What kind of person is called educated according to the main characteristic. What makes an educated person different?

To receive an education means to let into your life
new information, new impressions,
new feelings, new people, new ideas...

Higher education is the dream of many thousands of people.

They strive to obtain the coveted diploma in order to have a competitive advantage in the search for work.

But I, as the director of my enterprise, would pay attention to the diploma in the very last place. I look at how a person communicates, their self-esteem, their actual skills and abilities. It’s not difficult to see this in a person after talking with him for just a couple of minutes.

They get a diploma in order to stay in their place. It’s just that your bosses have requested a higher education due to the fact that the formal status of the organization in which you work has increased. You understand that in this case a person has no incentive for real education.

People try to get a diploma in the fashion profession for reasons of prestige. But fashion is a very fickle and changeable girl. By the time you graduate from university, the profession may not be prestigious and low-paid.

Here I would like to focus on the process of education itself and its result.

What does it mean to be educated?

Let us dwell on the concept of an educated person. What does it mean to be an educated person in our time?

I consider this question important due to the fact that before determining what to do, it is necessary to determine the goal. Actions that are not aimed at achieving a specific goal are meaningless.

In my opinion, an educated person is a person who is able to successfully solve the problems that arise in front of him without losing his health, self-esteem and without depriving himself of joy. In the process of solving problems, such a person invariably becomes stronger and wiser. Educated person- This is a responsible person. An educated person interacts successfully and positively with others, learns from them, or teaches them as needed.

Each student has his own motives for studying.

I wonder how many people want to become educated and literate people? According to my observations, the percentage of such people is negligible.

The vast majority pursue purely utilitarian goals. And this is done in such a way that a person leaves the walls of the university with a diploma, but completely unchanged inside.

BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTERISTIC OF EDUCATION IS THE PROCESS OF DEEP RESTRUCTURING OF THE INNER WORLD OF PERSON

If this does not happen, then there is no education.

Studying, real learning, is associated with changing and expanding the student’s horizons. His worldview changes. Self-esteem grows based on success in understanding science. The student acquires very necessary skills of social interaction, mutual assistance, support, a critical look at things, independence in solving problems, moral stability...

What subjects should I study?

Despite frequent disputes with friends, I find it very useful to study all items without exception that are taught in your university course.

We often see a situation where a student seriously studies only a few subjects that he considers key for himself. Other subjects, or rather tests and exams on them, are simply purchased. At best, this is unwise. Such a student personally deprives himself in terms of expanding his knowledge.

I’ll explain with an example from school. I really disliked Russian language lessons. But how did knowing such topics help me? subordinate clauses, participial phrases and others when I started studying English. When I was at school, I did not think or imagine that I would ever be interested in English. And it is not a fact that new interests will not arise in the life of the above-mentioned student, in which knowledge that now seems empty can be very useful. And if we are talking about the fact that a student ignores knowledge of logic and psychology, then I simply feel sorry for him. After all, he will not hide behind any career from the need to think logically and from the psychological manifestations of life.

Studying at university branches is generally a special topic. Syllabus in many of them it is built in such a way that it is, in principle, impossible to master the necessary subjects. For example, at the beginning of the session they start giving lectures on physics, and two weeks later there is an exam on this huge and complex subject. What's the result? Bribes, ordering tests from teachers, often from the same ones who gave the lectures. And this is called education?

What should those who are already studying at such an institution do? If you want to get a real rather than a formal education, find out in advance what subjects will be studied at the next session and prepare for them within six months. Remember that studying even a small training course requires a lot of time.

Here are a few points that I consider important when receiving any education

Know why you are studying. You must have a clear goal. That is, the question “why are you studying” should not put you in a confused state. Your answer to this question should be intelligible and logical, justified. It's not worth studying for a diploma. Don't go to study if you don't know why you need it. Save time and money not only yours, but also your teachers'.

Choose a specialty not one that is fashionable, but one that is truly interesting to you.

Even if the course at your university does not include the study of logic, psychology, philosophy, devote attention to these disciplines Special attention. With this you will lay the foundation for your real growth, both career and personal.

Have an idea of ​​the scope of the educational work ahead. A real, serious and truly effective education requires at least 20-30 thousand hours of mental work. In its pure form, this time is about three years! This is the time spent listening to lectures, reading, writing papers, searching for necessary information, conducting laboratory and practical work, setting up experiments. Moreover, not just formally spent time, but consciously and creatively! The memory of one of my acquaintances who proudly showed me his psychic diploma makes me smile. This diploma recorded the time spent studying various disciplines. For example, a whole 8 hours were spent studying all of medicine! In my opinion, just listing special medical terms will take much more time. One can imagine the consequences of treatment with such a psychic.

Remember, real education will greatly change your personality and your life. You will definitely have new interests, new thoughts and new plans, new desires. This naturally follows from a significant expansion of horizons and a change in worldview. You will become imbued with professional terms (you will begin to use jargon), you will begin to see in ordinary things new manifestations related to your profession. If you are not willing to change, then you will not be able to get a real education.

Remember, no one at the university will care about your success in the future. This is solely your problem. Therefore, be positive and endure difficulties with dignity. educational process(and they are not small), take care of the growth of your professionalism and self-esteem from the very first courses. Consider yourself an aspiring professional in your chosen specialty and take it seriously.

Master useful skills and new technologies in education. For example, my work at the computer became much more productive when I learned the ten-finger touch typing method. Fast reading, mastering modern computer programs, ability to quickly search for information on the Internet, ability to translate from foreign language- these are just some of the useful skills of a modern educated person.

The eyes are afraid, but the hands are doing. This rule has helped me out more than once in both work and study. It is difficult to predict in advance whether you will cope with the task. You just have to take it and do it. It is clear that learning Chinese is unlikely to happen overnight, but do not underestimate your abilities until you seriously try to solve some really difficult problem. I have repeatedly dealt with things that were even scary to take on. We had to work to the limit, but this allowed us to find out their current limits. And I realized with surprise and joy that I could do more than I had previously thought. You can do this too.

If you are short of time, study at least one textbook on a given subject. Don't get overwhelmed by the many books your teacher recommends. It is better to get an idea of ​​the subject from one textbook (after all, fools do not write books, much less textbooks), than from fragmentary chapters from different books. And, of course, lecture notes will help bring knowledge on the subject into some kind of system.

Remember, studying at a university is not the final authority in your education. This is one of the stages of learning about life and yourself. Completing your studies at a university should not mean the end of your education. A person learns throughout his life, whether he wants to or not. It's better to do this consciously. The best way to get an education is through self-education. Be self-taught, don't wait for life to teach you.

An excellent education can be obtained at any university. The main thing is to study. Prestigious universities are, of course, cool, but I already said everything in the line above.

I wish you success and look forward to your comments!

In this article I will only identify a problem that I would like to discuss with my readers and further develop this topic.

Education. We all get an education. Primary, higher, etc.

But what exactly is meant by this word or process. What do we get as a result of our education? In addition to the formal crust in the form of a diploma.

An educated person - who is he??

*****
As always, we need to start with concepts.

Formation from the word " image ", i.e. In the process of education, a person strives for some kind of image.

This is exactly what it does - education, training, upbringing . Formation of the image. It is these three categories that will determine the formed image. But at the same time, even pedagogy has not yet decided on a common understanding of these words and their meanings.

In outline.

Who is a trained person?

One who has mastered any skill or skill or specialty.

Who is a well-mannered person? ?

Apparently the person whose actions correspond to the requirements of the norms and morals that society has established.

Who is an educated person ?

A person who possesses a system of knowledge and skills necessary for life. But, systematized knowledge, and not scraps, loosely connected with each other.

A person can be well-mannered, but uneducated - this is also possible, but more often it’s the other way around. The number of combinations can be continued

****
So what image allows us to say that a person is educated.

What does this image include?

Modern education still cannot come to a common understanding of what education is. It only divides education into secondary, vocational, economic, humanitarian, technical, etc.

