Thoughts on Dreher’s Benedict Option

Over the past few days I finished reading Rod Dreher’s recent book The Benedict Option. The rough argument of this book is that in order to live a life ordered by God, Christians cannot continue to unreflectively participate in the social, cultural, political and economic institutions of modern society as these are contrary to Christianity. As a result it is the task of Christians to create parallel institutions and forms of communal life that allow them to sustain the Christian way of life as society moves in a post-Christian direction dominated by nihilistic individual freedom, consumerism, avarice and hedonism. Dreher calls this approach “the Benedict Option” and rightly points out that this shift would require Christians to sacrifice worldly success in favour of preserving their faith in many cases. The title is reference to Alasdair MacIntyre’s closing comment in After Virtue that like St. Benedict who created a form of monastic life in the late Roman Empire to preserve virtue and learning amidst its collapse, those who are concerned to live a life of virtue will have to create new forms of communal life to foster virtue amidst the new dark ages of bureaucratic state capitalism. Dreher is not suggesting that Christians cut themselves off from modern society, but that they have to intentionally create alternative forms of life that do not fit with the ethos of our age.

Now, given that I am not a Christian this book was not written for me. Much of it is an exhortation to Christians to see the way in which modern society corrodes the virtues of charity, hope and agape that the Gospel makes primary. So why did I read it?

I read it for two related reasons. For one I spent a significant part of my undergraduate and graduate study on the works of Aristotle, and consider myself to be something of an Aristotleian, although a relatively unorthodox one. Furthermore, for me, Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue is a powerful critique of modernity that any Aristotleian who seeks to reform modernity needs to address. In light of that I was interested in reading Dreher’s book because of the fact that it was inspired by MacIntyre’s critique of modernity and could be arguably said to reflect MacIntyre’s exhortation that modernity cannot be reformed to be made consonant with the life of virtue.

Secondly, over the past couple of years I have begun reading articles on The American Conservative, an online journal that Rod Dreher edits. I was drawn to this journal because it presents a sophisticated conservative Christian perspective of the world that is critical of many aspects of modernity that are concerning to me such as consumerism, instrumentalism and historical/cultural illiteracy, but at the same time stands opposed to my left-liberal political positions in its endorsement of a conservative Christian approach to ethics and politics.

I will give Dreher credit as his book is clearly written, and avoids being overly academic while retaining a significant degree of sophistication. Furthermore, those who already agree with Dreher about the nature of modernity and its opposition to Christian life, will find useful suggestions for how they can preserve their way of life. However, my issue with this book is that it does very little to convince those who are not already convinced of Dreher’s diagnosis of modernity and understanding of the Christian faith. This may be by design but if so, this was a mistake within the design of the work, as Dreher is very clear that he wants to bring people to an authentic Christian way of life, which means one of his goals is not merely to show Benedictines how to proceed, but to convince those who see the Benedict Option as an error and misunderstanding of modernity. Dreher has no expectation that he will change the culture at large, but he wants to help people see the light even if they are not already convinced.

1) Freedom, Authenticity, Modernity and Christianity

In The Benedict Option, Dreher asserts as opposed to argues that the modern account of freedom and authenticity are inherently nihilistic and self-centered with their focus on the satisfaction of all desires and cannot be reconciled with the notion that the Christian God sets proper limits on man’s freedom. While this is a typical cultural conservative reading of modern individualism it is peculiar that while Dreher invokes Charles Taylor’s account of the change from premodern to modern attitudes in Latin Christendom he does not make much of an effort to engage with Taylor’s defense of freedom and authenticity. For Taylor, the conservative reading of the demand for individual authenticity as nihilistic and self centered is inaccurate and problematic because it covers over the sense in which individual authenticity is about growth towards a more fully developed self. The notion of individualism and authenticity may tend to be used as a justification for satisfaction of all base desires, but the thought undergirding this notion imply a notion of particularized teleology in which each agent has the responsibility to develop to the fullest according to their unique nature. This of course removes the idea that there could be a single standard for human excellence, but it is more complex than a simple sensuous hedonism, as your life can be a failure if you just pursue your basest desires and conform rather than developing your unique essence.

