Freedom To Learn
Michael Kroth • January 1, 2020
"Keep The Light On"
Let 2020 rekindle in us a joy of learning, the confidence to take some ideas for a test run, and the faith that we'll be better for it.
Photo Credit: The American Library Association
Let 2020 be a year for learning from each other new and more profound notions of the world and how we can contribute something more meaningful to it.
I can think of no better way to start a new year of Profound Living than with the reminder that deep and meaningful learning, with evolving understandings and perspectives, depends upon access to all views. This article, Supporting Intellectual Freedom Year-round: An interview with Ellie Diaz, should remind us of what is a stake - our ability to learn and to think deeply.
This is true especially for those views which we do not (yet) understand or (perhaps never) agree with. Just by looking at different perspectives both the observer and the observed (if I may draw an association from my rudimentary knowledge of entanglement theory) are affected.
But censorship, and any quelling of free speech, limits those opportunities. As I have written before, reflecting upon my first Banned Books Week reading:
"I believe that our civil liberties are at the core of what it means to be a citizen of the United States and that protecting them is one of our highest callings.
I believe that threatening the right to take a knee at a football game is more un-American and un-patriotic than taking the knee itself. Disagree. Skip the game. Burn your sneakers. Protest the protester. Protest the protesters of protesters. But respect that right to protest. Embrace it. Never try to intimidate freedom of speech. Our country started with protest.
That’s what I believe.
I believe that college campuses should be cauldrons of competing ideas where all sorts of views are presented, kicked around, discarded, accepted, modified, melted together, discounted, but always allowed and encouraged. Left, right, up, down, any “ist” or “ism”. Staid, crusade, prayed, decayed, or charade. Disruptive, instructive, inductive, productive. Bring it. In as civilized and as a useful way as possible, and non-threatening or intimidating. But bring it.
Discourse…of course…no view enforced.
Whether it takes a Grapes of Wrath to show the plight of the dirt poor refugees, migrants, who were actually citizens in our own country; The Jungle to expose immigrant labor conditions in slaughter houses; or Silent Spring to alert people to the threat to our environment, our nation and world depend on courageous writers to write the books unpopular. The books denounced. The books outrageous and irreverent and nonconforming.
The books that challenge, test, push, lift, and mortify.
Those.
Books.
Along with all the books serving other useful and beautiful purposes.
Banned Books Week is one of the most important events of the year. The American Library Association does every citizen a tremendous service in sponsoring it."
Let this year be a year to test new ideas, to have enough faith in ourselves to trust that we can handle a variety of perspectives and still hold to and to deepen the core of who we are; doing this by mixing in new ingredients, intending the result to be something much richer and more substantive than the less informed and less tested stock of knowledge we held before.
In short, let 2020 be a year for learning from each other new and more profound notions of the world and how we can contribute something more meaningful to it. Let 2020 rekindle in us a joy of learning, the confidence to take some ideas for a test run, and the faith that we'll be better for it.
Blessings all
Salam
Bedeinkatzeko
Beannachtaí
Segen
Beneficia
Let this year be a year to test new ideas, to have enough faith in ourselves to trust that we can handle a variety of perspectives.
Earth Day is this week. As we consider the state of our world - and the ecology of both our material and spiritual environment - it makes sense to ask what our role is, has been, and is supposed to be in relationship to "our common home" (Pope Francis).
Here are some initial thoughts about elegance, nature, and depth; a poem about happiness; and even a haiku.
It takes just a second to break something. Restoring what was broken takes time.
Outcomes are not certain, though some are much more highly predictable than others.
Life is messy. We know that. But some people move through that mess with a surprising kind of grace.
“The poor in spirit are by no means poor-spirited. They are persons who see so much to be, so much to do, such limitless reaches to life and goodness that they are profoundly conscious of their insufficiency and incompleteness.” ~Rufus Jones, The Inner Life , p. 19
