Heidegger distinguishes between two types of thinking: calculative and meditative. Calculative thinking involves reckoning with given conditions, planning, investigating, computing, and ultimately arriving at a result we had purposed to reach. Meditative thinking, on the other hand, contemplates the inherent meaning in everything, and is the thinking is essential to our humanity. He believes that the thing most worthy of thought is thinking about whether or not we are actually thinking; thus, he is principally concerned with the fact that “man today is in flight from thinking” (Heidegger, 1968, p. 475). We fail, he expounds, to consider what is happening to our thinking, i.e., that we are dispensing with meditative thinking in favour of calculative thinking. And because man’s nature is determined primarily by his status as a meditating being, throwing aside meditative thinking means throwing aside our humanity.
This flight is due, he argues, to a loss of autochthony (rootedness) to the natural world: the source of the technologies and calculative thinking that science promotes. Because of this disconnection, calculative thinking treats the world as a means to an end (technology), and alters our relationship with the world from one of dependence to one of dominance and ultimately destruction. He argues that the only defense against calculative thinking and this new technology-saturated existence is to create a new autochthony based on meditative thinking, comprised of releasement toward things and openness to the mystery. By releasement toward things, Heidegger means that we are able to use technology properly and effectively without allowing it to dominate, enslave, or dehumanize us. By openness to the mystery, he means that we maintain awareness that technology always secretly and inherently carries meaning—that it affects us in ways we do not readily perceive. By directing our efforts toward thinking meditatively, we will preserve our essential humanity as well as the natural world.
Roszak is also concerned with preserving the kind of thinking that is essentially and uniquely human in the face of mounting use and promotion of technology. The computer was designed based on a data-processing model of thought, which arose out of Descartes’ and Bacon’s desire (and perceived ability) to break down thinking into a series of logical steps to reach a conclusion. The problem is that we consider the computer a reflection of the human mind. Hence, “the computer brings with it a hidden curriculum that impinges upon the ideals [teachers] would teach” because it carries assumptions about the mind, and any “conception of mind—even if it is no better than a caricature—easily carries over into a prescription of character and value” (Roszak, 1994, p. 241). In other words, our attitude toward others, the world, and ourselves is based on how we see our minds, which is shaped by our use of computers, which implicitly teach that our minds are data processors.
While Roszak does not deny that the mind processes data, its chief occupations—which no technology can come close to mimicking—are to ponder choices and make projects. And both of these activities involve generating and evaluating not data, but ideas, “whose creation and elaboration cannot be reduced to a set of predictable rules” (Roszak, 1994, p. 244) and whose origins are mysterious … angelic. In fact, he argues, forcing thinking into the data processing model of the computer (or any procedure, for that matter) is actually counterintuitive. The true art of thinking is its capacity “to create beyond what it intends, beyond what it can foresee” (Ibid.). In other words, it is the uniquely human ability to generate ideas spontaneously in a way that can’t be captured in a methodical process. For this reason, and especially in light of the corporate interests pushing for more computer use, we must be careful to inspire children with ‘master ideas’ that communicate values and images of human greatness, while also highlighting the limitations and abuses of technology.
Critical Response
I agree with Heidegger (1968) that technology’s “accomplishments come most speedily to be known and publicly admired” (p. 479), which reflect calculative thinking in which we see only what technology is immediately capable of producing for us. With the exception of Jane O’Dea’s courses, my education degree has taught me to “use more and newer technology more often” to achieve efficiency of resources and time, and to enable students to learn wherever, whenever, and however they want. McRae’s “Rebirth of the Teaching Machine through the Seduction of Data Analytics: This Time It's Personal” documents how this trend is pervasive in the education industry.
Roszak warns that introducing students to computers at a young age runs the risk of unintentionally teaching them to believe that computers are necessary, reflective of, and even superior to the mind and so come to depend on them for their thinking. I think that this unintentional lesson can be taught at any age for any technology. I think of drivers with perfectly good legs, circling the lot in search of a spot closest the mall entrance, and of the office workers impatiently staring at the elevator only to take it up one floor. I think of the many times I’ve heard university students instinctively equate “giving a presentation” to “creating a PowerPoint,” and of business professionals suggest that they need a new software program before bothering to understand fully either their business processes or the current program’s true capabilities. Technology accustoms us to behave and think first based on the limitations and possibilities of the technology, rather than recognizing the goal we’re trying to achieve and to select appropriate strategies (and then, if necessary, technologies) that will help us.
