Memo to students or what it means to be an educated person. Educated person

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Knowledge, unlike money, is closely related to a specific person. A book, a data bank, a computer program does not contain knowledge - they contain only information. Knowledge is always embodied in the human personality. It is the person who always remains the bearer of knowledge; he creates, increases and improves knowledge, as well as applies, teaches and transmits it. It is the person who uses knowledge. Consequently, with the transition to a knowledge society, man becomes a key figure in this new world. This gives rise to new tasks, new problems, questions unprecedented in the history of mankind regarding the typical representative of the knowledge society - an educated person.

At all stages of human development, an educated person was considered a kind of “decoration”. He embodied culture - a concept borrowed from German. This term, expressing a mixture of awe and irony, has no analogue in the Russian language (in particular, the word “umnik” very approximately reflects the essence of the speaker culture). But in a knowledge society, an educated person serves as an emblem, a symbol, a bearer of the standards of this society. An educated person is an “archetype” (to use this sociological term). Educated person defines the true potential of a knowledge society; it embodies the values, beliefs and ideals of a society. If the feudal knight was the brightest embodiment of the society of the early Middle Ages, and the “bourgeois” - the society of the capitalist era, then an educated person will be a bright representative of the post-capitalist society, in which knowledge will become the central resource.

In this regard, the very concept of an “educated person” must change. The meaning we give to the words “get an education” must also change. It is not difficult to imagine how important a precise definition of the concept of “education” will become. Considering that knowledge is becoming the key resource of society, an educated person will inevitably face new requirements, new tasks, and new responsibilities. Nowadays, the role of an educated person in society is increasing.

Over the past 10-15 years, American scientists have been engaged in a fierce debate over the concept of an “educated person.” Is it possible for such a thing to exist in our society? And is it needed at all? And what is “education”?

A motley crowd of neo-Marxists, radical feminists and other lovers of denying everything and everyone proves that an educated person is pure water fiction. This approach reflects the position of the new nihilists, the so-called “deconstructionists.” Other representatives of this trend argue that educated individuals can only be discussed in relation to a specific gender, a specific ethnic group, a specific race, a specific “minority”, and each of these groups requires its own, separate culture and a separate (essentially isolationist) educated person. Since representatives of this trend are mainly interested in the “peculiarities of human nature” of certain groups, it would be useful to compare their views with the works of such classics of totalitarianism as Hitler (“Aryan physics”), Stalin (“Marxist genetics”) and Mao ( "communist psychology"). It is easy to see that the arguments of these anti-traditionalists are very similar to the arguments of supporters of totalitarian regimes. And the target for both of them is the same: universalism, which underlies the concept of an educated person, no matter what such a person is called - an “intellectual” in the West or bunjin in China and Japan.

Proponents of the opposite point of view - they can be called "humanists" - are also dissatisfied with the existing system. But their dissatisfaction is mainly due to their inability to create a universally educated personality. Humanist critics demand a return to the 19th century, to the “liberal arts,” “classics,” and German Gebildete Mensch. They do not, of course, quote explicitly the thought expressed 50 years ago by University of Chicago professors Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, who argued that knowledge, in its entirety, consists of a hundred “great books.” However, this does not prevent the “humanists” from repeating with all their might the calls of Hutchins-Adler to “return to the good old days.”

Unfortunately, both are wrong.

Foundation of the knowledge society

At the heart of the knowledge society must lie concept of an educated person. This concept should be universal precisely because in this case we are talking, first of all, about society, and also due to the global nature of such a society - in terms of its finances, economics, opportunities for career growth, technology, central issues and, most importantly, its information. Post-capitalist society needs some kind of unifying, unifying force. It requires a certain leading group capable of focusing local, private, individual traditions around common values for the entire society, a single concept of excellence and mutual respect.

Thus, the ideas of deconstructionists, radical feminists and opponents of the Western path of development are completely unacceptable for a post-capitalist society, i.e. knowledge societies. Now we need a phenomenon that they completely deny, namely a fully developed, educated personality.

