A friend of mine posted this note on Facebook a week ago, right in the aftermath of Donald Trump unexpectedly winning the American presidency: Dear educated world. Your failure to reach out and engage the underprivileged has brought these unexpected global events. Welcome to your nightmare.
I was saddened by this because it lays down the fault of our current horrors on the failures of the educated–which has basis of course: analysis of U.S. election results sees a battle being waged between the educated and the un-educated, the urban and the rural, and it seems that the latter has won this round with the election of Trump.
Someone called it a “revolution” against the educated elite, borne out of the frustration out of the inequality that has risen from decades of neoliberal policies.
It has led to deep questioning especially among liberal intellectuals about how blindsided we had been with the overwhelming worldwide wanting for iron rule. It led, for example, to Leloy Claudio lamenting in a recent article for Esquire Magazine: “When I started thinking about Philippine liberalism around three years ago, it was long before the election of our mayor-president and the almost election of his real running mate, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. As recent as a year ago, I had assumed that liberalism was safe, unable to predict the intensity of the authoritarian nostalgia we are now experiencing. I thus begin writing this fortnightly column as an idiot confronting his own naiveté. The illiberal resurgence has not only discredit liberal politicians, but also liberal pundits who thought their political world was too stable to collapse.”
“You have no reason to trust me,” Leloy continues. “Especially since my class of academic intellectual is increasingly ‘exposed’ as ‘bias(ed)’ and elitist. You also have no reason to trust my political agenda since it was my beloved liberalism that got us into this mess in the first place. Had liberalism worked as promised, we would not have needed ‘change.’”
It brings me back to my initial question: has all these really been the educated’s fault? Did their/our failure to “engage the underprivileged” result to this nightmare? Maybe yes, maybe no.
I do think, however, that a huge part of the problem has been the slow but sure demonization of the educated actually. There are so many examples to share why this is so, but I’ll try to list down some off the top of my head:
First, there is the growing corporate mode of many universities, where administrators get paid more than (and are actually outnumbering) professors, many of whom are forced to be adjuncts in the name of budgetary constraints.
One hears horror stories now of many professors living below the poverty line. The result: a perception of teaching as a dead-end, a profession one shouldn’t be in danger of dreaming for.
Teaching’s product is educating the mind, sculpting it to be innovative, critical, and creative. If its practitioners are pushed to the limits that it cannot sustain themselves, what happens to education in general? Diluted, compromised, leading to future generations where mediocrity becomes prized, because it has become the commonplace.
Second, there is the high tuition, for good colleges have become, predictably, prohibitive–essentially walling off education opportunities for those who might have had a bright future as a college graduate, but certainly could not afford it.
For those who persist, in America in particular, the specter of student loans have churned out graduates saddled with so much debt even before they could make gains in the industry they are supposed to have trained for.
In the Philippines, there is the proliferation of cheaper schools to catch the bulk of those who are unable to afford schooling in top institutions–but most are diploma mills that really do nothing to educate their students.
Third, there is the expulsion of the Humanities from the curriculum, which is a troubling negation of the study of the human spirit. If one does not understand anymore the importance of such old virtues as human rights, taking care of the environment, gender rights, and other liberal values, it may be because the subjects that extol these are increasingly taken out of the curriculum.
No one apparently needs philosophy anymore. Nor history. Nor a good command of language. Nor general surveys of scientific fields–no biology, no chemistry, no physics.
Fourth, there is the shift to a prevalence of entertainment stories in most media–and we are now drowning in the empty ratings extravaganza of the likes of TMZ, Kris Aquino, and the unfounded fame of the Kardashians.
Fifth, there is the death of books and magazines.
Sixth, there is the prevalence of dumbed-down shows on TV like Eat Bulaga, and a primetime given to an endless stream of teleseryes, which is not itself a bad thing–except for its sheer daily hold and dominance, denying variety in popular fare.
Seventh, there is the spread of popular “jokey” expressions that exhibit disdain for intellectuals. The phrase Nakaka-nosebleed ka! or Ang dami mong alam! are examples, done in jest, but are really passive aggressively undermining the thinking individual.
And eighth, there is the fact that ratings and box office and sales have become the measure of excellence in pop culture, which effectively compromise serious undertakings that will never have mass appeal–and thus, completely unseen, especially on TV, they are considered unimportant and boring.
Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.
But many of the educated I know–especially the passionate ones — do try to reach out: we have extension programs, for example, and I and many others have done so many workshops for communities largely removed from academic circles.
But the general culture that these people are in are actively limiting them, boxing them off as the Nosebleed Guy or Gal.
Isaac Asimov knew this, and he once observed: “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
We see that in the defense by many people of purveyors of fake news sites. We see that in the insane rhetoric of Fox News. And I see that specifically in some of my students’ open contempt over reading, and bearing a strange pride over being a conscientious non-reader–and when they express these very sentiments in their grammar-challenged papers, my teacher’s heart sinks every single time.
I remember this one student last semester. He just didn’t care about anything at all. I choose my readings for this literature class knowing that I had to balance challenging fare with works that were accessible and easily-engaging. But no go. With every reading I made them do, he sent in reading reports that always ended with: “I was bored,” not with a note that signaled asking for help, but something that was close to indifferent disdain. It floored me. (And then he later had the temerity to ask me why he failed.)
What else can we then do to reach out?
Can we command a slot on primetime TV?
Can those chika magazine feature some scientists and artists?
And because the friend I mentioned in the very beginning of this essay is a local screenwriter, I have to throw this in: Hollywood has done many movies on scientists and artists, recently like Stephen Hawking (The Theory of Everything) and Alan Turing (The Imitation Game) and Srinivasa Ramanujan (The Man who Knew Infinity) and Maxwell Perkins (Genius) and J.M.W. Turner (Mr. Turner).
When did a Filipino film ever celebrate a scientist in a biopic?
There is room for improvement, of course.
Maybe we can write our academic papers in accessible language. Will that help?
Maybe we can upend the high cost of academic journals. Will that help?
Maybe we can try to inspire our brightest kids to pursue a love for education, instead of letting them aspire to become cast members of Pinoy Big Brother. Will that help?
Maybe we can be less condescending to those who are “less educated”.
Maybe this, maybe that. Then again, another friend of mine Stefan Garcia, once told me: “You are not responsible for what another person does or doesn’t do. Even if the educated people did reach out to the uneducated, who is to say the uneducated would choose to listen? Just do what you do to the best of your ability and circumstances, and be responsible with your own actions. You aren’t responsible for anyone else’s actions. They can make their own choices.”
There are many things we can do, but please never demonize the educated too much. You’re only contributing to the disdain.
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