reports or presentations or in any other form – will not help them much to understand; to really understand, they have to first master the basic vocabulary and concepts of the subject matter, in the same way one has to first master basics of a language in order to understand fully any communication using that language; one might also note the many long years it usually takes to actually master a new language, or a profession for that matter, which attests to the difficulty of the process.) 

The state of mind of the members of Congress was also put in a nutshell in another movie I saw, titled The Distinguished Gentleman.  Its lead character (played by Eddie Murphy) who considers himself a “con-artist,” which is a politically correct euphemism for a crook, got lucky by being in the right place at the right time and exhibiting much ingenuity and with a lot of help from his associates got himself elected to Congress.  On the first day of office, he goes to Capitol Hill with his entourage, enters the building, puts his index finger in his mouth, and holds it up – to gauge the “political wind.”  This is precisely the state of mind of the newly elected plotting their carrier advancement, in which process the choice of the butts to kiss plays a key role.  Given their very limited info bases and regardless of educational backgrounds, the complexity of issues one is faced with forces them to resort to any means to survive.  (Yet another movie I saw much later, after this post was published, titled Game Change which is about selecting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the running mate of Senator John McCain in the US presidential election of 2008, and which the filmmakers proclaim to be fact-based, although perhaps a bit exaggerated, would amply illustrate my basic argument – that elected officials are anything but capable of formulating sensible public policy; this is quite apart form the irrational sentiment-based way the public tends to vote – you've to watch the movie to understand the gravity of the issues.)   
  
This is the state of the currently most advanced nation on Earth.  What about other nations?  A similar logic applies to leaders of all stripes around the world.  And with this in mind, what are the chances of their being able to come up with relevant solutions to the increasing range of problems of our fast-changing and complex world?  A common outcome of limited knowledge/understanding is that when faced with a new situation, we tend to stick to the familiar.  Thus in view of the complexity of today’s problems, a common reaction would be to sing the party songs louder and whence dig in their heels deeper which, among other things, would lead the differences of opinion about issues with the “other side” to become wider – not that either side would be much aware of their nuances; a vicious cycle of self-reinforcing, thus perpetuating, destructive behaviours.  This would naturally lend much of their actions to be reactionary rather than logic-based and thus rational. 

This in turn means that under current circumstances, logic-based recommendations as those of your book are unlikely to be effective (towards achieving its proclaimed goal).  In the same vein, so would the thesis put forth in the articles on my blog.  In general, the vast majority of the audiences in both cases are likely to lack broad-based knowledge necessary to grasp the range of deeper implications and, unfortunately, many of the relatively few who might are also likely to lack the courage needed to propel theoretical concepts towards practical implementation – a-thousand-and-one excuses will surface to urge them not to stick out their necks!  Thus only a tiny fraction of the audience can be hoped to be counted on in addressing the issues in question. 

In all likelihood, ancient civilizations that collapsed (I do have your book, but haven’t managed to read it yet) due to shortsightedness of their rulers would also have had farsighted people (their relative proportion can be expected to be higher than it is now given the much slower pace of change of their world and their much less complex life conditions, and also given that today’s highly specialized education would tend to make us lose perspective and thus lose the wood for the tree) some of who are likely to have cautioned their rulers of the dire consequences of their ill-advised actions but went unheeded, likely for comparable reasons.  And this is a recurring theme in human history.  (The postscript refers to a current example.) 

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PS:  Article #5 titled “From a Local Focus to a Global One” is a one-page overview of the process that led me to the understanding of our complex problem, and thus to the simple and effective, albeit necessarily partial, solution.  The theoretical side of the problem described in the post is supplemented by my more than two-decades-long experience of dealing with the former Maldives President (besides interactions with many colleagues as mentioned in it) whose lack of understanding of today’s complex world and the unwillingness to face reality and learn from mistakes (typical of many people, particularly the high-ranking) besides a host of other unfavourable factors ultimately led to his downfall; this is not to mention that the ill-advised actions being pursued by the current president (who happened to be his younger brother) will most likely push the nation to an unbelievably pathetic condition, if not worse!  The more recent of my writings aimed at preventing such a fate are on my blog aimed at local readers www.rifatafeefmaldives.blogspot.com.  All of my writings about policy matters had been sent to successive presidents – in a format that, according to our custom, would have made them at least aware of them – along with several hundred of the local politico-technical cadre, and most of the earlier writings to two rounds of parliament members as well.  In retrospect, all that effort had been largely a waste of time, which should not be surprising in view of the theoretical reasoning given above; most other reasons for that outcome such as their lack of interest and being engrossed in pursuit of self-interest are also largely due to that reasoning, by virtue of which they lacked a vital realization – that the tiny Maldives is vulnerable on numerous fronts and that the nation and her citizens sink or swim together. 

The following shows how dynamics of the proposed program parallels those of two unrelated phenomena and dwells on its potential; it also shows how the program will greatly dampen the human tendency for self-destruction.  The piece is not part of the above email, although it has referred to Professor Diamond’s work; it is nevertheless published in the same article/post as the email because of their complementarity. 