At the same time, an educated person in a knowledge society differs from the ideal for which “humanists” so advocate. Yes, they rightly point out the unreasonableness of their opponents’ demand to renounce tradition, wisdom, beauty and knowledge, which constitute the priceless heritage of humanity. But just a bridge to the past - and this is the only thing that the “humanists” offer us - is clearly not enough. An educated person must be able to project his knowledge into the present, not to mention making it work for the future. The proposals of the “humanists” do not contain any prerequisites for the formation of such an ability. Moreover, they do not even mention such a need. But without connection with the present and future, tradition is dead.

In his 1943 novel The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse depicted the world that the “humanists” strive for—and its collapse. This book describes a brotherhood of intellectuals, artists and humanists who live in "brilliant isolation", with sincere faith in the "great tradition", in its wisdom and beauty. But the main character of the book, the most skilled Master of the Brotherhood, ultimately decides to return to the dirty, rough, restless, shaken by endless conflicts and mired in money-grubbing real world, since human values, if they are divorced from reality, are nothing more than tinsel.

What Hesse foresaw more than 50 years ago, we are now seeing in real life. Humanities and classical education today are experiencing a serious crisis, since it has become a “tower of Ivory", where the best minds of humanity flee from a rough, stupid and money-grubbing reality. The most capable students prefer to study the humanities. They enjoy it no less than their great-grandfathers, who graduated from their universities before the First World War. In order pre-war generation, the humanities played an important role throughout their lives and proved a decisive factor in the formation of their personalities The humanities continue to play an important role in the lives of many of my generation who received degrees before the Second World War, although we have put Greek and. Latin immediately after receiving their diplomas. But these days, students, a few years after graduating from a higher educational institution, complain that “what I studied so diligently has lost all meaning for me: it has nothing to do with what interests me now. and what I would like to connect my future career with." They are still not against their children, like our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, receiving a liberal education in best universities The Old and New Worlds, since a prestigious diploma provides a solid position in society and opens up brilliant career prospects. However, in their own lives they reject the values instilled by a traditional liberal arts education. In other words, their education does not allow them to understand reality, let alone feel comfortable in this reality.

Both sides of the education debate actually chose the wrong subject. Post-capitalist society needs an educated individual even more than any previous society, and access to the great heritage of the past will continue to be an important element. But this legacy will include much more than a civilization that remains tied to the Western, Judeo-Christian tradition, for which the “humanists” strongly stand. The educated person our society needs must be ready to actively perceive other cultures and traditions: for example, the great heritage of Chinese, Japanese and Korean painting and ceramics; philosophical movements and religions of the East, as well as Islam - as a religion and as a culture. Moreover, an educated person will not be as “bookish” as the typical product of a liberal arts education offered by “humanists.” An educated person will need not only well-trained analytical skills, but also well-trained perception.

However, the Western tradition must remain at the center of attention, if only so that the educated person has the opportunity to truly take on the solution of present problems, not to mention the problems of the future. This future may turn out to be “post-Western”; it may turn out to be “anti-Western”. But it cannot be “non-Western”. His material civilization and his knowledge are based on aesthetics, science, tools and technology, production, Western economics, Western type of finance and banking. None of these institutions will be effective without an understanding and acceptance of Western ideas and the Western tradition as a whole.

The most serious “anti-Western” movement of our time is not fundamentalist Islam. Such a movement is the "Shining Path" uprising in Peru - a desperate attempt by the descendants of the ancient Incas to "undo" the Spanish conquest of their homeland, return to the ancient languages of Quechua and Aymara, and throw the hated Europeans and their culture into the ocean. But this "anti-Western" rebellion is financed by the cocaine consumed by drug addicts in New York and Los Angeles. And the favorite weapon of his followers was not the Incan slingshots, but European bombs planted in American cars.

An educated person of the future must be ready to live in a global world. It will be a "Westernized" world. At the same time, this world is increasingly becoming “tribal.” According to his ideas, outlook, and awareness, an educated person should become a “citizen of the world.” Despite this, it must feed from its roots while enriching its own, local culture.

Societyknowledge and society of organizations

A post-capitalist society will be both a knowledge society and a society of organizations. Both of these systems depend on one another and, at the same time, they diverge in their concepts, ideas and values. Most educated people use their knowledge by being members of one organization or another. Thus, an educated person must be prepared to live and work in two cultures simultaneously - the culture of the "intellectual", which focuses on words and ideas, and the culture of the "manager", which focuses on people and actions.

