Our challenge is bringing education back as a way of life and a route to becoming better human beings, in the Confucian line of thought. With human development as the goal, education will cease to be a mere instrument at the service of the economy.
© Ana Yael Zareceansky
Europe – especially southern Europe – is still living a sorrowful time after the damage from the global financial and economic crisis, from which it is yet to recover. On top of the poor form of the macroeconomic figures, there are also the social consequences of funding cuts concentrated on health and education. One of the most affected groups is the young. Despite putting in money and hard work for a quality education, they cannot find their place in the job market. This increases their frustration, and they have less and less confidence in education as part of a system that does not create opportunities. It is also a cause of despair for adults, who were not able to build a system that offered later generations a brighter future.
In contrast, things seem to be going better in Asia. In the developed countries furthest to the East, such as Japan, South Korea, China (east coast, Hong Kong, Taiwan) and Singapore, with Taoist and Confucian traditions, education has been and remains a key factor in their socio-economic progress and internal social cohesion. With the added boost from other emerging economies in the South, for example Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and India, Asia has become the engine for world economic growth, making the Atlantic political economic hegemony tremble. Asia is shedding its tag as the world’s factory to become one of the main focal points of economic revitalisation, investment, commerce and innovation.
The high value given to education is strongly rooted in the collective psyche of Confucian countries, something that works significantly in their favour. The greater expenditure on education in Asiatic countries is just one sign of the commitment made by politicians and families to the advancement of their people. The elevated social status of teachers and professors and the close relationship between businesses and universities are the other two pillars of a system that reflects an Asian fondness for applied knowledge.
Education’s high valuation as a driving force for progress is accompanied by a culture of hard work through discipline and diligence – virtues that Confucius defended as key to improving the quality of human life over two thousand years ago. Young students have the challenge of absorbing knowledge at breakneck speed, and social pressure pushes them in the same direction. Intensive daily schedules at school are complemented by exhausting after-school academic activities. The most resolute achieve remarkable results; they are talent capital serving the country’s progress, and can move up a meritocratic skyscraper all the way to leadership positions in the fields of industry, technology, and research and development. Fatigue and misgivings are fought off with obedience and resignation in this culture where collective well-being comes before that of the individual.
In today’s global society education is still seen as a means to achieve material ends, where the goal is to find or create a good job that lets one reach a desirable socio-economic standing. The model for success is based on the accumulation of material wealth through minimum effort, on the glorification of the individual and the social projection of their image. Market synergy and Confucian values of effort and education have led to countries in the Far East making a meteoric adaptation to the capitalist world. Asia has been able to introduce and develop capitalism under its own identity. Confucian capitalism optimises the output of an educated society for the common good, which reinforces economic development based on developing talent and applying it to the economy. Provided there is no serious political instability in the region, it seems unarguable that Asia will rapidly rise at the expense of a transatlantic axis –the United States and Europe – that falls further and further behind.
Despite all this, there are alarming signs that all that glitters is not gold. In a system where expressions of individual identity are often hidden to maintain social harmony, traditional Confucian values such as obedience and respect for the hierarchy are starting to be doubted. This can be linked to the effects of globalisation, which presents more libertarian philosophies and the Western idea of carpe diem. Some young people in Asia, desperate and under pressure, do not manage to express themselves, strike a balance or find their place in the world, and this is reflected in the high rates of suicide and mental illnesses among the young populations of countries such as South Korea and Japan.
Confucianism left a strong mark on the Far East. But Confucius’s legacy goes a lot further than just putting a value on education. That Chinese official, disenchanted with the political system of the time, undertook a journey to understand the vicissitudes of human beings and their role in politics and society. After twelve years, already having become a teacher, he returned to his home town to propagate his ideas, centred on the art of being human. For Confucius, education was not just a model or a means to an end, but above all a life path and a way of living (the way of Tao). To be is to learn; it is a continual process that guides the development of the individual from an integral and holistic point of view. Learning is not just the accumulation of knowledge; knowing a lot does not matter, but having a good time while learning does. This is why Confucius emphasised the value of learning as an activity that must be experienced via direct experimentation. Education is a part of human development understood as a joint action across society, not as an isolated element falling under the responsibility of public education.
Learning as an investment
Confucius’s conception of education and his belief in “the learning man” are parts of a Taoist world view where man is positioned between heaven and earth, behaving as a small universe in his own right, changing constantly. Knowledge is synonymous with consciousness, and these are developed in the connection between heaven and earth through education. Confucius believed in using education to regenerate public and private consciousness. However, globalisation has stolen some of its mythical value and reduced education to an instrument for material progress, although it has also improved general access to knowledge.
Back at home, we have a double challenge. First, we must reclaim the value of education. Second, as in Asia, we must learn for the joy of learning, as a way of life and a means of becoming better human beings. With human development as the goal, education would cease to be merely an instrument at the service of the economy. Encouraging talent and personal fulfilment will foster creativity and innovation, which in turn will favour the economic, environmental and spiritual development of society.
Walking the way of the Tao in education is no simple task, but the legacy of Confucius is universal and applicable anywhere and everywhere. As the wise man himself said, there is a need for a regeneration of consciousness that starts with the individual and is carried over into society, then the political system. In this new economic setting, the economy and education will no longer be captain and ship, respectively. Guided by the Tao, future leaders will not lose their excitement and passion for learning. If the economy is healthy, they will dedicate wealth and jobs to human development; if not, they will be more tolerant of frustration and take advantage of changes to learn and adapt to the shifting reality. Surely in all cases they will contribute towards increasing net global happiness.