AS I write this, a sense of deja vu permeates the news. Crippling economies, waffling leaderships and social injustices, on top of critical concerns about Covid-19 and our lives under movement restrictions. If there’s one thing that’s certain besides death and taxes, it’s that as a civilisation and species, we never learn.

Let me correct that last sentence – we are never allowed to learn. Most would probably retort, “What do you mean? We’ve got schools, universities, tuition centres, yadda yadda yadda”. Seeing as to how this column is about culture and society (with a good dose of philosophical ruminations), it’s hardly surprising that it has received zero comments to date (if a dynamic comment section is your aim, just write on our farcical local politics and watch the comments come in droves like bees to pollen).

To answer you, my hypothetical retorter, I am referring to the very word that ended the introductory paragraph: learn.

Whenever the words “education” and “learning” are bandied about, whether in our collective consciousness or in the mass media, the institutions of schools, colleges and universities come to mind. How we are “allowed” to learn is not dictated by control, but by giving control back to one of the main stakeholders: the learners themselves (not industries, as false consciousness has made it out to be).

The most common modern folk tale circulating in our CEO-obsessed culture is that of Bill Gates (an enemy or saint with regard to Covid-19, depending on which side of the fence you’re on). He quit university and became a billionaire. Most don’t see the forest for the trees when talking about his near-mythical journey to becoming the Gates we know. He dropped out because the varsity education system was cramping his style. It wasn’t because higher education had failed him; he just had other ideas that were ahead of the system (no pun intended… Windows operating system, wink wink).

Education systems are just that, systems, and institutions of learning are, at the end of the day, institutions. They have their own hierarchy and ecosystem, and like it or not, are often, by design, meant to serve the status quo and ruling classes.

One needs to understand and embrace education and learning outside of these systems and institutions. If you look back on the individual histories of the world’s greatest thinkers, none of them was driven by key performance indicators. Stakeholders in education today are caught in the sector’s own material-driven trap, governed by “outputs”.

The duty of academics is also to question and challenge top-down ideas objectively (not swayed by political or careerist motives), and give back novel proposals and solutions to help us progress collectively. This word is not used often, but it’s the job description: thinkers. A thinker needs time and quietude for ideas to ferment, and doesn’t outwardly appear to “do anything”. The modern office is a myth of productivity; we are adept at looking busy when we’re not really being productive for ourselves.

The knowledge mined from this sense of duty doesn’t necessarily need to be material “output” that can be “patented”, “commercialised” and “branded” – the values often attached to research in Malaysia. The fallacy is that they have come to be the “common sense” as to what education and research entail. Unfortunately, this attitude is endemic in our system, and it’s my humble belief that it will take a generation to correct.

University students, typically those from the urban middle class, often see their time in higher education as merely a paper chase for career purposes, and not something holistic. This is no fault of their own. The middle class has a duty to think differently, not perpetuate sameness. We live in a system that sustains only one particular perspective, and this may help explain our stasis in not achieving the coveted “First World” status (2030? Give me a break), which, in itself, is a rather shallow aim shaped by standards set abroad. Our situation needs local solutions informed by global knowledge.

Students of life should learn to be better, more wholesome human beings first and foremost (not necessarily dictated by piety – keep this in private), and among these qualities is the ability to partake in a vocation to earn a meaningful living and contribute back to the community (not the brain drain).

One is never too old to learn. Education is a means to an end, not the end, for learning never stops. – June 5, 2020.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.