Intellectuals perceive the organization as a tool that allows them to put their specialized knowledge into practice. Managers view knowledge as a means of achieving organizational goals and certain indicators. Both are right. Even though they are opposites of each other, they are connected to each other like two poles of a magnet, and not as antagonists. They certainly need each other: a research manager needs a research scientist no less than a manager needs a good analyst. If one “suppresses” the other, thereby disturbing the general balance, only a sharp decrease in the efficiency of the organization and a complete collapse of work are possible. The world of the intellectual, unless balanced by the pragmatism of the manager, becomes a world in which everyone "minds his own business" but no one is able to achieve anything significant. The world of a manager, unless he is fed by the ideas of intellectuals, becomes a world of swaggering bureaucracy, in which the “man of the organization” rules the roost. But in a world where the intellectual and the manager balance each other, there is always room for creativity and order, for the realization of potential opportunities and the implementation of the organization's mission.

Many people in a post-capitalist society will live and work in these two cultures simultaneously. A much larger group of people will have to gain experience in both of these cultures at the very beginning of their careers as a result of rotation, moving from work in their specialty to management work (for example, a computer specialist may be transferred to the position of project manager or group leader, and a young professor colleges may offer to work part-time for a couple of years in the university administration). Let us note once again that volunteer work in any of the “third sector” institutions will give a person the opportunity to experience and balance both worlds - the world of an intellectual and the world of a manager.

Educated people in a post-capitalist society must ensure that understand both cultures.

Technical disciplines and educated personality

An educated person of the 19th century did not consider knowledge technical skills, despite the fact that technical disciplines were already taught at universities, and the bearers of technical knowledge were called not “craftsmen” or “craftsmen”, but “professionals”. But technical subjects were not included in the humanities course and were not part of classical education, and therefore could not be considered “knowledge”.

University degrees in the field of technology have been awarded for quite a long time: in Europe - along with degrees in law and medicine - since the 13th century. In Europe and America - but not in England - the new degree in technical sciences (first awarded in Napoleonic France at the end of the 18th century) soon gained public recognition. Most people considered "educated" made their living through technical skills - as lawyers, doctors, engineers, geologists or, increasingly, as employees of business firms (only in England was the "gentleman" still highly respected without certain type of occupation). However, their work (or profession) was considered precisely as “making a living”, and not as “life” itself.

Outside of offices, those with technical knowledge did not mention their work or their specialty. Conducting “shop talk” in society was considered extremely indecent. The Germans contemptuously called such conversations Fachsimplen. Such topics were treated with even more contempt in France: anyone who mentioned his work among decent people was considered ignorant and a bore. Such a person risked the fact that sooner or later they would stop taking him.

But now that technical disciplines have acquired academic status, they need to be integrated into “knowledge” as a whole. Technical disciplines should become an integral part of an educated person in our understanding. The fact that college graduates in the humanities refuse to recognize “techies” (which automatically cancels the very idea of including technical disciplines in the curricula of liberal arts universities) explains why today’s students are sorely disappointed after just a few years of work. They feel abandoned, even betrayed. They have more than enough reasons to complain. If the information obtained during the study of the humanities and classical sciences is not integrated into the “world of knowledge,” then such education cannot be considered either “humanitarian” or “classical.” It failed to cope with its main, most important task: to create a world of discourse, without which civilization is impossible. Instead of uniting, such education divides people.

A person should not become (and this is impossible) a “universalist” in all areas of knowledge. Moreover, our society probably cannot avoid specialization. But we desperately need the ability understand different branches of knowledge. An educated person in a knowledge society will be distinguished by the ability to answer the following questions: what is the subject of this branch of knowledge; what problems does it solve; what are its main provisions and what is the essence of its theories? What new important conclusions does it allow us to draw? What topics does it not cover, what are its problems, its tasks?

If we do not understand that knowledge is not an end in itself, but a tool, then knowledge will become “sterile” and, in fact, will cease to be knowledge in the true meaning of the word. Knowledge itself is fruitless, since most important discoveries in each of the specialized areas of knowledge arise under the influence of other, independent areas of knowledge.

