Education vs. Training

I once read an interview with actor Jodie Foster who graduated from Yale in 1985 with a degree in literature. She made the distinction between her education and going to a trade school for training. The target was not actual trade schools but business school, law school, engineering school, and the like. In essence, she was defending a liberal arts education as something distinct and valuable apart from landing a job after graduation.

Another great defender of the humanities is Steve Jobs who credits the success of Apple from being at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. Essentially, Apple marries right brain and left brain thinking to make the most elegant devices you will ever use. Plus, they work. For comparison, try out the rip off products of Microsoft.

The liberal arts are derided because they don't make any money. Degrees in these areas are considered worthless especially by left brain thinkers. These are the people who could never grasp how useful the GUI would be. Seriously. Why use a mouse when you can type commands at the prompt?

Left brain thinkers are the ones who make life work. Right brain thinkers are the ones who make it interesting. One is not necessarily better than the other, and I would argue that we need both. It is especially important that we have people who possess both sets of skills in the same person. I think these people are the true revolutionaries, and the thinkers I admire the most are skilled as both left brain and right brain thinkers.

Thanks to the higher ed bubble, right brain college graduates are no better off than their left brain counterparts. The difference is that the left brain people end up working at RadioShack instead of Starbucks. But this divide is not the point of my essay.

Education is not the same as training. Training is learning aimed at a purpose. The purpose is to develop knowledge or a skill to be applied in the world. The value of tha training is usually determined in economic terms. How much money do you make?

Education is different. The liberal arts borrows from the Renaissance ideal that was inspired by Aristotle. I always take special glee in pointing out that Leonardo da Vinci made more as an artist than as an engineer and being an artist in those days was the real job. The fact is that Leonardo had wide ranging interests. He was endlessly curious and creative.

Aristotle said that all paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind, and there is some truth to that. The fact is that many paid jobs today would not exist except for those endlessly curious and creative types who sought knowledge for its own sake. Education is the founding of training and not vice versa. Consider that an electrical engineer has greater job prospects than a physics major and will probably pull down more money. Yet, electrical engineering is physics.

In terms of money, 99% of education is a waste. But education is pursued for its own sake. Consider someone who works out at the gym. Are they professional athletes? Are they getting paid to lift those weights or hit that treadmill? Heck no. But is this a waste? I don't think so. We value physical fitness for its own sake. Similarly, education is valued for its own sake as well. Going to the library is every bit as valuable as hitting the gym.

In the past, people learned and dipped into the humanities. It was considered vital for every educated person to have considerable knowledge of history, literature, philosophy, and the like. Nowadays, a degree is considered valuable according to branding. I rub shoulders with many college graduates, and I always come away amazed at how stupid they are. A degree is supposed to signify that you are a person of learning. But today, the degree signifies nothing.

People note that I am educated. I can fake people out about my age. They habitually think I am a decade younger because I don't have hair, act immature in many ways, and retain my enthusiasm for living. But I always fail to fake anyone out on my bullshit story that I dropped out in middle school. No one has ever bought this. I have tried the high school version, the college dropout version, and the like. Everyone guesses that I have at least a bachelor's degree and possibly a master's degree. Why is this?

When I talk, people realize that I know shit. I am not mindful of it. I don't think about it. But my education is who I am. My life is fuller, deeper, and richer because of this education. And this education did not stop with college. It has continued beyond the halls of academia such that I have learned tremendously more now than I knew then. It also makes me want to keep living. I don't know where I will be in ten years, but if I am alive, I will certainly be smarter than I am now. This is because knowledge and wisdom take time to accumulate, and unlike fitness, it is not lost. And if you write, it lasts beyond your own lifetime.

A job is something you do to pay the bills. Training is the knowledge you gain to perform a job. That's it. It results in a paycheck. This is valuable because it pays the rent, the mortgage payment, the car payment, the cable bill, the credit card bill, and the like. At some point, people with training and no education wonder why they do it all. They feel like hamsters in a cage. But these are questions of value that cannot be answered by economics or a fat paycheck. Often, the solution for these people resides in some drug.

The humanities answers these questions of value. Life is not mere existence. It is not simply about earning and consuming. It is also about exploring and creating. The purpose of life is to be happy, and it is impossible to be happy without this deeper understanding of the world. I think older people have this intutive understanding of things which is why they are happier than middle aged people. Wisdom brings happiness.

Today, it is fashionable to deride the liberal arts as a waste, and I agree but only halfway. The waste is the money people spend for knowledge that they can acquire for little to no cost by going to the library or hitting the internet. It is a waste of money to go to college, but I cannot agree with the implied assumption that is a waste of life. It isn't.

I remember being in a bad place when I was in my late twenties. I had a job, but I had vacated the house where my friend had committed suicide because it was so traumatic. My only place to stay was an unfurnished apartment being painted. I slept on the floor beside paint cans and drop cloths. It was a low point in my life, but it was made endurable by reading The Count of Monte Cristo. That book made an impact on my life. It helped me to carry on. I don't think I would have gained the same inspiration from an engineering textbook.

It is the dream of many people to be paid to do what they love, but I think there are a lot of misconceptions packed in to that dream. I think you can love anything you do as long as it is honest and valuable. What people need to reconsider is the concept that enrichment is literally about getting rich. It isn't. When you consider that the cultural riches open only to the aristocracy of previous ages are literally at my fingertips, I live in the richest time imaginable. I can listen to Debussy, read Proust, and peruse Michelangelo works all in the next hour. Or I can watch ultimate fighting.

My whole life I had what I did for a living, and I had what I did for my mind. Those two have never met, and I believe those two will never meet ever. I don't think they are supposed to meet. They are opposite sides of a coin. They are inseparable, but they also never meet. There is what you do for a living, and then there is the life you live.

My recommendation for people is to develop both vocation and avocation to equal measures. Develop your skills but also develop your mind. Realize that riches are not just purely material but also the immaterial life of the mind. Read, explore, and create. Earn a living but also learn to live.

Posted in: