MATHEMATICS, DEMOCRACY, AND ETHICS
The 3rd of four talks
for students and teachers of philosophy and education
at Mercer University, Georgia, USA: 30 September, 2005.
Good evening, everyone.
I am very grateful to Dr Khoury and Dean Kail for
inviting me to talk to you - and it is a great honour for me to do so.
The subject they have asked me to talk about is the
connection between mathematics education, democracy, and ethics. I intend
to tell you something about these connections that you will never forget.
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When
I was growing up in England I was fond of a comic-book hero called Captain
America. There was a boy in another comic who could turn himself into
a superhero by saying 'Shazam'. I used to go around for a while trying
this myself, but nothing exciting ever happened. Captain America, on
the other hand, was always Captain America.
This is no joke. You will have noticed that I speak
English. But for the sacrifice - sixty years ago - of very many American
lives, as a boy I might have been taught to speak German - or Russian.
I would certainly not have been allowed to read American comics.
I still believe that the American people are the greatest
force for good in the world. But there is a problem with democracy.
It is nowhere working as it should: or, as my father would say - he
was from Devon, where they still use the double-negative - "It's
not working nowhere as it should."
When I was thinking how best to talk about this, it
began to seem appropriate to talk to you as a soldier, rather than as
a teacher. Part of the reason is that I was a soldier from the age of
seventeen until I was just over thirty, and much of my way of thinking
was formed at that time. My duty as a soldier was, of course, to defend
democracy.
The more important reason is that our two countries
are at war with those who say they don't like and don't want democracy.
We have killed their people. They have killed ours. They have killed
even more of their own. Our soldiers are still being killed and maimed.
So, as I say, it seemed to me appropriate to talk as if it is a war.
All good soldiers go to war believing that they will
win. It may take a long time for a soldier to believe that a war may
not be won with the tactics and the tools he has been trained to use.
It took me fifteen years to understand what is wrong with our approach.
Democracy is basically an idea. Because it is an idea
we can only win people's respect for it with ideas: and some of these
must be new ideas.
Otherwise - I am going to tell you - we will fail.
The reason we will fail will be that we ourselves do not properly understand
how to teach democracy; and the cause of this lack of understanding,
I am going to show you, [point to title] is here.
We need to understand better where democratic manners
come from; and how best teach them. The professionals must be our teachers,
not soldiers. The war will be won when young people truly understand
democracy, truly want it: when they know what it takes to make it work,
and when they can take on the task of making it work.
I have an idea how to achieve this. It is just an
idea. I hope you will be patient with me whilst I explain it.
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Since
being a soldier, I have taught mathematics for: nearly thirty years.
I taught first in a small public school - what you will call a private
school - in Oxford, and was then selected to teach mathematics in what
its first headmaster, who was a Quaker, told me was to be: "the
greatest experiment in public education in Europe in history."
As usual, politics got in the way of the ideals, but
there are now twelve of these official schools of the European Union.
As a teacher in one of them I was paid as a European civil servant.
For over twenty years I was therefore one of the highest paid teachers
in the world. I thought I should try to produce something unusual for
this money!
First I travelled widely in Europe. I talked to many
other teachers and academics. I found we all had the same problems:
especially with maths. I began to point out - as I shall show you -
that mathematics is itself a democratic science. I created the Socrates
Method to show how to learn maths more effectively. Our senior students
translated this into five European languages: including Spanish, and
Russian. These are all free to download from the website: www.gardenofdemocracy.org.
At first there was a lot of enthusiasm for these initiatives:
official as well as individual. The individuals - there were some two
hundred of these - are nearly all teachers and head teachers wanting
to teach their pupils better. I convinced them how to do this. I found
university academics who agree with me. Educational and scientific journals
published articles praising this new approach. My colleagues and I received
funds for a two-year research project to make our point. This work still
continues in Germany with a view to adopting it federally.
But higher interest soon began to fade. I think the
authorities began to realize that my friends and I are not only serious
about improving mathematics teaching in Europe - which we can do: we
want improve democracy as well.
