Lessons in democratic intellect

I must admit a simple motive: I was persuaded to read a book, I found it to be a satisfying mountain to climb, and now I want to reflect on what I learned. The book is The Democratic Intellect: Scotland and Her Universities in the Nineteenth Century by George Elder Davie. The subject could hardly be less intriguing but the subtext is profound. So, even though I would want to write about The Democratic Intellect anyway, I would argue that it does have relevance in a blog about Gandhist politics. Just bear with me.

In the Act of Union of 1707, Scotland retained independence in law, religion and education, which it retained to a great extent to the creation of the new Scottish Parliament in 1999 and on to today. However, the Nineteenth Century saw a challenge to Scotland's independent education system and, by the end of the century, its universities were more closely aligned with England's. But it is not merely nationalist pride that was dented by the change: Scotland had nurtured an educational system that was beneficial in ways that could not be reproduced in the English system.

In particular, Scotland had a preference for teaching philosophy to all students and any subject from first principles. What it lacked in detail, it more than made up for in rigour. The traces of this method can still be found today, but it is continually diluted and political pressure is always towards vocational training and away from strength in generalism.

This has immediate and pragmatic effects. The ability of science graduates to think around a problem or to come to terms with a new subject area is very poor. I remember a tv documentary (but can't find it archived) where engineering graduates were asked to explain where the mass of a tree branch came from--many of the answers were non-sensical. We're becoming increasingly dependent on computer software that makes complex calculations for us without having to understand the maths. It would simply be good sense to teach some problem solving to scientists, some Latin and Greek to English students, and some history and philosophy to everyone.

Davie also made it clear that an internationally respected school of philosophy, whose techniques were powerful and useful, was essentially lost in the political turmoil of the 1800s. With every Scottish student learning philosophy, academic philosophers were hugely influential, which meant that a dynamic community of philosophers was an obstacle to alignment with England. The obstacle was removed, as the result of both in-fighting and political machinations, by the appointment of less erudite men.

Even before I read The Democratic Intellect, I wondered about how we learn. Not so much as individuals, important though that is, but more as a culture or a species. Areas of knowledge grow and evolve with time: science becomes more coherent and universal while the arts explore different ways of seeing and thinking. Some progress is haphazard, like noticing the behaviour of penicillin, and some is planned, like mapping a new island.

Yet knowledge is only part of learning in the same way that training is only part of education. It is an enrichment of our intellect that has raised us from smart animals to cultured and sophisticated people. How did that happen, and how do we keep it happening? We have a good idea how to reproduce our values and our intelligence in the next generation, but how do we encourage them to build on what we have achieved?

I would argue that only people with a grasp of the fundamentals of why we believe what we believe and how we know what we know can question those facts and beliefs in any meaningful and productive way. Such an education is not cheap, but what we would be buying is immeasurable.

Of course, I have an ideology in development, but I'm not arrogant enough to believe that a progressive education system would lead everyone to the same conclusions as me. Self-determination means accepting the will of the community, after all. But surely a progressive education system would nurture a progressive society, locally if not more widely influential?

There is one last aspect of The Democratic Intellect that I have to mention. Historically, the alignment of Scotland's universities with England's meant a loss of identity. Not knowledge of its differences or knowledge of its heredity, which is all that seems to justify narrow nationalism, but genuine cultural distinctiveness. And it is depth and diversity of culture that provide comparisons for future development. Not all aspects of a culture are worth preserving but something good was undoubtedly lost in this instance.

Given the freedom to develop independently, perhaps we can build a culture that regains its democratic intellect.