Much of humanity’s existence is marred by the kind of destructive behaviour described in the email above.  And while that description is focused on decision-processes in the government, the same shortcomings also operate in virtually all walks of life – from family life to business and corporate life to all societal interactions without exception.  I have argued in the articles on this blog that the downsides inherent in human nature as well as those arising from the current set-up of our education systems (which inadvertently exacerbates the outcomes of the downsides of human nature, both described in the articles) are responsible for the bulk of the woes of humankind and that they can be countered to a large extent by the right education policy, and thus raise human wellbeing to unprecedented heights.  The constituent elements of the proposed program are described in the blog articles, particularly in article #13, “World Basic Education System” (2015). 

The program is focused on the younger generation.  This choice arose from the facts that downsides arising from the human condition mentioned above are psychological in nature and are outcomes of our behaviours, and given, as argued towards the end of the subtopic “Understanding the Social World …” of article #13, that the foundation of our behaviour is laid when we are young children and that as we grow older such behaviour becomes largely automatic and beyond our conscious control.  (These form our habits – many of which are counterproductive – we use to navigate through the complexities of everyday life.)  As a result, efforts aimed at changing adult behaviours and mindsets would be largely in vain; it is much like trying to shape a piece of clay that has already hardened.  This is quite apart from our lack of understanding of complex issues as a result of our very limited knowledge bases to begin with.  We would therefore be better off aiming for children whose thinking is still malleable and can be guided to the right path.  It is also vital that our focus be on the program instead of burdening children with trivialities that will not contribute towards achieving our goals. 

The purpose of this piece is to draw some parallels between the strategy behind the program and aspects of two topics that are unrelated to it, and through exploring the dynamics inherent in the latter, help readers to visualize the huge potential of the program.  It also shows that the workings of the program will dampen an inadvertent danger of technological advancement to a significant degree – our tendency for self-destruction, which is currently a great concern for those who think seriously about humanity’s future. 

The first of the two topics relates to biological evolution of more recent times.  It is commonly agreed among scientists now that humans share more than 98% of their genes with chimpanzees.  Furthermore, in his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee, Professor Jared Diamond points out that we might have shared perhaps as much as 99.9% of the genes with our near ancestors of just before 40,000 years (a blink of an eye on an evolutionary time scale measured in billions of years) and wonders about the remaining 0.1% responsible for the enormous difference between us and them – factors that enabled Homo sapiens to evolve from a species who could probably utter only grunts and had no propensity for innovation to one who had developed coherent speech and an unquenchable thirst for innovation that ultimately led them to not only overcoming the restraining earthbound gravity and become spacefarers, but are now deciphering the nature of life itself which was an impenetrable enigma for the preceding millennia and able to dig into the deepest of the smallest particles in nature and gaze into the farthest corners of the universe.  The key aspect relevant to us here is the notion of a tiny initial change inducing an entity to go through a mind-boggling transformation.  

The second topic we shall consider here relates to aspects of Chaos Theory, which according to Wikipedia is “a branch of mathematics focused on the behaviour of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions”; emphasis added.  Without going into technical details (of which I’m not a master anyway) we can focus on how the internal dynamics of the system can be influenced/changed by imposing small variations on successive stages of its life (“stages” here is actually a hypothetical construct used for clarifying the concept; in reality the process is a continuous one with no discernible separation between the stages) and change the results to suit our needs.***  A familiar example is a hurricane or cyclone which causes immense damage to life and property – think of Katrina and Sandy.  For over half a century now, scientists in many countries have been using “seeding” techniques to dissipate their ferocity, but with mixed success rates to-date – the nations include the US, Russia, China, India, Australia, Israel, and recently some Persian Gulf states.  The technique has huge potential in regions where drought or damage due to hurricanes or tornadoes is a sizable concern.  (The US, however, has apparently stopped using the technique due to its inconclusive results and potentially damaging side effects, while most nations cited continue to use it.)  If science can improve the technique to make its outcomes persistently positive in a conclusive way, it can be considered a second example in which initial conditions, when nudged in the right direction, can yield enormous dividends.  

The proposed program has characteristics shared by the above two examples in that minor changes of the right kind to initial conditions can yield enormous positive results and, unlike numerous social programs of ambiguous outcome, has the potential to better the human condition decisively.  Obviously, any program set in the right direction and maintained over a sufficient period of time can bring about desired outcomes.  What differentiates the program and the two examples from the crowd is both the huge size of the changes and the relatively minute timeframes over which such change can take place.  For our program that duration, at least to achieve the first decisive results, can be set realistically at less than three generations from the time of its universal adoption (one generation – younger and school and college years – for learning and habituating the elements of the program; another – mid-20s through mid-40s – for putting them into practice in real life conditions; and the third – late adulthood – during which maturity will be reached, beyond which the full benefits of the program will continue to be reaped) which is a tiny moment compared to the centuries over which education was used as a means for uplifting humanity.  Well, two aspects of humanity did get uplifted by education – that which improved its health and that which improved its life conditions.  But the vital aspect we are dealing with, failings of which continue to inflict much damage on humanity, was neglected to-date.  That neglect, however, was not intentional – just that educators of the world were not aware that such an aspect even existed!  Once our program is adopted, improvement of this aspect of the human condition would continue to grow beyond the timeframe cited and at exponential rates, just as improvements related to the other two aspects had or, for that matter, just as humans evolved exponentially from their near ancestors to become the Earth’s dominant species or just as the ferocity of destructive hurricanes or cyclones and tornadoes can be dissipated and rendered harmless by rather small adjustments to their internal dynamics.  This is, of course, in addition to the indirect but immediate benefits accrued to humanity due to the new awareness/understanding the program will bring about to adults while it is still being operationalized; and for further improvement in this direction, the basics of both communication and social psychology could be incorporated at secondary and college levels as core subjects.  (The benefits that could be hoped for from the measures mentioned in the last sentence, however, would be rather limited in comparison to the enormous benefits that would accrue by our program, which is focused on the young – for the reasoning given above.)   

