Diseases of Learning
Barriers to understanding in individuals and in groups.
'Traditionalism,' which often really means the servile copying
of what are imagined to be valuable thoughts and actions, is
the first conspicuous barrier to real understanding. We can
abbreviate this with the word 'imitation', the first of the dozen odd
major disabling factors in real human development.
Over-simplification is the second: when a single formula is
imagined to be enough to storm the gates of Heaven. Desire
for emotional stimulus is the third, and the fourth is the
compulsive collecting of information whether it is applicable
or not at that stage of progress.
The fifth disabling tendency is to use a parable or tale as the
representation of absolute truth, when it is always only a facet
of a whole: thus imagining the part to be the whole, instead
of a conductor to it.
The sixth problem is to seek to pursue artificially-formed
hypotheses of virtue; the seventh and eighth cover the result
of trying to teach oneself and trying to instruct others without
the necessary perceptions for the job.
Ninth comes the failure to assess the needs of the learner; tenth
being prematurely discouraged; eleventh the random mixing
of teachings and techniques from various sources; and finally
there is the mistaking of one thing for another.
All these forms of behaviour are easily to be found in both
spiritual and other groups of human beings, because they are
not essentially esoteric problems at all: but manifestations of
the secondary personality, the self which people take to be their
real one, but which is in fact a highly inefficient composition
of instinct, emotion and half-learned or over-learned
(conditioned) elements.
By illustrative exaggeration and transposition into more easily
grasped equivalencies, these barriers can be examined fairly
easily.
We may group them in the following categories of so-called
jokes; those who scorn them are like those who want to learn
to read without bothering with the alphabet:
1. Imitation and lack of perception.
The commonest mistake is the copying of rituals and
observances which are obsolete or misunderstood. This gives
some satisfactions sometimes, but no illumination. It is also one
of the reasons why some devotional activities cause pain and
bewilderment.
The analogy is that of the man who was only barely literate
and bought a can of soup. He was found wandering with
a scalded foot because he tried to follow the directions.
They said: 'Open the can and stand for 15 minutes in
boiling water.'
Information without knowledge makes a prisoner instead of
an escapee.
The tales which illustrate such conditions as this are often
traditionally termed 'Land of Fools' jokes, because they are
relatively grotesque in appearance. It should be remembered,
however, that the behaviour of anyone who does not know
enough about a specialised subject may appear bizarre to an
experienced observer. So it is with psychological-spiritual
matters.
The fact that such jokes as these can also stand on their own
in their lower applications, as illustrations of idiotic behaviour,
has of course caused them to be repeated only for amusement.
This, in turn, has caused them to be regarded as essentially
nothing but jokes, some of them feeble ones. But this
deterioration of usage of important materials is itself a
characteristic of human societies. From time to time the
usefulness of procedures, techniques and knowledge itself has
to be reclaimed.
2. Drawbacks of relying on single formulae.
Over-simplification, in all belief-systems, will give great
emotional stimulus and keep people busy. It will not solve many
problems, nor will it lead to much educational advance.
To the informed observer, people can be doing things which
seem perfectly reasonable to them; but which, without the
context which is supplied by knowledge alone, prove to be
useless.
There is a story of two men who were sent to jail. They
knew that plans to escape were made by people signalling
through hammering upon water-pipes. So they perfected,
through years of practice, a complete system of
communication with each other by this method. Only then
did they notice that they were both in the same cell . . .
The difference between education or development of
knowledge and mere social stimulus is well illustrated here.
Thinking that they were making progress, and were therefore
developing their capacities, the men failed to assess the total
situation to determine exactly what skills they needed in their
particular variety of the prison environment.
This tale is also sometimes cited to emphasise the difference
between spiritual knowledge and emotional activity. People are
so engaged in the emotional that they often imagine that their
experiences are spiritual.
Most people, as will be obvious to those who examine cults
and various religious systems, are in fact happy enough 'living
in one cell and practising signalling'.
We may point out their mistake, but we have no duty to
disturb their amusements.
3. The would-be learner, instead of realising that there is an
objective, becomes a bemused consumer of wonders and
stimuli.
So-called 'teachings' and 'systems' are perceptibly, to the
sociologist if not to the participant, social groupings affording
satisfactions which could be obtained elsewhere and are social,
not spiritual.
They do not give the fillip and the intervention to arouse him
from his state of monotony which the learner needs, so he
develops a taste for more of the same, for gaining a sense of
pleasure, instead of progress.
This situation is illustrated in the tale of the man who was
given three wishes by a genie.
He said: 'I would like to be able to do and be anything
I happen to wish!'
'Certainly,' said the genie. 'And for the other two
wishes?'
'More of the same!' said the man.
If we take this man as a citizen of the Land of Fools, we can
laugh at the stupidity which wants everything and then more:
but more which, of course, is only the same again.
As an exercise, you might care to take a look at the people
who surround us in the world, and who are, through their life
within various systems and teachings, in exactly the same case
as the Land of Fools people.
4. Compulsive information-gathering.
There are people who have been conditioned to ask questions;
but only in some areas of life is it socially permissible to say:
'You are not ready for the answer to that yet. Indeed, to deal
with this subject at this stage will only confuse everyone,
including the questioner.'
People always want more information than they need. One
way to help to remember this is to think of the doctor who
gave out medicines 'to be taken two hours before the pain'.
5. Imagining that all experiences are useful.
Some experiences may be useless, others are certainly harmful.
In amusement-systems (whatever they call themselves) the
emphasis is naturally on experience, because excitement and
stimulus is what is really being demanded and offered.
In a true learning-system, however, as in all legitimate forms
of education, what matters is the order of events and the
preparedness of the learner, not the fact of the experience and
what the individual happens to imagine it means, if anything.
The experience-cravers, of course, lack the perspective to see
what effect the experience is having on them.
The analogy might be taken from the story of the man
from the Land of Fools who was reporting what happened
to a friend:
'He was lucky. A bullet just missed his ear.'
Someone asked:
'So he wasn't hurt?'
'Well, it went through his brain.'
It might surprise some of those pious and delightful souls who
so much prize their supposedly mystical and religious
experiences to know that this very pride, and the obsession with
the significance of the experience which sometimes accompanies
it, is equivalent to a bullet in the brain.
6. Fragmentary use of parable material.
Parables, as well as having an immediate application, are
part of a whole in real teaching; but are more emphasised as
individual items in less insightful systems.
To over-emphasise one story or parable, and to neglect to
keep in mind that it is illustrating a part of a whole, and that
it is the whole for which the enterprise is mounted, is to rejoin
the consumer society: even if it is the respected parable-consuming
society.
One way to keep this fact in mind is to remember the story
of the man who liked to read the dictionary.
Someone asked him why he did not read full-length books
as well.
'The dictionary,' he said, 'is so much more satisfying: it
explains every word as one goes along, and this gives me
satisfaction: I add to my knowledge every few lines!'
-- Idries Shah, Knowing How to Know, p. 276-281
No comments:
Post a Comment