Economics and meteorology are currently undergoing a period of significant change under the influence of a new branch of mathematics called chaos theory. In geology, important discoveries are made using physics, archeology is influenced by discoveries in genetics, history is influenced by psychological, statistical and technological analysis. American scientist James M. Buchanan received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1986 for his use of the newly developed economic theory to the political process. He substantiated in economic categories the assumptions from which political scientists proceeded for a whole century.

Professionals must take responsibility for ensuring that others understand them and their specialty. The media play an important role in this matter - the press, cinema and television. But journalists themselves are not able to cope with this task. First of all, every educated person must understand why this or that specialty is needed. This requires leading scientists in each branch of knowledge to take on the difficult task of determining what they actually do.

There is no “queen of science” in the knowledge society. All branches of knowledge are equally valuable; all branches, in the words of the great medieval philosopher St. Bonaventure, lead equally to the truth. But those who have this knowledge must make them paths to truth, paths to knowledge. In a collective sense, knowledge is held in trust.

Capitalism has dominated for a century, since Karl Marx defined it as a special mode of production and social structure in the first volume of his Capital. The term "capitalism" appeared 30 years later, after the death of Marx. An attempt today to write a book called “Knowledge”, as a kind of analogue of “Capital”, would probably look very presumptuous. Moreover, such an attempt would probably be too premature. All that can be done at the stage of emerging from the era of capitalism (and also, of course, socialism) is to describe the new social and state system.

But we dare to hope that in about a hundred years a similar book will be written (perhaps they will come up with a different name for it, that’s not the point). This would mean that we have successfully completed the transition from capitalism, which is only just beginning. It is foolish for us to predict what a knowledge society should look like, just as it would have been foolish to predict in 1776 - the year when Adam Smith wrote his famous book on the Wealth of Nations and when James Watt invented steam engine, - the exact structure of society that Marx described only a century later. And it would be no less stupid for Marx to predict, in the era of the heyday of Victorian capitalism, what our modern society would be like.

But we can predict something now. Namely: the greatest change will be a change in knowledge - in its form and content; in its meaning; in his responsibility, as well as essence concepts educated person.

WHAT IS AN EDUCATED PERSON?

What is an educated person and why do you pretend to be one? First of all, you need to answer these questions for yourself.

An educated person is not one who graduated from any, even higher, educational institution - you never know how many of them turn out to be ignorant, narrow specialists or clever careerists! Not someone who has read many, even very many, at least the best books in his lifetime. Not the one who has accumulated in himself in one way or another a certain reserve, even a very large one, different knowledge. This is not the very essence of education.

Its very essence is in the influence that it can and should have on the life around it, in the power that education gives to a person to remake the life around him, in introducing into it something new, his own in this or that area, in this or that another corner of it. Whether it is general education or whether it is special education, all the same, its criterion is the remaking of life, the changes made in it with its help.

The greatest happiness for a person is to feel strong. Of course, we are not talking about physical strength, but about mental strength. The greatest reformers in science and philosophy - Newton, Pascal, Spencer, Darwin - were physically weak people. There were quite a few of these among public figures. The whole point is in the strength of spirit. Without fortitude there is no strength and education. Without education, in modern times, the spirit is powerless. This is not enough for an educated person to have solid, definite, accurate knowledge and solid, well-founded opinions based on them. It is necessary, first of all, for him to be a fighter for his opinions. An opinion that he does not know how to prove, defend from attacks, or implement (whether widely or deeply is another question) has no particular value. It is especially important for us, Russians, for our native people, driven into a dark dead end by the blind and selfish force of the past, to understand education in the sense of an active, reforming force, and precisely such a force, because without this it is worthless. We must all understand education as an active and bright force, not only in itself (this is not enough!), but precisely by its application in public life.

The greatest value for us, for our homeland at a given historical moment is not the person who has more or less extensive, deep, versatile, accurate and reliable knowledge; and not even the one who knows how to think critically and delve into the life around him, understand it in its entirety and in its particulars - this is also not enough! Especially valuable to us are those educated people who have responsiveness, strength of feeling, energy, will, those who know how to penetrate to their very foundations the spirit of the public. We can call these, and only these educated people, intelligent people in the best sense of the word.

The last decade of Russian life has shown quite clearly what kind of educated people the people are waiting for and what kind of people many of the most intelligent, capable, sympathetic people from the most diverse strata of the population are trying to become. An intelligent person is a person who knows and understands life, and its course, and its needs, and its needs so much that at any moment he can prove himself to be their true exponent.

