My neighbor to the left is an attractive forty-something single mother with a small child
and a big fence around her property, which abuts on an
My neighbor’s frustration with this practice is obvious.
So she has taken to posting signs at both ground and eye level that say things like “Please do not dump garbage here” or that threaten the presence of cameras. They are eyesores almost on the level with the garbage she hopes to prevent being dumped there.
If Only They Knew …
Now, you probably (quite reasonably) wonder why I bothered to mention that she’s a single mother, since that little detail would appear quite irrelevant to the matter. In one sense it is, and in one sense it isn’t. My own personal theory is that if she had a husband to discuss the problem with, he’d tell her not to bother with the signs, just like I would. They won’t do a thing useful, they’re annoying clutter, and they may even provoke the wrong sort of individual to dump something really unpleasant outside her fence out of pure spite: “I’ll show HER!”
Women disproportionately trust education to get them where they want to go in life. I’ll leave it to the philosophers and sages to tell us why: maybe it’s being denied the opportunity of higher education for centuries that makes it appear such a panacea. 56% of US college students are women. In the UK, women are 36% more likely to enroll in higher education than men. In Malaysia it’s 64% and in Iceland a staggering 77%. Women at the University of Jordan outnumber men 2:1. This is the trend in every single developed nation on the planet, despite women currently making up 49.7% of the world’s population. Comparatively speaking, men are just not bothering.
Moreover, it is a widespread belief among both sexes, but perhaps more so among women, that education provides not only the opportunity to live a better life, but that it is the answer to all society’s major ills. What’s the solution to racism? Education. Third World poverty? Education. Climate denial? Education. The number one solution to alcoholism? Education. Sexism? Education. Rape? Education.
Anybody see a pattern here? Most of the planet is completely convinced that the answer to every obvious problem is to lecture as many people as possible about how much of a problem it is.
Hmm. And we wonder why we’re not seeing a whole lot of change in this world.
Worshiping False Gods
Romans 1 tells us that several things happen when men reject the glory of the immortal God. One is that their wisdom becomes foolishness, and another is that they tend to gravitate toward anything that exalts man and nature rather than their Creator. These things become idols to them. An idol is something men worship in the rightful place of God, certainly, but it’s more than that. An idol is anything other than God in which a man places his trust, and from which he gets his security. Paul tells the Colossians that covetousness is a form of idolatry. Why? Well, it can be just acquisitiveness for its own sake. More often, though, it’s because a man is consumed with the idea that the accumulation of wealth will protect him in bad times. Covetousness becomes his fortification against fate, just as the pagan offered sacrifices to false gods in times past in hope of ensuring more favorable outcomes in war, family affairs or business.
Education has become yet another of our modern false gods. We love to believe that identifying the problem and giving somebody a piece of our mind about it will actually solve the problem. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong or even ineffectual about providing others with information, provided it’s true and offered in goodwill rather than with the intention of manipulating or corrupting them. The gospel is information, after all: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’ ” To become convinced of an argument, good or bad, you have to hear it in the first place. So giving people more data is not in and of itself a bad thing. What is our Bible but information; communication directly from the heart of God?
Education Alone
No, the problem is not anything intrinsic to information or the information process. The problem is the mistaken belief that education alone can produce anything of value. My neighbor’s signs remind everyone who passes by, “You have no right to dump your garbage here”, “That’s not nice or neighborly”, “There are laws against this” and “You might get caught.” But the sort of person who sneaks out at night to dump an appliance or a roll of dirty carpet curbside beside your nicely groomed lawn is not in need of information about what’s appropriate and what isn’t.
He knows full well he’s not allowed to throw his rubble on any random bit of available turf throughout the city. He knows full well it’s ugly and annoys his neighbor. That’s why he has no desire to stare at it outside his own back window. He’s just sufficiently lazy and selfish that he’s willing to make his problem somebody else’s problem. And he also knows that even if he shows up on camera, the police have enough to do that they’ll never get around to making a litterbug their priority. The culprit isn’t concerned with legalities or rights or neighborliness or even penalties, so educating him about these things will not help him.
He doesn’t need education, he needs a working conscience. Signs, threats and lectures don’t help with that. Ask the Old Testament prophets.
Original Sin
The worship of education as a solution to all ills is grounded in the theory that men and women are all basically good; the rejection of original sin and the reality that all are born in it. Christians know this is not the case at all, and as people age, it only gets worse. By the time they are old enough to be racist or sexist, to drink to excess, to climate-deny or to impoverish the Third World, they are certainly old enough to distinguish right from wrong. When they make sinful choices, it’s because they want to, not because they are ignorant of the right way to behave. If people were basically good at the core, none of these evils or perceived evils would be a problem.
We don’t choose wrong over right because we are misinformed and need to have our wrong ideas corrected by our betters. We choose it because we like it, and because it works for us in some way.
No amount of education can change that. Fear of shame, injury or legal consequences might manage or control our selfishness in the public square, but it will not change the basic human desire to express our wills in the world and mold our environment into the shape we prefer. Only a living relationship with Christ can address that problem.
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