Those. tries to introduce professional knowledge and skills into education. But in this case we get a person who is a professional, but can we say that he is an educated person?

The situation is even worse with self-education, i.e. I myself form the image that I am trying to achieve. But since a person is only trying to become educated through self-education, he does not yet understand what kind of image this should be. And he often uses the usual cliches - I will be successful, rich, happy, etc. And for this I need to study this and that.

The absence of criteria by which one could judge who an educated person is leads only to the fact that - how many people - so many opinions.

Some call it freedom, talk about the uniqueness of the individual, about some kind of self-realization. But in the end, this leads only to one thing - a loss of guidelines and meanings.

How to be and what to do ?

The first thing you can do is listen to the experts. But who can be considered an expert on this matter?
Perhaps it’s worth starting with N.A. Rubakin. After all, it was he who raised this question – who is this educated person?

Nikolai Alexandrovich Rubakin(1862-1946) - Russian book scholar, bibliographer, popularizer of science and writer.

Source: Rubakin N.A. Selected items in 2 volumes. vol.2, p. 156.

Next, he suggests highlighting in self-education three main sides: Firstly, natural phenomenon in a physical sense, Secondly – phenomenon of social life, and thirdly – ​​thinking, believing personality .

The main thing is to know all these three sides, but more importantly, their mutual connection and influence.

As an option general education it offers a program divided into departments such as:
1. Language and its history.
2. Literature and its history.
3. Morality and its history.
4. Literary, social and social movements among which we are brought up and their history.
5. Humanity as a whole and its history.
6. Religious-church system and its history.
7. Family system and its history.
8. System of education, public education and enlightenment and its history.
9. State and legal system and its history.
10. Social and economic system and its history.
11. Society, its essence and origin.
12. Tribes and races, their distribution on earth.
13. Psyche, phenomena of spiritual life, their essence and origin.
14. Human body, its structure and life.
15. The animal kingdom, its composition and life.
16. The plant kingdom, its composition and life.
17. The kingdom of organisms in general, as a single whole and its origin and history.
18. Earth and the changes taking place with him and on him.
19. Inorganic matter of which the Universe consists, changes that have occurred and are occurring with it.
20. Forces of nature, their transformations and history.
21. The Universe (Cosmos) as a single whole, its history (evolution).
22. Mathematics and its history.
23. Logic and epistemology.
24. Philosophy and its history.

Based on the study of these 24 branches of knowledge and comparative acquaintance with other people's opinions and theories, a person will be able to develop his own worldview.

*****
We can agree that having studied the above areas, a person will have a broad outlook and will be able to express and justify his point of view on various issues.

But... again, I personally couldn’t see the “ image "to which the person is walking. Yes, the sum of knowledge may form a system, but in my opinion there is something missing here.

And N.A. Rubakin himself. in his book " How to educate yourself ", writes: " A truly educated person is not one who considers himself “educated”, not one who has graduated from any, even higher, educational institution, - you never know how many of them turn out to be ignoramuses, 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 a certain stock, at least 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 life around us - in the power that education gives, in introducing into it something new, something new in this or that area, in this or that corner of it. Whether it is general or special education, all the same, its criterion is the remaking of life, the changes made in it with its help».

Next, he defines the tasks facing a person who strives to become educated:
1. Look closely at the life around you and think about it;
2. Study, know and understand it;
3. Be able to act in it;
4. To do this, have the preparation:
a) general, i.e. broad outlook;
b) special, professional.

****
But here, too, I did not see the image of a person worth striving for. Yes - again knowledge, yes - skills, the ability to introduce something new. But this is not enough for the image.

Most likely, this “image” is associated not only with education, training and upbringing.

What kind of “image” is this that “education” should form? ?
I hope that my readers have their own opinion on this issue.

I look forward to your comments.

Best regards, Nikolay Medvedev.

11 comments to the post “Who is an educated person?”

How I understand education shapes a person’s future way of thinking, his actions and influence on the people around him. With the help of knowledge acquired in an educational institution, the image of a future specialist is formed. For example, a person wants to become a doctor and for this he enters a medical institute and after graduating, society receives the image of a doctor. And the standard of an educated person probably does not exist. Maybe I somehow understand the essence of the issue being discussed in my own way, but this moment I have this opinion.

• Thank you Alexey for your comment!

  Yes, indeed, any education (medical, humanities, music, mathematics, technology, etc.) prepares a specialist, and apparently has this image of a specialist.

  It may also shape the way of thinking, actions and influence (which is what you are talking about), but still, training is limited to the framework of those disciplines that are studied in a particular institution.

  Higher education is not a guarantee of education.

  We can say that this is a trained specialist. But is the concept of an educated person limited to a specialty?

  Most likely it's more general characteristics person than just a specialist.

What a great topic - “Who is an educated person?” or, in other words, “What is education?” There really is unlimited scope for creative exploration. Thank you so much, Nikolay, for such an interesting, relevant and vital important topic. After all, education is what we hope for in order to have a chance to survive in this world and be able to live with dignity.

I already see many approaches to this powerful topic and, most likely, I will not be able to cover and present everything in one comment. To answer this difficult question, in my opinion, it is necessary, firstly, to consider this topic as globally as possible, then from above the picture will be seen most fully and, secondly, to turn to recognized experts who have studied this issue professionally. The greatest such specialist, it seems to me, can be called Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

“A lot of necessary and important knowledge.

But the most important thing is how to live.”

Lev Tolstoy

Fundamentally dealing with issues of education, the great Leo Tolstoy drew attention to the fact that development is mistakenly taken as a goal, that teachers promote development, not the harmony of development, and this is the eternal mistake of all pedagogical theories.

Indeed, it is indisputable that it is not the amount of knowledge that determines a person’s education, but something qualitative in this knowledge. The question then becomes how to measure this quality. And to answer it, you need to understand what the goal of education is, what is the final product of education? Let's take a global look at this picture. Man is not born human in the same way as all higher beings. They, like humans, become such only in the process of long-term training. A person needs to learn not only and not so much those subjects, the knowledge of which will allow him to earn a living, but also, as Tolstoy said, the ability to live. Live harmoniously, efficiently. And the quality of life is measured by a person’s level of happiness. On the one hand, a person needs to learn to be a specialist in order to earn a living, on the other hand, a person needs to be able to interact with society and the world around him, as well as with himself, in order to be happy. On the third hand, a person, living in society and being a social being, must make some contribution to the strengthening of this society. After all, historically and evolutionarily, we know that man, as a species, was able to take place and dominate over all other types of life on earth only thanks to his social structure and social work. Based on this, education should give its final product a perfect person in different plans or areas of life, so that he can not only provide for himself and his family and make life happy, but also help his KIND, HOMELAND, and society. After all, it is not without reason that the most respected quality in a person has always been considered NOBILITY, his activities for the GOOD OF THE KIND, THE HOMELAND. Therefore, in addition to the ability to live well oneself and the ability to create happy family, an educated person must have unshakable principles of protecting the interests of his KIND, HOMELAND. In this regard, studying abroad with the subsequent use of one’s skills and knowledge not in the interests of the Motherland cannot in any way be considered education; this will already be the transformation of a person into someone else.

So, the image of a person who should become educated is already clear - this is, first of all, a person with a capital M, a person who has absorbed examples of true humanity from the teachers of humanity, a person who knows how to create harmony wherever he is, because, in fact, , this is the quality of life - to create harmony and be able to act effectively, realizing your potential, your abilities and discovering new and new ones in yourself potential opportunities. This person must also be devoted to his “community”, clan, because the integrity of the community is the integrity of each person. Under this condition we will have a 100% survival rate. This is how our Slavic ancestors lived, and such examples can be found among wild tribes not spoiled by civilization. Here, for example, is the parable “OBONATO”.