Understanding the life around us is the first task of an educated person. Service to the surrounding life, the nature of this service - this is the touchstone for evaluating it. Whoever you are, reader, young or old, Russian or foreigner, man or woman, do not forget the social significance of your education and, especially, self-education. Russian history is unique and changeable. She can force any of you at any moment to become a representative of life, its interests and needs, aspirations and hopes, an exponent of its most urgent demands and a worker and fighter for their satisfaction.

A truly educated person must always be ready and prepare in advance so that at any moment, in case of need, he can be a spokesman for the needs and needs of the surrounding social life. No education, no self-education should ignore, first of all, this possibility.<...>

The very essence of a person is not in this business, that is, not in his profession and occupation, but in the man himself, in his respect to this business.

An educated person is first of all a servant of life. But not only the life around you, not only your corner, your circle, your family, your personality. Education, understood in the best sense of the word, excludes narrowness - narrowness of thought, knowledge, understanding, mood. The narrowness of the spirit does not see beyond the details, beyond the particulars, and forgets the whole, the many, the varied, the great.<...>

An educated person is certainly a versatile, and therefore tolerant, person. He must be completely alien to the spirit of intolerance and ideological exclusivity, and he cannot help but look at every opinion that disagrees with him, first of all, as a fact that needs to be recognized and recognized as such. Facts require thoughtful study, discussion and comprehensive assessment. Thus, the first task of a truly educated person is not to be narrow, to develop in yourself a diverse knowledge and understanding of life and the ability to evaluate other people’s opinions about life, while having your own, factually justified.<...>

Educated person

Vir eruditus

Latin-Russian and Russian-Latin dictionary of popular words and expressions. - M.: Russian Language. N.T. Babichev, Ya.M. Borovskaya. 1982 .

See what an “educated person” is in other dictionaries:

Human- a, plural people/di, people/th, people/dyam, people/, about people/dyah, m. 1) A living being with thinking, speech, the ability to create and use tools. Human creations. Don't be timid! laugh together! Let us be children forever! A person doesn't know... Popular dictionary of the Russian language

Adj., used. compare often Morphology: educated, educated, educated, educated; more educated 1. Educated is a person who has a large stock of knowledge acquired as a result of studying in any educational institution or ... Dmitriev's Explanatory Dictionary

Aya, oh; van, bath, bath. Educated and knowledgeable. Be an educated person. Oh woman. O. engineer. O. mind. O. taste. // Different high degree culture, education; enlightened. Oh oh society. O. people... encyclopedic Dictionary

Der gute Mensch von Sezuan Genre: Drama

The forest shines with rich beauty. Like something new wonderful world. Until now we have wandered through the desert and become familiar with the steppe; Let us now take a look at the forests of interior Africa, which can be called virgin forests. Many of them do not... ...Animal life

Intelligentsia (lat. intelligentia, intellegentia understanding, cognitive power, knowledge, from intelligens, intellegens smart, understanding, knowledgeable, thinking) social group persons professionally engaged in predominantly complex mental and... ... Wikipedia

This is what remains when we have already forgotten everything we were taught. George Halifax (XVIII century) Education is what remains when everything learned is forgotten. B. F. Skinner (XX century) Education is the knowledge that we receive from books and about which we have already... ... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

This article or section contains a list of sources or external references, but the sources of individual statements remain unclear due to the lack of footnotes... Wikipedia

The style of this article is non-encyclopedic or violates the norms of the Russian language. The article should be corrected according to the stylistic rules of Wikipedia... Wikipedia

France- (France) French Republic, physicist geographical characteristics France, history of the French Republic. Symbols of France, state and political structure of France, armed forces and the French police, French activities in NATO,... ... Investor Encyclopedia

Books

, Spektor Anna Arturovna, Blokhina Irina Valerievna. Which science is the most important? Maybe mathematics, it’s not for nothing that they say that she is the queen of all sciences? Or is it physics that studies the whole the world? Or maybe biology?.. Agree, these...
Everything every educated person should know about science, Blokhina, Irina Valerievna, Spector, Anna Arturovna. Which science is the most important? Maybe mathematics, it’s not for nothing that they say that she is the queen of all sciences? Or is it physics that studies the entire world around us? Or maybe biology? Agree, these...