Where we will head from there is anybody’s guess.  Hopefully, not towards self-destruction, as technological progress has endowed humans with that capability.  In fact, as we shall see, improvements to the educational aspect of our concern will generate inherent mechanisms that will work to dampen such a tendency, the lack of which can be said to be responsible to a large extent for today’s precarious situation.  The damage due to the lack of such dampers had been felt by many for a long time, although no one seems to have done much about it; their lamentations being implicit in the many expressions that bemoan the fast pace of technological advancement while sociocultural development continued to remain relatively stagnant, which by itself is a peripheral outcome of the central thesis of this blog; see also footnote #5 of article #13.  (But we can see that improvements to what falls under the rubric of "sociocultural development" would not help minimize/alleviate the problem of human tendency for self-destruction, for it does not address, as does the program proposed here, the real causes of the problem – what happens where the rubber actually meets the road; see below.) 

We can now finalize the parallels between the elements of our program and the two examples which, as stated, is the purpose of this piece.  And given that those elements have already been spelt out in article #13, here we shall only highlight the parallels in relation to the format we have been using – initial conditions and affecting mechanisms.  We have two levels of the initial condition – one inherent in the human nature itself (see account under “Making Sense of the World” in Article #13) and the other created by human action, albeit by necessity (account under “Specialization”).  The prime characteristic of both (related to our topic) is that it progressively hinders effective communication among humans and leads to, in addition to downsides listed in Article #13, misunderstandings, ill-will, the resulting strife, and ultimately self-destruction.  Advances in technology had exponentially increased the killing power at the disposal of human groups, and the spectre of annihilation of the entire human race is now a reality.  Thus the reduction of ICBMs, while laudable, is not a solution (it is like putting out a fire after it has already happened); the solution lies in changing the mindsets behind those ICBMs (arranging things in such a way to ensure that a fire does not happen in the first place).  

Much of the downsides arising from the two levels of our initial condition can be mitigated and rectified by the program arising from the accounts under the subheadings “Understanding the Nature of the World” and “Understanding the Social World …” in Article #13 towards improving the world basic education system; it forms the affecting mechanism through which we can tame outcomes of both levels of our initial condition, and also the foundation on which we can build a more enlightened mindset that will underlie a much better world.  For the program will not only overcome the barriers posed by our initial condition to a significant degree and minimize the downsides outlined in Article #13, but it will also minimize miscommunication and ill-will and thus the tendency for strife and whence self-destruction.  And we can see that our program can not only raise human wellbeing to hitherto unprecedented heights (which is our primary goal – what we began with, anyway) but will also go a long way towards guaranteeing the very future survival of the humankind.  
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***  Strictly speaking, the focus of Chaos Theory is on systems that behave according to their own internal dynamics, not under human influence, and one of its central tenets is "order in apparent chaos."  But I believe there is no harm utilizing the concept for our own purposes.   

14 – No More Articles

No Reason for Any More Articles

It seems to me that some readers of this blog have expectations for more elaboration than I had been able to provide to-date, but in reality, I have hardly anything else new that is significant to add.  (Of course, I could keep writing on related but peripheral issues, but then, that won’t be very productive.) 

True, earlier articles were largely conceptual and thus highly abstract; they also captured only limited aspects of our complex problem.  Further, since the problem was clear to me, I had implicitly assumed that I had communicated to readers all that was there to be communicated.  But later interactions with some recipients of my direct emails, coupled with a growing insight into the nature of understanding, gave me pause, and I came to realize that without the appropriate backgrounds and experiences, many readers, while competent in their own fields, may find it difficult to grasp the full ramifications of the problem at a broader level – which in fact underlies the central message of this blog.  And this in turn led to the elaborative articles following the first two pieces, namely, “1 – Introduction” and “2 – Education and Fundamentalism.” 

But I believe that the last article, “13 – World Basic Education,” had effectively redressed those shortcomings (which arose from both semantics and coverage), for it had articulated the nature of the problem in a most down-to-earth and practical way, and its references to specific aspects in the earlier writings had added to the comprehensiveness of treatment of the topic’s various dimensions.  This was besides its having outlined the elements of a practical and effective solution, although by necessity, partial. 

Thus, as had been pointed out in blog articles repeatedly, the ball is now in the court of the educators, especially those who had grasped the full dimensions of the problem and their ramifications, and it is up to them to get the vision realized – through the mechanisms suggest by me or otherwise – and help humanity to rise from its currently miserable existence to hitherto unprecedented heights. 

And as had been pointed out variously in the articles, I believe that realizing that vision is practically possible by reforming the world’s basic education system, which in its turn is realizable by interactions of the relevant educators; the fastest and most effective way to achieve the latter being via collaboration of educators in all the six disciplines relevant to our topic (see paragraph 9 of “9 – Last Explanation”) and on a global scale, given the multidisciplinary/entwined nature of both the problem and the solution  (the logic of this is outlined in footnote #2 of “1 – Introduction”; see also the second part of “9 – Last Explanation” and last four paragraphs of the last article, #13).  But I am fully aware that such an undertaking would be most likely preceded by much more limited endeavours and over a lengthier time frame. 

