Studies revealed that chimps are not good learners as humans are. Given a situation, chimps measure the problem at hand, try and “create” a solution, whereas humans are more inclined to “adopt” a solution that was taught to them. This inherent characteristic difference between humans and chimps provides us with a rare insight into the triumphs of civilization. Humans and chimps alike are good learners and good followers, only the degree of “learning” varies on a long enough time line. On a shorter time line though, an appreciable “attitudinal change” has not been found.
Within the boundaries of evolutionary framework, this remarkable ability; “learning” does gain significance in strategically building up expositions on “triumphs of civilization”. One logical feature that emerges out of this argument namely “solidarity”, often admired for its precedents is but an animated feature of the crude human instincts. The civilization is a consolidated outcome of one single feature at the heart of it. This abstract feature, when reduced to comprehensible concrete would read like this- “ability of humans to learn and adopt”.
The most astonishing side of this human ability is -humans would adopt what they have learned, even when an alternative presents itself to them. This, we are told to identify with a reduced form namely “discipline”. In this nexus of attributing inherent human instincts to structured precedents, precedents to more concrete consolidates is fueled by our “uneasiness” in relating to the “primitive instincts”.
To play safe, the constructive elements of civilization; ideas and ideologies, ethics, arts and literature are often attributed to more diversified and profligate axioms such as “discipline” and “education”. The order of occurrence of these stately adjudicates is often misleading. This is not a case of “deliberate indulgence”, but an “unconscious intonation”. I call this “intonation”, not to claim authority, or to forestall further debate, but to emphasize on the “layman's view” of things as they stand.
Let us target the meat of this debate- “Education”. James D Watson, together with Francis Crick discovered the molecular structure of DNA, the most identifiable success of science in modern times, one that is credited to have spawned dozens of today's scientific fields of study and inspired a whole generation of scientists. They could not have achieved this gigantic feat without the painful, strategic and timeless works of scientists before them.
Let me put this into perspective. All they did was to fit the cap to bottle of cumulative works of scientists before them, they closed the lid, once and for all, but they could not have closed the lid, if the bottle was not presented to them by the scientists before them. This example serves best to elucidate the bright side of education.
Let us focus on the “not so inspiring” side of education. Education as I explained is presented in a fashionable manner, but in the deeper shelves of rationality, it is but the inherent instinct of humans. The instinct that is also identified as “solidarity” and “discipline” among many others. I won't be concentrating the debate on educational institutions, because they are mere additives in a causal chain of transformation from “hunter gatherers” to “farmers”. This transformation, as fossil records suggest occurred mutually exclusively in different regions of our world, dating back to 7 million BC in central Africa to the most recent times of 11,000 BC in the Americas.
The transformation itself is so unique, that is considering only humans began farming. There is as such no documented evidence that neither the chimps nor the apes did farm at some point of time in the past. This unique adaptation to “farming” is a staunch manifestation to our “inherent abilities”, at least we don't have an argument of “discipline” or “solidarity” fighting for a share on this success front. What followed since then has been a causal chain of events that are frequently attributed to the “structured precedents” such as “education” and “discipline”, which are but “unconscious developments” that came along with the transformation from hunter gatherers to farmers.
Arts and literature fall loosely on the same causal chain, oscillating freely on the “monolithic” concrete namely “education”. To explain this better, I will take the example of “state” owning the responsibility of teaching a child as the civilization progressed, which used to be father's conjugal prerogative. Father prided himself in teaching his child, but as the civilization progressed, educational institutions owned up the “patriarchal” conquest. This simple shift in responsibilities led to a mass congregation of streamlined education. Unconsciously, as a “thumb rule”, these institutions, which were solely under the proprietorship of the state delivered “finished goods” with a “desired set of features”.
The “desired set of features” varied on the ground level, but on a much grander scale, they all operated to produce, what everyone called “discipline”. This unconscious and causal feature of education thus produced dramatic results such as “religion”, “patriotism”, establishment of institutions such as “monogamy”. The educational institutions then paved way to become ideal grounds for fostering and furthering these dubious ideas.
State decided the subjects to be taught in these institutions, state also defined terms such as “morality” and “solidarity”, and went so far as to control the boundaries for these definitions. State exercised legal authority over characters of anomalous behavior and labeled them as acts of “vandalism”. Slowly but gradually state's authority outnumbered the minority- the individual. The collective and malicious authority then reigned over the small hitherto insulated schools of thought- the individual.
Ideas and ideologies, ethics, arts and literature are largely influenced by this system of “causal or unconscious construction”. Unfortunately, in today's world, “religion”, “patriotism”, “monogamy” are taken for granted by many, as grounds of premises and not as ideas that developed in the process of an unconscious and causal chain of events since the transformation of hunter gatherers to farmers.
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