Thresholds

"Thought of the Week" for December 14, 1998

Ideas can serve us—but can also put us
to sleep or take our place

Ideas can easily float by, cover up, or even substitute for reality....Ideas are as dangerous as techniques as substitutes for real experience [because] they tempt us with their clarity and clearcutness. Thus we fall into the "magical" pitfall of equating knowledge and being, understanding and action, utterance and effectiveness. And yet, there is nothing else that we have but ideas and techniques, and we must accept that what serves us can also put us to sleep and take our place.

Claudio Naranjo, M.D. (1993). Gestalt Therapy. Nevada City, CA: Gateways.

Comment:

What serves us can also hyponotize and replace us

by Reg Harris

Copyright © 1998 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. Revised October 2007. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.

Dr. Naranjo's observations sound like a description of much of our school system: so bogged down in ideas and techniques, plans and outcomes, assessment and evaluation that it no longer addresses the reality of experience—and many of our students know this.

The latest "cure," technology, is just another diversion, helping us avoid facing the reality and irrelevance of much of what we do. What is reality? That's too complex for simple, clear-cut fixes. What is relevant education? Education in the Latin sense of the word ("ex-" = out + "ducare" = to draw), which is the education of the individual, not the training of the individual. Give students time, perspective and means to develop a philosophy of living and learning will grow from them, without our need to "motivate" or "entertain."

A first step might be to understand that literature or film, in a real sense,  does not exist independently of the observer. Literature consists essentially of a set of abstract symbols printed on paper. It is the human mind which interprets those symbols, the human mind which (if we are doing our job) sees through the symbols to the experience beyond. It is the combination of the symbols and the interpretation of and reaction to the ideas presented in those symbols which constitutes literature. Abstract analysis of literature without first experiencing the literature can be an avoidance of reality, a culturally acceptable (even respected, like the workaholic) way to avoid the responsibility for the genuine experience of the literature -- which means experiencing aspects of our own existence mirrored and explored in the story.

Pie in the sky? Blowing smoke? For people who believe that the only legitimate learning is learning that we can quantify on a test or in an essay, then I am blowing smoke. For those of you who feel that intuitive understandings and an awareness of self as experience are a real part of learning, then I'm really blowing away the smoke.