COLUMN: Learning even during troubled times

    The expenditure of as much time and money is spent – by individuals, families, and taxpayers – at a place like Utah State University warrants an examination of what it all goes for. What is the point of pursuing an education here, or anywhere? The easy answer is “to get a job.” But jobs are, at best, temporary, and looking ahead only that far does not reveal to the tremendous possibilities – and responsibilities – offered here.

    In 1939, as England was facing the onslaught of the Nazi machine in Europe, C.S. Lewis wrote “Learning in War Time,” in which he examined the seeming triviality of studying at a university compared to the threat they faced. In this essay he writes, “What is the use of beginning a task which we have so little chance of finishing? Or, even if we ourselves should happen not to be interrupted by death or military service, why should we – indeed how can we – continue to take an interest in these placid occupations when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance? Is it not like fiddling while Rome burns?”

    England’s extremity led Lewis to deeply examine reasons for the pursuit of learning at the university in hard times. Here are some of my own:

    One reason is to become civilized. That is, to learn to get along in civil society, to understand enough about our fellowman that we have reason to treat him or her with dignity and respect, despite whatever differences there may be – or even if they play or cheer for another team.

    Another reason to learn is to be able to help. Our situation is not so dire as was England’s in 1939, but times are turbulent. Today, like most days, the world is wracked by conflict, revolution, division, and natural disaster. Understanding our neighbors – in Libya, Tokyo, Port Au Prince, or Logan – naturally leads to a desire to ameliorate their difficulties. This assistance is best administered by those trained to solve the problems at hand, each according to his or her skill. The Good Samaritan, that paragon of helpfulness, was successful because he was both willing and able to bind up wounds and administer comfort. We are learning skills that will enable us to perform informed good works, across a broad range of skill sets. We need graduates with the skills to rebuild Japan, or Haiti, a broken bone or a broken home.

    We should be learning, too, to weigh in the balance the consequences of the choices we make. Just because an action can be taken does not necessarily mean that it should be taken. Fly zone, or no fly zone? To drill or not to drill? These are tough questions.

    We are learning, too, to solve problems. To our students in engineering, it may seem that this is a large part – or maybe all – of what they learn. But in seeking solutions, we need be planning to solve more problems today than we create for the future.

    Related to weighing in the balance and solving problems today and later is the consideration of the past: “Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic

assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion,” Lewis wrote.

    We should be learning humility: That there is ever so much more known than even our most outspoken sophomore or our most accomplished graduate student will ever know, and ever so much more to know than is now known. And in that humility, to establish tools and discipline for learning how to overcome our own ignorance.

    And we should be learning to distinguish fluff and nonsense from relevance and significance. As Lewis observes, “A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village.” We cannot easily live in many villages, but “the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.”

    What was a cataract in 1939 is now more like an onslaught of tsunamis.

    As a professor, I’ve been accused of teaching really hard classes. In my defense, I always plead that the material is what it is. I just try to teach it thoroughly. Looking over the larger reasons for what we should be accomplishing, I wonder if there is ever enough that can

be taught.

Tood Moon is the department head of electrical and computer engineering.