I agree that translating thinking into procedures is counterintuitive. Procedures force thinking and behaving into predictable algorithms, and leave no room for very human and worldly experiences of intuition, contingencies, or the unexpected. I recall having this struggle when recording, modifying, and later analysing emergency response procedures for my company (a demand of regulatory bodies). It struck me that, not only was it impossible to account for all factors in an emergency, it was also impossible to determine how people—with minds, wills, and especially emotions—would actually respond, and that expecting people to follow a procedure in those conditions was, in many ways, dehumanizing.
That said, as I am learning in my course on problem-solving through communication technologies, and even as I learned in using technology to help me with the emergency response procedures, it can often be helpful to use technology to visualize and analyse a problem. Simulations and portrayals, for example, may reveal discrepancies, assumptions, and blind spots. Recording thinking in a structured format may provoke one to make connections between ideas that otherwise would have been missed. While technology may not create new ideas, it can certainly play a role in assembling the ingredients.
I agree that using technology removes us further and further from its source—the mind and the earth—and, in doing so, alienates us from our humanity and the natural world, making it easier to unintentional destroy both. Along these lines, I thought it was especially prudent of my TA in PSII, after conducting a week-long project in which students had created and run businesses and played a faux stock market (very calculated thinking), to watch and discuss with them The Story of Stuff. This film highlights the interconnectedness of “stuff” and the well-being of the planet and, in many senses, promotes meditative thinking about the economy and resources. But the film was created using video editing software and viewed via a Smart board using YouTube, which now makes me wonder, did this activity involve calculative thinking, meditative thinking, or some strange hybrid? The film, using technology, brought us back to the technology’s source. Similarly, in the book on which the film was based, the author discusses her dilemma of producing a book in light of her recognition of deforestation, water and air pollution, and other negative repercussions, as well as how she eventually arrived at production decisions. Perhaps, if the message inherent in the medium is brought to the forefront, it promotes critical thinking, which is neither wholly calculative nor wholly meditative but incorporates a bit of each.
Implications
In response to the concern that technology drives our thinking, Heidegger states, “To learn means to make everything we do answer to whatever essentials address themselves to us at a given time. Depending on the kind of essentials … the answer and with it the kind of learning differs” (Heidegger, 1968, p. 483). We must first determine what is valuable to learn, then determine the kind of thinking required, then select a strategy or technology (or not!) to get us there. Heidegger argues that we must learn that we are not thinking about our thinking, and teachers must lead the way in this. Thus, teachers must readily acknowledge their need to learn, be more teachable than their students, and be less assured in their own knowledge (Ibid. p. 484). In this spirit, “I don’t know” is no longer a shameful admission, but an example of what it means to be teachable, even an acknowledgement of the mystery of the universe.
Similarly, Roszak (1994) argues that the emphasis on scientific thinking reflects our tendency to accept only that which our mind understands about itself: since we cannot understand where ideas come from, their origin and ideas themselves become less important, and we are tempted to abandon them altogether. It is foolish, he warns us to claim that the entire answer to a problem consists only in that which we can explain. Thus, he highlights the importance of wonder (which he attributes to childhood) and inquiry (which he associates with adolescence) in education. I think it is important for teachers to help students maintain these practices/attitudes throughout their lives because they are the bedrock of learning. Similarly, Heidegger’s openness to the mystery seems to me a lifelong awareness that keeps us on edge about technology’s hidden effects, and ensures that we do not lose our essential humanity. Teachers must place less emphasis on gathering data from students or having them provide answers, and more emphasis on encouraging or provoking students to ask prudent questions, generate ideas, and make projects. We must be wary of conclusions, once-and-for-all solutions, and any other endings to discussion or inquiry, and instead solicit the ‘buts,’ the ‘what ifs,’ the ‘coulds,’ and the ‘whys.’