An American anthropologist invited children from an African tribe to play a game. He placed a basket of fruit near the tree and announced, turning to the children: “Whoever reaches the tree first will receive all the sweet fruits.” When he signaled to the children to start the race, they clasped their hands tightly and ran together, and then they all sat together and enjoyed the delicious fruit. The amazed anthropologist asked the children why they ran all together, because each of them could enjoy the fruit for themselves. To which the children replied: “Obonato.” "Obonato" in their language means: "I exist because we exist."

Is it possible for one to be happy if everyone else is sad?..

Second interesting point— how to carry out education? Here, too, an interesting idea can be gleaned from Lev Nikolaevich. At the Yasnaya Polyana school, Tolstoy organized experimental teaching, as a result of which he created an integral, harmonious system of teaching methods. A teacher, according to Lev Nikolayevich, is likened to a bad sculptor who, instead of scraping off the excess, sticks on, inflates, covers up conspicuous irregularities, corrects, educates. If we carefully examine the word EDUCATION, then, in addition to the word IMAGE, we will also see the ancient syllable RA, meaning the primordial light from which all things consist, which, as we know, has already been proven by science. Based on this, we will get what Tolstoy is talking about - man already has everything, because he is created in the image and likeness of God, we just need to reveal it in him, clarify it, highlight it. This is what Lev Nikolaevich did in his teaching, striving to reveal the potential of the Creator in each student. In the words of Lev Nikolaevich, “If a student at school does not learn to create anything himself, then in life he will always only imitate and copy.”

• Thank you Konstantin for your participation in the discussion of the proposed topic.

  I assumed that this topic would be of interest to readers, but unfortunately the number of comments leaves much to be desired.

  We often use important terms without thinking about what is behind them. Everyone strives to give their children an education, but in the end, all that is behind it is a prestigious diploma. Well, knowledge of course. But education is not only professional knowledge. I would even say that this is not them at all.

  The image that is formed is what matters. I completely agree with your description of this image.

  The question is the criteria of humanity. After all, the image of a person is manifested in his worldview. And this worldview is formed from conscious and accepted values. The question is, what are these values?

  For example, for me these are Christian Orthodox values. Hence my worldview. But I came to this after going a long way from Eastern worldviews to Western pragmatic ones.

  For today's life, perhaps Western approaches are more attractive, especially for young people. Hence the image - successful, financially secure, aimed at self-realization. But what spiritual values ​​will determine the path to achieving this image?

  Therefore, I believe that education, education, image - should form a worldview on basic values, on the basis of which everything else is built. Values ​​form beliefs, and then behavioral norms.

  But the question remains: where do these values ​​come from? You can come up with new, modern, progressive ones, or you can start from historical traditions, including traditional religion.

Thank you very much, Konstantin, for your such detailed and interesting addition to the topic of Education.

In my opinion, it is very important to be able to see and communicate with the carriers of culture. After all, you can have knowledge of history and culture, but at the same time remain only an encyclopedist.

I really liked the parable “The Light of the Soul”; meeting a person with a bright soul gives a lot, including the right guidelines.

And I would really like there to be more people like this. Actually, this is the image that we should strive for, in my opinion.

It is not necessary to remake the entire world; it is enough to create this bright world in your environment. So that your immediate surroundings become better, and accordingly they will form the next circle of good and bright.

We need such examples, they are in books and films (though in earlier ones). But it is better to meet in life these carriers of culture who, by their example, show the image that brings light.

By communicating with such people (or even just reading them), you yourself become brighter and cleaner, and perhaps it is this communication that will make many people think about their development. And also about the knowledge that is worth putting effort into. To knowledge that makes a person better.

In fact, the image of a person in the parable “Light of the Soul” is exactly the one that I would like to see. The whole question is how this can be achieved.

Thank you again!

"Turn to poetry."

In fact, there are many things that cannot be expressed in Western languages, because the Eastern approach to reality is fundamentally, fundamentally, intrinsically different. Sometimes it happens that the same things can be looked at from both the eastern and western sides, and on the surface the conclusions may look similar, but this does not happen. If you go a little deeper, if you dig a little deeper, you will find big differences - not ordinary differences, but extraordinary ones.

Just yesterday I was reading a famous haiku by Basho, the Zen mystic and master. To a Western mind, or a mind educated in a Western way, this will not seem like great poetry. And now the whole world is educated in a Western way; West and East have disappeared - as far as education is concerned.

Listen very carefully, because this is not what you call great poetry, but it is great insight - which is much more important. There is immense poetry in this, but to feel this poetry you have to be very subtle. It cannot be understood intellectually; this can only be understood intuitively.

Here's the haiku:

When I look closely

I see a plantain

Blooming by the fence!

There seems to be nothing of great poetry in this. But let's approach this with more sympathy, because Basho has been transferred to English language; his own tongue has a completely different texture and flavor.

Plantain is a very common flower, it grows by itself near the road, it is flowering grass. She is so ordinary that no one ever looks at her. This is not a precious rose, this is not a rare lotus. It is easy to see the beauty of the rare lotus floating in the lake - the blue lotus... how can you not see it? For a moment you will definitely be captivated by its beauty. Or beautiful rose, dancing in the wind, in the sun... for a split second it captures you. She's stunning. But plantain is a very common, widespread plant. He doesn't need any care or a gardener; it grows on its own, anywhere. To look closely at a plantain requires a meditator, a very delicate consciousness; otherwise you will pass by without noticing him. He has no obvious beauty, his beauty is deep. Its beauty is the beauty of the very ordinary, but the ordinary itself contains the extraordinary - even the plantain flower. You will miss it unless you enter into it with a sympathetic heart.

When you first read Basho, you will wonder: “What is so important to say about the plantain blooming by the fence?”

In Basho's poem, the last syllable—kana in Japanese—is translated as an exclamation point because we have no other way to translate it. But kana means: “I am amazed!” Where does this beauty come from? Does it come from plantain? - because thousands of people passed by, and no one, perhaps, ever looked at this little flower. And Basho was captured by his beauty, he was transported to another world. What happened? It is not actually a plantain, otherwise it would attract everyone's eye. This is Basho's insight, his open heart, his compassionate vision, his meditativeness. Meditation is alchemy: it can turn rough metals into gold, it can turn a plantain into a lotus.

When I look closely...

And the word mindfully means intensely, with awareness, intentionally, meditatively, lovingly, with care. A person can look completely without caring, and then he will miss the whole point. The word carefully must be remembered in all its meanings, but the root of the word means meditativeness. What does it mean if you see something meditatively? It means without the mind, to look without the mind, without clouds of thoughts in the sky of consciousness, without passing memories, without desires... nothing at all, sheer emptiness.

When you look in this state of no-mind, even a plantain flower is transported to another world. He becomes a heavenly lotus, he is no longer part of the earth; the extraordinary is found in the ordinary. And this is the way of the Buddha. Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, finding everything in the now, finding the whole in this - Gautama Buddha calls this tathata.

Basho's haiku is the tathata's haiku. This plantain is seen with love, with care, with a heart, with a cloudless consciousness, in a state of no-mind - and the person is amazed, the person is in awe. A great surprise arises: how is this possible? This plantain... if plantain is possible, everything is possible. If a plantain can be so beautiful, Basho can be a Buddha. If a plantain can contain such poetry, then every stone can become a sermon.

When I look closely, I see a plantain blooming by the fence!

Kana - I'm amazed! I was speechless; I cannot say anything about his beauty - I can only hint at it.

Haiku simply hints, haiku only indicates - in a very indirect way.

A similar situation can be found in Tennyson's famous poetry; if you compare them, it will help you a lot. Basho represents the intuitive, Tennyson the intellectual. Basho represents the East, Tennis represents the West. Basho represents meditation, Tennyson the mind. They seem similar, and sometimes Tennyson's poetry can seem more poetic than Basho's because it is direct, it is obvious.

Flower in a cracked wall

I'm pulling you out of the crack

I hold you, with the root and everything that exists, in my hand,

Little flower...

If I could understand

What are you, with the root and all that exists, all in all,

I would know what God and man are.

A great piece, but nothing compared to Basho. Let's see where Tennyson is completely different.

