Human civilization has been aligning itself to an industrialization model for years now. I feel like we are at a point where our schools, colleges, entire education systems are oriented towards finding a high paying job and teaching you to climb 'corporate ladders'. Perhaps not directly so, but that's definitely the underlying theme. Public exams mean make or break for several kids, especially in developing nations. The fight for survival is much more real here and makes the competition in the education system almost a matter of life and death. Once you claw your way through the maze of exams and grades, you enter the "real world". You worked hard, prepped for and went through stressful interviews and made it in one piece...whew! You got that job you wanted in your dream company. From that point on it's even more complex. Deadlines, insane schedules and performance reviews determine your worth from here on out. Now it's all about 'growing' and becoming bigger and better than everyone else *ALL* the time.
Now, there's a certain amount of survival instinct that plays into this. I've noticed that people who are generally poorer or have seen more hardships in life tend to want more and make more of their lives - the more being defined by said corporate ladders. Naturally. But think about this: if everyone is educated in a world where the education teaches alignment with a 'corporate' way of thinking, what happens to something like agriculture? Or arts? Shouldn't we be thinking of ways to better our lives with more options than typical corporate jobs? Shouldn't we create more opportunities to make an equally comfortable living with farming for example? Hmm.
I can't help but wonder, are we simply fighting for survival of the fittest? Or are we really making our lives more and more complex?
1 comment:
good post. this might be of interest:
http://pastel-moods.blogspot.com/2009/04/life-has-suddenly-gotten-busy-and-nerve.html
I completely agree our civilization (education included) is in industrialization (in other words, mass production) mode. Sad.
But I also think we'd know better about other fields if we had first hand (or at least second hand) info on how the education system is in those fields. For e.g., I don't know how good art schools are. Wrt agriculture, it may be quality education, but I'm sure engineering is a big part of it now (like process engineering), since it's all mass production...
In India, over the years it's largely been engineering /medical school oriented. But I hear that's changing now- it's all an artifact of the economy. In a developing economy people don't have the luxury of studying literature or philosophy that won't make them any money. Again sad... but I'm glad to see some people of the later generations choosing more unconventional fields...
On the whole, I agree- somewhere between everyday life and the rat race, what will really make one happy is ignored. It's all the more intriguing when people ask the question of why you're following your heart at all, as if there were no other choice.
And lastly what occurs to me is also that some of it is about people's choice of lifestyle. For e.g., one could choose to not make much money and choose not to want luxuries like owning a house, a car etc. People don't even question these things. Once desires become necessities, the day jobs and "growing" also become, or at least, start seeming like, they are necessities.
Post a Comment