Knowledge's Graveyard

On the Friday afternoon breaking reading period, an undersized Emeritus Professor of Philosophy flung himself from one end of the stage to the other, juicing his creative license dry to bribe even a blink from one of the semi-conscious bodies nodding off to sleep three feet below.

Of the three-hundred students sitting in on the seminar, not more than a dozen looked awake. A handful actually had their eyes on the poor bald man turning sour with bad jokes, though they seemed to be glazing rather than absorbing. I myself, an immunology student not even registered in the class, snorted silently at the irony of the situation—as the professor howled lamentations of the growing eminence of adolescent apathy, more muffled buzzes from cell-phones rose to agree.

The punch-line of the day from the man squirming for attention: “How your apathy frightens me. Terror!”

Somewhere around four thousand words and two hours later, the seminar was dismissed. Suddenly, life exploded in the room, as if the students were actually zombies climbing out of their seats to finally terrorize the world. This is a typical scene, of course. Conversations regarding hangovers, who-laid-who, last-minute essays, and all the conventional topics of university life flowered immediately, as if those discussions themselves were in fact

My describing this, two weeks later, to a biochemistry friend brought only a shrug, “What, surprised that they didn’t all begin rioting and debating Marx and Nietzsche and Freud?”

“How can you not be?” I frowned. How can anyone not be? Since when did education drop to such an apathetic state? Students are more interested in what happened in “Suzy Smith’s bathtub” than what they pay thirty thousand dollars a year to learn. They are more awake at the end of class than at the middle. They talk over the professor not regarding a point the professor just made, but rather regarding how ugly the boots that the girl next-row was sporting were.

In fact, “taking pride in learning” seems not to exist in any privileged educational facility nowadays. In the Ivy Leagues, students mutually massacre not for the knowledge, but for the prize, the rewards, and the heaps of recognition enough to turn their peers into green, envious monsters. At least they do learn. In the universities with less cut-throat atmospheres, the students don’t even bother fighting for a prize—or learning at all, for that matter. Term papers are pushed, indeed, to the end of the term. Exams are not examinations of what was learned, but what was crammed in the previous forty-eight-hours. Starbucks and Second Cup giggle in delight at the onslaught of sales before midterms and finals. Caffeine is not the student’s best friend. It is the procrastinator’s best friend—the friend of the apathetic person who honestly cannot be bothered to absorb something that is literally delivered to his ears.

Sadly enough, even those who do take joy in learning would find themselves outnumbered and--sometimes--outright ridiculed. Tags such as "bookworm", "nerd", and "geek" evolved to cast a negative shadow on what should be a point of pride. To the general society, those more knowledgeable are more respected and sought after. The same seems not to apply to the adolescent populations nowadays; students who thirst for knowledge and frequent their textbooks are marked as loners and occasionally homework-go-to's at best.

Yet, none of what has been said should be surprising. Look at yourself: you are probably no different. Do you go to school truly to gain knowledge, or to chat with friends?

This question brings up the second point, that of societal pressures—pressures not only from the media, but also from peers and parents. Nowadays, the “genius” image ferments all teenagers: a cult culture worshiping intelligence at impossible heights. Television series such as “House,” movies like “Death Note,” even books promote the innate genius, the ability to simply osmosis a little information and analyze—perhaps even derive—everything else. Pieces like these might serve to entertain, but that is not all they do. They also promote a false confidence among teenagers nowadays. We might not readily admit it, but “ah, I’ll finish this after one more--I’m brilliant enough” does pop up in all of our heads every now when we stand torn between a hobby and studying. Watching fictional stories of genius installs a false, and often toxic, over-estimation of our own abilities.

However, the films probably contribute little compared to what is shared between peers at school.

“Ah, yeah, I finished that project at, like, two in the morning. Totally molested the coffee-maker all night. Can’t believe I still got an A on it.” Statements like these are commonplace at school, along with bragging about procrastination: “Whatever, I’ll study this three minutes before it’s due. No problem.”

At moments like these, the unstated logic is that “because I can finish this at the last minute and it took you all night, I am therefore smarter than you.”

Logic like this is what drives, partly, the teenage “apathy” towards studying. Perhaps it is not so much “apathy” as desire to prove oneself, or simply fit in with one’s genius friends—but the end result is not much different: projects designed for learning put off, studying delayed, learning exterminated and mowed down by cramming. Logic like this is also wrong. Sure, putting studying off might prove that you can force memorize bullet points, but in the long run, cramming in such a manner gives you nothing other than an empty wallet (and a smiling coffee corporate executive), insomnia, stress, and what’s worse—hatred of “school”. Cramming eventually grows tiring, and sooner or later, one falsely associates this fatigue with “learning”. Despite the fact that one is not actually learning, education is made the scapegoat of faulty personal choices. Sadly, this brews apathy for education.

Parents also play a big part in the encouragement of not enthusiasm, but apathy—and perhaps even irritation—of erudition. This is especially evident in the second-generation Asian culture in western countries. Asian parents strive to push their children to better places out of maternal and paternal love. However, their good wishes are often misinterpreted by faulty execution. Forcing “straight A’s” and “perfect SATs” and “valedictorians” upon their children is maneuvering a coup d’état of knowledge in place of mark-gain. After all, who can place emphasis on the fact that he is taking a class out of interest when “How did you not get a 100 on the last exam? I told you, you don’t study enough!” is put on maniac repeat but two feet away, twelve hours a day? Asian high schoolers, famous in all the top world universities’ admissions offices for their polished GPAs and perfect test scores, might as well be the least interested students in knowledge.

This presents a frightening point: the most competitive edge of the university-admit group comes from students in which a majority despises studying. On the other hand, similar parents exist in all cultures, not just Asian. This only worsens the case.

Furthermore, this case might be stretched to a world-wide scale. With increasing ease of communication, the “international scene” is closer than a “local scene.” One country’s university is under virtual competition not by the few hundred from the country, but the few thousand from all the other countries on the planet. The increasing competition—increasing need for the Beverley Hills mansion, for the Rolls Royce car, for the Medical School acceptance, for the Harvard Law stamp—tramples all over acquisition of knowledge for knowing’s sake. What a shame.

Finally, how can this—this lack of zeal towards enlightenment, towards knowledge, towards the mind’s power—be so easily accepted without even remote surprise?

My friend, of course, after humoring my thirty-minute tirade on the disappearance of the will to learn, merely scoffed and pointed to the textbook sticking out of my book bag, “You don’t get into Oxford based on how much you know. Honestly though, if you don’t start for that mycological diseases midterm…”

“How your apathy frightens me.” I mumbled, popping the lid off a Starbucks Double Shot, “Twenty hours to cram for mycology. Can I borrow your notes?”