Now, given that I am not a Christian I do not want to get into the debate of whether Christian faith can be reconciled with the modern conception of authenticity as I am simply not learned enough about Christian theology to have an informed opinion. But given that Taylor, is a practicing Roman Catholic who identifies himself strongly with the Christian faith and with the post romantic expressivist concept of authenticity it is not simply obvious that Dreher is warranted in asserting the irreconcilability of authenticity and Christianity. Furthermore, many of the sources of post romantic expressivist tradition which gives birth to the idea of authenticity emerge from the tradition of Christianity. In particular, Herder and Hegel come to mind as thinkers who tried to reconcile both the demand for authenticity and Christian faith. There is a debate here and one that requires those who see these poles as irreconcilable to address them.

Relatedly, Dreher draws on Phillip Rieff to argue that the culture of modernity is an anti-culture, rather than a true culture as it places no prohibitions on desire and does not have a sense of what it is good to be, that informs and drives its practises and norms. For the reasons pointed out above this seems to be an intellectually uncharitable account of modern culture that focuses on the fact that liberation from previous forms of tradition is built into the notion of authenticity, without realizing that the demand for authenticity is a standard, and one that is broadly shared. The demand that we develop ourselves by looking inside at what we really want to be and truly admire is as much a standard as the requirement of following an orthodox reading of the Gospel.

Now, Dreher does gesture towards the fact that there are other standards as he notes that many Christians in the USA are not in fact Christians, but Moralistic Therapeutic Deists. Moralistic Therapeutic Deists believe that:

1. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

While there may be some resonance between point 3 and the demand for authenticity and individuality, the way that point 3 is formulated purposefully emphasizes the hedonistic aspect of the demand for being self-directed, rather than the fact that the pursuit of authenticity is not simply about feeling good about oneself but of achieving one’s particular excellence. The authentic life may involve feeling good about oneself, but feeling good about oneself is not enough for authenticity. We might say that in terms of authenticity original sin involves not listening to the voice of God in our hearts, but obeying the voice of worldly pleasure or acclaim. Authenticity in this regard has no necessary place for Grace in that the voice within does not necessary require God’s Grace to be heard, but still the demand for authenticity is related to Augustine spirituality and not necessarily opposed to it. It is perfectly plausible to argue that finding one’s authentic way of life requires God’s Grace even if it is possible to formulate authenticity without allusion to Grace. As a result, Dreher’s reading of modern notions of fulfillment are particularly uncharitable, and do not engage with the richness involved in these ideas as we can see by the way in which he tries to frame the demand for authenticity either as nihilistic self-seeking or the pursuit of feeling good about oneself.

2) Children and Exiting Benedictine Communities

Throughout his book Dreher discusses people who are pursuing the Benedict Option in their own lives and exhorts others to follow in their footsteps. This often involves raising children according to a specifically Classical-Christian education with the church and the faith as the centre of their lives. Now, it is certainly true that every culture inculcates their children with a specific sense of the good , and modernity is no more free of inculcating a specific set of cultural mores than Benedictine communities are. So, from this narrow perspective it is a merely a matter of which form of education and acculturation is superior. However, there are two other aspects of this issue which Dreher does not touch on in any significant depth that need to be discerned. The first pertains to the right to exit a community and the second pertains to the fact that people drawn to the Benedict Option in Dreher’s work, including Dreher himself, tend to be converts who have seen the light as opposed to people raised in Benedictine style communities. In both cases, while I would absolutely defend Dreher’s right to withdraw and live in a Benedictine community I am not sure if the good of children is being fully considered in the construction of Benedictine communities. This perspective reflects my unapologetic liberalism and I am sure Dreher would disagree, but again I think that Dreher needs to confront these objections head on, which he does not do within his book.

