What is the point of an education system; not just in the United States, but worldwide? Most people would answer that it’s to make intelligent, enlightened, insightful, and just all around better human beings. The optimal result, the perfect specimen of a fully educated person, is a genius who applies their knowledge and skills towards something that benefits the entire human race, of course. So what happens when that genius, that perfect product of a complex and time-tested education system, decides to do the opposite? What does it mean when the well-educated prodigy uses his skills to inflict pain on the human race instead of helping it? What do we do when our education system creates a monster?
To help shed light on this enigma, it helps to study some examples. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, we are introduced to Kurtz, the talented genius who set off into Africa with the intention of civilizing the poor, helpless savages. At first he seems like the ideal product of the educational system: a highly intelligent, talented human being who wants nothing more than to aid his fellow (albeit distant and less fortunate) human beings in Africa. However, it is soon revealed that Kurtz actually succumbed to the darkness in the Congo and ended up killing many of the “savages” that he set out to help in the first place. Kurtz eventually did things like cut off the heads of "rebel" Africans, displaying them spiked atop poles in front of his hut; needless to say, it was hard to wrap my head around the fact that this well-educated, talented man could end up committing such horrific atrocities in the Congo.
However, outside of Heart of Darkness there are more (real life) examples of this kind of occurrence. Adolf Hitler was an intelligent product of the German education system. However, he used his intelligence not to aid the human race, but to cause one of the most horrific atrocities in human history. Hitler turned out to be one the most terrifying monsters ever created, even though he was among some of the best educated in Germany.
The sad, terrifying truth is this: educating people doesn’t automatically make them good or altruistic. Although everyone would like to think that the most educated people in the world want to benefit the human race, this is not always the case. Some of the most abominable acts of cruelty in history have been inflicted by perfectly well-educated human beings.
In fact, it could be argued that because these monsters were well-educated, they were even more dangerous. As horrible as it is to think about: Hitler was smart. He had to have been highly, highly intelligent to have attained as much power, convinced as many people, and inflicted as much damage as he did during the Holocaust. The same applies to Kurtz; a stupider person would not have been able to attain such a position of power over the native Africans like he did. Looking at it this way, not only does the education system not guarantee more altruistic or better people, it has the potential to make monsters even more terrible and dangerous
As a student, this truth petrifies me. I am being molded by the education system into what I would hope is a better human being than what I started as. I work hard in school to make myself more intelligent with the goal of doing whatever I can to benefit the people around me and around the world if I am able. The idea that some of the worst criminals in history went through some of the same things I have done in the education system is alarming, and it makes me wonder what will happen to me when I finally emerge on the other end of this educational journey. How can I deal with the idea that even though I am working hard to better myself, it doesn’t automatically mean I will be a better person? Or that people being educated around me might turn out to be monsters?
The only way to confront this fear is to realize that while the education system does not guarantee better people, it also does not guarantee monsters. The goal of the education system is still to mold students into better human beings, and even though it doesn’t always do this, most of the people who make it though the education system are better because of the journey. I shouldn’t be afraid to work hard to better myself through education or be afraid that anyone that I know will end up being the one in a billion well-educated people that end up committing acts of cruelty. All I can do right now, educationally, is my best, and hopefully that will allow me to become my best as a human being.
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