Thoughts on Education

Any damn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.
-Pete Seeger


Institutionalized knowledge in dense populations seems to think that packing in an obscene amount of learning material into a brief amount of time, leading to intellectual panic attacks across the board, is a good idea (I write this in the context of the quarter system at UC Santa Cruz). Maybe it figures that if it can work coherently with the information that it is given by its frantic students (and yes, I am anthropomorphizing "institutionalized knowledge") then the chances will be that much greater that it will in fact be able to piece together the innovation that it promises to the world. Maybe if the panicked mental spontaneity of its students is picked from and sifted through, the institution can piece together something desirable to its reputation? Maybe this panicked spontaneity assures that thinking in students will remain as pure as possible?

A large body of work in a short period of time will no doubt yield trips and stumbles, yet the inevitable panic is what assures that all thoughts and writings will have come from the most organic state of mind as possible, with no outside influences or habits to skew it. What emerges is raw originality, coupled with inevitable bouts of intellectual panic (evidenced by excusable errors). Superfluous language travels as far as a laser beam, but it is about as substantive as the air it slices through. What's more worthwhile: vacant longevity or abrupt epiphania? Inevitably, it should be that we strive for both of these goals, minus their modifiers.