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Of
course, I blame it all on my daughter. Ever since Miranda was
born (is it really only three months ago?) I've found myself increasingly
engaged in those reactionary hypothetical debates. Particularly
regarding education and its lamentable state. Not to mention the
Internet and the terrors of the future.
There
seems to be a sizable consensus that the principal danger—with
almost infinite information at hand--is that kids of the future
won't learn facts. Hence they won't know anything.
Then
I started thinking…
Yeah?
And… so?
Let
me start by revealing that I was an unhappy camper who absolutely
hated the majority of my schooling, particularly the teaching-by-rote
of facts that held no interest for me and seemed of almost no importance
whatsoever, merely constituting some arbitrary barometer of "achievement."
The
subtextural aim of education appeared to be the deliberate snuffing
of creative thought and the heinous threat of individualism. In
its place were the hoops of regurgitated information, to be jumped
through by the repetition of dutifully recycled lore in the appropriate
examination. Arguments and dissent had no place in the order of
things.
Then
came the "Information Age."
Given
the transient nature of memory, particularly regarding those elements
in which we have no inherent interest (quick poll: the dates of
the Thirty Years War? No? How about who fought whom? Or why? why
bother?).
If we
can accept a basic skeleton of facts (dates, data, etc.), why not
free ourselves to work on a much more conceptual and creative level?
If there is such a thing as a collective memory, isn't that wonderful?
We can embrace abstraction and move on to a higher plane where our
individual contributions and values are the issues. The sort of
meritocracy that's been shamefully unachieved.
If we
can't accept anything empirically, the argument against reliance
on such tainted evidence is even stronger.
Of course,
we're always faced with the question of who controls the information.
Ever since I realized that my nascent worldview had been not-so-subtly
molded by the "dead European white guys" of legend, I've stopped
worrying about that so much. The possibility of too many perspectives
seems to me an oxymoron. If they cause my daughter to question anything
she's given as fact (even by daddy) that's fine--I wouldn't want
it any other way. If it stands up to scrutiny I hope she'll use
it, and discard it if not.
It's
also worth noting, in practical terms, the irony of so much information
out there that those who would control it are effectively out of
luck, as we're seeing with Carnivore, Echelon, and the British RIP
legislation.
My greatest
practical fear for my daughter is that she'll be swamped with commercial
trivia. The communal, unique and quirky nature which has been the
hallmark of so much of our cyberworld of possibilities has been
transmuted into a gigantic sales opportunity with terrifying speed.
It's
not just about banners--I appreciate the financial realities of
sponsorship. However, where I'd once delighted in sites which seemed
to have no useful or even rational purposes, now I have to check
that they're not a clever construct from a corporation looking for
a hip way to brand pants, or sneakers, or … you get the idea.
The
passion of expression shows disturbing signs of being usurped by
the lure of transaction.
If the
big picture is merely the bottom line then my daughter's generation
will have learned nothing from the experience of mine.
Ultimately
I know all of this makes me sound old. Of course, I blame it all
on my daughter.
Copyright
© 2000 Michael Needleman All Rights Reserved
Michael
(michaeln@ntlworld.com)
lives in London, England. In the grown-up world he's a screenwriter,
which is not a very grown-up thing to do, and doting father, which
is.
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