Needless to say that I shall be available to clarify any ambiguities and/or elaborate on any aspects as deemed necessary, as mentioned in the last paragraph of the last article.  Not only that; I shall also be available for coordinating and bridge-building among the professionals of the six basic disciplines (see the second part of “9 – Last Explanation”) – in spite of the fact that I do not have expert knowledge of any of the six disciplines involved.***  I believe that such an effort would be called for, given the usual fragmentation of knowledge pertaining to any given topic and also given that I do have a good realistic grasp of the big picture and hence a modest ability to help reconcile competing perspectives.  It was in fact my becoming aware of the topic’s complexity that led me to the insightful understanding of the most vital/critical factor underlying the pathetic state of human existence that I had dwelt on this blog, which in turn provided the impetus for the insights sketched out here (for an overview of the process, see "5 – From a Local Focus to a Global One"). 

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^*** My involvement, as readers of this blog would be aware, is from a development standpoint – that is, about improving human wellbeing to a state better than the current status.  And as we saw, delving into the state of humanity (notably through examples sprinkled in the blog articles such as the one dwelt-on in footnote #2 of the last article, and the nature of the problem that led to it) had revealed its pathetic state and also that policy makers, by and large, don’t know what-the-hell they are doing, along with the primary reason underlying that devastating failure of unimaginable proportions, and hence consequences, on a global scale, which in turn pointed to the effective and practical, albeit necessarily partial, solution suggested in the writings.  (See also article #10, “A Summary …,” and “About Me” at the end of the blog.)  

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A Word on Direct Mail:  I had emailed all the earlier writings to the 35,000 or so educators listed on www.rifatafeefthelist.blogspot.com.  But beginning early 2016, Google had imposed severe restrictions on emailing (it turned out that other service providers also have similar restrictions), and I had not been able to send the most recent articles to a large portion of those on the list.  Before that, however, I had fully covered all recipients in some nations, including the US, UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Austria, and Belgium, which still amounts to only about 40% of those on the list.  I shall try to cover the rest as soon as I can.  [Given the difficulties just mentioned, the PDF version of this piece (# 14) will not be emailed to anyone (as I have done earlier) and will be made available only as this blog-post.  I apologize for any inconvenience.] 

13 - World Basic Education System

Towards a More Effective/Sound

World Basic Education System ⁽¹⁾

Update Note (March 5, 2016):  It would not be an overstatement that the all-pervasive and destructive problem outlined in the articles on this blog can be considered to be arguably the world’s worst education-related problem – and yet the majority of the world’s educators are blissfully ignorant of it.  It had not occurred to me earlier to verbalize the problem in exactly those terms; it was the mental agitation prompted by the request of a UK professor of education (whose specialty is educational policy) to remove his name from my mailing list that led me to that outcome.  Humanity's future would continue to be gloomy given our current sorry state of affairs – devastating nature of that problem which in fact would lend to a significant reduction with the right kind of educational policy coupled with a total lack of awareness of that vital and critical problem by a majority of the world’s educators.  (See also footnote to article # 12)    

A Clarification: It should be clear from my writings, particularly this article, that the problem originates in the way the human mind works – the way we make sense of the world – and that world education only exacerbates an already existing problem, by: i) not being aware of even its existence, and as a consequence, ii) not taking action to counter its ill effects while inadvertently exacerbating them.  It should also be clear from the writings that any solution, however effective / efficient, can be only partial since we don’t have control over the way the human mind works.  

The purpose of this article is to outline elements of a more effective/sound world basic education system that can contribute to human wellbeing to a far greater extent than the current one.  In fact, it can be seen from my earlier writings that the current system contributes significantly to the detriment of human wellbeing, thus it can be considered to be a flawed system.  It can also be inferred from the writings that the source of this ill effect lies at its basic level rather than higher levels.  Additionally, they show that educators are largely unaware of these flaws and thus are indifferent to their ill-effects and the havoc they are responsible for creating unwittingly by not doing what they should be doing. 

There are two central aspects that lend to these problems: i) the failure of the current system to take account of the nature of the way human mind works and ill effects arising thereof, and ii) its failure to cater for the most basic areas which an effective/sound basic education system should address.  

Regarding the latter, or the constituent areas of a good basic education system, a most fundamental question is, “What is the purpose of a basic education?”  The answer would be manifold, among them: i) endowing children with a basic understanding of the natural and social worlds around them; ii) instilling in them the basics of knowledge and skills needed to live in and interact with both groups harmoniously; and iii) helping to draw out talents latent in them by providing the right environments and guiding them to help develop those potentials.  To my limited knowledge, few, if any, of these vital and indispensable goals are met by the current world education system – and much of the world’s current troubles can be easily traced to precisely that deficiency.  

Regarding the former, or the way the human mind works (which is in fact more fundamental than the second one; it touches the core of our being), three interrelated areas can be identified, each cascading into the next level: i) the way we make sense of the world around us since the earliest days of our existence; ii) the way we prepare for life ahead of us while growing up and the way we interact with others; and iii) the way we function – or rather, don’t function – in societal decision making milieus.  We shall expand on these three areas first and return to address the central areas which a good basic education system should address, given that the former helps shape the latter.  

