A psychotic aversion to self-learning? I have posted this recently on the philosophy forum but wanted to get some input to the question from a group more knowledgeable of psychology. There is strong evidence that our educational system has graduated students with a neurosis directed at self-learning; there seems to be a strong aversion to serious scholarship that is without an educational institution’s imprimatur. What is neurosis? Becker says “isn’t the development of the ego the key to the general problem of neurosis?” The ego grows by putting anxiety under its control; thoughts and feelings are dangerous for the existence of the organism, ergo the ego “vaccinates itself” with small doses of anxiety as a defense mechanism against anxiety. The ego controls our levels of anxiety by a restriction of our allowed experiences. The ego develops by “skewing perceptions and by limiting action”. The ego grows by “a dispossession of the child’s own inner world”. The ego’s technique mechanism is one of the best, it is self-deception. The child’s humanization is accomplished by giving over her aegis to the parent. Are the child’s educational efforts at humanization also accomplished by giving over its intellectual aegis to the teacher? Our motives are buried deep in the unconscious and are veiled by our ignorance of our self. “One’s motives reside in his skewed perceptions, in the way he dispossess himself of genuine self-reliance”; Freud discovered “conscience as limited vision and as dishonest control over one-self…Neurosis is merely a process of interference with simple animal movements, of the blocking of the forward momentum of action.” Neurosis blocks our most “eager and engrossing acts, acts of an excited infant [and of an excited adult] in a world of wonders”. The result being that we all tend to earn a sense of support passively, by “renouncing action and the satisfaction of making [our] own closure on action.” Quotes and ideas about neurosis (not about self-learning) are from “The Birth and Death of Meaning”—Ernest Becker I have been posting for three years and have always wondered why I have constantly received responses that included quibbles and stop-learning-cold questions. There are two types of questions, one is designed to facilitate learning and the other is designed to stop learning cold. Why, I asked myself, is the subject of self-learning always given the stop-learning-cold response? I have finally found the answer. People give this response of avoidance and denial because our educational institutions have instilled a deep seated fear of self-reliance in the matter of learning. I have achieved that wonderful ‘eureka moment’. After all of my attempts to comprehend this avoidance of the issue of self-learning I have finally found the answer. Many of the graduates of our institutions of learning have developed a psychotic aversion to self-reliance in matters of serious learning. Scholarship based upon self-learning has become a seat for our anxiety.
Your conclusion would have been more convincing had it not been accompanied by the introductory psycho babble. This is not a quibble - this is an alternative explanation for your experiences. To me your argument seems weak and unsubstantiated. On that basis I shall dismiss it. Naturally you will be offended and potentially hurt by this dismissal. You can handle this by finding my dismissal to be motivated by some other factor, thus preserving the valdity of your own viewpoint. ("If I valued your opinion I should be offended.") That is the more probable explanation for your posts being met with quibbles and cold questions - your ideas are mistaken.
So if his conclusion had not been accompanied by 'psychobabble' it would have been more convincing. This implies that you saw some merit in his idea but felt you needed to dismiss it because of the way he chooses to present it or that language he chooses to use, to put it another way. But then you finish by saying that his ideas are mistaken. So I assume you, at least, would not have found his arguments more convincing if he dropped the psychobabble, knowing as you do his idea here is wrong. OK. What was his idea here. That the educational system has steered children away from learning about themselves and adults reflect this by having defensive reactions (such as dismissal) to ideas that might make them anxious. I also am not entirely clear what is meant by this. It could mean that schools reward focusing outward and punish introspection. Or perhaps other forms of self-exploration and expression. If that is what he meant, well, that seems pretty obviously true. There are alternative forms of education - some of them under the category 'progressive' - where introspection, self-expression are made more central to the process of learning. There are also attempts to merge subjective and objective modes of relating to a subject. I think the adults who have had progressive educations tend to be more able to be open, to talk about themselves and their feelings and to enter uncomfortable areas like doubt, anxiety, confusion especially as those come up in learning situations. This is because they have been allowed and encouraged to do this as they were learning. It seems natural to them and useful even. Whereas performance, competition and confidence are stressed in traditional schools. (when anthing is stressed at all). So I tend to agree with his idea, if I have it right. So while I share some agreement with you about the clarity of his message, I think he's on to something. If his posts do ask people to self-learn while discussing ideas, rather than simply pressing a viewpoint, then probably some of the negative reactions he gets are due to education. This doesn't mean your reaction was. But the confusing message you gave him hints that it might be. You took a shot at psychobabble. But looking at things in terms of pscyhology is not by definition a problem, at least I don't think so. The issue is whether he communicated clearly. When people say psychobabble it can usually be read as a blanket criticism of all that potentially messy and confusing knowledge or potential knowledge about the self. And in that blanket criticism often hides a fear about what it would mean if some of what is being judged as babble were actually cogent and applied to the critic. Similar to when very midly emotional talk elicits a criticism like 'I don't like all that touchy feely stuff.' And you have to wonder about that person's intimacy issues. But this is all pretty abstract. It might apply to you. It might not. Words on a screen are not enough to know.