Now, this is a very delicate point. A year ago Cardinal
Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, wrote an essay containing this comment:
"The West reveals ... a hatred of itself, which is strange and can only be considered pathological; the West ... no longer loves itself; in its own history it now sees only what is deplorable and destructive, while it is no longer able to see what is great and pure."
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"The
West reveals ... a hatred of itself, which is strange and can
only be considered pathological; the West ... no longer loves
itself; in its own history it now sees only what is deplorable
and destructive, while it is no longer able to see what is great
and pure." i
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The fact is that there a deep sense of popular guilt
in Europe: the belief that the huge crimes of the Soviet and Nazi era
were caused by the people of Europe themselves: because they had been
allowed - just briefly - too much democracy! Then they made bad choices!
And this, I think, is a possible reason why France
and Germany in particular failed to respond to America' and Britain's
request for help in Iraq. It is not just that they did not like the
manipulation - there was manipulation; nor that they distrusted the
strategy - and as we know now, there was in fact precious little strategy.
The fundamental reason, I think, is that many of Europe's intellectuals
do not trust democracy at all!
So, what was my position as a teacher in one of Europe's
official schools? My director had now asked me to teach ethics as well
as maths. I said, and wrote, and argued that there is nothing impossible
about ordinary people learning to govern themselves: peacefully, efficiently,
happily. But they must know how to do this! At the very least they must
be able to trust each other's good intentions! [joke here]
The fact is, however, that we are not teaching anyone
to do this in our schools. What we are teaching young people instead
is to dislike and to distrust each other - and us, their teachers, and
the authority of schools, and therefore their government. We are teaching
them to be, at need, systematically selfish or dishonest, and if none
of these strategies works for them, to be disruptive.
This is entirely avoidable. I want to show you next
how much of the damage is done - in particular by the way we teach mathematics.
A few evenings ago I talked with one of Professor Davis's classes about
the place in societies of moral absolutes: inflexible moral rules. I
will build a little on that talk now.
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Mathematics
education is not a place where you expect to find inflexible moral rules.
I was surprised myself to find them there. But everyone is taught some
mathematics - so, if I am right, everyone can be taught some moral absolutes
through mathematics. If they are all taught the same moral absolutes,
this can open the way to a democratic fascism: no-one disagrees - or
dares to disagree - with anyone else. If they all learn different moral
absolutes, if they become convinced that these moral different rules
are necessary for their personal success - this will tend to produce
moral relativism: then democracy is disintegrating because whole groups
have different rules. If, finally, no-one learn any moral absolutes
at all - but instead learn what I will call moral balance - this, I
think, is what democracy really needs.
All of these alternatives - by the way - have associated
with them different forms of identity: the first with what I call people's
Mass Identity; the second with their Social Identity; and the third
with the individual's Intrinsic Identity. But I don't think I will have
time to explore these this evening.
I congratulate you if you have chosen to study philosophy.
I think everyone should learn some philosophy, and not enough do. In
Europe most young people seem frightened by it.
A reason for this, I think, is that from about the
middle of the 19th century onwards many philosophers reacted against
the idea - famously expressed by Karl Heinrich Marx - that: "The
philosophers have interpreted the world in a variety of ways: the point
is to change it." ii
Many
recoiled from this difficult ambition. It is certainly difficult. It
is almost always dangerous. Most turned aside to study safer subjects:
the mind, logic, and the communication of meaning. They soon got bogged
down in the details of what can be said in a language; what can be proved
with what can be said in a language; and what can be understood as it
is said in a language as it was meant to be understood.
I'm sure that you all followed what I just said! The
fact is, however, that language turns out to be more like a butterfly
net than a fishing line. I mean if you have something on the hook on
a fishing line, you can certainly pass it on intact. But a net is different.
We can use language like a net to capture a meaning and to pass it on.
But if we examine the net closely we discover that it is mostly made
of holes: and the area of the holes is most of the area of the net.
But it gets worse! If we want to think of a language
as more like a fishing line: from a logical point of view, it is mostly
a line of gaps!