Making Sense of the World:  This is a vital area that underlies most of the problems mentioned in my writings; it also underlies the two factors that follow.  From the time we were in our mothers’ wombs we begin to make sense of the world based on the information we receive through our senses – that is, we process it by attributing meaning to it.  On being born, we are subject to a much more intense barrage of new information, and we have to make sense of them as well in order to survive.  Given that what each person experiences by his/her encounter with the world will be specific to each, it is simple common sense that there cannot be much commonality among what each of us attributes to a given stimulus, and we would continue to become increasingly unique in our mental makeup.  This is despite socialization processes to which we are subject to from the toddler years on, which work to even out those differences – for they would have limited success, and the differences in meanings we attach to our experiences can never be fully evened out.  The process would continue throughout our lives, and we would become increasingly unique by the day.  The implication of this process relevant to our topic is that it would create extreme difficulties for meaningful communication among people, which mandates sufficient commonalities (common language) among people but which the above processes render largely non-existent. 

Specialization:  Adding to above difficulties of getting across to others are the complexities arising from specialization, which is the primary driver of human advancement.  But with regard to the topic of human communication, it forms a huge impediment.  Thus specialization is a double-edged sword – while it constitutes the bedrock on which modern societies are built, it also exacerbates downsides arising from the processes described in the previous paragraph beyond comprehension.  This again is an area simple common sense can be of much help in understanding.  Given that we make sense of and understand the world relying on the information bases in our brains (paragraph above) we can also infer that while those specialized in a given area (that is, their heads will be full of information in their specialized areas but not much of other areas) can engage in meaningful high-level dialogue with those in that area, it would be virtually impossible to have such dialogue with those in another area, since they would not have a common background of shared meaning.  And real-life problems are complex and entwined and are not ordered into neat packages that lend to easy scrutiny by the specialized in the respective areas, and we can clearly see what the state of interaction/communication and decision making in modern democratic societies would be like.  

Public Policy Making:  Much debate is abound in forums and the media as to how to tackle complex societal problems, and some have fertile imaginations as to how they can be solved. ⁽²⁾   But except for a few problems of limited scope, few can come up with relevant solutions to them.  The reason is obvious: complex problems cannot be solved or future planning carried out when people specialized in required fields but with no overlaps in their specializations are gathered together; to succeed, they have to acquire that overlap (without which they cannot communicate meaningfully with those in a different area), which is a laborious and time consuming process and which today’s fast-moving societies are ill-equipped to handle.  Although such overlap is not uncommon in the private sector and a few public institutions that manage to provide necessary continuity and staying power (the problems they can handle successfully are also limited in scope), public policy making (which in practice is highly complex) in modern democratic nations is not so endowed, especially given that those at high levels of the system who can mobilize the necessary forces and get the situation moving in the right direction are replaced with every turn of the political wheel, and no one in reality can be responsible, even if their nation goes under, and what is expedient for the next election carries the day.⁽³⁾  It is thus unlikely that there would be many people in the governments of democratic nations who can actually take responsibility for reforming any of their public systems.  This in turn will spawn a multitude of societal ills and associated dissatisfactions.  The suggestions of my writings, if adopted, will lead to a significant reduction of the drawbacks arising from the currently ineffective public policy making process and thus reduce the plethora of damages arising thereof, and as a result vastly improve human wellbeing.

We can now turn to address the central areas which a good basic education system should address.  Focus on “basic” education is for two reasons: i) it is in early, formative years that a child’s basic characteristics – values, beliefs, habits, etc, are formed; and ii) beginning from middle school years, children begin to specialize into increasingly limited domains.  This is apart from that, as stated at the outset, it is at this level that roots of our problems lie.  Hence it is of utmost importance that a broad, solid foundation be laid in the early years on which specialized education can be built later. 

Understanding the Nature of the World:  As mentioned in the third paragraph, helping youngsters to understand the nature of the world they live in should be among the first areas that an effective basic education system should address.  This necessity arises from our very human nature – apart from any practical concerns.  We are not only endowed with a curiosity about how the world works and the cause-effect relations involved, we also have a deep foreboding about any uncertainties associated with it – for not only our ultimate fate but our daily survival is dependent on it.  (An enlightening example is the intense fear young children have about never seeing their parents again if they leave them and go out, hence the tantrums they throw whenever parents go out.)  And given that people in general have very sparse knowledge of how the world works (understanding of those with specialized knowledge is limited largely to their specific speciality, and even that only over a brief historical period), we are compelled to compensate by attributing what we don’t understand to higher powers to maintain our peace of mind and ultimately our sanity and by begging for help in fulfilling our needs and guarding our wellbeing both at present and hereafter.  This in fact has been the dominant theme of human beings for the last ten thousand years of their known history, and it is true for the vast majority, if not all, of humanity even at present.  The tendency for this theme to manifest in its various radicalized guises in the Middle East and US Bible Belt, for example, and in more benign forms everywhere is a sobering reminder of the failure of the world’s current basic education system to address this fundamental area of human needs: to enable us understand the nature of the world.  (Given the demand, supply means emerge in multiple forms – shamans, priests and mullahs of all stripes, psychics, fortune-tellers, horoscope writers, etc, etc, all claiming to know how the world works, and based on that, influence outcomes; the intermediary role they take also gives them much latitude for creative expression.)  The above is besides practical necessities for which we need to understand the world and its intricacies – including our interactions with it so that we can be better stewards of it instead of mindlessly destroying it in pursuit of material gain and endangering in the process the fragile setting we call home and depend on for our very survival.  