With regard to the right to exit, in Brian Barry’s Culture and Equality Barry makes the apt point that communities have the right to raise their children according to their own values and norms within the bounds of the law. Furthermore, while it is true that this means many children will stay in cultural communities that they disagree with and find stifling, because they do not want to sever ties with their families, the state should not try to use state coercion to ensure that these communities have more “inclusive” values. Here, Barry makes a distinction between internal costs of exiting a community, and external costs of exiting a community. Internal costs are those associated with losing contact with friends and family, excommunication; these internal costs are costs that those who leave must bare because while they are significant they are internally related to the goods and practises of the community in question.

Religious communities, as associations, have every right to excommunicate someone who fails to obey the rules of the community, and there is no requirement that they adopt the rules of behaviour to the wisdom of mainstream society. They cannot coerce the person, but they can ban them from the association. However, the challenge occurs when a community is structured in a way that leaving it does not merely mean leaving familial ties and affective ties, but in which leaving the community will deprive you of what you are entitled to as a citizen of the state. The example that Barry gives is of the Amish in Pennsylvania who have right to opt out of paying social security as employer and employees. As a result, if an Amish person decides to leave they are not entitled to social security commensurate with the time they have worked. This places an unfair burden and an external cost on exiting the community, and one that disadvantages those who have a desire to leave the community, including the young.

Now, it is not clear if Dreher would see it as legitimate to opt out of social security or other forms of government entitlements that bestow benefits on all individual citizens of a particular state. But the demand to develop parallel institutions creates the risk of depriving children of what they are entitled to as citizens. So, Dreher needs to address this concern as it could form a significant objection to his project.

Secondarily, the fact that many members of Benedictine Communities come to these communities later in life after seeing that the life of consumerism, career ambition and modernity are unsatisfying, raises the question of whether their commitment to their faith is so strong because they have made the choice to reject modern idols and live an orthodox Christian life. If children are raised within Benedictine Communities that focus on a particular interpretation of the gospels rather than the free wheeling notion of freedom and authenticity, will they be given an equivalent opportunity to explore and come to understand what they think makes life significant as those who have joined these communities after living in the mainstream of society and finding it wanting. Again, the answer to this question are not clearly answered in The Benedict Option, but some of the language of shaping children seems to me to echo the Platonic mistake of trying not merely to portray the beauty of their communities’ way of life, but of ensuring that the community continues indefinitely without change. If Benedictine Communities go down this path and deny children the opportunity to explore other modes of thought and life in a charitable manner, but simply try to ensure that their account of Christian life continues they will be denying children the ability to take full responsibility for their lives. This reduces children to means to continuance of a way of life, and disrespects their fundamental dignity. Furthermore, this dignity is reflected in the Gospel by the notion of freewill. All need to come to God willingly, not because their pastor, father, husband or wife wants them to.

Altogether, I encourage other non-Christians to read The Benedict Option because of the honesty of its perspective and the challenge that it poses. While this book is not for us, there are valuable insights in it about the corrosive effects of modernity that any person looking for significance in their life can appreciate. However, it does leave much to be desired in its failure to charitably engage with modernity and I hope that defenders of the book and Dreher rise to the occasion to charitably engage with modernity.

The Role of the University in Post-Industrial Societies

During its origin in the Middle Ages the University was an institution for elite education, but in post-industrial North American and European societies over the past century the University has become a vehicle for mass education and practical research. As universities have began to occupy this role the justification of their funding, place in society and existence has had to change. No longer can universities justify their place by saying that they pursue knowledge for knowledge sake, or for providing students with a liberal education that uniquely enables elites to be effective leaders. Instead, the university is typically justified on four bases within post-industrial societies.

The first and most dominant justification suggests that universities are required educate citizens so they are able to get good jobs and achieve economic success. University education is then an investment in the young, that will allow them be economically successful.

The second dominant justification of the university is that it produces research and knowledge that will be able to help solve social problems, and ensure our society is innovative and thus is able to succeed in a competitive, economically driven world.

