Learning liberates us! Knowledge sets us free!

Conferences: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - Part II

This is the second [and final] post in the series on ‘Conferences: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!’

Well, right from the Middle ages up until the eighteenth century or even later, the term ‘literature’ was widely regarded as the sole, unique intellectual property of private individuals!

Hence a ‘man of letters’ or a ‘man of books’ or a ‘man of many languages’ was usually regarded with such great adoration and admiration by all and sundry!

Even the word ‘spell’ has this connotation to itself and the reasons are not far to seek! 

Anyone who knew how to ‘spell’ and read was considered having magical properties within them, and so the connotation, I guess!

Therefore the ‘literate’ individual was such a rarity to be found in those days! Again, this was chiefly because the ‘power’ to read, and the ‘power’ to access ‘literature’ was a privilege of the elite classes of society alone!

The renowned English philosopher Francis Bacon once famously remarked, ‘Knowledge is power’.

How true this statement proves!

In his astoundingly moving 1845 memoir, titled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the author Frederick Douglass, who is a famed orator and former slave, narrates his ardent desire and great ambition to become a free man! 

But then again, in order to become free, he first needs to come out of slavery, and then he needs to equip himself with a sound education!

At one particular instance, when his mistress, Mrs. Auld, tries to teach him how to read, Mr. Auld blatantly prevents her from doing so!

Says Mr Auld, ‘Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now if you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave!’

Mr. Auld knew for certain that knowledge sets a person free! 

Learning liberates a person and makes them free human beings! 

Douglass, incidentally, gets to overhear this dialogue, between Mr & Mrs Auld, and realizes for himself, that knowledge and learning are the sure ways to freedom from his present slavish life! 

And with education, he is able to come out of the miry clay of slavery that has been bogging him down thus far! 

Knowledge indeed sets us free! 

It could also connote to mean that, knowledge is freedom! 

And this could possibly happen only when knowledge is free! 

And more so, when conferences and seminars give platforms for the sharing of knowledge free of cost, or at the minimum workable costs! Ain’t it?

Yet another reference for this our post here, would be from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451! [Yup! We’ve already discussed vistas on this dystopian read on our past post HERE!]

In this dystopian world of a future America infested with thought control, carrying, possessing or reading books has been declared an offence! Firemen like Guy Montag are given the task of confiscating books by the dozens, and burn them down!

Interestingly, Guy Montag has been secretly collecting books by the dozens all along, as he couldn’t resist the charm and the lure, the tempt and the tract of the delectable book on him! Reason: he marvels at the knowledge that books carry on them!

With the help of his new neighbour, Clarisse McClellan, 'a teenager known for her free-thinking ideals and liberating spirit', Guy Montag learns a lot about what life really is! Clarisse then, is a unique kid on the block, as she does not believe in rote learning, where students are taught to ‘consume’ whatever is given to them by their teachers! To Clarisse the process of learning begins when one starts asking questions! A whole lot of them! 

Same is the case with Guy Montag too! His learning begins the moment he starts questioning all accepted ideas and beliefs into which he has been indoctrinated!

So much value there is, in the power of asking a question!

So why wait? Let’s begin the process of learning by asking questions, and also by setting knowledge free!

But why pray, should knowledge be free?

Because, as the good ol’ adage from Thoreau goes, ‘All good things are wild and free!’

So yes! Let’s set knowledge free! Let’s make our thoughts liberated! And let’s together journey forward and drink bountifully of the Tagorean ‘clear stream of reason’ to our heart’s content and thereby enter the ‘heaven of freedom’ that he had envisioned for our nation!

The first able and noble step in this direction is to take a resolve to shun with all our might, all ‘elite’ events that come dressed up in the guise of conferences [wolves in sheep’s clothing] conferences that drool and dribble 24 x 7, thinking and dreaming all the time, about our kutty little wallets (and our pavapetta debit cards sitting pretty within them,) to ‘shoot’ at sight whatever moolah that comes their way! ;-)

Yes! Let’s together set knowledge free! Together let’s make the world a better place! By providing free platforms for debates, discussions and interactions, as much as we possibly can!

images: amazondotcom