Granty I am a retired engineer and this is really my first encounter with psychology. It appears that infants are cowed into ignoring their biological desires because they fear rejection by the mother. To avoid this traumatic event the child becomes passive and also develops many characteristics that harm them later in life. These are facts as I read them from the book written by an individual with great credentials. For 12 to 16 years all of us are engaged in a very restrictive association with teachers that would seem to have the same effect on us as does a parent to the child. I suggest that it is a strong possibility that we leave these institutions of learning with a strong sense that learning is a passive relationship with a dominant authority figure and this neurosis makes our developing as a self-learning adulthood very problematic. I have posted this on the philosophy forum but no one displayed any knowledge about psychology there and I had hoped that there might be some people in this forum with some comprehension of matters psychological. The remarks from the individual who thought that comments about neurosis were psychobabble disappoint me.
That sounds like a great oversimplification. The fear of the mother issue. There is such diversity of mothering attitudes adn skills and affection out there. But I know you were summarizing broadly. I think some infants and their mothers work out a fairly good dance where both get their needs met. but they need a supportive environment for that. Maybe you could define self-learning. I agree with what you say here. Another way to put it is to say they are trained to be consumers and not agents. this even fits nicely with breast feeding. I say this despite my qualms about focusing on the mother child relationship as you or whoever it has. most people do follow authority figures. They are often much better at seeing how their opponents do this. But I have to say the way you talk about 'these are the facts' written by an individual 'with great credentials' sounds a bit like you might have taken a passive relationship to an authority figure. I've read a lot of psychology and you can have facts presented by a wide range of people with great credentials and find those facts contradict each other. This does not mean I think psychology is doomed. Not at all. But I am fairly unimpressed by credentials. Why? because there are people without credentials who have taught me more than people with. and because there are so many people with credentials to choose from the authority is really mine. I must choose what fits. it might help to ground the discussion in concrete terms. What does self-learning mean to you? Can you give an example of how you self-learned? And how did you manage to do this if you had a mother and went through schooling? What helped you break the passive role? I'm happy to come in with my own experiences here too, but I want to make sure I understand what you mean by self-learning. Are we talking Dewey's learning by doing? Freud's self-analysis? Jungian ideas of self-exploration? Is the focus on independence with outward learning? And concrete, so I get it.