This discovery was such a shock to philosophers that
many began to doubt that they would ever be able to capture any idea
so definitely in ordinary language to be able to pass it on to others
without a serious loss of meaning. There were too many holes. There
were too many gaps.
This is possibly a rather unkind description.. But
I think it's roughly true. Even now some have not really recovered from
the shock. Only in mathematics were definitions becoming sharp enough
and logic tight enough for no meaning to be lost. Everyone began to
hope that one language at least could be perfected: mathematical logic!
I was about 25 when I first decided that I wanted
to know more philosophy. I had almost finished my first period of service
in the Army. I had saved some money. I decided to spend it on more university
education. I had a degree already, in engineering; the Army had paid
for this. But I was now so deaf from shooting that I could not be a
soldier for much longer. In fact I was advised to find a profession
in which after the age of thirty I would not need to talk with anyone
at all. Philosophy seemed just ideal!
I wrote to Balliol College, one of the most intellectual
of all the Oxford colleges, and asked for an interview with its philosophy
department. Later I did the same with Cambridge University: with much
the same result, as you may hear.
Balliol was actually very kind. On the street outside
its main door two of the last of the Protestant English bishops were
burnt at the stake in 1555 on the orders of the last Catholic queen
of England, Mary. Balliol has seen fashions come and go. The college
arranged an interview for me with one of its own philosophy dons, an
authority on Thomas Aquinas, the mediaeval philosopher. He brought two
or three other young lecturers with him - possibly just to show them
how he worked. I don't really remember how many they were. I was just
focused on him
"Now, tell me, Mister Hannaford," he asked:
which was correct, for I was then a Lieutenant, "why do you want
to study philosophy?"
"Oh, I want to study philosophy," I said,
"because I hope it will help me to understand the world a little
better."
He sat back in his chair with a smile, as if the interview
was already over; as, indeed, it really was. "Oh, no" he said
with a chuckle which not at all unkind. "I don't think it will
do that. Oh dear me, no!" and he chuckled again, and the others
joined in.
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There
is not much more to tell about that story, except that I was not offered
a place at Balliol. Cambridge was the same. I found my own way instead.
I tell you this story not to point any disrespect at that teacher, but
to assure you that he was telling the truth. It is possible to study
philosophy for years and years - for all your life, in fact - without
learning anything to help you to understand the world a little better.
The fact was, of course, that philosophy - British philosophy in particular
- had got itself into a jam. They had retreated so far from the world
of doing things, that they were lost in a fog of thinking about thinking.
This is a very serious kind of fog. That was what they were lost in
it.
Meanwhile, of course, most of the followers of Marx
still thought of themselves as philosophers - and they were eager to
make the world a better place.
But this they attempted with so little humility,
or compassion, or respect for any reason or values but their own, that
they also got into a jam. In China between 20 and 40 million died. The
story was similar in the Soviet Union. The trouble was that Marxists
would not allow for uncertainty. Without accepting the fact of uncertainty,
they could not manage the future. They got stuck in a kind of endless
present: and they could not solve the problems there, because they could
never admit that they might be wrong.
Philosophers have to be brave. They have to question
authorities. Socrates became so unpopular with his countrymen that finally
they offered him exile or death. He chose death. I do not entirely admire
his ideas. He did not much favour democracy for example. But he never
tired of asking questions.
So, the question we have to ask is: what are these
moral absolutes?
If we read the Bible as a history of moral philosophy
- which is one way of reading it perfectly respectfully - we find in
Genesis 2 the very first commandment of God: "You may eat any of
the fruit of the Garden," he told Adam, "but you may not eat
the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for the day you
do that you will surely die!"
In my Sunday school I was taught that eating this
fruit allowed Adam and Eve to realize that they were naked. They got
embarrassed and invented clothes. I read it now as a warning against
moral absolutes. If you once let yourself believe that you know absolutely
the difference between good and evil, and always can, you take upon
yourself not only an awesome responsibility, but potentially a deadly
one. I think that God is speaking here to all future generations: "Don't
do that!"
But how very seductive they are! How wonderful to
be able to know, absolutely and in detail, what God wants in this family,
or home, or life; and what God wants everyone to think and to do.
