Enlightenment 2.0

Enlightenment 2.01 Lyubomir Stefanov, PhD, lstefanov@nbu.bg Key words: education; university; civil society; citizens. Abstract It has always been about understanding. Be it the news, the weather forecast or the speech one encounters, understanding was and is the key to a success in life. Over the past nearly 3,000 years since the written tradition was established in the Middle East knowledge began to play a crucial role in the life of individuals and their socio-political establishments and relations. The ability to not just read, thus reproducing mechanically what you read but actually understand what you read in detail and in depth became a truly desired art. That was the very subject of education – mastering the art of understanding and not just comprehending, i.e. literacy. The method of critical thinking established by the Enlightenment along with the mass literacy of individuals, however diminished in value over the past two decades as information channels and moreover their speed and nature changed dramatically the everyday life of all human beings. In the age of Internet, the very core of humanity is threatened by phenomena like “post-truth”, fake and false news. The solution is simple as usual – we must speed up in every possible way the process of Enlightenment 2.0 to counter fight the lack of functional illiteracy among humans which deprives them of their imagination and freedom of thinking. 1 The paper is presented at the XX th PR Summer school of the Department of Mass communication at New Bulgarian University, Sofia, June, 2018 Once upon a time it was all about knowledge. It was the key to prosperity and social success. The wise men, the high priests, the clergy – all of those were keepers of the ultimate knowledge – the words of God. Everything that contradicted them was at best hidden if not burned in an act of spiritual zeal - the “auto-de-fé”. Later knowledge became even more appreciated and valuable as news started to flaw around the land, even though at turtle’s speed in contemporary terms, trough adventurous merchants, pilgrims and of course, wars. Information became precious like gold as it portrayed the world to those who possessed it in full scale presenting opportunities and avoiding potential threats. However, the skill of being able to make difference between what you think you know and the reality was the key attribute of the being a successful or failure. That ability was understanding the meaning of the information floating around, ergo appreciating its value and using it for individual or societal gains. In order to make the difference humans started piling up information and processing it dully for to be able to write the usage of it down and pass it over to others either pro bono or for some benefits. Education evolved as a tool and a system for preserving that gained both theoretical and empirical knowledge. Systemizing it for the generations to come became equal to the invention of a new tool or technique, because if there were no methods for understanding the value of the novelties they would have vanished over time, lost somewhere on the shelves of History. Education needed people to evolve and start understanding the benefit not just of memorized by heart ballads or poems but of mathematic formulae, sophisticated philosophy and actual history. Still, the element of understanding the symbols on the stone, the parchment or the paper page persisted. And it would be there for around two and a half Millenia until Guttenberg will present to the world his invention – a machine that will revolutionize the way people access and compile knowledge. But in the meantime, during the process of initial gathering and processing of knowledge the holy men of God’s words were not inclined, not as if they are so much nowadays, to share their priceless knowledge with the commoners. It was the nobility which was allowed a glimpse behind the veil of ignorance, of course, at a certain high price – not to challenge or interfere with the deeds of the spiritual leaders, who in turn, gracefully provided the blessings of God(s) as an act of sublime celestial support and recognition of the authority of those in power, as well. Thus, acquiring knowledge, especially outside the rigid lines of 2 the religious dogma became a taboo and heresy. However, traces of the ancient knowledge from Crete, Egypt, Persia, Babylon and the city-states of Hellas made its way to Europe through an unexpected source – the Moorish scientists who arrived with the conquest of Iberia in IX century. Ever since it was just a matter of time one could say that knowledge will find a way to the general public. And so it did when Guttenberg presented Europe and the world his printing press. Still, it took no less than four centuries for the French encyclopaedists to compile their masterwork and declare aloud that all people are equal in their rights and no one must keep the world of knowledge just for own usage. Literacy, one might say became the fourth unheralded integral part of the slogan of the French Revolution of 1789 – “Liberté, égalité, fraternité!” however the encyclopaedists wrongly assumed, or we just lost the direction and the core of their legacy one might argue, that knowledge brings understanding. The world as we know it today seems eons away from that simple logical consequence. In the age of Internet, information substituted knowledge, numbers overcome common sense and emotions took the driving seat from the reasonable mind. Paradoxically, in the era of the “24/7 open-access” humanity seems more perplexed and confused than during the times