You have accorded me a lot of absolutes, where I clearly provided probabilities and tendencies. I did not say his ideas were mistaken I said that the more probable explanation for the reactions he receives is that his ideas are mistaken. I do not know his idea is wrong. I do believe, and so stated, that his argument is weak and unsubstantiated. Those are two quite different things. My objection to pschobabble runs like this. Pschology is a difficult field. By its very nature it is less susceptible to objective measurement and experimental replication than is physics, or even a 'softer' science such as geology. Unfortunately this provides the opportunity for individuals to take the vocabulary and the superficial findings of the field and use them to support arguments that a proper application of those findings could never support. It is this abuse of properly defined terminology and scientifically derived psychological hypotheses that I refer to when I use the phrase psychobabble. You seem to have understood my use of the term to imply a rejection of psychology as a proper field of study - you refere to my 'blanket criticism'. I trust it is now clear that my objection is anything, but blanket. I am criticising very specifically coberst's appeal to psychology, not the field itself. Coberst is either being very ineffective at conveying his meaning, or has quite misunderstood the concepts he is invoking to support his argument. Eiterh way 'psychobabble' seemed a convenient shorthand to describe the resultant thesis. Now, coberst, I shall address some points from your last post, since this was more cohesive than the opening one: I could actually understand what you were saying. I don't recall having a restrictive association with my teachers. What is your evidence that exists for even a substantial minority, let alone all of us? Your use of such an absolute might have its place in engineering (but even here we have tolerances), but it is surely out of place in psychology. That is an example of what I mean about misapplying the findings from the field. While we are at it, what is the nature of this very restrictive association? You mentioned Freud. Freud has been wholly discredited. Hell coberst, I read Freud's landmark Interpretation of Dreams when I was fifteen. My conclusion was simple - he thought people were obsessed with sex because his study groups were seuxally repressed Austrian middle class women. (And he had a few hang ups himself.) Freud's contribution to pschology was that he implied that the field could be the subject of proper stduy. It's just a shame he nevere engaged in any himself. I see no evidence of it anywhere I look. It was not true of the schools in which I was educated. We were actively encouraged to learn and to be broad ranging in how we sourced that learning. It was not true of the school of which I was chairman of the board of governer's for four years. The teachers promoted self learning. It is not true of the methodology that is being taught to my daughter, who is training to be a primary shcool teacher. Much of her course consists of developing ways to guide pupils to find their own ways to explore new concepts and fields of knowledge. I am quite at a loss to understand how you reached your conclusion.
Granty says--"Maybe you could define self-learning." Ask and you shall receive. September Scholar Introduction I am a retired engineer with a good bit of formal education and twenty five years of self-learning. I began the self-learning experience while in my mid-forties. I had no goal in mind; I was just following my intellectual curiosity in whatever direction it led me. This hobby, self-learning, has become very important to me. I have bounced around from one hobby to another but have always been enticed back by the excitement I have discovered in this learning process. Carl Sagan is quoted as having written; “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.” I label myself as a September Scholar because I began the process at mid-life and because my quest is disinterested knowledge. Disinterested Knowledge Disinterested knowledge is an intrinsic value. Disinterested knowledge is not a means but an end. It is knowledge I seek because I desire to know it. I mean the term ‘disinterested knowledge’ as similar to ‘pure research’, as compared to ‘applied research’. Pure research seeks to know truth unconnected to any specific application. I think of the self-learner of disinterested knowledge as driven by curiosity and imagination to understand. The September Scholar seeks to ‘see’ and then to ‘grasp’ through intellection directed at understanding the self as well as the world. The knowledge and understanding that is sought by the September Scholar are determined only by personal motivations. It is noteworthy that disinterested knowledge is knowledge I am driven to acquire because it is of dominating interest to me. Because I have such an interest in this disinterested knowledge my adrenaline level rises in anticipation of my voyage of discovery. We often use the metaphors of ‘seeing’ for knowing and ‘grasping’ for understanding. I think these metaphors significantly illuminate the difference between these two forms of intellection. We see much but grasp little. It takes great force to impel us to go beyond seeing to the point of grasping. The force driving us is the strong personal involvement we have to the question that guides our quest. I think it is this inclusion of self-fulfillment, as associated with the question, that makes self-learning so important. The self-learner of disinterested knowledge is engaged in a single-minded search for understanding. The goal, grasping the ‘truth’, is generally of insignificant consequence in comparison to the single-minded search. Others must