Thirdly, universities are sometimes justified on the basis that they allow people to pursue knowledge for knowledge’s sake and thus they don’t just help society solve problems, but also allow us to pursue the intrinsically worthy good of trying to better understand the universe.

Fourthly, universities are also often justified on the grounds that the education received, particularly in the liberal arts, will help students develop critical thinking skills, which will enhance democracy. On this view universities are seen to provide students with a well-rounded education that improves their character and capacities such that they are better citizens and individuals.

These justifications deeply differ and might even be supposed to conflict and thus the question I want to ask if it is plausible for the university in a post – industrial society to be able to fulfill all of the goals laid out by each of these four justifications. It seems to me that while it is conceivable that a university could do this in a particular kind of society, in post – industrial societies it seems that these justification are at cross-purposes, and thus the pursuit of one of the justifications will tend to negate some of the others. Hence the university, in its current form does not seem to be able to fulfill all of these goals effectively.

One quite glaring contemporary example of this conflict between the various justifications of universities is made evident by the failure of the bachelor’s degree to ensure economic success for those who pursue it. This problem arises because bachelor degrees, excluding nursing, education, engineering and possibly commerce, do not prepare students for any particular career or vocation. Thus while they may give graduates some skills it is not evident how these skills prepare them for economic success. For example, those who have a degree in the humanities typically learn how to construct an argument, read difficult texts, and write papers, but it is not obvious how these skills translate into any particular vocation, outside of the academy. But the reason why the bachelor’s degree in most forms fail to assure economic success for those who possess it is not because it is poorly designed, but because the degree is structured not simply as a prelude to a particular career, but as an introduction into a scholarly discipline, related disciplines, and to ensure people receive a well-rounded education that improves their capabilities. For example, the need for breadth requirements as part of a bachelor’s degree cannot be justified from the perspective education as a prerequisite for economic success. This is made evident because if I want to be a lawyer, why should I need to have an understanding of fields like the fine arts that have no clear relation to my field? But breadth requirements make sense if we think about the fact that different disciplines probably provide different critical thinking skills, and capabilities. Thus, to be a more well-rounded person, and citizen, you should have familiarity with a wider field of disciplines, rather than just with the discipline that you want to pursue a career in. Consequently, the very fact that the bachelor’s degree is structured, not as a simple preliminary to a vocation, but as a means to achieve a well-rounded education in some way harms its ability to justify itself as a means for citizens to ensure they have economic success. Pursuing an education that introduces you to a scholarly discipline and gives you a well-rounded appreciation of the world is a far less effective education for a career than a vocationally driven one. So, we have a case where one goal that a university is pursuing (well-rounded education) and another (education for a career) are in conflict.

We can also see this issue when we think of the research aspect of universities. The research that society is most interested in funding is often research with clear practical applications, rather than research that would best help us understand the world as a whole. So the university must try to reconcile two conflicting goals, as part of the mission of the university is towards serving as a haven for scholarship to help us better understand the world, and yet the state tends to see the university as a source of useful research that can solve its problems. While in some cases these goals may overlap, there is no reason for them to necessarily coincide.

The fact that universities are given the task of pursuing all of these unique, and conflicting goals puts them in an awkward place, and I cannot see universities being able to be successful at effectively pursuing all of these goals. Quite simply, when an institution tries to pursue multiple conflicting goals it tends to fail to deliver on any of them effectively. For example, the artist who tries to both be commercially successful and to produce something unique and interesting is not going to be able to deliver on either goal. He may try to produce something unique and interesting and end up creating something commercially successful, and vice versa. But as soon as he tries to simultaneously pursue both ends he will struggle as these goals do not always coincide and may conflict.

Does this mean the university should be abandoned? Certainly not, but it means that we need to stop being surprised that universities are unable to effectively pursue all of the goals they are tasked with. In addition we need to begin to think of how the university and mass education can be reformed so that the system of education, learning and research in our society can effectively provide vocational education, well-rounded scholarly education, produce practical research, and provide a haven for the pursuit of scholarship and science for its own sake. This may mean that the university needs to be supplemented with other institutions that can be tasked with some of the goals that the university is less adept to deal with. The existing vision of the university as a space for pure scholarship, practical research, education for economic success, and well-rounded education is well intentioned, but typically when one institution tries to pursue many disparate goals it will fail to deliver on any of them well.

