Friday, July 22, 2016
The Importance of Knowledge
In Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World, many different topics are explored and addressed, such as how religion may or may not be beneficial and what conformity can turn a society into, but one specific topic that stood out to me the most is the importance of knowledge. Knowledge, to the people that belong to the society in Brave New World, is gained mostly through memorization through what is called hypnopaedia, which is learning by hearing while asleep. This style of learning leads the people to know and think just as their creators want them to and causes them to not actually know what is happening around them. To truly learn, one must understand what it is they are learning and the purpose in doing so. By just memorizing something, it defeats the purpose and turns into pure memorization. This book teaches the true value in knowledge and what it really means to learn something.
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I absolutely agree with what you're saying and understand the importance of knowledge. I've learned from experience, in school, that memorizing something isn't the same as learning. When I memorize something for a certain class, I usually forget the material by the next year or even the next month. Also, I forget the purpose or sole reason behind the material I was memorizing. This defeats the whole purpose of learning something because I'm just memorizing things without gaining knowledge from anything.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your post. Memorizing something and truly knowing something with your own knowledge is two completely different things. You can memorize something that you know truly with your own knowledge but you can't know something that you just memorized. Memorizing something is just repeating something you heard or read without knowing what it means at all. Like Heather said, to truly learn, one must fully know, understand, and actually process what they are learning or reading. Brave New World clearly demonstrates that as Huxley shows the difference between characters who actually think for themselves compared to characters who memorize and repeat slogans that help them answer everything in their life.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your statement about the true value of knowledge that there must be a purpose in what you're learning and memorization will not do you any good. I can relate to that in my life as the assistant drum major in my band. I have to conduct the ballad in my field show and not only must I memorize the ballad, but the entire show as well. Yes I continuously listen to the movements but that's just one part of it. Another crucial part is score studying and that is when I highlight and mark all the dynamic changes in volume as well as styles, meters, solos and all sorts of other musical numbers. Sure it's a lot to take in a land memorize. But I study the music score so much it comes to the point where I don't need to stress about memorizing parts because it just comes naturally. I understood every aspect of the music score by learning the parts that stick out and the ones that do not. And like what Heather said, one must understand the purpose of what you are learning. In my case, the purpose of score studying is so your band can rely on you and trust you as their musical leader.
ReplyDeleteI too agree with you Heather! There were many examples of hypnopaedia in the book like "ending is better than mending," and it only served as a way to memorize information. Through memorization, nothing is being understood or comprehended; it's just being reiterated word from word. The people of Huxley's society wouldn't have been able to explain and wouldn't have been able to fully understand the sentences they were repeating through hypnopaedia. They weren't actually learning and grasping what they were saying. In fact, this is not too far off from what is happening today. I believe that some of the tests and topics we are learning in class are only being memorized and forgotten. For example, many students aren't learning the definitions of words for vocabulary tests. They often memorize the definitions and which word the definition belongs to, and then they forget it after the test. Especially for those who study with flashcards, they repeat the definitions of words while flipping the card back and forth. With enough repetition, sadly, memorization comes easily.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement about how memorizing something isn't truly learning it since I have experiences in my life when I had to memorize something like vocabulary definitions for a test. I ended up memorizing them but only for that specific test, and after all of that was over I forgot all about them.
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