Tyler+H’s+Final+AmEx+2014+Speech

=Title of Speech= "Why Do We Knowledge!?"

=Text of Speech= I don’t want to contribute to whatever percent of the people on this planet that think scientific discoveries are completely detrimental to the human cause. I think communism is a joke even before it leaves the drawing board. I can clearly see the benefits of a competitive market, and the issuing of rewards and compensations to those who contribute to supplying whatever is in demand, be it labor, education, miniature robots or educated miniature robots that perform human labor. Yet still I see the glaring flaws of a society founded on the ideology that everything we do should be founded on competition, which is further founded on mass physical and material production. Supposedly material prosperity and excess should lead to a general quality of life that is higher and more attractive than it would otherwise be. That doesn’t sound too repulsive on paper, until millions upon millions of little pieces of paper start to masquerade as human purpose.

Probably the most devastating and depressing consequence of thriving capitalist societies and revolutionary technological advancements is the devaluation of purpose. Not solely the purpose of existence, but the purpose of knowledge; the purpose of education. In one regard, this leads to a reevaluation of necessity by those who I’ll refer to as the physically and mentally reluctant. Societies experiencing a surplus in material wealth often experience in equal proportion a clouding of virtue and value. Because everything looks shiny on the surface, lazy people tend to assume that everything is in stable condition on all levels proceeding. Material excess also leads to decline in the general sense of fear, and thusly provides for what can equate to dangerously high levels of security. Such people find it more logical to argue over which language people in their country should speak instead of contemplating the benefits of knowing multiple. There is another group that suffers similarly; although perhaps more active than the previous, they are even more narrow minded and narrow-visioned. These “elitists” become so obsessed with the structure of the relationship between industrial production and economic prosperity that they too experience altered perceptions of requirement. Money must be made even when that may require taxing intellect and quality of life. Further corruption of this abstract purpose has become so magnificent that it is now almost socially acceptable to say that drug usage can attribute to philosophical development or “spiritual investigation” just as much or more than actually learning, thinking and putting a conscious effort into using your brain. I didn’t originally have any specific examples for this particular claim, I was actually just going to use it to segue into the next subtopic, but after reading Jason’s speech on the Wiki, I was reminded of something that holds some relevance here: I really don’t like the Beatles. You’re not a walrus, you’re a moron. In reforming their own views of necessity all of these groups collectively attribute to a great necessity for everyone else: the need for an evaluation of education, studying, learning, thinking and knowledge itself.

What is the purpose of education? Well that sounded like something google would have answer for, so I ran the subject through a couple different ways, and over the course of several hours, during which I probably could have finished this speech on my own accord, a lot of interesting quotations and articles came up. According to good ol’ John F. K., “The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth”. Alright, fair enough. But that raised several more points of curiosity. How should one further analyze the purpose of “knowledge” and “truth”? And what accounts for all of the alternative definitions, as evidently his definition wasn’t universally satisfying. Some upheld that the sole purpose of education is profit in the work force: to physically supply whatever is in demand. Others argued that its purpose was to promote civil virtue in future citizens, and teach them how to participate as contributing members of society. Still others, evidently of the Thoreau type, upheld that cultivating curiosities and providing richer grounds for philosophical contemplation were the ambitions of schooling.

Of all the articles I found that addressed this subject to some extent, the most interesting was one discussing a debate between American revolutionaries Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Before I explain what the debate entailed, allow me to clarify a bias: I hate Apple almost more than I hate the Beatles. That affirmed, the debate was held not over whether industrial productivity was the purpose of education, but over what kind of education was best suited to achieve the highest quality and most efficient sorts of industrial productivity. While Gates essentially claimed that all prospective college students should seek a specific education in engineering, because supposedly that’s what would provide for the greatest possibility of achievement in that field, Jobs argued that creativity and a and a broadly cultured mind play much more significant roles in science and engineering than they are generally credit for. First, I completely understand the respect given to these to figures on the basis of their accomplishments, but I thought it was hilarious that a debate over how people should approach secondary education was carried out by two college drop outs. Second, I actually found myself more in agreement with Jobs. While the scope of education is much larger than industrial prospects, Jobs actually credited the role of individuality in the matter. Many artists contribute immensely to society in ways that they never could with science and fact alone. It is not the potential for productivity itself that varies from person to person, but the outlet by which this productivity may be expressed.

Probably more than any other philosophy we studied this year in the American Experience, Transcendentalism revealed something to me that I never really had reason to think much about beforehand. What’s the point of preparing to mold ourselves into various aspects of society, or even life, if we thoroughly despise those aspects? What sense does it make to pursue any sort of gain by doing things that make us miserable, or that deteriorate our quality of life? No other benefit of education could possibly be pursued while this one is neglected. If one is intrinsically dissatisfied, what lasting good could external wealth bring? How could one possibly seek to be a virtuous and contributing member of society if their perception of virtue and society are skewed by negativity and cynicism? It’s not my purpose to deny that certain career fields turn in larger monetary profits than others, and generate developments that are more immediately recognizable as revolutionary. Education in certain fields will probably produce results faster than others. What I mean to uphold is that the greatest consequence of genuine education is the expanding of one’s mental capability. This in turn promotes the study of individual philosophy, and attributes to a sense of purpose in one’s life in such a way that fundamentally compliments all other consequences. Quoting philosophical educator Robert Hutchins, “the object of education is to prepare young ones to education themselves throughout the rest of their lives.”

Ultimately, as probably should have been expected, most of what I found on the internet was extremely opinion-based and highly contradictory; as one random guy said in some random article, “you may as well ask for the meaning of life”. While I respect his opinion, or its opinion, as I have no way of knowing whether that particular article was drafted by one of those educated robots, I personally find the issue to be a little more solid than that. While the specific and direct benefits of knowledge will obviously vary immensely among everyone you make the effort to ask, opportunities opened to all who are educated far transcend the proposition that there can be only one benefit. That is a complexity that everyone should be able to acknowledge without too much effort. The simplicity is this: further development in knowledge equates to further development in intellect. That leads to infinity.

Knowledge is what makes productivity efficient. Knowledge is what makes working useful. Knowledge is what makes art beautiful. Knowledge is what makes good movies. Knowledge has the ability to make a respectful, responsible contributing member of society. In the America I grow up to see, I hope to look out upon a culture that recognizes the complex essence of education, that can respect multiple interpretations of this great complexity, and most importantly, that acknowledges that intelligence and philosophy are not subservient to economic interests. We work to live, to accomplish things laziness won’t let us do and to produce results, all so that we may spend as much time as possible studying life and enjoying it. But all faith in the potential of humanity to do anything worthwhile will be crushed the moment we start living, studying and producing so that we may work.

=Cite Your Sources=