Extrinsic Motivation: Recognition and Monetary Value

I want to consider to what degree rewarding people with money or honours for doing some admirable act is problematic. Rewarding someone with money or honours is a form of extrinsic motivation. To be clear, acting from an extrinsic motivation means being motivated to perform an action by virtue of gaining some reward or avoiding some punishment external to the action performed. This can be contrasted with intrinsic motivation in which one is motivated to perform the act by the nature of the act itself, rather than some reward or punishment.

One reason why extrinsic motivations are problematic has been made clear by Michael Sandel, among others. This stream of criticism argues that when extrinsic motivation takes on a monetary form it will tend to crowd out intrinsic motivations. Consequently, if we pay children to read, the intrinsic motivations to read will be crowded out by the extrinsic motivation for money, such that children will only read if they are paid. Thus the way that extrinsic motivation crowds out intrinsic motivation is problematic as the effect of this “crowding out” is that people seems to be blind to the intrinsic value of an activity and reduce it to a means of making money.

If this criticism applies to monetary extrinsic motivations, there is no reason why it would not apply to non-monetary extrinsic motivations. For example, if we decided to give children awards and social prestige for reading, this too would tend to crowd out intrinsic motivation as children begin to only read if they receive recognition and prestige for doing so. Thus, if we are troubled by the negative effects of monetary extrinsic motivations, we also have reason to be troubled by the use of non-monetary extrinsic motivations.

The preceding raises many questions about a variety of social practises, but one that I would like to highlight is the use of grades. Grades are both a measure to see how well someone has understood the material for a course, and an extrinsic motivator. Many people take great pride in getting good grades, and strive to get their A, because of the positive recognition that getting the A confers. As a result the formal practise of grading may tend to crowd out the intrinsic motivation to learn for its own sake, as people only learn when they get the positive reinforcement and recognition that is associated with getting a grade. If this is the case then the practises of most educational institutions are pushing aside the intrinsic motivation to learn for its own sake.

However, the non-monetary extrinsic motivation that grades present is less problematic than a form of monetary extrinsic motivation as monetary extrinsic motivations have no connection to the meaning of education, whereas grades have a substantial connection to the meaning of education. Getting an “A” in a course can signify one, some or all of the following: diligence, intelligence, being knowledgeable, attentiveness and industriousness. All of these values are related to education. We educate ourselves to become more intelligent and knowledgeable, and we must recognize that being truly committed to educating ourselves requires that we are diligent, attentive and industrious, as there is always more we can learn. Therefore, those who are motivated by the extrinsic motivation of grades want to be seen as being intelligent, knowledgeable, industrious, attentive and diligent. Now while their desire is still only to be seen as intelligent, knowledgeable etc. The fact that they want to be seen as intelligent, knowledgeable shows that they esteem these values, and if they esteem these values they are more likely to esteem the value of education on its own account, because if someone esteems the value of being knowledgeable they are likely to see the quest for knowledge as something that is valuable on its own account. Thus, while this extrinsic motivation may crowd out intrinsic motivation it can also reinforce intrinsic motivation because the meaning of the extrinsic motivation is related to the intrinsic value of education. Consequently, we can see someone quite effortlessly going from being motivated to be seen as intelligent, knowledgeable and diligent, to being motivated to possess these qualities as they are a constitutive element of what it means to be an educated person.

On the other hand, a person who was motivated to do well in school in order to get money does not necessarily esteem any value that is associated or connected with education. Consequently, in this particular case, while grades and monetary rewards can both crowd out intrinsic motivations, money is a much more problematic extrinsic motivation as it has a much stronger tendency to crowd out intrinsic motivation as there is no connection between having lots of money and valuing education. The two are certainly not mutually exclusive, but valuing one will not tend to ensure that one values the other.