judge the value of the ‘truth’ discovered by the autodidactic. I suggest that truth, should it be of any universal value, will evolve in a biological fashion when a significant number of pursuers of disinterested knowledge engage in dialogue. Experience We develop as we gain experience—interact with the world. Self-learning is one way of interacting with the world. Through the process of reading we apprehend the world and in this interaction a dialectic process develops. As I experience, through reading, I attempt to 'make sense' of the world and thus develop ever-richer and more sophisticated concepts. As I conceive this more sophisticated worldview I am also creating a more sophisticated self. The word ‘conception’ is an accurate word for the result of this experience. Just as the interaction of the two genders of all creatures result often in new life so does the interaction of reader and author. There are books available in most community college libraries written by experts especially for the lay reader. I would guess that virtually all matters of interest are copiously and expertly elaborated upon by experts wishing to inform the public about every subject imaginable. Quantum theory and theory of relativity are examples of the most esoteric domains of knowledge accessible to most readers sufficiently motivated to persevere through some difficult study. For twenty-five dollars a year I am a ‘Friend of the Library’ at my community college and thus able to borrow any book therein. The experience the September Scholar seeks is solely determined by his or her own internal ‘voice’. The curiosity and imagination of the learner drive the voice. Our formal education system has left most of us with little appreciation or understanding of our own curiosity and imagination. That characteristic so obvious in children has been subdued and, I suspect, stilled to the point that each one attempting this journey of discovery must make a conscious effort to reinvigorate the ‘inner voice’. We must search to ‘hear’ the voice, which is perhaps only a whisper that has become a stranger in our life. But, let me assure you, once freed again that voice will drive the self-learner with the excitement and satisfaction commensurate to any other experience. I grew up in a Catholic family living in a small town in Oklahoma. My teachers were nuns and I learned how to read often by reading my Baltimore Catechism. The catechism is a small book, fitting easily in the back pocket of a pair of overalls, with a brown paper cover that contains the fundamental doctrine of the Catholic faith. It is in a question and answer format. I can still remember, after more than sixty years, the first page of that book. Question: Who made you? Answer: God made me. Question: Why did God make you? Answer: God made me to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next. Before I had read the adventures of “Jack and Jill”, I had learned the answers to the most profound questions that has troubled humanity for more than twenty-five hundred years. Such was the educational methodology that changed little for the next sixteen years of my formal education. My teachers always told me what was important and what I must ‘know’ to be educated. The good student learned early to understand that education was a process of determining what questions the teacher regarded as important and to remember, for the test, the correct answers to those important questions. Since I was not required to provide the questions for the test I never concerned myself with such unimportant trivia as questions. I could always depend upon the teacher to come forward with all the questions. I seek disinterested knowledge because I wish to understand. The object of understanding is determined by questions guiding my quest. These guiding questions originate as a result of the force inherent in my curiosity and imagination. The self-learner must develop the ability to create the questions. We have never before given any thought to questions but now, if we wish to take a journey of discover, we must learn the most important aspect of any educational process. We must create questions that will guide our travels. We can no longer depend upon education by coercion to guide us; we have the opportunity to develop education driven by the “ecstasy to understand”. Education I suspect that most parents attempt to motivate their children to make good grades in school so that their child might go to college and live the American Dream. The college degree is a ticket to the land of dreams (where one produces and consumes more than his or her neighbor). I do not wish to praise or to bury this dream. I think there is great value resulting from this mode of education but it is earned at great sacrifice. The point I wish to pivot on is the fact that higher education in America has become a commodity. To commodify means: to turn (as an intrinsic value or a work of art) into a commodity (an economic good). I would say that the intrinsic value of education is wisdom. It is wisdom that is sacrificed by our comodified higher education system. Our universities produce individuals capable of developing a great technology but lacking the wisdom to manage the world modified by that technology. How can a nation recover the intrinsic value of education without undermining the valuable commodity that our higher education has become? I think that there is much to applaud in our higher educational system. It produces graduates that have proven their ability to significantly guide our society into a cornucopia of material wealth. Perhaps, however, like the Midas touch, this gold has a down side. The down side is a paucity of collective wisdom within the society. I consider wisdom to be a sensitive synthesis of broad knowledge, deep