First: Flower in a cracked wall, I pull you out of the crack...

Basho just looks at the flower and doesn’t pick it out. Basho is passive awareness - Tennyson is active, violent. In fact, if you are really impressed by this flower, you cannot pick it. If a flower has reached your heart, how can you pick it? To tear it down means to destroy it, to kill it is murder! Nobody thought that Tennyson's poetry was murder, but it is murder. How can you destroy something so beautiful?

But that is how the mind works; he is destructive. He wants to own, and possession is possible only in destruction.

Remember, every time you own someone or something, you destroy something or someone. Do you own a woman? - you destroy her, her beauty, her soul. Do you own a man? - he is no longer a human being; you reduce him to an object, to a commodity.

Basho looks “attentively” - he just looks, he doesn’t even peer closely. Only a look, soft, feminine, as if he was afraid to hurt the plantain.

Tennyson pulls the flower out of the crack and says:

I hold you, with the root and everything that exists, in my hand, a small flower... It remains separate. The observed and the observer do not merge, do not fuse, do not meet anywhere. Is not love story. Tennyson attacks the flower, uproots it and all that exists, and holds it in his hand.

The mind feels good with everything that it can own, that it can control, that it can hold in its hand. The meditative state of consciousness is not interested in possession, holding, because all these are the ways of the violent mind.

And he says: “little flower” - the flower remains small, it itself remains on a high pedestal. He is a man, he is a great intellectual, he is a great poet. He remains in his ego: “little flower.”

For Basho there is no question of comparison. He doesn't say anything about himself, as if he doesn't exist at all. There is no observer. So great is beauty that it brings transcendence. Here is a plantain flower blooming near the fence - kana - and Basho is simply amazed, shocked to the very roots of his being. The beauty is stunning. Instead of owning this flower, he is captured by it. He completely surrenders to the beauty of this flower, the beauty of this moment, the blessing here and now.

Little flower, says Tennyson, if only I could understand...

This is an obsession to understand! Admiration is not enough, love is not enough; there must be understanding, knowledge must be produced. Without arriving at some knowledge, Tennyson cannot relax. The flower turned into a question mark. For Tennyson this is a question mark, for Basho it is an exclamation point.

And there is a huge difference between them - a question mark and an exclamation mark.

For Basho, love is enough. Love is understanding. Could there be greater understanding? But Tennyson seems to know nothing about love. There is only his mind, thirsting for knowledge.

If only I could understand what you are, with the root and all that exists, all in all...

The mind is a constant perfectionist. Nothing should remain unknown, nothing should be allowed to remain unknown and mysterious. The root and everything that exists, everything in everything must be understood. Until the mind knows everything, it remains in fear - because knowledge gives power. If there is something mysterious, you are doomed to remain in fear, because the mysterious cannot be controlled. And who knows what is hidden in the mysterious? Maybe an enemy, maybe a danger, some kind of threat? And he knows what this will do to you? Before it can do anything, it must be understood, it must be known. Nothing should remain mysterious.

But then all poetry disappears, all love disappears, all mystery disappears, all wonder disappears. The soul disappears, the song disappears, the celebration disappears. Everything is known - then there is nothing valuable. Everything is known - then there is nothing that is worth anything. Everything is known - then life has no meaning, no importance. See this paradox: first the mind says: “Find out everything!” - and then, when you find out, the mind says: “There is no meaning in life.”

You have destroyed meaning, and now you crave meaning. The mind is very destructive of meaning. And since he insists that everything must be known, he cannot admit a third category, the unknowable, which remains unknowable forever. Namely, the meaning of life lies in the unknowable.

All the great values: beauty, love, God, prayer - everything that is truly important, that makes life worth living, constitutes the third category: the unknowable - the miracle. The unknowable is another name for God, another name for the mysterious and miraculous. Without it there can be no wonder in your heart - and without wonder a heart is no heart at all, and without awe you lose something immensely precious. Then your eyes are full of dust, they lose clarity. Then the bird continues to sing, but it does not affect you, nothing moves in you, your heart is not touched, because you already know the explanation.

The trees are green, but their greenness does not turn you into a dancer, into a singer. It does not create poetry in your being, because you know the explanation: chlorophyll makes trees green. Then nothing remains of poetry. When there is an explanation, poetry disappears. All explanations are utilitarian, they do not refer to the ultimate.

If you don't trust the unknowable, then how can you say that a rose is beautiful? Where is her beauty? It is not a chemical component of rose. You can analyze a rose, but you will not find any beauty in it. If you don't believe in the unknowable, you can perform an autopsy on a person, posthumously, and you won't find any soul in him. And you can go on looking for God and you won’t find him anywhere, because he is everywhere. The mind goes on missing him because the mind wants him to be an object, and God is not an object.

God is a vibration. If you are tuned to the silent sound of existence, if you are tuned to the sound of one hand clapping, if you are tuned to what the Indian mystics called anahat - the ultimate music of existence, if you are tuned to the mysterious, you will know that there is only God and there is nothing another. Then God becomes synonymous with existence.

But these things cannot be understood, these things cannot be reduced to knowledge - and this is where Tennyson misses, misses the whole point. He says:

Little flower - if only I could understand what you are, with the root and all that exists, all in all, I would know what God and man are.

But all this is “would” and “if”.

Basho knows what God and man are, in this exclamation point - kana. "I'm amazed, I'm surprised... the plantain is blooming by the fence!"

Maybe it's a full moon night, or maybe it's early morning - I see the real Basho standing by the side of the road, motionless, as if he's stopped breathing. Plantain... and so beautiful. All the past is gone, all the future is gone. There are no more questions in his mind, just pure amazement. Basho became a child. Again those innocent eyes of a child looking at the plantain, carefully, lovingly. And in this love, in this care, there is a completely different kind of understanding - not intellectual, not analytical. Tennyson intellectualizes this whole phenomenon and destroys its beauty.

Tennyson represents the West, Basho represents the East. Tennyson represents the male mind, Basho the female. Tennyson represents the mind, Basho represents the no-mind.

You are extraordinary even in your dreams.

I won't touch your clothes.

I doze - and behind the doze there is a secret,

And in secret - you will rest, Rus'.

Rus' is surrounded by rivers

And surrounded by wilds,

With swamps and cranes,

And with the dull gaze of a sorcerer.

Where are the diverse peoples

From edge to edge, from valley to valley

They lead night dances

Under the glow of burning villages.

Where are the sorcerers and sorcerers?

The grains in the fields are enchanting,

And the witches are having fun with the devils

In road snow pillars.

Where the blizzard sweeps violently

Fragile housing up to the roof,

And the girl on the evil friend

Under the snow it sharpens the blade.

Where are all the paths and all the crossroads

Exhausted with a living stick,

And a whirlwind whistling in the bare twigs,

Sings old legends...

So I learned in my slumber

Country of birth poverty,

And in the scraps of her rags

I hide my nakedness from my soul.

The path is sad, night

I trampled to the graveyard,

And there, spending the night in the cemetery,

He sang songs for a long time.

And I didn’t understand, I didn’t measure,

To whom did I dedicate the songs?

What god did you passionately believe in?

What kind of girl did you love?

I rocked a living soul,

Rus', in its vastness, you,

And so - she did not stain

Initial purity.

I doze and behind the doze there is a secret,

And Rus' rests in secret,

She is extraordinary in dreams too.

I won't touch her clothes.

• Thank you, Konstantin!

  I read it with pleasure.

  Indeed, we have stopped seeing beauty in ordinary things.

  According to Gurdjieff, we sleep, but an encounter with nature can help us wake up, at least for a while. You just have to want to see her beauty.

  With respect, Nicholai.

There are people - "sunsets"

and people - “dawns”.

There are people - “sunsets” and people - “sunrises”,

Some with negativity, others with “hello”.

But those who say “hello” are often smiling,

And those who are “sunsets” are usually unhappy.

When communicating with some, you feel cold,

With others, he still seems young at seventy.

And you are charged with light from some,

He is not with others around the clock.

