Education
“Warriors stand in a position above the three other castes, and are supposed to be professional administrators, so they need to study and gain an extensive understanding of the principles of things.”
The superiority of intellect that one attains by having a good education will better prepare oneself for the trials of life. Essentially, the purpose for which the book was written, education is argued as a necessity although the nature of it would differ during wartime and peacetime.
While this chapter was written in a time and place where most of the populace remained uneducated, the lesson still holds true today. Knowing things and being able to reason things is something that separates us from the animals. It was, is and will be our legacy to the world in which we live in.
Yet, we seem to live in a world that blatantly seems to ignore it’s birthright to think and to reason. Existing as a human being means that you are equipped with these facilities but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you automatically know how to use them. That is where proper education, where you learn to question, search for facts, develop your own hypothesis, and back them up with intelligent analysis comes in.
It’s almost as if these things have become painful to do and it seems much more pleasant to avoid doing them altogether and let other people do the hardwork for you.
But it’s going to get harder. The Internet is a new sphere of life where information and the sampling of information is flying around at light speed. Facts can be presented, fabricated, debated, argued and lost in the mountain of textual babble that spews around the Internet. The need for being able to take in information and weigh it in terms of validity, credibility and worthiness, is more important than ever.
Being knowledgeful and well-educated, as suggested by the book, is a duty that your parents must afford to you. It states that if they fail in this, “they do not know the way to love their children”. I would disagree with this to some extent. I would suggest more that it’s the responsibility of everyone to learn more themselves. It’s impossible to know the whole world around you, so likewise it’s impossible to say that you know everything already. But you can at least try to make a stab at it.
In this, I believe that it is more a responsibility to society and your duty as part of mankind to learn, think and reason. If you, rather than your parents, fail in this, then it is only your own negligence and irresponsibility that has caused your own stupidity. And, it is because you do not know the way way to love your world around you.
