Brave New World - Education vs Conditioning

What is education?

Join Abdallah as he discusses the theme of 'education vs conditioning' with Yusuf Perez and Jalid Vadillo drawing on Aldous Huxley's book Brave New World and its recent TV Series adaptation.

Brave New World - by Aldous Huxley

The Art of Loving - by Erich Fromm 

 

Timecode Guide:

1.57 What is the definition of education?

2.47 The Greek concept of Arete

4.09 “Know thyself” - Plato 

Knowing who you are is the most fundamental part of an education

Mastery of a skill will lead you to knowing yourself

5:11 The various Zen practises

6:02 Knowing yourself implies knowing where you stand in the world and seeking the knowledge that is going to help you in your weaker areas

7:33 You can’t live completely in an inner realm. Junger says that’s the de facto position of a defeated person

8:03 Education is the cultivation and refinement of your inward and outward and making them one 

8:18 Achilles’ teacher Chiron - the Centaur - and what that symbolises

8:56 Is ‘Obligatory education’ actually education?

9:31 The TV series Brave New World based on the novel by Aldous Huxley

10:47 The conditioning of children in Brave New World and the logical outcome of modern education being taken to its furthest extreme

11:24 Feeding the children ‘soma’

12:09 The drilling in of ideas through repetitive listening to certain maxims and how that is present in modern media

13:30 Neuroplasticity

15:03 The modern myth is that man is trying to get as close as possible to the perfect rational man

16:07 “To be rational all you really do is end up layering over all of your animal urges with your own fantasy or justifications on how you live

Man is a rope between animal and the Overman - Nietszche

17:21 The rational being doesn't exist

17:43 a contemporary example of the indoctrination of children

21:00 The abolition of the family

21:40 They want your loyalty to be to the State before anything else. The system is designed in a way that you go to cogs in the system before your personal relations. 

22:37 Safety as the most important function of the state - but you can't guarantee safety

The state as the protector where the state doesn’t guarentee anything. 

24:47 The abolition of monogamy - romantic love as the pinacle of human emotional experience

25:38 The book: The Art of Loving

26:12 The power of two people together that are loyal to each other

26:30 The highest form of love is love of everything

27:02 Marriage as a social contract

27:56 The process of growing up in the Brave New World example

28:43 Other examples of contemporary conditioning

29:43 The importance of physical training with regards to education

30:34 Rugby examples 

31:08 Surfing examples

33:56 If you don’t put yourself in that situation of danger and uncertainty you don’t get the reward that is delightful

34:43 Polo examples

37:45 How the above examples aren’t really provided to the majority in the modern setting

38:39 Avoidance of facing up to your self

39:00 You have to switch off the light inside you to live in this society

We are capable of so much more than we think we are - perseverance

41:40 Creating human beings that rather than functioning can do a function, but is not fulfilled

42:22 All it takes is one person to be authentic for the whole facade to come crumbling down

42:46 Soma and its contemporary examples 

44:05 Distraction as another form of Soma

45:00 Stop taking your Soma and sit with your pain and try to master your emotions

45:40 To look inside yourself and know that who you could be is worth the work

 

Music by Ian Cattanach