Unlike money, knowledge is not impersonal. They are not locked into a book, database or computer program, they only contain information. Knowledge is always embodied in a person, he creates knowledge, expands and deepens it, applies it, passes it on to other people, uses knowledge for evil or for good. Consequently, the transition to a knowledge society puts the person at the forefront, while unexpected questions are raised, new, unprecedented problems are raised regarding the representative of such a knowledge society - an educated person.

In all previous types of society, the educated person acted rather as an ornament; he embodied the concept that in German is conveyed by the word Kultur - a mixture of awe and ridicule, which is not fully translated into other languages (even the word “intellectual” is not entirely accurately reflects this meaning). But in a knowledge society, an educated person becomes its symbol, its standard-bearer. An educated person is a social “archetype” if we speak in sociological terms. It defines the performance characteristics of a society, but also outlines its values, beliefs and beliefs. If at the beginning of the Middle Ages such a symbol of society was the feudal knight, and under capitalism - the bourgeoisie, then an educated person will represent a knowledge society, in which knowledge became the main resource.

This should change the very meaning of the concept of “educated person”. We must reimagine what it means to be educated. Thus, it is safe to say that the definition of an “educated person” will now be a key issue. While knowledge becomes the main resource, an educated person faces new demands and tasks, and new responsibilities are assigned to him. Now an educated person plays an important role.

Since the early 1970s, there has been a fierce debate among American scholars regarding the concept of an “educated person.” Is it necessary for society? Can it exist? What should be considered education anyway?

Many representatives of post-Marxists, radical feminists and other "extremes" argue that there is no such thing as an educated person,

it cannot be - the new nihilists, or deconstructionists, adhere to a similar position. Others claim that educated people can only exist within one gender, one ethnic group, one race, one minority that has a particular culture and therefore requires a particular type of educated person. Since these people are mainly concerned only with humanity on a large scale, there will be few supporters of the ideas of Hitler's "Aryan physics", Stalin's "Marxist genetics" or Mao's "communist psychology". However, the arguments of these non-traditionalists are in many ways similar to the evidence given by followers of the idea of totalitarianism. They have the same goal - universality, which is the very essence of the concept of an educated person, regardless of its name ("educated person" in the West or bunjin in China and Japan).

The opposite group - they can be called "humanists" - also criticizes the existing system, but for the reason that it is not able to create a universally educated person. Humanist critics call for a return to the tradition of the 19th century, to humanities, to the classics, to the German concept gebildete Mensch. While he is not repeating the thoughts that were in the 1930s. Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler from the University of Chicago expressed that knowledge in its infinity consists of one hundred great books, but still largely builds on the idea of a “Return to Pre-Modernity” proposed by these two scientists.

But, alas, both are wrong.

on the topic of: Educated person - useful person

Introduction

Word and life

What is an educated person?

Requirements for an educated person

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The state is doing everything possible to ensure that children grow up healthy and happy, receive an excellent education, and learn new skills. information technology, necessary in the 21st century, have become worthy, respected people, patriots of the Fatherland.

As we see, one of the goals is to provide education, which is enshrined in the basic law of the state - the Constitution of the Russian Federation. What determines this goal setting, how necessary it is, and how its usefulness is expressed, let’s try to figure it out now.

Thus, education is the process and result of mastering systematized knowledge, skills and abilities. Consequently, in the process of education, the knowledge of all the spiritual riches that humanity has developed is transferred from generation to generation, the assimilation of the results of socio-historical knowledge reflected in the sciences of nature, society, technology and art, as well as the mastery of labor skills and abilities. Thus, in my opinion, education is necessary condition preparation for life and work, the main means of introducing a person to culture and mastering it, the foundation for the development of culture.

Based on the above, I believe that an educated person is a useful person - he is a kind of means of transmitting information.

1. Word and life

"A man's word is the blood of his heart"(Arabic proverb)

The above proverb of the people of the East means that everything that a person can convey to people that is useful through words cannot be expressed by him for the benefit of people unless it is experienced and felt by the speaker himself. The word, as one of the important means of communication with people, must be not only a means, but also a special rational content - something that gives a person his spiritual experience of life and observation.