Understanding the Social World and Interactions Thereof:  We live in societies and yet do not seem to have the sense to endow our young with the basic knowledge and skill necessary for interacting and communicating with the other members of the society in a harmonious way.  (Higher animals, on the other hand, do teach their young about their world and how to survive in them.)  This is especially deplorable since, as we saw in the paragraph on making sense of the world above, our very make-up poses significant natural barriers to smooth interaction among people, and as if this is not enough, the specialization process further exacerbates those barriers enormously, which in turn leads to most ineffective and inefficient societal processes.  And yet when we so proudly boast endlessly about our achievements, we don’t seem to understand a most elementary aspect of human nature that is central to our wellbeing.                    My writings have suggested a partial but simple and effective solution to this complex problem – they pointed out that the current defects can be reduced significantly by instilling the right attitudes in children in earlier years, followed by teaching them in later years the essentials of communication and related psychology.  (For details, see the short piece titled “Reason for Sending My Articles” and the first paragraph of “12 – Empathy and Fundamentalism,” which laid emphasis on creating in children “an attitude to listen.”)                     Supplementary to this is “an attitude to learn,” the lack of which is acutely felt in institutional settings, judging by the large amount of literature on the topic, which is echoed in the concept of “life-long learning”; this is especially crucial given the fast-changing nature of today's world which renders that much of what we meet on a daily basis would be new.             Another aspect integral to human interaction, apart from attitudes, is the values we hold about various issues.  This topic also had been given some thought in my writings.  (For details, see the end of “Last Explanation.”)               Still another area that can smoothen societal interaction processes and help lead to high levels of human wellbeing is the sense of cooperation or non-cooperation that we hold.  Although not touched upon in the paragraph referred to – which focuses on communication, this would be part of “attitudes” we hold, and will affect our wellbeing.  And numerous current occasions, not to mention abundant past ones, show that a sense of cooperation can be of so much benefit to all parties concerned.                      A final area that should be part of a good basic education system is logical thinking – ability to follow up on the logic of arguments one encounters and build conclusions on them rather than preconceived notions, and to organize one’s thinking along the same lines.  This would be effective as a habit, not rote-learnt knowledge – see the paragraph referred to above.                    In general, the right attitudes have to be instilled in children, who adopt what they observe – right or wrong – as they grow up, and right attitudes don’t just “happen” – see “entropy,” below.  I believe that much of people’s irrational behaviour, including their inability to face reality and general adult immaturity, are ramifications of their not having acquired the right skills – much like our inability to relieve unrelenting socio-psychological pressures oftentimes leads, gradually and over time, to full-blown psychos.  And I’m not suggesting “social engineering” – whatever that means, as an emeritus professor of philosophy commented on my writings some time back.  In the same way we currently impart to the young our hard-won knowledge as formal education, we ought to do the same for the right kind of values and attitudes and other intangibles that humanity found valuable, which are just as important, instead of leaving them abandoned to start from scratch to reinvent the wheel.  (We can get an actual feel for the difficulties/hazards of this tedious process if we reflect on the torturous/turbulent histories of the various branches of knowledge and technological conveniences that we now take for granted.)  And without doing so, it will be futile to complain about societal ills that are direct outcomes of this lack, as is currently the case.  A critical point to keep in mind in this regard is that the foundation of our behaviour is laid when we are children and that as adults we only sail by autopilot guiding systems we acquire then (in the Maldives, we have an old phrase expressive of such permanency, "stuck to the bone"; an equivalent English expression being "in the blood") – with a helping hand from our evolutionary past; our conscious and rational minds more often than not merely affirm and justify what our unconscious minds had already decided upon, hence the critical and decisive role played by our values, attitudes, and habits in our everyday behaviours, and thus the utmost need to instill the right kind of values, attitudes, and habits in children if we want a better world, since they don't just "happen." (Readers unfamiliar with this line of thinking/reasoning might want to consult an experienced psychologist instead of jumping to erroneous/unwarranted conclusions.) 

Drawing Out Talents Latent in the Young:  The primary purpose of a basic education (in fact formal education systems in general) is to help children to grow and develop both physically and mentally, and to impart to them the wisdom of our foreparents and help them to be capable of contributing to society and themselves, and also the world at large.  Thus a central part of a basic education system should be to help systematically develop the potential of each of us.  And given that we all have the potential to develop in more than one area and that such development can be enhanced significantly by the right kind of opportunity – just as a muscle can develop by weight training, facilitating this process by providing measures aimed at maximizing the human potential has to be a central part of a good basic education system, particularly since the windows of opportunity for such growth are open only when we are children.  And this should be supplemented with the right kind of career guidance.  Currently, the most we are able to get, if we get, is a one-time aptitude assessment.  The cost of the mismatch between potential and career path is enormous; we see people realizing the existence of a mismatch only after having wasted years pursuing the wrong path, at which point they would also be burdened with many responsibilities of life, thus making a switch not only costly in money terms but psychologically painful.  Thus streamlining this process and providing the means for maximizing the human potential has to be an important and vital part of any good basic education system.  

An obvious observation regarding the suggestions of my writings, including this one, is that they are generic and not age-specific, thus what should be included at what stage has to be decided by those qualified to make that decision.  Given that a theory component is integral to the suggestions and since young children are not equipped to handle theory, it is only logical that these parts of the program would naturally spill into levels higher than the realm of “basic education”; in my view, they should be spread over a number of years, with increasing complexity as one goes higher. 