understanding and solid judgement. I suggest that if one individual in a thousand, who has passed the age of forty would become a September Scholar, we could significantly replace the wisdom lost by our comodified higher education. Knowing and Understanding For a long time I have been trying to grasp the distinction between knowing and understanding. I think I have recently stumbled upon a new theory that might help me a great deal in my attempt to discover this distinction. I have recently discovered a contender for paradigm within the cognitive science community. Metaphor theory has in the last thirty years begun to advance important discoveries regarding the nature of the ‘embodied mind’. This theory insists that much of our mental activity is unconscious and driven by the neural networks associated with body sensory and motor control networks. Metaphors are far more important to our knowledge and understanding than previously thought. We live by metaphor. I have just begun to study metaphor theory and perhaps will change my mind but, as of this moment, I am getting hints that this theory will be very important for me and for cognitive science. It has already helped me to grasp the distinction between knowledge and understanding. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable of this theory to give detail now but, if you are interested, you might do a Google to begin your journey for understanding metaphor theory. To get an idea of the distinction between knowing and understanding we can examine the metaphors we commonly use for these two concepts. I ‘see’ when I know and I ‘grasp’ it or I ‘got a handle’ on it when I understand. We can see much but we grasp little. We see at a distance but grasp only what is up close. We are much more intimate with what we grasp than with what we see. We might say ‘seeing is believing’ but I do not think we are comfortable with saying ‘seeing is understanding’. My interests tend to lead me toward such philosophical matters but the point is, each person determines what is important to her or him. Each person takes that path that ‘fits’ for them. No one knows what that might be but the individual herself and often she will not create the same type of questions tomorrow as today. I pointed out earlier that the September Scholar was driven by an interest in disinterested knowledge. You might add to that paradox that the September Scholar seeks disinterested knowledge because s/he is engaged in a journey of understanding of both the self and the other. From Net-worth to Self-worth In the United States our culture compels us to have a purpose. Our culture defines that purpose to be ‘maximize production and consumption’. As a result all good children feel compelled to become a successful producer and consumer. All good children both consciously and unconsciously organize their life for this journey. At mid-life many citizens begin to analyze their life and often discover a need to reconstitute their purpose. Some of the advantageous of this self-learning experience is that it is virtually free, undeterred by age, not a zero sum game, surprising, exciting and makes each discovery a new eureka moment. The self-learning experience I am suggesting is similar to any other hobby one might undertake; interest will ebb and flow. In my case this was a hobby that I continually came back to after other hobbies lost appeal. I suggest for your consideration that if we “Get a life—Get an intellectual life” we very well might gain substantially in self-worth and, perhaps, community-worth. As a popular saying goes ‘there is a season for all things’. We might consider that spring and summer are times for gathering knowledge, maximizing production and consumption, and increasing net-worth; while fall and winter are seasons for gathering understanding, creating wisdom and increasing self-worth. I have been trying to encourage adults, who in general consider education as a matter only for young people, to give this idea of self-learning a try. It seems to be human nature to do a turtle (close the mind) when encountering a new and unorthodox idea. Generally we seem to need for an idea to face us many times before we can consider it seriously. A common method for brushing aside this idea is to think ‘I’ve been there and done that’, i.e. ‘ I have read and been a self-learner all my life’. It is unlikely that you will encounter this unorthodox suggestion ever again. You must act on this occasion or never act. The first thing is to make a change in attitude about just what is the nature of education. Then one must face the world with a critical outlook. A number of attitude changes are required as a first step. All parents, I guess, recognize the problems inherent in attitude adjustment. We just have to focus that knowledge upon our self as the object needing an attitude adjustment rather than our child. Another often heard response is that “you are preaching to the choir”. If you conclude that this is an old familiar tune then I have failed to make clear my suggestion. I recall a story circulating many years ago when the Catholic Church was undergoing substantial changes. Catholics where no longer using Latin in the mass, they were no longer required to abstain from meat on Friday and many other changes. The story goes that one lady was complaining about all these changes and she said, “with all these changes the only thing one will need to do to be a good Catholic is love thy neighbor”. I am not suggesting a stroll in the park on a Sunday afternoon. I am suggesting a ‘Lewis and Clark Expedition’. I am suggesting the intellectual equivalent of crossing the Mississippi and heading West across unexplored intellectual territory with the intellectual equivalent of the Pacific Ocean as a destination.
