Ignition for Education

The philosophical concept of “the good,” formulated at the birth of philosophy in classical Greece, refers to moral goodness but also to both self-interest and self-realization. It discusses what is right for the object of discussion, be that object a person or a community. At the level of the community, there, of course, a still a vigorous debate in liberal democratic countries. How should we balance freedom and security? When does assistance for the needy alleviate injustice, and when does it encourage dependence? What are the benefits and drawbacks of immigration?

            At the level of the individual, we tend to think that we already know the good and can summarize it in little slogans about finding and pursuing one’s passions. Plus, of course, the “golden rule” that we must treat others as we would wish to be treated. But satisfaction with these answers can encourage us to miss the concepts that stand behind and support them and that can, if we will allow, offer us a great deal more. We have to enquire more deeply.

What is goodness? What is in the interest of all people and communities? And how do we achieve it?

            All these questions can be answered with a single concept. That won’t make for easy reading, because the concept must be examined from a variety of angles. But it will make for coherent reasoning and for answers to a great many critical questions, and not just about teaching. These answers won’t be the final word. Nothing ever is. But they will provide an intellectual anchor.

For ease of explanation rather than for grandiosity, I’m going to call this concept the Creation Paradigm. Put simply, it means that to be good is to be creative and that the good, or that which is beneficial, for any individual or community, is to create.

This depends on an expansive concept of creativity. We might call it “creative behavior.” Behaviors that affirm others, affirm truth, though never cruelly, that are generous, and, when mercy it at issue, merciful; these are creative behaviors because they build people up. They make people. A person is more likely to be well-adjusted, to function well, alone and with others, to build healthy relationships, and to achieve in any field if they are on the receiving end of these kinds of behaviors. If others affirm them. If others listen to them and take them seriously, and are generous with time and resources. If the people around them and, more broadly, the society in which they live is truthful with them, insisting that they follow reasonable moral and legal standards, but remains open to repentance and rehabilitation should they fail to do so.

Creative behavior also makes functional relationships and communities. In communities infused by creative behavior, people focus more on hopes and less on dangers, and, whether they hope to form new relationships, further existing ones, or engage in economic or leisure activities, they will find these things easier to do if others treat them in a creative manner.

Behaviors that build up oneself—one’s self-esteem, health, talents, moral stature, and so on—are also creative behaviors. They are creative of the self. They make the self.

But perhaps the most important of the self-making behaviors are those of kinds previously discussed, by which the individual is creative of other individuals, of relationships, and of communities, because the performing of these creative acts helps the individual to become a more creative person, and therefore to become more likely to perform creative acts. This is a virtuous circle in which human nature, and human’s nature, can run. Acting kindly engenders kindness, which leads one to act kindly. Speaking truthfully engenders truthfulness, which leads one to speak truthfully.

Even behaviors that make one’s life easier to live, like cleaning one’s house, filing one’s papers, or attending to one’s finances, can be considered creative because they are creative of the self. Or, at least, they clear the way for a mode of living that is creative of the self.

Of course, the creation of music, literature, and other artistic products is a very important kind of creative behavior. And so is the creation of relationships, of communities, and of knowledge through science and other kinds of investigation. And, definitely not least, participation in the political process, including by informed and considered voting and informed and considered public discussion, is creative. It helps create governments and societies that benefit their citizens and, through their actions in the world, humanity as a whole. And it helps to create an intellect vibrant public space.

Done well, all of these things—the arts, science, other forms of scholarship, politics—can help to make individuals, just as ethical behaviors between individuals does. And such individuals are more likely to engage in acts of making—of creative behaviors.

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Speaking of government, the creation paradigm does have political applications. Creative behavior on the part of governments includes enacting policies that keep people safe, safeguard their rights, and protect them from poverty and sickness. And, of course, it includes providing people with education.

Because educating is the most creative act. Done properly, it is creative of the individual—of her literacy and numeracy and ability to function in society, for sure, but, more deeply, of her intellect, her belief in herself and in her own abilities, her curiosity, her self-determination. It creates her ability to create herself, if it equips her with the necessary skills and mindset and leads her to lifelong educational opportunities.

That is the unbelievable importance and beauty of teaching. It does not merely pass along a body of skills or knowledge or behaviors or attitudes. It is creative of people, and, even more than this, it is creative of creators and of self-creators. No work could be more important or dignified or beautiful. No work could be more—dare I say it—godlike.

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Before moving on, I’d like to comment on the Creation Paradigm in the context of competing ideas about goodness. This section might not be of interest to everyone, so I won’t be offended if some readers skip to Part 2.

The Creation Paradigm confirms most normal views of what is good. That is to say, it values the kinds of behaviors that most people and most ideologies, religious of secular, value. It doesn’t agree with simplistic hedonism, of course, but it is compatible with more sophisticated forms of hedonism that posit higher and lower forms of pleasure—the higher forms being those of a moral or intellectual or artistic nature—and that posit a strategic, long-term pursuit of pleasure rather than a grabbing at instant gratification.

The Creation Paradigm doesn’t resolve the tension between utilitarian ideas, which argue that right action should be determined by a calculation of the benefits and harms, and deontological ideas, which argue that right actions are those that conform to absolute or near absolute moral rules. It might help a utilitarian toward a more enlightened evaluation of the benefits and harms of a particular action, and therefore toward an improved “hedonic calculus.” It might help a deontologist to devise better rules.

But the macro-school of moral thinking with which the Creation Paradigm most comfortably fits is Virtue Ethics. It values virtues such as mercy, generosity, and truthfulness, and posits a common core of all of them, a single higher virtue–that of creativity. It also posits that the practice of virtue (meaning creative behavior) enables the practitioner to grow into a more virtuous (meaning creative) person.

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The Creation Paradigm does provide an answer to the question converse to the age-old one about what constitutes goodness. It tells us what constitutes evil. Evil behaviors are destructive—destructive of other people’s bodies, minds, opportunities, economic security; destructive of relationships; destructive of communities; destructive of the environment; destructive of the wellbeing of animals; destructive of people’s grasp on reality.

On the latter point, one of the worst evils of our time is the creation of misinformation universes by right-wing extremists. These prejudice their victims against credible sources of information, from the maligned “mainstream media” to the medical profession. By doing so, they manipulate people into living and thinking, though “thinking” is hardly the right word, in little bubbles of lies. This is evil because it destroys people’s grip on truth and because it leads to other forms of destruction. The COVID-19 pandemic was always going to claim a lot of lives, but it would no doubt have claimed many fewer without anti-science fanatics convincing the intellectually malnourished that the pandemic was a hoax or that sensible measures like social distancing and vaccination were ineffective or an assault on freedom.

We shouldn’t be afraid to use the word “evil.” Yes, it has a history in religious worldviews that not everyone shares, but it’s a good word nonetheless because of its lack of shame in itself. Destructive behaviors may be understandable in some cases. It may even be appropriate, sometimes, to sympathize with the perpetrator as well as the victim, to prefer a rehabilitative approach to criminal justice over a primarily punitive one, and to see destructive behaviors as a call to social and economic reform more than to anger at perpetrators. But, aside from any conclusion, sympathetic or condemnatory, that we may reach concerning the person who performs a destructive act, these acts affect the opposite of creation. They destroy. So, let’s call them what they are. Let’s call them evil.