To show you just how attractive they are, I want to
tell you how I realized that I was pushing them myself. This was when
I had been teaching mathematics for nearly fifteen years. I worked hard
at it. I think I was good at it. The problem was that much the same
number of my pupils failed every year. I couldn't understand why.
One day I was working with a class - or, rather, the
class was working; I was having a rest - when a boy appeared at my elbow
and said: "I've finished." I knew this boy well, and I liked
him. I think he liked me. He was the cleverest in the class: and he
had everything right. I wondered how to keep him busy. "I know,"
I said, "why don't you go back to your desk and write down why
you do what you do when you are working out these answers."
He stared at me, horrified. "Oh no!" he
said. "If I do that, I'll start to get them all wrong!"
I looked at him. I looked at the class. They were
all working in much the same way. Suddenly I realized that none of them,
not one, might have the slightest notion why they were doing what they
were doing. I had created a class of robots! They did not think about
reasons. They just obeyed the orders: my orders.
I had turned mathematics into a series of rules that
they had to learn; rules that no-one was allowed to challenge. This
way is right, that way is wrong; this way is success; that way is failure.
This way is good; that way is bad, evil. To be good, to be successful,
is to obey. And they did not really have to understand anything. They
could pretend that they understood. This would satisfy me. They did
not even have to be honest. Honesty could easily look like stupidity,
in front of the class.
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Mathematics
may look like a collection of rules. It can be taught as a collection
of rules. But it's not. It is a collection of arguments. All these arguments
are intended to persuade people that this or that idea, or method, or
statement, is generally true or useful for everyone. This is what it
has to do with democracy. It's about persuading people of the value
of ideas and their truth.
Two and a half thousand years ago the Greeks were
beginning to try a stupendously new idea. They wanted to refuse to be
ruled by tyrants or kings, even their own tribal chiefs - to create
a society in which people governed themselves.
This obviously required people to argue together about
what to do, and how to do it, and why. The problem was not that people
would not argue. It was that they would not stop! Either they tried
to wear down their opponents with the sheer length, variety, or force
of their argument, or they would continually think of another reason,
or another. They just went on and on and on. This was called rhetoric.
Its teachers were called Sophists. They claimed they could teach anyone
to win any argument.
To stop rhetoric from destroying democracy, the Greeks
began to insist that everyone should stick to a simple plan. The plan
was, first: state the evidence to be used in the argument. Second: use
the simplest form of argument that others can follow. Third: show how
this argument produces its conclusion. And fourth: stop!
This was so successful that the Greeks gave it a name.
They called it techne logos: or 'plain speaking', and of course it gives
us our word: technology; although something seems to have got between
techne logos and whoever wrote my computer manual or even the instructions
for my TV!
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This
practice of 'plain speaking' was so successful - in politics first,
remember - that others started to insist that this was just a variation,
in words, of their diagrams. These diagrammers called themselves geometers.
We now call them mathematicians: and mathematicians have been using
this plan ever since. And this is why, if you really want to foster
a democratic culture, the easiest and best way to do so is to start
teaching mathematics properly: as arguments, not as orders.
But I like to think that the Greeks developed democracy
together with this kind of mathematics for a deeper moral reason. The
most fundamental rule of democracy is that anyone in any field of argument
must be listened to with respect so long as it is clear that their argument
may be of use to everyone else. This principle, of course, is already
there in the Old Testament, in Leviticus: "Love thy neighbour as
thyself!" (19,18). It appears again in Christianity astonishingly
enlarged - some may say impossibly enlarged - by Jesus: "You have
heard that it was said, 'Love your friends; hate your enemies.' But
now I tell you: love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute
you." (Mathew 5.44). Democracy has to be this generous: or it will
not work..
It thus requires some knowledge of history and philosophy
to see how private ambition and public good can support each other.
