The End of Education

by Neil Postman

  A third reason, related to the second and especially relevant to understanding the principle of diversity, is that by studying religion, our students can become acquainted with, first, the variety of ways people have offered to explain themselves and, second, the astonishing unity of their explanations. I therefore propose that beginning sometime in late elementary school and proceeding with focused detail in high school and beyond, we provide our young with opportunities to study comparative religion. Such studies would promote no particular religion but would aim at illuminating the metaphors, literature, art, and ritual of religious expression itself.

  Can such a thing be done? Only, I imagine, very delicately. We would certainly need to be more tactful than teachers are inclined to be toward “Greek mythology.” If you will allow still one more reference to my own school days, I recall being aware, in the eighth grade, that something was not quite right about our teacher’s attitude toward the gods of the ancient Greeks, who were able to do miraculous things, including racing across the sky in a chariot. I knew that Jews believed their God had parted the Red Sea, and Christians believed their Savior died and came back to life. I was puzzled about why our teacher called the story of Greek gods “myth” but, I felt sure, would not so designate our own stories. I asked a Greek classmate named Nicholas (I’ve forgotten his family name) about this. He shrugged, told me his family was Greek Orthodox, and led me to believe he didn’t care one way or the other. But those in charge of the education of our youth cannot be as cavalier as Nicholas. Of course, in proceeding, we would do away with the words myth and mythology. Perhaps in college the words can be restored in the sense that Joseph Campbell and Rollo May use them. But they are too laden with connotations of something that is false or mere superstition to use with younger students. What we must aim for is to provide every group’s narrative with dignity; with a sense that it is a creative means of expressing mysteries of life; that its “truths” are different from those of science and journalism; indeed, that it addresses questions science and journalism are not equipped to answer.

  To say that something must be done delicately does not mean it cannot be done. Of course it can, if we do it with mature preparation. We must proceed, for example, with the knowledge that many students and their parents believe their story is the literal truth. There is no need to dispute them. Nothing could be further from my mind than that comparative religion studies should aim at “narrative busting” or even, for that matter, a superficial cynicism. The idea is to show that different people have told different stories; that they have, at various times, borrowed elements from one another’s narratives; that it is appropriate to treat the narratives of others with respect; and that, ultimately, all such narratives have a similar purpose. Is it insulting to reveal that the Jews borrowed from the Egyptians? The Christians from the Jews? The Muslims from the Christians and the Jews? Is there any cynicism in revealing that American Indian deities have a special relationship to the earth and sky, not found in Western religions but similar in many ways to ancient Greek deities? Is there anything threatening in learning about the religions of African tribes? Do we endanger anyone by showing that Gandhi’s religious beliefs were influenced by those of Thoreau, and that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ideas were influenced by Gandhi?

  If the answer to these questions is a continuous yes, then I am disarmed and must drop the subject. But I think many will answer no, and agree that there is an obligation for us to take the world into account on such important matters, and that there are few better ways to inculcate a sense of tolerance and even affection for difference than to teach about the varieties of religious experience.

  My proposal here should not be taken to mean that I fail to appreciate the difficulties confronting teachers who wish students to learn something about the diversity of religion. For example, there will be students who believe not only that their narrative is “true,” but that all others are false. How does one cope with that? I am not sure, but one might proceed, first, by making students aware of those religions that do not insist on an exclusive truth—for example, Bahai, which takes the view that the prophets of all religions spoke the truth, although in different words, with meanings suitable to the times in which they spoke. One may also avoid certain difficulties by taking an historical approach, which inevitably reveals the dynamic nature of religious belief. Even a cursory review of Roman Catholicism will show that its ideas have changed—for example, on celibacy, on abortion, on dietary rules, even on the Inquisition and on the treatment of poor Galileo. Neither is it difficult to show how Protestant sects have changed their views and how they differ from one another. Or that, because of irreconcilable differences about the proper manner of religious observance, Jews have divided themselves into many groups—Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Very Orthodox, Almost Orthodox, Conservative, Very Conservative, Nearly Conservative, Reform, Not Quite Reform. (One is permitted, I believe, to make fun of one’s own group.) The point is that there is nothing disrespectful, and everything honest, in showing students that even within religions that insist on an exclusive “truth,” truths change. But, of course, this does not adequately address the fact that certain fundamental truths of each particular religion do not change. The Christians believe the Messiah came. The Jews believe the Messiah is yet to come. The Buddhists don’t believe in a Messiah at all. The Hindus believe in reincarnation. The Muslims do not. What then? The answer to any student who believes that other religions are simply wrong (or, as the Christian apologist C. S. Lewis put it, are more primitive) is that he or she may be right. But, as the First Amendment implies, we cannot be sure, and, therefore, while everyone is permitted to be sure in his or her own mind, no one is permitted to prevent anyone from disagreeing.

