Warning: Pontification Ahead

“The benefits of education are indirect. The mind is not a receptacle; information is not education. Education is what remains after the information that has been taught has been forgotten. Ideas, methods, and habits of mind are the radioactive deposit left by education. In the advanced industrial countries, at least, it is as naïve to expect power and prosperity to result from ad hoc education as it is to expect to lower the divorce rate by courses in Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Marriage.” –Robert Maynard Hutchins, The Learning Society


Expectant Reader –

I have chosen to begin this week’s installment with the above quote because of thoughts inspired by a guest lecturer who came and spoke to us about the latest of four novels he has written in Arabic. The author is ‘Ala‘l-Aswani, native of Cairo and dentist by profession. He has also been called the “second Naguib Mahfouz” by leading Egyptian intellectual Galal Amin (Naguib Mahfouz is generally considered to be the great Egyptian author of the twentieth century, and perhaps of the entire modern era). As part of the study abroad curriculum, we read Al-Aswani’s novel The Jacobian Building, a relatively quick read detailing the rise of modern Egyptian society using an actual building in downtown Cairo as a microcosm. The style and diction are relatively simple, but the character development and socio-cultural commentary have been recognized as a significant contribution to public discourse about modern Egyptian society.

The reason I thought about education when listening to and participating in discussion with Dr. Al-Aswani, however, didn’t have as much to do with the book as it did with the fact that the book’s author is a dentist by training who also writes very successful novels. People in certain corners of Cairene literary discourse have attacked Al-Aswani’s work for its lack of literary merit and contribution to the modern Egyptian novel. Whether The Jacobian Building has or hasn’t any such merit, I can’t help but admire a man who keeps pace with Egyptian literati in the same day that he cleans your teeth. Did Naguib Mahfouz or Taha Hussein complete medical training and pursue successful careers in health care? Isn’t it amazing that someone like Al-Aswani has been able to bridge two fields which seem diametrically opposed?

In other words, my thoughts on Al-Aswani involve the nature of education. Here’s a man who understands the value of continued learning throughout one’s life. In talking to him, he also recognizes the value of speaking to current socio-political issues through the voice of fictional characters. In other words, he is not a mere product of his vocational training. He is not content with the technical spin put on the value of education. He understands, as Robert Maynard Hutchins did, that the value of learning goes beyond the securing of employment and the accumulation of gadgets. While financial independence is of course important and essential to living a fulfilling life, such independence does not excuse those who have it from also striving for intellectual, moral, and spiritual independence and growth. I’m sure that plenty of dentists would be content to clean teeth all day, then settle down for a few hours of TV or surfing the ‘Net before falling asleep. It takes a lot of energy to write a novel under any conditions, let alone after long hours of cavity fillings and root canals.

So, today’s lesson? Turn off the TV tonight, shut down the computer after checking email, and learn something. Or write something. Or play a musical instrument. Or go see live theater. In other words, dare to be more fully human.

More pontificating next week. Salaam,
K