of the Great Discoveries or even those of the demise of the Babylon tower. The post-truth phenomenon actually stands precisely for that lack of functional understanding between the linkage of the 4 W’s – what, when, who, where, i.e. for what reason. Light up the world! Ever since the Age of Enlightenment literacy was considered to be one of the most valuable skills allowing humans to have access to knowledge beyond the physical limitations of one’s life. Knowledge was considered the utmost treasure of them all – regardless of time, space and place one could cope with whatever comes his or her way if possessing the appropriate knowledge. For a long time, actually almost two centuries and a half, that was the goal of the modern educational system: to produce well-prepared individuals for the adult life either by training them in a field of practical skills or giving them access to applied sciences. The principle was: the more you know the more chances you have to succeed. However, gradually, over time and especially under the pressure of the industrialisation and the post-Second World War developments, the education based on mastering life-skills was substituted by practical training aimed at guaranteeing graduates more chances of making money in pursuit of individual prosperity. That became the slogan 3 actually of almost all of the Ivy-league universities across the Atlantic, eventually winning subsequently the Oxbridge areal too. Soon that became the rule of the thumb for all levels of the educational system – pupils were demanded to memorize zounds of pages and exercises just to have a chance to stand the standardized exams at the end of each year. Sadly, the principle of the Enlightenment - no hidden or secret knowledge because of illiteracy, was converted to all knowledge is hidden unless you pay for it to be unveiled to you if you can afford it, of course. All of this came as a consequence of something even worse: the education of classical type along the lines drawn by Aristotle and likes, based on understanding, spurring and fostering aspirations for perpetual improvement and expansion of human reach became victim of money-based approach and narrow-minded professionalisation and specialization. Ironically, the Enlightenment fell victim of its own credo, at least in the industrialised world, for by spreading knowledge it was narrowed in scope and goal by either greedy or simply non-visionary individuals. Thus, the education became a burden and not a gift or aspiration for the secrets of this world and beyond it for the students at all levels. Recently, actually during the past decade, teachers and professors started to worry that their pupils show no signs of critical thinking and lack functional understanding which makes them perfect victims of the new Internet-based applications and smart technologies for brainwashing, manipulation and mind control. Talking short via Tweeter or not at all via Instagram ruined the very goal of the Enlightenment – individuals should be able to express freely and in detail themselves. It seems that shortening the message nowadays has shortened not just the meaning but the thinking abilities of the humans as well. However, we must take notice that those generalizing attempts comply just to Europe, some parts of North America, some parts of South America and some small chunks of Asia and Africa as in the remaining parts of the world the population is still living in preEnlightenment terms – illiteracy there is a norm not an exempt. Almost 102 million young man of age of 15 to 24 are illiterate today2. Although literacy has been high on the development agenda over the past decades, UIS data show that 750 million adults – twothirds of whom are women – still lack basic reading and writing skills, according to the latest available data for 2016. The global adult literacy rate was 86% in 2016, while the youth literacy rate was 91%. According to UIS data, the majority of countries missed the Education for All (EFA) goal of reducing adult illiteracy rates by 50% between 2000 and 2015. At the 2 https://data.unicef.org/topic/education/literacy/ accessed on September 25th, 2018 4 global level, the adult and youth literacy rates are estimated to have grown by only 4% each over this period3. What is really troubling these days is that in most countries there are large generational literacy gaps favouring the young. These differences across generations point to a global trend: the high literacy rate among the youth indicates that as time passes, the literacy rate for the overall population will continue to increase4, however as things stand right now the elder people lose more and more time to keep up the pace with their children and grandchildren. Most of the time this is mission impossible as smart technologies do not just change rapidly, they are outdated literally overnight. And one more thing as the late Steve Jobs used to say, English is the language of Internet and smart techs but not all people, especially over 65+ years do speak it nor understand it. The effort of understanding or the effort of knowing Situation did not improve when the Internet took over our lives, regardless the initial expectations. The boom of personal computers’ usage did not occur because of their fast speed processing, i.e. offering the best out of multiple-choice options or solutions. Instead it happened because individuals got linked to each other through various data bases-sources of various information of almost every imaginable field of human knowledge. Computer-based games also contributed to the light-speed spread of the new home appliance. However, it would have never happened at all had it not been an invention dating back to 1960’s – the ARPANET polished by Joseph C. R. Licklider, the harbinger of the Internet and its logical successor the world wide web developed by sir Tim Berners-Lee in the early 1990’s. Actually, it was not prior the discovery of the later how to compose a software for the first Web server and the first Web client, or “browser” that will in fact allow for files to be exchanged over the Internet and make full use of it. On the back of those two revolutionary technologies the world was transformed overnight into a giant buzzing hub. Humanity was no more to be at doubt what happened on the other side of the planet – a click or two were enough to know, especially after the second Millenia arrived gloriously. 