Become an Ideas Person, part I
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ANALYSIS, Global – The answer is to ‘Stand on the Shoulders of Giants’.
This is the first part of a regular series on how to speak the language of ideas in coming weeks. How to be an Ideas Person.
Ideas and an intellectual education are important no matter how old we are. Both help us make better decisions in terms of positive change in our societies.
How do we personally understand what is positive change and what is not?
We talk incessantly about success, about wanting positive change.
We talk about love, relationships, children, families, kids and a variety of other serious topics.
Also about negatives: why the trains are late, why language is in decline,why schools are poor, why traffic is bad, why the Earth is polluted… or more sanguinely why we look fat in the morning.
But where do our tools to understand our modern world come from?
Where do we get the ideas of what is a positive or negative change?
Modern media and texts
No matter where we live we have a variety of texts and tools to understand the modern world. But too often our society’s ideas come from flawed, incomplete, pedestrian text and opinionated media with all the intellectual power of a 10W lightbulb.
Innovation starts in the Good Ideas of Past
To be grounded in innovation and understanding which changes are likely to be positive, we need to stand on the shoulders of giants.
An Example from the Past
Today I was speaking to an older gentleman, Roger, 89 years old in fact, who is a member of a club I belong to. He reminded me of a different world.
Roger recounted how when he studied Arts/Philosophy at Melbourne University they spent a lot of time on the classics.
One Year on Plato in fact.
He also shared with me a poem by Milton from his high school days.
Roger was a spritely 89, and well-versed in the language of ideas.
The Classics, Languages (he used to be fluent German speaker), arts, culture were once important. Why no longer?
Culture relativism in English Speaking countries like Australia is the problem. The idea that all ideas are equal.
The Simpsons as text is as enlightening as Plato? No.
Desperate Housewives is equal to Macbeth? No.
Machiavellis and Sun Tzu’s advice on War would have seen the Iraq War planned far better, or perhaps not attempted at all.
And that advice is centuries old, but must be read as ideas, not literally.
Instead we took Bart Simpsons’ advice in Iraq, and we had a cow, man.
Most of Europe is ahead of America, and cannot understand America’s (and English-speaking countries) fascination with the puerile cr*p we call media.
The Internet Presents: NEW opportunities
Instead we should take our ideas form the great ideas of the past.
Plato, Shakespeare, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Freud, Jung, Smith, Hume, Locke, Mills, Franklin, Aristotle, Homer and we can argue over the list later.
And once you have Internet access it is all laid out before you.
Before we get to that let’s examine why media may assume we are less-interested in learning.
The problem: Why do we play Russian Roulette with Ideas?
This is simply because we as a society are less educated than we used to be.There are many reasons for our our disengagement with idea we could identify in a full analysis. But let’s take one.
Vocational Learning is limiting
We in English-speaking countries are focussed on vocational learning.
How to be an accountant, a lawyer, a doctor. But also how to be a PE teacher, a nurse, a horticulturalist, a hairdresser.
So we can get a job. And start paying off all the money we owe our big credit card debts, or our university loans.
We hardly have time to learn for knowledge’s sake, and our right-wing governments are often not investing in educating people any more. ‘User-pays’ forces us to choose vocational choices over educational choices.
The days of a long-term vision in the current elected Governments sometimes seem long gone.
One plaudit and round of applause though: Melbourne University have bravely decided to follow the Ivy league system of general degrees followed by specialization.
Learn to learn first, then learn your job.
But not everyone can go back to uni.
If you missed out on this in school and instead read limited media & texts like The Simpsons or He Died With a Felafel in his Hand you deserve better.
How to start though.
Start with the Language of Ideas
We in UK, Australia and USA are in most cities not focused on the language of ideas.
Because we are taught (at least in Australia) all ideas are equal. Everyone can be smart.
A theory observed in the breach.
The fact is is everyone can be smarter. Not equal, but all can improve. Any individual can be more educated and more enlightened.
There is an alternative for all of us.
But Plato is hard.
And therein lies the problem.
But the answer is with the great Ben Franklin, the first published self-made man of the Enlightenment. A man of intellect with no university degree. A printers apprentice.
Ben Franklin once said,that he suspected it was easier to learn Latin, the classical language of ideas, by Learning French, Spanish, Italian and other European langauges first.
The point is start with what you can. And that’s what I’ll be sharing with you now and in coming weeks.
I am learning French at current, but half our class is struggling as they do not know what a verb is.
They have stopped teaching grammar in Australian public schools, you see, in the last decade.
So how do you learn?
Start with what is accessible. 6 things right now:
1) Try a language class.
2) But also watch The West Wing. Listen to the dialogue. Understand it.
3) Read online intelligent sites like this one.
4) Read an intelligent broadsheet instead of the tabloid monster.
5) Buy a dictionary. A thick one. Learn a new random word once a day
6) Visit an art gallery. Try to understand what the artists is saying. Even if you think the work is cr*p try to understand what he /she is saying.
In the next part of the series, in a few days, I will be giving you some more concrete steps. And a program.
And best of all all the material is all on the internet.
It’s not difficult, but instead of accepting the media you can start to be as educated as those in power or those with ivy league degrees.
Even if you are you might find a cultural tour interesting. I hop at least.
We need to talk about the language of ideas.
take care,
Christopher
Speaker. Author. Editor-In-Chief. Executive Director of Innovation, 2thinknow.
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