Powerfully influencing the minds and feelings of people, such a word goes into the creative process of life and spiritualizes this life, giving it reasonable content and direction. In the general cultural development of mankind, it was only from this direction of human activity that special spiritual values accumulated, such as religion, in its true meaning, which gave in the field of feeling the moral laws of relationships between people, and science, which in the field of experience and knowledge gave abundant material for the material improvement of human life. life.

To liberate a person’s personality from ignorance and awaken the creativity of thought in him, education is necessary - this is the broadest acquaintance of a person with the achieved scientific values through the free study of everything that is subject to the attention and judgment of a person.

The need to convey the experience of life, as well as the need to study the hidden forces of nature, is innate to the feeling of man as a rational, thinking being. This created a continuity of one generation with another, contributing to the further mental development of mankind.

The reader began to look in reading not for solutions to serious questions of life, not for confirmation of the correctness of his observations and experiences, but for pleasure for himself during rest, not from work, but from the severity of the excesses he was experiencing. And once such a reader was born, then, according to the demand causing supply, a writer appeared who satisfied the taste of this reader, and therefore the word itself, as a means of communication, lost the high significance previously given to it, as a means of expressing only special human wisdom. It is worth recalling the words of the poet: “Sow what is reasonable, good, eternal: sow, - the Russian people will thank you from the bottom of their hearts!..”.

From all that has been said, a conclusion should be drawn for both the writer and the reader, and for the latter, perhaps, it is necessary no less serious attitude to reading, as it helps self-education. The very essence of reading should not consist in a simple mechanical perception of other people's knowledge, other people's thoughts and moods - “what the last book says will fall on the soul”; the essence of reading is to experience one’s own thoughts and moods excited by what one reads, that is, to translate other people’s words and thoughts into the language of one’s spiritual feeling, which will be born from deepening one’s consciousness into the transmitted thoughts in connection with one’s observations of life.

Only such an attitude creates the condition for the enlightenment and development of human consciousness, for life is, first of all, creativity, and in order to create, this requires active ability and the ability to understand surrounding circumstances.

2. What is an educated person?

A truly educated person is not one who graduated from any, even higher, educational institution - you never know how many of them turn out to be ignorant, narrow specialists or clever careerists! Not the one who has read a lot in his lifetime, even a lot, at least the most good books. Not the one who has accumulated in himself, by one means or another, a certain stock, even a very large one, of various knowledge. This is not the very essence of education.

Its very essence is in the influence that it can and should have on the surrounding life, in the power that education will give to a person to remake the surrounding life, in introducing into it something new, something of his own in this or that area, in this or that her corner. Whether it is general education or whether it is special education, all the same, its criterion is the remaking of life, the changes made in it with its help.

The greatest happiness for a person is to feel strong. Of course, we are not talking about physical strength, but about mental strength. The greatest reformers in science and philosophy - Newton, Pascal, Spencer, Darwin - were physically weak people. It is important to be able to prove your opinion. An opinion that he does not know how to prove, defend from attacks, or put into practice has no particular value. We should all understand education as an active and bright force, not only in itself, but precisely by its application in social life.

Especially valuable to us are those educated people who have responsiveness, strength of feeling, energy, will, those who know how to penetrate to their very foundations the spirit of the public. It is these, and only these, educated people that we can call intelligent people in the best sense of the word. “What do we care about these educated people who are educated only for themselves and about themselves! - one worker writes to us. “They make us neither warm nor cold!” Absolutely correct. This is not what Russia needs. The last decade of Russian life has shown quite clearly what kind of educated people the people are waiting for and what kind of people many of the most intelligent, capable, sympathetic people from the most diverse strata of the population are trying to become. An intelligent person is a person who so knows and understands life, and its course, and its needs, and its needs, who at any moment can prove himself to be their true exponent.

The very essence of a person is not in this business, that is, not in his profession and occupation, but in the man himself, in his attitude to this business.

In a very dark corner, even the most ordinary candle is an extremely important phenomenon and, in the literal sense of the word, bright, and does an important job, and can even be proud of what it does, the fact that it sheds light where no electric lamps have yet penetrated, and will they penetrate, and when?