But, if you give it to a person - “sunset”

A piece of warmth that once disappeared

And don’t blame what’s sad in your heart,

He will also want to warm and keep warm.

After all, people are like sunsets, just like people are like dawns,

I would like to fortunately go and get a ticket,

But they were simply afraid to love unselfishly,

That's why they got angry and bit painfully.

And people - dawns too

People with negativity, like a cloud...

When gratitude in the soul disappears,

That sky turns sunrises into sunsets.

I get on edge sometimes too,

But I know that with the dawn, sorrows go away.

And let someone say: “But he says hello...”

There are people - “sunsets” and people - “sunrises”.

• Thank you, Konstantin!

  Wonderful poems.

  I immediately tried it on to suit my surroundings. There are enough of both, but still there are more dawn people.

  With respect, Nicholai.

Several years after reading this article by OSHO, the same experience happened to me, but, it seems to me, even more unusual, because... We are not talking about the beauty of a flower, albeit inconspicuous, but about an even more common phenomenon, in which it is difficult to even suspect beauty.

I won’t say exactly when, but considering how quickly time flies, I won’t be mistaken if I say about a year ago. I was at home and found myself near the window into the courtyard between the houses. Opposite there was another house, along which tall poplars grew, almost the height of nine-story buildings. There was a wind and the poplars swayed, rustling their leaves. An ordinary picture, nothing to see. But at that moment when I looked out the window and saw one of the poplars swaying in the wind and rustling its leaves, I could not take my eyes off it. My state at that moment can probably be called enchanted by this poplar or, in other words, I could say that at that moment I had some kind of enlightenment. Because I saw something that I had never seen in any tree before. It’s even difficult for me to find words, no matter what epithets I use, they still won’t be able to convey that greatness, that extraordinary beauty of a harmonious organism in its harmonious and magnificent movement. The swaying of the tree and the rustling of its leaves was so divinely beautiful that I can’t call it anything other than a symphony. It was amazing. The mighty tree and its countless leaves produced such a synchronized, harmonious and unusually harmonious and at the same time majestic movement that there was no doubt that it had a magnificent conductor. It was divine music expressed in movement. Ballet is also music in motion, but still the movements of people in ballet are not so natural and harmonious, they have sharpness, impulsiveness, some quantum movements with transitions from one movement to another. Here everything was unified, continuous and at the same time changeable, but without sharp transitions, smoothly and solemnly. Of course, the takeoff of a rocket also has its own beauty, but the sunrise, also being the movement of a body, albeit celestial in its smoothness, continuity and naturalness, produces a completely different impression than the movement of a rocket.

So it was with the poplar, its swaying and the rustling of its leaves created such beauty of movement that it was clear that it could not be more beautiful, because... This is natural, the most perfect, natural beauty. I was completely captivated by this beauty and just like Basho, I was speechless. And, of course, I, like Basho, was not at all worried about the structure of this movement, its secret. And, as Blok said in his poem about Rus', I will not touch her clothes. And in fact, at that moment I didn’t need anything else, as long as this movement continued to exist and could be admired.

What more can I say? I consider this experience the same as stopping internal dialogue the most unusual experiences in life.

It can be compared to stereo pictures if you know what they are. There are pictures that improve vision, but which you need to look at not the way we usually look, but in a completely different way, and then you begin to see in them something that was completely impossible to even imagine at first, they become voluminous, a lot appears in them. levels in depth and the initial appearance of the picture no longer has anything in common with this.

Education is training and upbringing... Something like this))) But it remains to be understood what we mean by the concept of education? Who raises us, in what environment? The concept of morality, norms, etc. Or maybe it’s worth breaking down the concept of education into poorly educated or well educated and then we’ll understand? You can talk a lot and argue even more, the main thing seems to me that a person always strives for improvement both in learning more and in improving his attitude towards the world around him from the point of view of education. How far can we go in our improvements? No one knows. How big is the universe? No one knows. I apologize for my Russian)))

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 ... Dictionary Dmitrieva

Aya, oh; van, bath, bath. Educated and with diverse knowledge. Be an educated person. Oh woman. O. engineer. O. mind. O. taste. // Distinguished by a high degree of culture and education; enlightened. Oh oh society. O. people... encyclopedic Dictionary

Der gute Mensch von Sezuan Genre: Drama

The forest shines with rich beauty. Like some 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) a social group of people professionally engaged in the mental, predominantly complex 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...

The ideal of an educated person, like all human ideals, is not invented, but is built on tradition. Since our cultural tradition was interrupted by “communism,” then we must return to the time when this catastrophe occurred and think about what was the ideal of an educated person before the revolution. As one wise man put it, “The exit is usually where the entrance once was.” Let us note here that human ideals are the same thing that, around 1905, they began to call “cultural values,” imagining that this change in terminology would make them more scientific.

So, what was the ideal of an educated person in pre-revolutionary Russia, embodied in its education? the best people? If we want to tie up the ends of a broken tradition, we must first ask what its best bearers were before the catastrophe. The educated man of the early twentieth century was, first of all, humanitarian educated He knew the Russian language as no one knows it now: he read a lot and understood what he read; wrote competently, and not just competently, but stylistically correctly expressing his thoughts and feelings; was able to speak coherently and logically, without difficulty searching the right word or turnover. He knew enough about the history of the Russian language to read our old literature, to understand “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and Russian chronicles; he also knew the beginnings of the Old Church Slavonic language - enough to understand the Bible in the translation of Cyril and Methodius (this is a brilliant translation, and the “Synodal” translation of the nineteenth century is mediocre).

He practically spoke French and German languages: read all modern texts in these languages, without using a dictionary, spoke them fluently with native speakers of these languages, knew how to write without errors in these languages. Moreover, his area of ​​knowledge already included the English language at the beginning of the century (or even earlier). He read fiction in the original language. Consequently, he had access to the poetry of other peoples, which disappears in translation (the sad truth is that poetry cannot be translated). Therefore, he was able to understand Montaigne and Montesquieu, Locke and Hume, Lessing and Goethe. He often read Dante in the original! He thought not only native language, but moved to other languages ​​when he found the necessary means of expression in them. If you want to understand what this means, read Turgenev, especially Herzen. But Russian Literature was in the blood of an educated person.

He practically owned in Latin, and often Greek. This means that he read ancient authors in the original, rarely needing dictionaries. He was not hampered by the “winged sayings”, now collected in special little books for today’s ignoramuses. European culture was for him own garden, where he could breathe clean air and see the noble forms of familiar plants.

He knew history—not in the modern sense of collecting facts, but in the deeper sense of thoughtfully experiencing and understanding the past. He knew it not only from textbooks, but also from the books of the best historians of the past. He read Livy and Tacitus, Herodotus and Thucydides, and knew Machiavelli and Tocqueville. Greek history he knew from Grotto, Roman from Mommsen, Russian from Klyuchevsky. And these authors did not always satisfy him!

He had his own preferences in philosophy, but he himself read the more important philosophers - usually in the originals. He may have considered Hegel a charlatan, but he knew who Hegel was; could study from Marx or challenge him, but read Marx himself.

It was all for him general education, a prerequisite for his special work. He could be a historian like Miliukov, a geologist like Vernadsky, a biologist like Vavilov. But above all, he was a Russian intellectual. Do not think that I have depicted only the ideal here! Many approached him, and often reached him. Educated people there were many. Do you know magazines and newspapers, novels and poems, and finally, school textbooks of the early twentieth century?

But education was only one side of the intellectual’s personality. We should take a closer look at this education of his, thinking about what we should build on the ruins of “Soviet power.” I must leave aside other properties of the Russian intellectual. His history is not written, and his enemies may believe that he never existed!

Excerpt from the book by Rubakin N.A. “How to educate yourself,” 1962

It can be unmistakably said that at present the desire for education is manifesting itself among the masses to such an intense degree as has never been manifested in any other time, and this tension is increasing every year. Life itself encourages every person to equip himself with knowledge and understanding.