3 http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/fs45-literacy-rates-continue-rise-generation-to-next-en- 2017_0.pdf accessed on September 25th, 2018 4 https://ourworldindata.org/literacy#in-most-countries-there-are-large-generational-literacy-gaps-favouring-the- young accessed on September 25th, 2018 5 The so-called social media are not media nor social per se, instead they are destructing the integrity and the very fabric of the society by self-proclaiming own authority in place of social contract and rules, and bragging about personal perception not news. What is news in Facebook is actually a personal diary, a lexicon, a confession, an irrational or deliberate appeal – exactly what it was meant to be by Mr. Zuckerberg. But users willing to become part of someone’s story or history by sharing it and declaring commitment to cases, issues, causes or problems made it look-like a news-stream for its 24/7 flow and not for its content. Having an opinion on everything from sports and personal life to neuroscience, politics and gene mapping created by the illusion of freedom of expression and speech of the “social media” stepped in to decrease progressively the meaning of free will. The victim was the actual competence of those millions of speakers willing to partake into the decisionmaking and taking process of running the world on multiple levels and layers. Education became obstacle as making an expert statement became seen as preposterous selfmanifestation of intellectual superiority. In result the existing establishments, experts and specialists and their contributions were undermined and no more valid to the extend they used to be. Internets’ Mr. and Mrs. Know-it-all became the standard. That is why individuals need more than ever solid-rock education which to teach them build their own opinion based on available past knowledge, data and information. “Keep it simple stupid!” as the saying goes. That was a saying which carried negligence for science and reason. Now it means think before assume! However, before doing that, paradoxically individual should be thought once more how to that. Apparently, something which happened over the course of the past two and a half centuries was washed away by the Internet literally overnight. The live never-ending news flaw launched by CNN in the early 90’s of 20th century became standard in the Internet age. The natural curiosity of humans was transformed gradually in less than two decades in hunger for news. Such is the need for news, regardless that most of them are fake, false or not at all news, that it made humans panic if something did not beep or flash regularly onto the screens of their smart devices. Naturally the quality gate keepers, the so-called traditional media outlets, succumbed to the pressure and started, though in a more sophisticated way to contribute on their own to the 24/7 news fall stream. But even that would not have been a problem if some critical social systems did not fail to work their safeguarding functions out. Of those responsible for preventing the current traumatic situation for the humanity the educational system carries the biggest fault. 6 Why is that? Well, because it is the system that conveys the most coveted treasure of them all – the knowledge of the human civilization and above all its understanding. Having in mind Bulgarian education system both primary, but mainly secondary as well one can find out that the system per se is not wrong by default nor its functioning principles mistaken. The problem arises from the manner of teaching and structuring the curricula. On the overall the Bulgarian education system attempts to teach pupils how to deal with 21st century challenges via 20th century methods. Thus, the paradox faced by the universities that have to start all over the education of the sophomores who lack basic life skills and above all curiosity and learning habits. Regardless that communication is going through a revolution, the education system, unfortunately at university level too, fails to address the reality. Lagging in both pace and tempo educators at all levels simply detach young man from the knowledge at all, leaving plenty of space for one-off issues approached without systematic interest and quidded efforts. As a result, there is already a generation which firmly believes that if something is not discoverable in Google, YouTube or Facebook it does not exists or is not relevant, i.e. cool at all. Of course, there is another aspect of transforming the communication, which is not that negative but on the contrary. The fund-rising, non-profit and charity activities mainly benefitted from that side-effect (Christova, 2018). Gathering mass support in no-time for noble causes became much easier via the channels provided by Internet. Spreading the good news or exposing wrongdoings was never faster than nowadays. However, signing a petition via e-mail link or “liking” a post or event via Facebook or bragging about it via Twitter does not stand for actually doing it for real. But for the addicted users of the services of those providers which are wrongly labelled “social media” instead of platforms for sharing individual experiences of any kind the act of twitting, posting it or shooting a photo is the real thing. This cognitive dissonance perfectly epitomizes the very point of this article that understanding the consequence of something does not come naturally instead it requires efforts of deliberate education dedicated to mastering the art of critical thinking and accessing specific or general knowledge on your own and not just through the eyes of the others. 