Because children are not like computers, education must not amount to filling them with, or directing them to focus on acquiring, more and more information. Rather, we should teach “master ideas, the moral and metaphysical paradigms which lie at the heart of every culture,” which are transmitted through epic stories, rituals, and artwork that portray examples of human greatness (ideals) (Roszak, 1994, pp. 239-240). These ideal figures must also show flaws and weaknesses, both to convey the “complexity of real life” and to prevent them from being idolized and used to impose convention and indoctrinate (Ibid. p. 240). Sharing ‘master ideas’ in the arts, humanities, and social sciences is straightforward because there is much great art, literature, and history from which to draw. To do this in math and science might involve spending a bit of time exploring the lives of great scientists and mathematicians—both their accomplishments and shortcomings. We must also address the master ideas that children receive through television, movies, and the Internet. Last semester I spent a class briefly comparing the ‘selfie’ to Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits. I think it’s effective to compare a piece of pop culture to a piece of historical culture in order to tease out and deconstruct the underlying moral and metaphysical paradigms.
Roszak (1994) also suggests stressing the “limitations and abuses of the machine, showing the students how little they need it to develop their autonomous powers of thought” (p. 242). I agree, and would add that when introducing anyone to any new technology, one should not only discuss the limitations and abuses, but also subject it to McLuhan’s Laws of Media so that the person understands what the technology is replacing, bringing back, and enhancing, and doing if taken to extremes. Teachers need to do this when selecting or using information resources and pedagogical methods, and administrators need to do it when proposing changes or additions to technology. I think this kind of analysis actually enables us to adopt Heidegger’s suggested attitude of releasement toward things. The more we understand about what the technology can/can’t or is/isn’t doing, the more we can use it without becoming dependent upon or altered by it, and the less likely it is to replace us in the classroom.
It is useful to pit one idea against another (as in Socratic dialogue) so that students “must make up their own minds, judge, and choose” which ideas they will accept, bringing the mind to life (Roszak, 1994, p. 240). I should set up my classroom to help students respectfully air, listen to, and challenge opposing views from their classmates. I should also take care to monitor my own biases, biases in the content I’m teaching, or biases in the content students are likely to be exposed to outside the classroom, and find contrasting perspectives to present to students so that they can practice understanding, evaluating, and choosing which ideas they will accept, much as this assignment does.
Furthermore, to counter the association between mind and computer, we should, as in earlier days, help kids to compare themselves to animals, particularly because animals, like humans, display “greater powers of mind than any computer can even mimic well” (Roszak, 1994, p. 242). As a teacher, I might look to arrange field trips to a zoo or nearby farm, to have a class pet or garden, or to promote outdoor education programs. It would be additionally beneficial to learn and adopt the Blackfoot approach of respect for animals and plants.
Finally, without having read Heidegger’s article in the original German (also, I can’t read German), his discussion of apprenticing and handicrafts brought to mind discussions with my German grandparents regarding careers. “Career” in German is closer to “vocation,” which carries a connotation of divine calling—something perhaps God created you to do. Heidegger seems to offer an autochthonic version of this calling, suggesting that it is not heaven calling, but earth. A cabinetmaker finds fulfillment, thinking, and ultimately himself in responding to the wood, born of the soil and seed. Likewise, in pursuing a handicraft, “Every motion of the hand in every one of its works carries itself through the element of thinking … All the work of the hand is rooted in thinking” (Heidegger, 1968, p. 485). Handicrafts enable us to express our essential humanity, connect with our physical selves and our physical world. Both of my grandparents were tradespeople, and proud to be so. Perhaps they recognized that “the hand’s gestures run everywhere through language … And only when man speaks, does he think” (Ibid.). The body moves and the mind follows. As teachers, we must provide students opportunities to work with raw materials, to play in nature, and to create with their hands. With all of the pressure to create new workers for a ‘knowledge economy,’ it is just as, if not more, important to encourage our students to pursue work in the trades.
References
Heidegger, M. (1968). Thinking. In J.P. Strain (Ed.) (1971), Modern Philosophies of Education (pp. 474-485). New York, NY: Random House.
McRae, P. (2013, April 14). Rebirth of the Teaching Machine through the Seduction of Data Analytics: This Time It's Personal. Retrieved from http://www.philmcrae.com/2/post/2013/04/rebirth-of-the-teaching-maching-through-the-seduction-of-data-analytics-this-time-its-personal1.html
Roszak, T. (1994). The Cult of Information. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.