To live, you need... to have an education special, but you still need to have an education general, you need to be able to understand everything that is happening around you, and for this you need, so to speak, the ability to think and understand, you need a certain breadth of outlook, known height development. Special education imparts to a person a certain more or less limited range of knowledge and a certain set of skills. General education gives a person a broad and integral worldview; it gives him an understanding of various aspects of world life, from the infinitesimal atoms to the infinitely vast spaces of the sky, from the microscopic cells from which organisms are composed, to the peoples and tribes that make up humanity. Just as the world is one, so is general education. True, for the convenience of studying and mastering the same subject, the same phenomenon is studied by different sciences from different angles, but only the totality of sciences makes it possible to understand the whole fact, the whole phenomenon. No matter how alien physiology and history seem to be to each other, only knowledge and understanding of both make it possible to understand a person who is not only an organism, but also a conscious historical figure and who, in addition, is studied by chemists, and physicists, and psychologists, and economists, etc. Obviously, without general education a person cannot achieve a proper understanding of any phenomenon, which means he cannot be good specialist. A chemist must know physics, mathematics, the history of these sciences, and physiology, and finally must have the ability to generalize, if he does not want to remain in the realm of mere facts. The desire to penetrate into the depths of one’s specialty takes a person beyond its boundaries.. Thus, to be a good specialist, you need to have a general education; but to live you need to be a specialist...

Meanwhile special education should not drown out, but complement the general. One is necessary for the other; one without the other is unthinkable...

Interest in general issues of state life, in the phenomena of social life, in the successes of thought in the field of science, philosophy, politics, etc. is gradually and continuously increasing among the masses. Not only does their desire for education increase, but their desire for higher education quickly awakens... It is this awakening of aspirations for higher education among the masses that constitutes one of the most characteristic phenomena of our century.

At present, the masses are satisfying their need for higher education in various ways and means. All these means can be called means of out-of-school education, which continues throughout life.

Only under extremely unfavorable conditions of social life does education cease for the majority of people immediately upon completion of the school course. Where public Life is going sluggishly and slowly, there, quite possibly, the gray, monotonous reality gradually draws in and sucks a person in like a swamp, and the person begins to reason that he “will live like this.” Fortunately, this does not always happen and not everywhere, and, once it begins at school, education then continues outside of school.

The field of out-of-school education is much broader than the field of school education. There are not only various benefits that help a person acquire an education outside of school, but also entire institutions that serve precisely this purpose. These are, for example, libraries and reading rooms, museums, public lectures, courses, evening and Sunday schools, where classes are held for several hours a week, etc., etc. Extracurricular education is not limited to any program and is essentially versatile, just like the most versatile life. Extracurricular education is not a denial of school education, but only a necessary addition and expansion of it.

The goal and task of self-education, if expressed in general terms, is this: to make oneself, relying only or mainly on oneself, and by one’s own means, a truly educated person. But behind this question another question inevitably arises - the next one, and with it a third one, inextricably linked with it:

Firstly, what is an educated person and, secondly, why pretend to be one?

First of all, you need to answer these questions for yourself. The answers to them determine the plan, the size, the intensity and, in general, the nature of all self-educational work.

A truly educated person is not one who considers himself “educated”, not one who graduated from some, even higher, educational institution - you never know how many of them turn out to be ignoramuses, 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 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 life around us - in the power that education gives a person to remake the life around him, in introducing something new into it, something of his own in this or that area, in that or another corner of it. Whether it is general education or whether it is special education, it is all the same, its criterion is the remaking of life, the changes made in it with its help.

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

Each of us, if he wants to be truly educated, must develop in himself the ability to take a conscious part in the general and local life of the people; but who exactly and what kind of participation will be able to take part in it is another question that each person can decide for himself in a special way.

A person with beauty logical thinking, nevertheless, remains ignorant if his mind, while understanding abstract formulas and conclusions, does not know how to understand the phenomena of life. Even an abstract thinker must develop the ability to see real facts, evaluate them, the ability to always stay as close to the ground as possible, and not just soar in the clouds of abstract thought.

The very essence of working on your education is not at all in reading and studying so many thousands of pages, but in how to read and study them; i.e. - think over, change your mind so that what you have learned becomes both flesh and blood. And also firmly, thoroughly. The task and goal is to grasp the very essence of education, and not to flaunt learned words and poorly understood knowledge and thoughts. An educated and intelligent person can only be called someone who is like that through and through and shows his education and intelligence in both large and small things, in everyday life and throughout his entire life. And who cannot even act and express themselves differently. You must not only become educated and intelligent, you must also get used to your education and intelligence. And this is especially important. After all, habit is second nature.

It is unlikely that you, when starting to work on self-education, did not know that the field of science is endless and that the limits of human knowledge are very vast. But human ignorance is also vast, historical darkness holds, to one degree or another, each of us in its clutches. After all, darkness also has its own shades, from infinitely thick and oppressive to twilight. And it’s one thing to wander in the darkness of the night, with your arms spread out and not knowing where to go or even where to step, and a completely different thing - even the half-darkness of twilight, when you can already see something, at least you can see the road that you should take and then walk and walk forward as much as you can. Those who strive for the light will decide for themselves how far they will be able to move towards its source - this is already a matter of personal strength, energy and perseverance in the pursuit of their goals. But the first thing to do is to start walking and then continue walking.

To live means to fight, and not only for life, but also for the fullness and improvement of life. Therefore, for us, “man” means a struggling person, one who feels that he lives precisely when he fights, who is not afraid of everyday struggle, who even rejoices in it, because where it is, there is the tension of life, and there a person feels its fluttering. But in order to live, expand your life and fight, you need strength, you need the accumulation of different forces - the power of knowledge, the power of thought, will, love for people, you need the ability to get comfortable in any situation, not to get lost in any difficult situation, not to retreat in any way. before what obstacle. Therefore, we will consider real education to be one that helps precisely this and, above all, this.

People who know how to act fruitfully, even without diplomas, should be rated a thousand times higher than people who are inactive but have diplomas.

But the ability to act is not enough. You need to know what to create, why and for whom to create, you need to understand the purpose and meaning of your own and other people’s activities.

And hence the following tasks facing every person who, through self-activity, strives to become educated:

1. look closely at the life around you and think about it;
2. to study, know and understand it;
3. be able to act in it;
4. For this purpose, have the following preparation: a) general, i.e., broad outlook; b) special, i.e. professional.

Having outlined the general goal of education, we will now talk about how to achieve and achieve it.

The first and main rule: we must begin self-educational work not with a book, but with life.

Life always teaches much more than the best of the best books. A book is only a tool and a manual. It is not life that needs to be tested by books, that is, theories, but just the opposite. You need to start with thoughtfulness in life and, of course, with the fact that such and such a person, living in such and such a place on earth, in such and such a situation in his personal, everyday life, most of all torments, worries, interests. When this flame of quest has already ignited in the soul, under the influence of life, then for the answer to this quest you can go to books, which in this case will probably turn out to be interesting. But even in this case, you need to go to books not to take their advice on faith, but only to draw from them material for your own thoughts.

Second rule: every phenomenon of life must be discussed without fail and constantly, not from one side, but from many, from as many sides as possible.

Theory differs from practice in that it is, in essence, more one-sided than practice, which, bringing a person into direct conflict with life, already implies the need to take into account all aspects of it. All these aspects exist inseparably in life, but they are separated only by the human mind for the convenience of study and, moreover, completely artificially. Therefore, practice is The best way testing all knowledge. Without acting, without coming into direct contact with life, it is hardly possible to properly evaluate any theory. Application means verification. Without such verification there is no truth. Without application, everything - both truth and theory - is just words and words.