It also requires some knowledge of science. Science makes everyone a
neighbour. Here is one of the most famous physicists of the last century,
Richard Feynman, speaking about science, religion, and society in the
John Danz lectures over forty years ago:
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"Most people find it surprising that in science there is no interest in the background of the author of an idea or his motive in expounding it. You listen, and if it sounds like a thing worth trying, a thing that could be tried - is different, and is not obviously contrary to something observed before, it gets exciting and worthwhile. .. You do not have to worry about how long he studied or why he wants you to listen to him. In that sense it makes no difference where the ideas come from." iii |
When
I first made my own discovery, I was intensely happy. Not only had I
finally understood what mathematics really is, I had also understood
why every year some of my pupils failed. It was precisely because they
were mainly being rewarded for obedience. Some of them could provide
this: and could also understand my explanations. Some could not understand
my explanations: but they could still copy me, or others. Some could
do neither. But in no case was I exploring anyone's understanding!
But I could! Certainly I could! I could find a way
to get everyone involved in learning. I could find a way to put understanding
before obedience.
And then, my happiness suddenly died. What about Germany?
And what about Russia?
Germany and Russia had always set the highest value
on mathematics and their mathematicians. From about the middle of the
19th century, both began investing in a new education system. It was
intended to produce a new technical and managerial and military elite
to equal to any possessed by Britain or America.
But had it produced democracy!? People became instead
the raw material from which an entirely new type of human being was
to be made: Aryan by Hitler; Soviet by Stalin. Moral absolutes? They
had had the Gestapo, the KGB; the concentration camps, the death camps,
mass deportation, mass starvation, the gulags. These were their absolutes.
"Stalin has no need of laws," wrote a Western biographer in
the early 30s, " he needs only a telephone and an executioner."
So what went wrong? Why had teaching mathematics,
almost universally, not produced the same results as it had for the
Greeks? What had happened?
The answer came to me rather quickly.
As a soldier I had learnt a little more than most
about teaching obedience to authority. There must be no alternatives.
Education is a very powerful instrument in teaching obedience, especially
when a culture already teaches a patriotic obedience to a sovereign
or a state. Education becomes an instrument of really terrifying power
when combined with a belief that its science can produce unique, infallible,
final solutions to all problems properly defined.
'Properly defined'? What does that mean? Which science
could ever promise this?
The mathematicians had been busy. By the second half
of the 19th century almost all the sciences depended heavily on mathematics
- and the mathematicians were becoming more and more certain that success
was in their grasp.
They announced this at the International Congress
of Mathematics in Paris in 1900, the last year of the century.
"One may say today," declared Professor Henri Poincaré,
one of the most influential mathematicians of his age, "thatabsolute
rigor has been attained." iv
What
he meant was that mathematicians had become completely sure by now that
their logic was without fault. Their cleverest minds could now apply
this logic to any well-defined problem and - providing it was well-defined
- they were sure that they must achieve final, perfect, unique solutions.
There was simply no other possibility.
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Just
over thirty years later, in 1931, I am happy to tell you, this dream
fell apart too. A young Austrian Jew, Kurt Gödel, showed that there
will always be gaps and holes in mathematics, just as there are in any
other language: and so nothing could ever be quite as certain again.
It must be said that this didn't really much bother
mathematicians. They got on with their own affairs. But much damage
had been done. Whilst they were possessed by the conviction that their
science would soon become completely infallible, much the same conviction
was being passed on to generations of young people: the new managers
of these new societies At least two generations had been taught that
any science, to be a science, any logic, to be consistent - must be
able to produce single, definite solutions to all problems. This was
the test of a science! To all problems? To all well-defined problems,
certainly. To social, economic, and political problems as well? Why
not! Just define the problems!
Enter, then, on your Left, Mister Lenin; and on your
Right, Mister Hitler. Both are carrying a banner. Their message is the
same, only the language is different;. Both say: "I have the
Logic; I have defined the Problems; and I can Solve Them!"
Millions of clever, thoughtful, courageous, trusting
men and women flocked to follow them. I am sure I might have done just
the same. Moral absolutes - and their teachers - are most seductive.
I do not suggest that teaching mathematics was solely
responsible for all the stupidity and cruelties that followed. This
would be silly. There were other factors. But I hope that you will notice
that in their two very different cultures there is virtually no common
feature except this new thrust in education on the importance of the
sciences; in the sciences, on the certainty of mathematical logic: and
in the creation of a so-called 'political logic' with this kind of infallible
power. Fascism followed because everyone was taught to believe only
one set of moral absolutes - and no-one was allowed, or dared, disagree.
Very real social dangers attend the belief that any
science - or any religion - can guide itself; that it requires no deep
understanding in using it, but only an appearance of understanding,
of confidence, obedience, and faith.
Of course, you may say: but these are dangers of the
past. We have learnt the danger of Fascism, of Stalinism, Marxist-Leninism,
and so on
We have. The important fact to notice, however, is
that the reaction to those dangers has produced another mass conviction:
moral relativism. I would like to explain to you now why I think this
is just as great a danger as moral absolutism.
Moral absolutes tend to support Mass Identities. People
accept that they must think and behave in certain ways, and they will
insist that others think and behave in the same way. These habits define
'who we are'.
Moral relativism divides people in much the same way,
but now the divisions are much smaller. An individual's Social Identity
may be considered more important than their Mass Identity, precisely
because it defines more tightly and is more exclusive.
Social Identities therefore divide societies within
themselves. The divisions are marked out with considerable intensity
and passion. The different parts of a society may be no longer prepared
to go to war against other societies, but are often prepared for more
or less permanent conflict with parts of their own! (This, by the way,
is not just what is happening in our cities in Europe. It is also what
our soldiers are trying to deal with in other parts of the world.)
In modern Western societies fear of moral absolutes
has produced a fear of all general moral rules. 'What works for me,
is right for me' is common. 'Greed is good' was common long before Gordon
Gecko The philosophers I spoke about some time ago have not helped by
publicly worrying that they are not sure that they know what honesty
means. Some politicians find this very useful. Lawyers too. Moral fundamentalism
is then a reaction against this carelessness, this cynicism, this sophistry!
I am not myself a friend of intellectual certainty,
or perfect moral rigor. I have spent much of my life worrying how to
be honest. I can only say: it isn't easy.
But this is not a problem in teaching. We do not need
to worry about holes in nets or gaps in fishing lines. A few simple
questions are enough to discover whether pupils can think for themselves.
The only question we must never ask, of course, is: "Did you understand
me?"
"Did you understand me?" But isn't
this the most common question ever asked in a classroom? Every time
we ask it we can encourage, then reward, dishonesty. What can any average
pupil ever say, in front of the rest of a class, but: "Yes"?
How often is this untrue? Morally and socially the results are catastrophic.
Much of our teaching in Europe is through instruction.
I have found that three divisions soon appear in a class. I suppose
the same mechanism operates generally.
Everything will depend on whether pupils are already
accustomed to the teacher's language of instruction and then whether
this level of language is adequate to communicate effectively, or not.
For the average class, neither of these conditions
will be true for all. There will soon be three divisions of young people
who will know - because this is what they have learnt - that one set
of moral rules is good for them, but not for others.
Division One consists of the pupils who are accustomed
to this level of language. They quickly form a consciously superior
group. It may be very small: only two or three. They may not necessarily
like me, because I separate them from their friends. In any case they
soon learn to be selfish. It is not in their interest to help me with
the class. Because of competition, it is not in their interest to help
other pupils.
They may soon learn that they are disliked by the
others, even previous friends. They may discover that they are being
labelled swots or nerds. They can react badly to this: becoming contemptuous
of 'the system'. Privately, however, they begin to label the less able
as deserving to fail. Later, as adults, I would expect them to tend
to despise the democratic process as being created to amuse, to distract,
and delude the stupid. They tend to regard their own success as due
to innately superior qualities. They are smart. The rest are dumb. They
will not recognize any element of good fortune has helped them.
A far larger number in the class - Division Two -
will be aware that they are less fortunate. They are not properly able
to understand what their teachers are saying, but they soon find that
so long as they do not openly confess to not understanding; and if they
exclude from their circle all who are openly perplexed, their own appearance
of understanding will be rewarded almost equally well as if it is real.