Ophiolite A teacher/pupil relationship is a didactic relationship, at least as it is practicsed in the United States. The teacher controls what the pupil learns and only when the pupil does as required does him or her graduate. We all stand on the shoulders of giants; Freud is certainly one of them. As I have learned lately about neuroses, it is something that few people are aware of. There is little chance that the school system will improve significantly. This school system is functioning according to the desires of public policy makers. The present policy makers want graduates who are well prepared to be good producers and consumers. If we wish a society restructured in a better way we must fight our fear of self-reliance and self-learning. Only when many citizens become self-learners and thus comprehend the problem and also prepared to dialogue with peers will we create a society designed for our nature. Does anyone reading this thread recognize a reluctance to deal with self-learning? Is this not evidence of the neurosis I speak of?
The grammar was ambiguous, but I can see how you might have meant that. Fair enough. I did use the adverb 'usually'. I still think saying it would have been more convincing if...was an odd tack to take. It implied you understood his thesis and had an idea how you or, more oddly, people in general would agree or disagree with that thesis given better language use. But if you understood his thesis, despite his sloppy language, then perhaps others would. And since people posting here probably have opinions about his idea already formed...well, you can see where I going. But maybe in a quick post you blurred the specific idea with advice about how he should present ideas in general. Take into account the ambigiousness of that last part and to me the whole thing came off snide.
I am not in the US, though I have taught in the US. But a good teacher encourages the student to look beyond the narrow confines of the curriculum. I knew and know many good teachers. A good curriculum encourages students to look beyond its defined horizons. Freud is about as useful and relevant to psychology as Lamarck is to evolution. He was wrong in his conclusions, his concepts and his methodology. Apart from that he was OK. You have still failed utterly to demomnstrate that such a fear exists. Are you sure you are not talking about yourself? My entire life has been one long self learning experience. I have only ever used formal training as a guideline. Most of what I now know has been self taught. (I am probably, incidentally, as neurotic as hell, but it has bugger all to do with any relcutance to deal with self learning.) What I do see routinely, is a desire to be spoon fed, not because of any indoctrination in schools, but out of an inherent laziness that stems in turn from disinterest. To cause people to learn all I do is awaken their interest in a subjkect, then let them loose.
Ah! Absolutely. Snide is my speciality. Coberst was indulging in psychobabble, or expressing himself very badly. Either condition will cause me to engage in snide, patronising, derogatory comments: we all have to get our fun somehow.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
So I'm digesting this entire thread as "I hate school, but I love learning". I say this all the time. The structured nature of formal education is great at making sure that everyone makes it to a basic level of proficiency. However, this same design heavily restricts the more intelligent in the class, as they have to slow down their learning such that others may keep pace. Therefore, it is beneficial for those intelligence individuals to learn on their own, outside of formal education; to go deeper into subjects and understanding for the sake of knowledge. I agree with Ophiolite that the over-common abuse of psychological terminology means that the unnecessary use of it in common discussions results in many people tuning out the entire message - we have too often heard foolish ideas wrapped up in fancy words to trust things that are proposed in a more complicated way than need be - it feels like obfuscation; misdirection.
Economic forces pull individuals toward knowledge that is fruitfull in the marketplace. This may be the reason you became an engineer before a September Scholar. There is no free lunch. The freedom to float about the vast sea of knowledge established by our ancestors is restricted by ones level of means. There may not be time for the average revolutionary citizen to gather an argument with enough force to move the rudder of a vessel the size of our educational system. It is market driven for the average citizen. It is fast track and concise for optimum production. I don't think it would work any other way. Complete freedom in education would result in chaos.
Coberst, meet Ophiolite, perhaps the shiniest example that this board has of what you were just talking about.