Where there is light, there cannot but be a spread of light to others. If there is an educated, thinking, understanding, thoughtful, socially minded person, he cannot do without public service, and in any case, a person who is unable to express the interests of life is not a truly educated person in the best, highest sense of the word.

Our definition of it is somewhat at odds with the usual definition of education. It may be objected to us that we cannot help but be classified as educated and learned people who are alienated from social activities.

An educated person is certainly a versatile, and therefore tolerant, person. He must be completely alien to the spirit of intolerance and ideological exclusivity. Facts require thoughtful study, discussion and comprehensive assessment. Thus, the first task of a truly educated person is not to be narrow-minded, to develop in himself a versatile knowledge and understanding of life and the ability to evaluate other people’s opinions about life, while having his own.

“The worldview and life task and purpose of life of each person are determined by his historical situation,” the conditions of that time and place, the social and popular environment in which we live, although we should not blindly obey these conditions Viyam. The purpose of education can be briefly expressed in the following words mi: it should “direct the development in this way the need for a person to become able to understand his natural and historical cultural environment and act in it.” “An educated person is able to quite consciously and confidently determine his attitude to thoughts and ideas, to the life forms and aspirations of his living environment.”

3. Requirements for an educated person

knowledge word educated public

Anyone, no matter who he is, can always, with his inner striving, although not without effort and sometimes hard struggle, rise at least one step above the usual level of everyday life. Even if this is only a grain of achieved enlightenment, it still has benefits for public life. This is said about people who have no other conditions for their enlightenment other than through self-education. But what can we say about those who had the opportunity to take advantage of all the conditions and means of education? What can we say about a person who has received a comprehensive and complete education?

Life makes more demands on such a person. An educated person must turn all his knowledge into a constant source of light for others. He must enter the sphere of enlightening and ennobling influence on life itself and become in direct communication with by the masses. An educated person must represent that part of society that, from the rough material of life, is transformed, like blood in the heart, into spiritual values for the entire social organism.

It must manifest a special type of social activity. He should not represent a dead passive force, but the active heart and brain of the social organism, intelligently connecting with all its directions, as a thinking, feeling and directing force. He must understand and evaluate reality from the point of view of the public good. An educated person cannot be educated only for himself and to himself - he is educated for everyone and must be a bright phenomenon in the corner where he lives.

Such an increased demand for an educated person is currently dictated by life itself. It is not enough for an educated person to only know about many scientific things, but he needs to show in himself how this scientific knowledge must be applied to life in communication with people, in short, to live scientifically. And this already moves into the area of self-knowledge, into the area of feeling. To do this, you must first of all become spiritually stable and strong yourself; you need to accumulate in yourself not only the power of thought and reason.

Everyday life is clogged with many habits with harmful consequences, and this is only because people see examples of the actions of other people in satisfying their harmful whims. The practical application of scientific thought, the formation of separate circles for putting scientific ideas into practice, will create centers that enliven life, from which influence on the creation of a new scientific way of life in people's life will spread into public life. This will be helped by the ability of an educated person to think about, evaluate and understand the demands of current life.

The ability of an educated person to organize himself in life, based on reliable scientific knowledge and impartial moral duties, should always be the property of society, as a material that compensates for social inequality mental development, especially when this is inherited from past conditions of social life. Now, only with such a personal relationship of an educated person to life can he be called truly educated in the best and highest sense of the word.

Conclusion

While doing this work, I came to the conclusion that only in special conditions personal activity of an educated person and through his direct communication with the broad masses of the people can create and great opportunity transfer of education through practical life into the very environment of people's life. If within the walls educational institutions knowledge is transmitted to students, then consciousness and practice must work outside these walls.

The scientific value acquired by an educated person obliges him to this special scientific activity in direct communication with people. This will undoubtedly greatly facilitate and develop self-education for those who do not have the opportunity to break away from family work life and devote their years exclusively to science. True, literature is one of the types of communication; it is the printed word that acts as an intermediary between a thinking, educated person and a person seeking means for his spiritual development. But the very word that is conveyed by literature comes from those processes of life in which man himself finds himself, according to the expression: “he who is conquered by whom is his slave.”

Bibliography

1. Magazine "Bulletin" No. 12.

Rubakin N.A. Letters to readers about self-education.

Magazine "School and Life".

Bieri P. Domestic notes.

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