By thus combining obedience, dishonesty and selfishness
in this way, the Second Division forms a very strongly cohesive social
core. Stick together. They cover for each other. They tend to dislike
those above them, and below them, and their teachers. They are generally
much preoccupied with their Social Identity: also their appearance.
They will continue all their lives to admire those who look smart; are
dishonest, but never admit it, are never found out; who continue to
succeed. They will even vote for people of this kind. They really rather
admire them. The fact that they are the social majority means that they
are generally the people who do vote. This is going to be the democratic
core.
Below them is the Third Division. They can neither
understand, obey, nor even copy well enough to be allowed to succeed.
They will soon be told that they have failed. They resent all those
who have succeeded They despise their schools and authority. They particularly
hate their fellow students who have rejected them and the teachers who
have systematically stripped them of their dignity.
They are not helpless. They are frustrated and angry.
We will be fortunate if their anger never become more that destructive:
suicidal; murderous; or both. I would expect them later to have no faith
in democracy and generally I would not expect them to vote. They will
not believe that their vote will change anything for them or for anyone
of their class.
These three divisions appear in virtually all European
societies as the consciously intellectual elite which knows its Social
Identity in being the natural beneficiaries of their society. There
is then a large but still relatively quiescent majority who believe
that their Social Identity can be attached to political parties - which
they may also think they can control. There is finally a sometimes large
and nearly lawless minority, whose Social Identity is confirmed by their
being despised, unwanted - and feared. It seems to me that many converts
to aggressive fundamentalism seek precisely this kind of identification.
They want to be feared.
Perhaps it is because I was trained at an early age
to see sudden violence as a good solution to many problems, that I have
some sympathy with this last group. By sympathy I mean that I think
I understand them. Violence is really the only useful language that
they know. We should fear them, however. They are the dynamite stacked
against the door.
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*
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The
people who most obviously want to be in charge of your future - for
better or for worse - have generally too many problems with the present
to think very constructively ahead. Generally, they want a future they
already see in their minds. They are convinced that they know best.
It is generally this sincerity that you will have
to learn to deal with. It is relatively easy to show whether mathematical
or scientific convictions are right or wrong. When it comes to moral
convictions, however, mistakes cost lives. Sometimes this is a cost
worth bearing. Sometimes it is not. This is what you will have to decide.
This is what democracies are supposed to do better than philosophers,
tyrants, or kings.
I have almost finished! I was asked to talk about
moral absolutes and where they come from. Some of you may think I have
already spoken too much. As a matter of fact, so do I; but I am only
here once! I want to end with Richard Feynman's summary of his own three
lectures on this subject forty-two years ago:
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"No government has a right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literary or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the[ir] freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race." v |
By
scientific principles Richard Feynman meant the best way of finding
things out: which is democratically. Possibly because I grew up believing
in Captain America, this helped me to decide to become a soldier. But
as a soldier I realized that no country can any longer do its duty for
mankind through force alone. We must offer ideas to young people that
are more obviously attractive to them than an automatic weapon and a
full magazine: or its equivalent. We need to make teachers heroes again.
Teachers need the means to unite all of their pupils in this great adventure.
Learning is still a great adventure. Combining learning with democracy
- so that everyone gets some idea of the reasons for doing what they
are doing - is an even greater adventure.
My friends and I offer you one way to achieve it.
The Socrates Method of learning through discussion instead of from instruction
avoids most of the pitfalls I have described. It is open to every kind
of variation. Dr Khoury has been using it here at Mercer: he tells me
with good success. I hope that more of you will try it. It may be more
difficult with some classes than I have suggested. In my own maths and
ethics classes I have always explained what it is I want to help them
to avoid: loss of respect for each other and the failure, ultimately,
of their democracy.
Thank you very much. I have finished!
i Orianna
Fallaci interview, Sunday Times, 4 Sep 2005: from If Europe hates itself,
Ratzinger, 2004
ii In 1845, three years before The Communist
Manifesto
iii The John Danz lectures, April 1963; published in
the meaning of it All, Feynman, 1998.
iv Cited in Mathematics, Kline, 1980, p.171.
v John Danz Lectures, ibid.
24/09/05