It is abundantly clear from the above arguments that humanity has so much to gain by a thorough overhaul of its currently faulty basic education system.  The above are core areas that I find should be incorporated into the world’s basic education system and are relevant to humanity at large and will increase societal wellbeing beyond our most fertile imaginations, although different nations would likely add to their curriculums other areas they feel would cater for their specific needs.

Many people hold the implicit belief that the world functions well on a laissez-faire basis and thus that all reforms, including those in the education sector, would happen spontaneously through a multitude of continued societal interactions, with everyone pursuing their own interests.  In reality, however, the world works in exactly the opposite way, and obeys a fundamental universal law of nature – entropy, or disorder in everyday language.  Simply expressed, it implies that in the absence of an overarching guiding force, events (in the universe) would tend to disorder – and chaos.⁽⁴⁾  Thus the more people involved, the more ideas and the more diversified they will be, and while this is valuable for generating new ideas and creativity and innovation at earlier stages of public policy formulation, the process by itself will not lead to coherent policy; spontaneous synthesis by sporadic interactions of the multitude does not happen.⁽⁵⁾  (This latter expression shares the central theme of the saying, “A monkey pounding at a keyboard likely cannot produce a Shakespearean play.”)  Coherent synthesis can be achieved by ironing out differences of opinions as to what goals should be aimed for and by delving into details of the process through which they can be reached. 

And for that to happen requires leadership – the guiding force that can help channel concordant and discordant voices towards coherent synthesis.  As stated in my earlier writings, I’ve been hoping that such leadership would emerge from among the more experienced of world educators – those more aware of the nuances of the deplorable situation experienced by world’s populations, which situation would have been vastly improved had the more senior of the world’s educators paid heed. 

In the short piece labelled “Cover Note” we saw a glimpse into the haphazard, directionless way the current world education system had evolved.  But given the fast-changing, thus complex nature of our world, we are at a crossroads and do not have the luxury of leisurely tinkering around in the system hoping that things will improve; the world is changing too fast for that to be practical.  And we now have an accurate understanding of many areas that contribute to the jeopardy of human wellbeing.  In addition, I have suggested a feasible pathway towards achieving the ends we seek (see the account at the beginning of the second part of “Last Explanation” – article # 9 (2014)).   

The time has come for the world educators to rally for action; they should no longer be indifferent to a situation for the exacerbated condition of which they are largely responsible – for not being aware of the existence of the problem and thus being ignorant of the dire outcomes of some of their actions and, as result, for not doing what they should be doing to offset them.  There is no excuse for inaction.  If clarification/elaboration of what was said in my writings is needed, please contact me; we could also establish real-time interaction via Skype. 

[To respond to a legitimate and likely common concern about such contact, let me state that while numerous educators have been referred to in these articles, I have taken utmost care not to reveal their identities either directly or even by implication.  I have done the referencing in the common interest of all readers – to share with them any relevant knowledge about the topic that I possess.  And I offer no apologies if some of my phraseology had displeased some – for the simple reason that watered-down phraseology would in all likelihood destroy the very purpose of the referencing, and given this, make any apology hypocritical.  To evaluate these claims, readers might ask two simple questions: i) Did the referencing add to their insight of the topic? and ii) Could any watered-down phraseology have achieved that objective as effectively?  It would also be worth mentioning a satisfying aspect of referencing the way I had done, judging by a few very brief thank you notes I received from some senior educators – that those who "got" the point being made (see footnote to article # 12) had no problem with my phraseology, that is, they saw it appropriate to the occasion, while those who saw it a problem did not in all likelihood "get it," and thus most likely would not have the capability of contributing to the effort of this blog, at least not to any significant extent.  A corroborating aspect is that I'm not running a "politically correct" campaign here; this is a desperate effort to search for underlying factors of a deplorable truth that is in effect chocking humanity, and pave the path for reversing the tide and raise the human kind to unprecedented heights, which calls for those who are not competent to get out of the way⁽⁶⁾ so that a good job could get done.  And it is only on a solid and unshakable foundation that meaningful participation of the crowd can happen.]  
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⁽¹⁾  While some people, particularly those from the more technically and economically advanced nations, may object for their being lumped together with the much less advanced nations, the reality is that today the world is being integrated virtually in every sphere.  Notwithstanding that Western education was based on Greek philosophy, as was the case with Moslem theological philosophy – after Arab conquest of Egypt and gaining access to the contents of the Great Library of Alexandria, and that the revival of Greek philosophy in the West during the Renaissance happened through accessing its depositories in both Egypt and the then Moslem Spain, integration in the sphere of knowledge had started long before the recent phenomenon of “globalization” and mass movement of people, goods, and services (outcomes of improved air and sea transport with the advent of wide-bodied jets and containerized superships; the process having been much accelerated by the advent of the Internet and the computerization of services, which enabled swift global communication and money transfers), for beginning from the days of steam-driven ships and railways, people (though limited in earlier years of the era to societal elites) have been enabled increasingly to cross lands and oceans to gain knowledge, do business, and meet to exchange ideas – not to mention simply in search of a better life, as evidenced by the mass migrations of Europeans to the New World .  Consequently, there is hardly a nation the education system of which can be called “pure”; they are all “mixed.”  This is particularly true given the legacy of imperialism; prior to the Second World War, most of the now “developing” nations were under the yoke of Europeans and the various systems of those nations were modelled largely on their legacy.  Also, while different cultures may have retained elements of their uniqueness, they are limited largely to specific areas; religion, for example, is limited to only related fields and does not venture into the spheres of science and medicine.  Thus it would make better sense to talk of one world education system rather than many systems of individual nations or even groups of nations.  This position is further enhance by the fact that here we are attempting to formulate a basic system relevant to humanity at large in our fast-changing and thus complex world and transcends culture and creed.  