But ask yourself the question: what does “diversified understanding” mean? This is where you come to one of the very important differences (perhaps the most important) between a truly educated person and a person “trained” in certain subjects, from an ignorant specialist who knows how to measure almost the entire Universe with one yardstick, Of course, not suitable for all cases. The chemist who judges all other aspects of life, including, for example, morality, from a chemical point of view is ridiculous. A lawyer who only knows that the law was written by someone, but somehow, is also ridiculous. Both law and chemistry are very useful standards for their work, and they are all needed for life, but it is impossible to measure all aspects of life with such private standards. Life is infinitely versatile and complex, and in order to understand it, you need to be, first of all, a versatile person and only then a chemist, a lawyer... Hence the conclusion: when thinking about life, we must first of all take care not to fall into one-sidedness, and for this it is necessary get at least some idea in advance about what aspects of life exist. Although the most important, the largest ones need to be known, at least in the most general terms, for the first step. It is in this recognition that each of us can be helped good books, because they contain the experiences of other people...

Self-education consists not only in the education and development of one’s mind, but also in the education and development of feelings. One can and should not only think deeply and subtly, but also feel deeply and subtly. Even reading a math book; a person experiences a whole range of emotions, for example, one reader enjoys, rejoices, is carried away by numbers and formulas, another over the same book yawns devilishly, groans, gets angry, rubs his forehead, etc. There is no book that does not arouse any emotion in anyone. feelings. People with big hearts - Belinsky, Gleb Uspensky, Leo Tolstoy and many others - read, feeling and feeling even the most apparently dry books. Uspensky wrote in one of his articles that the numbers in statistical collections are, in essence, alive... Self-educational work should teach a person to experience life with all sides of the soul, not only with the mind - to be sensitive and responsive to the life around him.

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, factually justified.

Woe to those who, after reading one or two books, decide that they have understood and comprehended the very essence of the matter, and therefore that’s enough. Those readers who reduce the entire matter of self-education to reading books and mastering their content, without comparing it with life, should also be classified as superficial. The best of these readers not only read, but also study, take notes, extracts, etc. We personally, of course, are not opponents of all this. But still, we affirm that those who reduce the entire matter of self-education to reading are deeply mistaken. You can be well-read, but at the same time not understand...

Any fact of life always has many different sides. We must look, if possible, at all, or at least at many, aspects of the fact. Every specialist, as you know, approaches a fact from his favorite or best known side, like how a hairdresser looks at a person from the point of view of his hair. For a truly educated person such an attitude is completely insufficient. The sharpening of his attention should be reflected in the ability to see different sides of any fact in personal, social, and cosmic life, so that in the end something integral will emerge.

An educated person sees different sides where a dark person does not see them, but sees only one and judges all the others by it... Taking a closer look at life means freeing yourself from the habit of one-sided attention, it means developing in yourself the ability to see many things and heterogeneous in what seems at first glance homogeneous...

It is necessary to separate “science” from “non-science”. To introduce something that is not science into the classification of sciences means to confuse both yourself and others. Meanwhile, millions of people, and at almost every step, consider science to be something that is not science at all. So, for example, they talk about religion, theology, theology. First of all, it is necessary to understand that religion is not a science at all. Religion is faith. Science is knowledge. A person can believe in anything, and for this he does not need to be convinced that his belief is correct. A believer reasons like this: “I believe,” and that’s the whole conversation. " I believe in something that I don’t need to be convinced of, because I am internally convinced and don’t require any proof of that. . If they are there, so much the better; if they are not there, I can do without them.” But that is not how science argues. She says to this: “Internal conviction is not proof at all... Internal conviction without knowledge is nothing more than a source of error. It will not deceive once, but it will deceive 999 times. If you want the truth and strive for it, rely not on him, but on the study of what exists.” Science requires proof. Science is looking for them. And he searches because he doubts. Faith is only so long and faith until there are doubts... And such faith has given no one anything but self-consolation. And the mind seeks not only self-consolation, but self-affirmation. He wants to stand firmly, and not only on his own feet, but also having support in nature, that is, outside of it... One Arab scientist said about a thousand years ago: I won’t believe any miracle worker, and if he tells me: “Believe, that three is more than seven, as proof of this I will turn this stick into a snake,” - even if he really turns it, - but what of this? I will marvel at his art and say: three is still less than seven.

...Thus, in an effort to separate and delimit science from non-science, it is first of all necessary to expel from it the supernatural and even the very concept of it, as such, and to look at all the supernatural also as facts that are subject to research as accurately as possible, and at opinions that are subject to the most varied criticism and testing. Everything that is based on the recognition of the supernatural is not science at all... Each science is a kind of lantern, throwing its light around itself. But if you, the reader, want to understand any phenomenon or area of ​​life, and even more so life in general, of course, you must take more different lanterns, and with their help, illuminate this very phenomenon, this fact from different angles, surrounding it with your own science lanterns, too, from all sides, and directing the light of these lanterns to one point. After all, your main task is to understand this very point, that is, the fact being studied, and not to admire the light of this or that lantern and bathe in its rays. A lantern and light are just tools for your work, that’s all. White light, the brightest, is obtained from the addition of all the colors of the rainbow. Therefore, it is strange to sometimes hear such speeches from workers striving to study science: “I will study such and such a science - this is the whole essence of the matter.”

We hear this especially often about political economy... And so the reader takes up the manuals on political economy, sits, reads, and from the very first page finds that much of the book is completely incomprehensible to him; Then something from the field of history will flash, then from physics, then from chemistry, then from philosophy. It is these flickers, these splashes of one’s own ignorance that one needs to think about. Such flickerings clearly show that one science, for example, political economy, requires other, even completely different knowledge and sciences, because knowledge and science are one. To understand life, willy-nilly you need to get acquainted with the totality, with the range of sciences.

What exactly should you study in order to make yourself a truly educated and intelligent person?

One should not study any one science at the expense of all others, because no science can be studied apart from its connection with others. Which area of ​​life is closer to someone should be studied in the most detail (specially). But specialized knowledge is one thing, and general knowledge is a completely different matter. Every person needs both - certainly both. General knowledge about the whole world and all life is the basis for special knowledge. Special knowledge is the best test of general knowledge. Special knowledge deepens, but also narrows one’s horizons. General knowledge expands and illuminates it...

As you know, there are a lot of sciences, and over time it becomes more and more numerous. True, all of them, taken together, speak about the same thing, all about the same Universe and its life. It is necessary to unite in your mind everything that has been obtained by individual sciences so that there is no mention of the separateness of different sides of the same Universe, because this separateness in fact does not exist - it is an invention of the human mind.

You yourself, the reader, can serve as an example for yourself. You are an individual, you are a single whole. And yet in yourself you distinguish a great many sides. From your example you can best understand the relationship of science to life, the relationship of individual aspects and their partial study to their whole. Indeed, you are studied from various angles by dozens, if not hundreds, of separate sciences, and you, nevertheless, still represent an indivisible whole.

So, for example, you are a citizen, a member of society, a state. What are your rights? You need a whole range of legal sciences to illuminate just this one side of your life and your personality, as well as other people like you. But how can you tear this side of you away from the material side of your life? Your material life, like that of any other person, is also studied by a number of economic sciences. Are you rich or poor? What is your income? Big or small? Why is he this way and not another? The reason for this is yourself, or General terms life, the social structure in general, or the characteristics of the social class to which you belong, the profession that feeds you?

All these are questions that concern you personally, and a number of sciences study the economic side of your life, unraveling both everyday trifles and the most complex facts of economic life. The legal side of your life is, in essence, inseparable and closely connected with the economic one. In other words, on paper, in a book, the sciences are separate, but in life they are fused. Do you want to know yourself, your life, and the environment in which you spend it? In this case, set a goal that is not the one that is usually set and which is to study such and such a number of such and such individual sciences. Therefore, the matter of self-education should be carried out this way: clarify for yourself, at least in the most general terms, questions or areas of life that are especially necessary, important, interesting, burning for a given reader and then study each question, illuminating it with data from all the most important or even many sciences. Only in this way can one really orientate oneself in a particular area, “examine it in all senses” and understand it as close as possible to what it really is.