  In this connection, it may be valuable for students to know, certainly upper high school students, that many of the Founding Fathers were deists—for example, Jefferson and Paine, both of whom believed deeply in an “Almighty God” but who were skeptical about (in Paine’s case, vigorously opposed to) organized religion, especially the Christian, Jewish, and, as it was called in their day, Turkish (Muslim). Jefferson wrote a version of the Four Gospels in which he removed all of the “fanciful” and “superstitious” elements, retaining only the ethical components. It is said that when he was elected President, some Christians hid their Bibles, fearing that government policy would be directed against “God-fearing Christians.” They knew little about Jefferson, and even less about the First Amendment. Thomas Paine was vilified for his The Age of Reason, in which he tried to show that many things in the Bible could not possibly be true, and that the differences among religious systems show that they must all be wrong. His views on the purposes of religious systems were, it seems to me, shallow, and yet The Age of Reason is one of the most religious books I have ever read.

  The point here is that tolerance is irrelevant when there is universal agreement. When there is diversity of opinion, tolerance becomes, if you will, a god to serve. But there are several meanings to the word. I do not have in mind the sort of tolerance characterized by a silent superiority. That is surely better than a Pat Buchanan-like vocal and aggressive superiority. But in the education of our young, we are obliged to do much better. I mean to help promote a variety of tolerance that says, “If I had been raised as you have, if I had been in your situation, if I had been led to respect the symbols you do, then it is very likely I would believe as you do.” This kind of tolerance does not require students to abandon their beliefs, or even to think they are wrong. It requires only that they understand that there are more things about heaven than are dreamt of in their religion.

  Were we to make the subject of comparative religion part of the education of our youth, there would arise many questions and difficulties to which I have no answers, and, I feel sure, to which other teachers have no answers either. But our ignorance does not rule the subject out. I said earlier we must proceed with mature preparation. This implies that there need to be national, re
gional, and local teacher conferences and institutes devoted to the ways in which comparative religion might be taught, so that teachers can learn from one another what the difficulties might be and how to overcome them. Does this seem too much to ask? Why is it that nothing is easier to organize, is more well funded, and more well attended than a conference on how to teach computers, or even one on media literacy? Is it certain that teacher interest can be aroused only about technical or technological matters? Are we too stupid or fearful to discuss the opportunities offered by religious diversity? I don’t think so.

  Custom

  To teach about the diversity of religion would seem laden with difficulties, especially because we have so little experience in doing it. By comparison, to teach about the diversity of national or ethnic customs seems easy and familiar. There is probably no elementary school in the United States, and few high schools, that have not had some celebration of diverse customs, often a day in which native dress, food, and music are displayed, eaten, and heard. No one can complain about this—at least not much. Such efforts do suggest to our students certain kinds of differences among peoples of the world; and, always, there is the vague implication that such differences are worthy of respect.

  But there is also the smell of quaintness about these events, even a sense of superiority, as if while acknowledging difference, we should keep in mind that these clothes, this food, and this music are not quite real, merely examples of exotica.

  I hope I am wrong about this. But I do not think I am wrong about the superficiality of such approaches. They rarely, if ever, penetrate to the more robust expressions of cultural difference. It is one thing to reveal that not all teenagers around the world think it adorable to wear baseball caps backward; it is another thing to reveal differences in beliefs about kinship, about the legitimate sources of authority, about gender roles, about the meaning of politics, of history, of the future.

  To get seriously into the subject of the diversity of custom is, therefore, to forgo the pleasures of superficial charm and to study aspects of culture that, in truth, are likely to make students uncomfortable. Yet, I would urge it on the grounds of necessity. Do educators command our attention by their warnings that the twenty-first century is hard on our heels, that our technology has created not only a global economy but a global village? Then it is essential, I would think, that our youth learn something of the ways of others who occupy the village.

  Earlier, I have discussed introducing, as a major subject, anthropology, of which the study of customs is a part. But it is also a part of sociology. I once had a conversation with Margaret Mead about the difference between the two subjects. She said that sociology grew out of anthropology, mostly because there were anthropologists who wanted to avoid the personal discomfort of studying “primitive” peoples in their faraway native habitats. They preferred to study the customs of people in, say, Omaha, Nebraska, rather than in the Trobriand Islands. The result was a new subject: sociology. I don’t know if there is any truth in this. (Since I knew Margaret Mead as a sober scholar, I ruled out the possibility that she was pulling my leg.) But there is little doubt that the two subjects make similar inquiries: How do the people of a particular culture communicate with one another? How do they define law, truth, intelligence? How do they educate their young? What roles do they assign to the sexes? How do they organize kinship? What authority do they respect? What role does their history play?

