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Updated: September 22, 2023 @ 4:47 am
I found one particular concept fascinating in the graduation speech given by Phil Nel at K-State over the weekend. That concept is “unlearning.”
As a member of a college town, you and I are probably well-versed in the value of education. We generally think of it as a value in and of itself, and we conceptualize it as a process that never ends. Learning is cumulative – we just build on what we’ve learned before, on and on, world without end.
That’s generally a healthy and valuable way to think. But Nel, a university distinguished professor of English, told a crowd of December graduates that it’s also important to “unlearn” things you thought you knew.
Part of learning, he’s saying, is recognizing when something you thought you knew turns out not to be true. It’s valuable to approach things from perspectives different from your own so as to be able to discover your own blind spots.
It’s an excellent point, one increasingly relevant in contemporary society, riven by partisan battles over nearly everything. We seem to be unable to agree with each other over, for instance, who won the last election or whether the globe is warming. One important facet of “unlearning” would be to think seriously about what it would take for you to adopt the opposite viewpoint from the one you have on those issues.
Your answer simply cannot be “nothing,” or else you have crossed over into the realm of religious faith. You are no longer operating in the world of facts and knowledge.
I don’t want you to get hung up here on the examples I’ve picked. Based on all the available evidence, and based on the conclusion of independent courts and judges and experts all over the country, it’s quite well-established that Joe Biden won the last presidential election, and Donald Trump lost it. But I am also willing to say that I would be willing to unlearn that, if in fact there were substantial evidence of significant errors in counting. I try to think of myself as a replay official, not as a fan of one team or another in a ballgame. I’ll simply look at the facts presented.
If you believe that global warming is not happening, try to come up with evidence that you allow you to unlearn what you currently believe.
This is what really constitutes scientific progress. Medical providers had to unlearn the practice of bleeding patients dry with leeches. Racists had to unlearn the prejudices that their parents (or peers, or whatever) taught them about people who looked different from them. K-State football fans had to “unlearn” the notion that Will Howard was incapable of great quarterback play.
Things change. Learning sometimes really means unlearning, in the face of new knowledge, or seeing things from a different perspective.
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