7 The consequences – Artificial Intelligence vs. Human Intelligence In this time of racing against the clock people naturally started to feel more and more perplexed and dazzled by the technological miracles of the surrounding world. As if it has changed overnight without a warning and yet it is still the old familiar place of wars for territory, starvation, drought, climate change due to artificial pollution. The virtual reality sold to consumers could not have arrived at more proper time offering escape form this wretched reality of ours. The transformation of the environment we witness both physical and as a consequence physiological and emotional does not make things easier for humans. Quite the opposite – it seems to cause more trouble than comfort for the humans in 21st century. Unfortunately, the transformative power of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – the Digital revolution is even more sweeping than the one of the previous three combined. It has been ongoing roughly since the middle of the last century and is epitomized by a fusion of technologies which wipes the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. The First one harnessed the power of water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production, while the Third applied electronics and information technology to automate production. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will most definitely change not only what we do but also who we are as humans. It will affect our identity and all the issues associated with it: our sense of privacy, our notions of ownership, our consumption patterns, the time we devote to work and leisure, and how we develop our careers, cultivate our skills, meet people, and nurture relationships. As Klaus Schwab quite correctly remarked in his review of the Fourth Revolution “the inexorable integration of technology in our lives could diminish some of our quintessential human capacities, such as compassion and cooperation. Our relationship with our smartphones is a case in point. Constant connection may deprive us of one of life’s most important assets: the time to pause, reflect, and engage in meaningful conversation”5. It could not be more compelling than this – losing our humanity because of technology development we started to improve the quality of our lives and the surrounding environment. Happily, the process of Enlightenment 2.0 is already on its way educating pupils how to become 100 % citizens. The new curriculum is evolving exactly around those key issues which make us humans – compassion, solidarity, tradition, tolerance, respect for 5 https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-12-12/fourth-industrial-revolution accessed on September 19th, 2018 8 diversity, justice, critical thinking and curiosity. On the overall a Terminator scenario for this planet looks really absurd as it stands, though we must not forget the warnings of the late Stephen Hawking that the AI could become a real and present danger for humanity if “our AI systems must do what we want them to do”6. His words read further that their utmost goal should not be development with focus on techniques that are neutral with respect to purpose, but rather on ones that are making AI not just more capable in scope, but also maximizing the societal benefit of their progress. It is more than enough that AI is doing things for us faster, precise and cost-effective and efficient. We do not have to take example from our machines, which are no more than helping hands and tools and transform into automated robots. Replication is not quintessential for the human nature – innovation, diversity and progress are. So, let’s not transform the language of Homer, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Goethe, Cervantes, Boccaccio, Marquez, Lorca, Tolstoy or Sun Tzu into digits that mean only to computers and not to civilized human beings. 6 https://futureoflife.org/ai-open-letter/?cn-reloaded=1 accessed on September 19th, 2018 9 References: Sarailiev, Ivan (2004) The Effort of Knowing, NBU, Sofia [Саръилиев, Иван (2004) Усилието да узнаваш, НБУ, София.] Christova, Evelina, (2018) Communication of Charity, ROI Communication, Sofia [Христова, Евелина (2018) Комуникация на благотворителността, Рой Комюникейшън, София]. Roth, Michael S. (2014) Beyond the University-Why Liberal Education Matters, Yale University Press. Schwab, Klaus (2017) The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Crown Business, New York. UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) (2017) Fact Sheet No. 45 Zakaria, Fareed (2015) In Defence of a Liberal Education, W.W. Norton & Company, New York. Internet sources: https://data.unicef.org http://uis.unesco.org https://ourworldindata.org https://www.foreignaffairs.com https://futureoflife.org 10