The preceding tells us that non-monetary extrinsic motivation can help support, and will not necessarily, crowd out intrinsic motivation. However, this is only so when the meaning of the non-monetary extrinsic motivation is connected with the meaning of the goods intrinsic to the practise. If we gave someone a non-monetary award for doing well in a skiing competition and this award suggested that they were generous and kind, this would certainly crowd out intrinsic motivation as the award has no connection to the particular excellences of skiing. But, if the award signified that they were a fair competitor and that their landings were very clean this could tend to reinforce intrinsic motivations associated with skiing. Thus, if a non-monetary extrinsic motivation has a meaning that is connected with the excellences intrinsic to a particular practise it will not necessarily crowd out the intrinsic motivations of that practises. Contrastingly, if a non-monetary extrinsic motivation has no relation to the meaning of the practise then it will crowd out intrinsic motivation.

In light of the fact that post-industrial liberal democracies rely on monetary and non-monetary extrinsic motivation we must necessarily be careful to ensure that these do not crowd out intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, if we have to use extrinsic motivation we should rely more heavily on non-monetary extrinsic motivations that relate to the meaning of the practise for which they are a reward or punishment, and avoid spreading monetary extrinsic motivation into all spheres, or relying on non-monetary extrinsic motivations that do not connect with the meaning of the practise for which they are a reward or punishment. If intrinsic motivation is crowded out our practises become less enlivening and rich and as a consequence our own excellences will be degraded.

Market Economy, Market Society and Economocentrism

In the video above Michael Sandel makes some poignant and insightful comments about how, over the last thirty years, within the post-industrial world, market thinking has begun to enter arenas that have traditionally operated according to non-market norms. Sandel laments this fact as he thinks this entry of market thinking into traditionally non-market oriented social practises has a tendency to corrupt certain social practises by crowding out intrinsic motivation. For example, he points out that some schools have started to pay students to read and this is troubling as it encourages students to read for money, rather than to read for the sheer enjoyment of it, or to learn as much as they can. I am largely in agreement with Sandel that the entry of market thinking into spheres such as education, love, and friendship is deeply problematic.

Furthermore, Sandel characterizes the shift that I have described above as a shift from a market economy to a market society. A market society uses markets as the predominant tool to generate economic growth, whereas a market society tends to see that everything operates according to market principles. Sandel may be right that the scope of market thinking has greatly expanded over the last thirty years in the post-industrial world, however, he seems to fail to adequately address the question of why there is such a tendency for the market to expand into arenas that have traditionally operated under non-market principles. I will argue that once we have a market economy and economocentrism there is a tendency towards for market logic to spread to all spheres of life.

Post –industrial societies tend to be intensely focused on economic growth. Within these societies aside from individual rights and equality, one of the things you cannot question in public life is the need to constantly increase economic growth. In this sense, post-industrial societies are economocentric. That is they are centred around economic growth and work, rather than some other value. Furthermore, for many post-industrial societies economocentrism is nothing particularly new. While writing in the 19^th century Tocqueville noticed how dominant the focus on work and the economy was in the American mind. He notes that Americans tend to have little regard for those  who live the life of leisure and view the life of productivity and work as having a great deal of dignity. In this sense, 19^th century America already was economocentric.                                                                                                                                                

Now within societies with market economies the focus on economic growth tends to encourage people to want to maximize the efficiency of practises that have not traditionally operated through the use of market incentives by applying market mechanisms to these practises. The idea being that just as market forces have spurred on technological innovation and material improvement in particular areas that now operate according to market mechanisms, so too will market forces be able to increase the efficiency of practises that have not traditionally operated according to market principles such as educational or healthcare practises. Consequently, we see the push to pay people to read as this would efficiently maximize the good of people reading.  As a result, within a society that has a market economy and is economocentric there is a natural tendency for the logic of the market to be applied to all arenas of social life.

