Education is not a success doctrine, nor is it about proving whether people are useful or not. Each person is unique and diverse. Success, failure, usefulness, and uselessness—these criteria that people often associate with human success—are characterized by their singularity and one-sidedness, which should be cautioned against and reflected upon.
A report in our newspaper the day before yesterday told the story of two college graduates who started a business selling pancakes outside their university gate, earning 100,000 yuan per year, sparking some online criticism. There were those who praised them, those who thought it was normal, and a more prominent opinion was that this was a tragedy for higher education. If selling pancakes could yield such good income, then why go to school? Should universities close their doors? Wasting four years of prime time meant losing out on 400,000 yuan. In short, the sentiment was: "Education is useless."
The same sentiment was expressed when Peking University graduate Lu Buquan sold pork, when Ding Junhui became famous for playing snooker, and when over ten thousand candidates in Chongqing abandoned the college entrance exam to buy diplomas from junior colleges. On a psychological level, the idea of "education being useless" manifests as an unfair grievance: those who didn't study are doing better than those who did, driving BMWs and living in villas. The examples go on and on.
Since there's the notion of "education being useless," there must also be "education being useful." However, as a theory, the discourse of "education being useful" seems rarely heard. From an academic perspective, whether education is useful or not isn't really an issue. But on a societal psychological level, the repeated claim that "education is useless" equates to "college is useless," reflecting a segment of people's emotional understanding of inherited education—even if they don't want to attend school due to high costs.
Being fixated on the emotionally-expressed notion of "education being useless" doesn't hold much significance. An individual's educational experience and social life aren't confined within the framework of whether education is useful or not. However, we can use this as a starting point to reflect on some general issues regarding the value of education and human worth.
Broadly speaking, education is the process of individual socialization and the theoretical activity of society’s analysis. Narrowly speaking, education is the act of acquiring knowledge and growing in schools. The value of education is seen in various wise sayings, which, to some extent, represent a form of revenge. But people need to eat, and they need to stand firm in society, so education inevitably gets placed at the basic level of survival, representing reality. Revenge may be full, but retaliation is often bare bones, and this reflects in people's attitudes towards education.
When we talk about education nurturing people and promoting lifelong development, we don't discuss whether it's useful or not. It's only when we talk about excelling in studies leading to a government career, or finding a good job after finishing university, that such discussions arise. A knife is considered useful because it can cut melons and vegetables; a hoe is useful because it can plow fields. The difference lies in that there's no comparison between which tool is more effective. However, when comparing one person's education with another's, such comparisons do exist.
In recent years, we've become accustomed to hearing about doctrines of success. Best-selling success manuals in bookstores, online success secrets, personal potential development courses, methods to earn one million in three months, early retirement before age 35, and success training programs all provide various templates for success. Behind these templates, people become raw materials, waiting to be turned into products. Some successful individuals claim that their success can be replicated, essentially offering templates to teach others how to become effective products. However, the value of a person who is unsuccessful or does not fit into these templates seems not to be considered.
At its root, the concept of whether education is useful or not is a form of success doctrine. Discussing usefulness or uselessness doesn't substantially harm anyone, but it represents a certain perspective on evaluating education and assessing the value of knowledge. These perspectives delve deeper into some aspects of modern society, such as having skills without integrity, possessing abilities yet lacking fundamental ethics, focusing solely on success regardless of deceitful practices. These ideas still have a market in reality and are remembered by some.
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