16

There needs to be a running dialogue about the overall purpose of education, and in absence of that conversation explorations of education’s deficiencies are little more than meaningless critical analyses. Let me propose for the purposes of this discussion that education exists to increase the productive capacity of the society. Some propose that the purpose of education is to expand the general happiness of the individual but I believe that happiness is a purely personal endeavor and not the domain of the state (which invests heavily in education) or society as a whole (which benefits from happiness, but cannot predictably create the conditions for it, as works by the likes of Frankl have shown). Formal education exists to expand the ability of people to produce, and in the creative age productivity is aligned with the individual’s natural desire for place, permanence and individual expression. For the purposes of this conversation, I also assume an interconnectedness between all the individuals in a society, such that productivity cannot be maximized if the society is not composed of “wise, connected and emotionally aware agents in an open civil society where production of value is assessed on the basis of true cost and sustainability.” Lance’s point is an excellent one, and I agree with him. One can view the purpose of education as productive capacity through the lens of civil society, culture, social systems, individual fulfillment or even through Maslow’s hierarchy. My point is that in the creative age, those lenses are all converging such that it will not be possible to achieve excellence in one without achieving excellence in all.