There is hardly any need to prove that familiarity with fiction is just as necessary for a person working on self-education as familiarity with the sciences. For the vast majority of readers, it is from this area that it is easiest to begin expanding their horizons and developing their Self (i.e., their personality. - Comp.).

The same cannot be said about other, so-called fine arts. Art - necessary element self-education, indispensable to any other. There was a time when the fine arts were given no importance or were reduced to almost zero, and “aesthetics” and “aestheticians” were ridiculed. This time has passed, and art has taken its rightful place in the scheme of general education.

The inner world of a person is infinitely complex and diverse. To live a full, varied life means to live in such a way that, if possible, all the strings of the soul and all aspects of the human psyche are heard, all human powers have the opportunity to exercise, manifest themselves and flourish. Throwing art out of your life and even pushing it into the background is the same as committing a kind of crime against yourself.

There is no person on whom no work of art (literary, musical or sculptural, etc.) would make any impression; in every heart there is a corner on which aesthetics, beauty, embodied in one form or another, has the strongest effect. But even if it did not yet have an effect on this or that reader, it must act. This must be achieved, we must develop in ourselves its understanding, its sensation in order to, through it, further expand, deepen, elevate, and make our life more intense.. True, the influence of various arts, or, what is the same, various works of art, on different people far from the same. Some people are most impressed by poetry, others by painting, others by architecture, but the characteristics of each person speak only about the choice of arts, and not about their exclusion. Therefore, the department of these arts, which includes, in addition to fine literature, music, painting, sculpture, architecture, dramatic art, must general scheme education to take its place next to fiction.

Further, it is very important, in an effort to become an educated, intelligent person, to think more deeply about human behavior, in other words, about the relationship of man to man. It is necessary to think more about the very foundations and rules of one’s own and other people’s behavior, about habits, interests and in general about everything that influences human behavior, and about what is considered good and what is evil, and why one considers it that way. Finally, we need to think more about the origin of these principles and rules and their development over thousands of years. What people of different times and countries thought and think about good and evil, about the purpose and meaning of life, about justice and injustice, etc. Because without this and your own education it will be worthless, or even less.

What principles should I obey? And what do I “should” mean? What rules and principles should I adhere to in my behavior, external and even internal? How can I comprehend and decorate my life, so as not to cry with grief when, unexpectedly for me, it passes, ending senselessly and absurdly? What is the value of my life? What is its meaning? What is its purpose? What ideal should I set for myself in the form of this goal and strive for it both in my personal experiences and externally - in family life, social life, etc.?

All these are questions of deepest importance, both theoretical and practical, for every person. Each of us must resolve them one way or another... Whether a person wants or not, he cannot live in life without a moral standard that only he himself, his conscience, can develop. We need to develop it, this measure, perhaps clear, definite, and the sooner the better.

From all the previous it follows that fiction and other fine arts, but also ethics should not only be included in common system self-education, but also to form the basis of it.

Also adjacent to this department, as its necessary components, are the departments of art criticism and journalism, familiarity with which is no less necessary for the purpose of self-education than with the previous ones.

Every work of art, more or less outstanding, has always evoked and evokes a whole literature of assessments and interpretations - critical articles, comments from all possible points of view.

Journalism is an assessment of current social life, that very “evil of the day” that we not only experience - at each moment of history its own special - but which in general concerns us very closely.

An art critic evaluates a work and its author. The publicist gives his assessment of life itself. Both of them seem to open doors for us from a narrow kennel personal life into the arena of public life. We are faced with the task of developing a moral ideal not only of personal life, but also a social ideal. Journalism teaches us to evaluate current life from the point of view of this ideal, to deepen and expand our understanding and our participation in the current struggle. Here in Russia - as is known from the examples of Belinsky, Dobrolyubov, Pisarev... - all the most outstanding Russian critics were also publicists.

From here follows a rule of deep importance: the circle of self-education should include periodicals - newspapers and magazines, which would give the reader the opportunity to follow the general course of current life, Russian and foreign, and the struggle of interests and opinions unfolding in it...

When working on self-education, one must keep in mind not adaptation to life, but the elevation of this life by elevating oneself above it.

An educated person is a person who has his own worldview, his own opinions about all aspects and areas of life around him. Life itself requires from each of us a common worldview, and therefore a common education that underlies the first. None of us can, in the very essence of the matter, reason like this: either find out everything or nothing. No, instead you need to think a little differently: everyone achieve as much as possible, but do not forget about what is possible and achievable - achievable for such and such a person, living in such and such conditions, possessing such and such abilities. We are talking here about an achievable minimum of education, leaving the maximum to everyone’s decision. After all, there are types of schools: lower, middle and higher, and the same subjects are taught in all of them in various sizes. Self-education also has to be carried out in various sizes, depending on the personality of the self-student, his strengths, abilities and time at his disposal. We do not confuse general education, the purpose of which is to develop a general worldview, with special education, the purpose of which is purely practical.

Understanding some areas of life is one thing, and a completely different thing is a general worldview, which includes an understanding of all the main phenomena and tasks of life. There is hardly any need to prove that this general worldview and understanding of the world is the result, the end result of all work on self-education, its goal, its summary, the final conclusion. True, there are people who, when starting to educate themselves, try to find a book that would give them “the very essence” in order to quickly read it and learn “everything they need” from it. There is no such book in the world, and it cannot even exist.

Only when a person’s worldview becomes his “second nature” and becomes a habit, only then does this person have the right to say to himself: “Yes, I really have a worldview, and it is really mine.”

To develop your worldview means to build it so firmly that, despite any objections and even suffering throughout your life, it is not destroyed or altered, but only replenished, improved and so that... the strength of mind and spirit speaks for itself myself.

A general worldview is the goal of self-education. The concept of worldview includes not only knowledge, not only understanding, but also mood, that is, the direction of likes and dislikes, ethical and social ideals, as well as the ability to implement them.

When working to develop your worldview, you cannot help but take into account not only yourself, your own characteristics, but you also need to take into account the characteristics of your environment, and therefore the historical moment in which you live. Stopping being afraid of other people's opinions that disagree with your own is one of the first habits that a person should develop.

Of particular importance is the study of not only facts in general, but controversial, transitional facts that can be interpreted one way or another. It would seem that especially serious attention should be directed to the study and understanding of these transitional facts. But this is not so: usually the most characteristic facts, and not transitional ones, are studied as illustrations for certain theses. The latter, for the most part, are forgotten and neglected. And by forgetting them and relying on the first, thought becomes accustomed to dogmatism and loses a significant part of its critical character.

In nature and in society, transitional forms are very common and navigating the phenomena of life - complex, diverse, with countless inseparable sides - is much more difficult than navigating the terms, definitions, and content of concepts. Dogmatism is one of the clearest manifestations of lack of education.

Only by carrying in your soul a single, holistic, lasting, and deep understanding of the world will you not be confused under any circumstances, but will understand and appreciate them. This means that you should not begin your work with philosophy, no matter how interesting it may be. Philosophy should be studied after everything else. The point is not to philosophize, but to philosophize as scientifically as correctly as possible. And this is only possible when you rely on a thorough study of all the above areas. Otherwise you will make yourself look like a superstar.

A person’s personality is a single, indivisible whole. The matter of self-education is not only a matter of intellect (mind). This is the matter of the entire personality, with all its experiences, thoughts, misfortunes, suffering, grief, joy, etc. This is the matter of the whole life.

In our opinion, it is with some clarification of one’s own reader’s individuality that it is useful to begin self-educational work. This includes defining the goal that the reader is striving for and about which he should think at least a little and at least in the most general terms when embarking on his self-education. What exactly do I want? What am I striving for? Should we develop a common worldview, regardless of any school programs? Or prepare for some exam? Or study some particular science, or some issue, or area of ​​​​life? etc. Much depends on the goal in planning self-educational work. But no matter what the particular goal that this or that reader sets for himself, in order to achieve all the particular goals, the general development of the personality is necessary, and therefore we will mainly talk about precisely such development, i.e., first of all, about broadening one’s horizons .