⁽²⁾

This Newsweek cover story and other such articles highlight the complexities of public policy making; the topic (US Government’s policy making process and downsides thereof) was also covered in an article I wrote in May 2009 which, among other things, sketched out the broader outlines of measures that the US could adopt to overcome a significant part of current downsides – this was the “first article” mentioned at the outset of “2 – Education and Fundamentalism” (2012) and was meant to be published on my complementary blog www.rifatafeefuspolicy.blogspot.com (created concurrently with this blog) but was postponed lest it diverts focus from the topic of this blog, but hopefully I’ll be able to upload it before Mr Obama becomes practically dysfunctional in office, particularly since the article was addressed to him and was sent to him along with the then top officers of his administration.   A few months apart from this Newsweek article, Time magazine also ran an article on the same theme; its cover picture showed “We the People …” coming out of a shredder – naturally, that act wouldn’t solve the problems of an archaic policy making system; the solution lies in understanding that the world has changed since the days of the Founding Fathers and is changing at an accelerated pace, and adapting to the realities of the times by modifying the present system to accommodate current necessities, including realities of the way the human mind works as discussed in this article.  The first article mentioned above had tried to incorporate these concerns.  

⁽³⁾  Plato proclaimed that democracy was “the rule of the mob”; given the lapse of two-and-a-half millennia and the transformations that had occurred in human societies in the intervening eras, I’d opt for “the rule of the media circus.” 

 ⁽⁴⁾  We saw this law at work not too long ago, when the money-people, seeking more money, pursued their own interests individually and without much governmental oversight, which pushed the world to the brink of a financial meltdown, and it was hasty interventions, perhaps some not so sound, by central banks of the rich nations that saved the day – although it was their economies that were mostly at risk, given the interlinked nature of today’s global economy and that it is their currencies that are being used worldwide, such a meltdown would spell catastrophe to everyone, which we saw first hand.  (Strictly speaking, “entropy” is a concept in thermodynamics applicable at molecular level, but translated as “disorder,” as it is commonly understood, the concept is equally valid to real-life situations as well.)   

⁽⁵⁾  The usual format for expressing such diverse views is international conferences on a given topic, but sadly their results don’t go very far beyond collated proceedings, and while valuable by themselves, such diversified views left in that form could be considered worse than useless in terms of policy – given that such conferences could effectively block alternate measures to address the problem in question in view of public hopes in conference mission, while the problem continues in its unabated rampage, creating more misery to humanity; for ideas of conferences don’t get translated into policy by themselves, and improvements that might result from them are likely to be incremental and marginal at best, making their influence on public policy to be minimal.  These statements might be easier to swallow if we distinguish conferences on natural sciences from those on social sciences – their natures are different.  For while concepts/ideas in natural sciences published in conference proceedings could become input for colleagues who could turn them into tangible form and thus provide their benefits to the millions, those in social sciences will be hard put to see practical light this way; they could become public policy only through concerted efforts that usually don’t exist; of course, they can get incorporated into academic texts and enlighten generations, but that enlightenment doesn’t automatically turn into policy that could better the human condition.  (Perhaps I misunderstood: that such conferences are not about solving problems; suggestions in my writings, however, are very definitely about solving a problem: that of a faulty world education system and ramifications thereof, hence my aversion to scholarly papers given my belief in the ineffectiveness of the prevalent variety of international conferences based on such papers in solving pressing global problems – see second paragraph of the second part of the piece referred to above: “9 – Last Explanation.”)  

⁽⁶⁾  This last phrase was inspired by an utterance of Lee Iacocca during the peak crisis days of the US auto industry in the 1990s, the full version of which was, "Lead, Follow, or Get out of the way" – though an Internet search revealed the quote attributed to a number of other people as well.  The problem of unequal ability was dramatically emphasized by Guy Benveniste in Mastering Politics of Planning, which divided those in any organizational setting into three broad categories: "idea people," "climbers," and "dead wood"; the vast majority in any given setting being "dead wood."  The problem as relates to education has also been dealt with by many people, two of who I found shed significant light on related aspects were Paul Goodman in Compulsory Miseducation, a slim 1960s paperback, and Professor Will Durant in the preface of The Story of Philosophy, a long quote from which is at the end of  "2 – Education & Fundamentalism."  The problem of differential ability and the role of education in the outcome had been the topic of discussion and debate over decades but to-date no one seems to have arrived at a convincing and viable answer, most likely due to the enigma it presented which inevitably arose from the complexity of the topic.  Nevertheless, the writings on this blog had helped to decipher aspects of that enigma in a broader context.  What is required now for a significant release of pressures due to the multitude of education-related problems is to accelerate the momentum of the blog's effort and fortify it with the complementary logical process tentatively outlined in the second part of "9 – Last Explanation."