  I mention the connection between anthropology and sociology because the study of diverse customs need not confine itself to people of faraway places. In most American classrooms, the student population will embody several different traditions, and it is likely that there is widespread ignorance about some of them. A teacher who has, let us say, Latinos, Koreans, African-Americans, Greeks, and Italians in class has enough material to last several semesters. He or she has available what the anthropologists call “native informants,” who can speak with some degree of authority about the beliefs and attitudes of their respective cultures. Of course, like all native informants, they will often try to conceal certain aspects of their culture and cannot be expected to be entirely objective. It is the role of the teacher to provide objectivity, which means to guide the inquiry with as much open-mindedness as possible. This is especially important to do, and quite difficult, when the study concerns people who have not been “Americanized” or who have nothing to do with America—for example, if the inquiry has shifted away from the student population to the people of Singapore or Iraq or China. Until 1994, most Americans knew very little about Singapore. And then, an American teenager, convicted in Singapore of what most Americans would regard as a minor crime, was cruelly punished by caning. This event provides (that is, would have provided) a valuable opportunity to study cultural differences. How do the people of Singapore view crime, teenagers, democracy? How are their views different from those of Americans? Is it possible for a teacher, not to mention students, to be objective about such differences?

  I think it is, in the following sense: Through an act of scholarly imagination, one tries to understand the meanings Singaporeans give to the relevant concepts, to grasp how such meanings hold the culture together, to find in these meanings, if not virtue, a sense of necessity. It helps greatly if one compares Singaporean meanings to American meanings of the same concepts. One usually finds a measure of arbitrariness in customary ways of thinking. This does not mean that there is no basis for judging one set of meanings to be better than another. It means that a culture’s history, geography, economy, and religion shape what comes to be thought seemly, natural, even inevitable. Before rushing to judgment, one must make an honest attempt to understand, and to teach the young how to understand.

  It is easier said than done. Imagine how difficult it would be for an American teacher to stay open-minded about Iraqi customs regarding women, or about the Chinese practice (by no means just recent) of aborting or killing female infants in the belief that females are less valuable than males. Primitive, barbaric, evil? But then what of the American custom of killing those convicted of certain crimes, not out of economic necessity, but for revenge? Primitive, barbaric, evil, a Chinese sociologist might say. Not the same thing, we might reply. If we could explain to you our situation, if you knew how we think about these things, if you could simply understand the phrase “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” you would see that this makes quite good sense. It is, in fact, an affirmation of the value of life, and an indispensable collective catharsis. Well, maybe.

  I am not arguing here for or against the custom known as capital punishment. I am talking about what it means to be open-minded and about the ways in which various cultures might explain their customs. There is always time to decide if a culture’s customs are wasteful, ignorant, inhuman. Such decisions should await a study of why they exist. In the course of such studies, students may discover that there are striking similarities in how different cultures justify what at first seem to be unjustifiable customs.

  But these are dark matters, and although they must be part of the study of customs, they are by no means all of it. We ought to be examining, for example, marriage ceremonies, education systems, manners, and parent-child relations. Students usually find the last two of special interest. I recall the bemusement—bordering on wonder—of some American tenth graders upon learning that in Thailand, children of any age will not disagree with their parents, and that it is almost as bad to disagree with their teachers. I tried to convince them that this was an altogether splendid idea. In their attempts to convince me that these customs were inappropriate in America, they learned much about America, Thailand, themselves, and the richness of diversity. So did I.

  Art and Artifacts

  I do not wish to give the impression that art is to be taught solely or even mostly to support the principle of diversity. But in studying the creative arts, one inevitably learns the value of diversity—let us say it is an inescapable side effect. Imagine a concert that features Lucian
o Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and José Carreras. Zubin Mehta conducts; Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman are soloists. Imagine that, after the intermission, Leontyne Price sings Wagner, while James Levine conducts, after which Van Cliburn plays Chopin and Tchaikovsky. Besides the fact that it would be nearly impossible to get tickets for such a concert, it would also be impossible for those who got in not to notice the contributions of people from all over the world. (Including the composers, I count musicians from nine different countries.)

  But the audience has not come for a lesson in diversity or even, if you prefer, the universality of Western music. Neither do people go to museums and plays and read novels and poetry to learn about the cosmopolitan nature of artistic creation. They do these things to nourish their souls. Art, it has been said, is the language of the heart, and if we teach about music, painting, architecture, and literature in schools, we ought to be doing it to help our youth understand that language so that it may penetrate to their hearts. That is a very difficult thing to do, and I will make no attempt to disguise the fact that, save for literature, I have little experience (that is, none) in teaching the arts for this purpose. I will, therefore, confine my remarks to certain additional reasons for taking the arts and a culture’s artifacts more seriously than we are accustomed to doing. All of these reasons have to do with diversity in one way or another.