Jonas Doerr – Opinions Columnist
We’re living in a cult, and our charismatic leader is learning.
This campus is obviously not a cult, however, it has many characteristics of one. According to Dr. Janja Lalich, a leading expert on cults out of California State University Chico, cults focus heavily on bringing in new members and making money, expect members to spend inordinate amounts of time on group activities, promote an us vs. them mentality, and are not accountable to higher authorities for many of their actions.
Our recruitment efforts clearly demonstrate the first point. Before I applied to Gustavus, I received what seemed like dozens of emails.
One might say Gusties overcommit themselves on campus, but there seems to be a culture of encouraging people to become very involved. Walk once through the halls of the involvement fair, and one will probably find themselves on five or more clubs’ email lists. It’s difficult to find time for jobs or activities off campus unless one wants to feel isolated from what’s going on here.
Our sports teams cultivate an antagonistic mentality. Perhaps it’s usually just silliness, but Gusties can get rather riled up about St. Olaf. And how many Gusties wouldn’t say our school is better than others after being here two or three years?
And while private colleges do have to follow most laws, there are plenty of things they can get away with. For example, the First Amendment does not apply to private colleges. Because they are not receiving public funding, they can make whatever rules they want about free speech.
That’s not enough to make this a cult, however. To the best of my knowledge, we don’t perform mind-altering practices to brainwash people, we allow disagreement and dissent at least to some extent, and as much as we appreciate our President, I don’t think any of us consider her a Messiah or an exalted being. There are plenty of cult characteristics we avoid.
But what if we reframe the question? What if it’s not this place, but the end goal that makes us a cult? What if learning is the exalted being that’s dragging us in?
Learning is glorified over nearly everything. We promote education as the solution to life; graduate college, and you are on the path to success. Drop out of high school? Good luck! Very few people are encouraged to go into the trades if their family members didn’t.
Much of that learning is only for the sake of learning. Regardless of whether one finds their classes useful or not, nearly everyone consumes pointless learning. Who hasn’t seen an eye-catching video promising life hacks that will change your life? Of course, their life was probably exactly the same afterward, minus a wasted 5 minutes.
Even when students seem to not want to learn, they wish they were learning. Those sleepy students in an 8 a.m. class, if they can’t go back to bed, probably have a number of learning activities to do as soon as they get out of class.
They’ll scroll through social media feeds, learning what ‘friends’ they haven’t seen in years have been doing. They’ll read some of the latest news, learning what’s happening in places they will never visit. They’ll watch Tik Toks or YouTube videos, learning the latest trends so they will seem knowledgeable in conversations.
So much learning for so little purpose.
Purpose or not, there are consequences. Learning dictates how learners should think and feel. It tells people not to disagree; the facts don’t lie. People who achieve high levels of learning are placed in an elite group with special titles. People who don’t learn enough are shamed. People have to spend inordinate amounts of time learning or risk falling behind.
People are encouraged to socialize only with others of similar knowledge levels. They’re afraid of what would happen if they left; if they turned off their news feed, their social media, or their daily podcasts.
What is this? It’s a cult. A cult of learning.
Perhaps this is only the hive mind speaking through me, but I don’t believe the way to escape is by not learning. Learning is good, in moderation. Learning is good when it has a purpose and that knowledge is used for something.
Learning must be balanced by doing.
We must filter the information stream to what is useful. We must stop filling our memory banks with ideas that are stored for a never-coming future. We must learn to be better at action.
Once the preparation of learning is done, live! Use the information to do life better. We should not be learning more than we are doing; what is the purpose of that?
When we learn, we are naturally self-focused. We think of what we can do to improve ourselves and wonder what we’re doing wrong.
But when we act, we give back. Instead of only taking information, by doing we can share something with the world that was not there before. We can create! We can inspire! We can love.
Don’t drop out of college. Don’t panic about the cult of learning you just realized you’re in. But if you’re tired of being a desert that drinks and drinks and never gives back, grow a cactus and make someone happy.