 To put this slightly differently,  within a society that is economocentric and has a market economy, our desire to maximize the things we value leads us to use the tool at hand (market mechanisms) to maximize every good that exists, even if the use of markets to maximize that good compromises the meaning of the good in question.  In this sense the trouble with a market economy paired with economocentrism is that we are ever focused on economic growth and are always thinking in terms of market mechanisms, and thus we tend to lose our ability to think in terms of other forms of valuation and lose sight of the complex nature of non-market values like love, friendship and education. As we lose our ability to think in terms of other forms of valuation and lose sight of the complexity of non-market values we begin to apply market rationality to all spheres of life.

I  am not suggesting that people within post-industrial societies are generally unable to reflect and understand non-market values and non-market practises, but rather that in terms of pre-reflective everyday thinking, living within an economocentric market economy will tend to make us think in terms of market valuation and market mechanisms.  People are perfectly capable of understanding non-market values and appreciate practises that operate according to non-market norms when they live within a society that is economocentric and has a market economy, but if they do not reflect in such a situation they will begin to understand all values in terms of markets, and thus fail to appreciate non-market values.

Sandel is right to call attention to the way that market norms have spread to all spheres of life, but it is important to also notice that the very structure of the public culture in which we live tends to reinforce the spread of market mechanisms to all social arenas. This encroachment of market mechanisms into all spheres of life was not something that was simply imposed on us by elites, it is something that our own thinking and culture legitimates and reinforces.  Thus, if the culture of postindustrial societies continues on the path it is currently on the marketization of social practises will tend to continue.

 

Instrumentalism and the Love of Learning

Within industrialized countries usually when a child, or someone else for that matter, asks why it is important for them to do well in school, they are told that they should do well in school because this will help them get into a good university and get a good job so that they can support themselves in the future. This instance reflects a problematic attitude in industrialized societies that schooling is primarily the means by which citizens acquire the skills necessary to pursue a career. This attitude is troubling because it tends to stamp out an intrinsic love for learning, by encouraging people to think of any form of learning as merely a means to an end, rather than something that could have value on its own account.

We can see how deeply this attitude manifest itself within industrialized societies, because from a young age we are constantly told that the reason why we need to do well in school and learn things is so that we can get a good job. We are never told that the most admirable kind of human being, might be one who not only has a breadth of knowledge, but also someone who loves learning and is constantly drawn to develop a firmer grasp of the world and their place in it. This shows that members of industrialized societies are encouraged and habituated to think of learning as a tool external to themselves that will help them get the job that they desire, rather than an element of the best kind of life for a human being.

If we become habituated in thinking of learning as simply a means to career improvement our love of learning may be stamped out, as we will begin to only see learning as a means to an end. This is problematic as one thing that gives man his value is that he longs to understand the world and his place in it, not just so he can attain comfort through a career, but because understanding the world and his place in it is an intrinsically worthwhile activity. Therefore, if learning merely becomes a means to career improvement we will be clever beings with a variety of technical skills, but we will lack a fundamental element of what gives us our dignity                                                    

Furthermore, there is great freedom in the attempt to learn for its own sake, rather than to learn to attain some further end.  In such a case one is not doing something that is commanded by necessity. Consequently, learning to pursue a career is a less free activity, than learning because of the intrinsic value of such education. Thus, if we merely pursue learning as something that can help us get a good job, in a certain sense we will be less free than if we pursued learning as an intrinsically worthwhile activity.

Currently, the way that the value of education is framed tends to encourage people to merely think of learning as a means to a career, but at this point it does not seem that this framing has fully stamped out the understanding of the importance of pursuing learning for its own sake. A testament to this is that there are still many people who pursue degrees in the humanities and the social sciences, which have fairly minimal job prospects, because they see the activity of trying to understand what it means to be human as intrinsically valuable.  However, if industrialized societies continue down the path of framing education as merely a means to a good career, over time we may begin to fail to see the intrinsic value of learning, and this would be problematic for all of the reasons I have noted above.