I listened to a Seth Godin "Akimbo" podcast not too long ago where in Seth talks about how Margaret Mitchell got "picked" by the "gatekeepers" of the book industry at the time, the Book of the Month Club in 1936.
Now, in 1936 books were the dominant form of expression in a culture that watched a lot of movies but hadn't discovered television yet. In 1936, Gone with the Wind was picked to be the book of the month and within a few weeks became the fastest selling book of it's kind. Without the Book of the Month Club no one would have heard about Margaret's book. She got picked.
But why did it matter wether or not she got picked and why is it mattering less and less nowadays? For a number of reasons, starting with those "gatekeepers". With the advent of the internet, information and content is easier to create, share, view and process, than ever before. With a smartphone, you can look up just about anything you'd like and can expect a plethora of sources that offer the information through different mediums. Podcasts allow you to listen to experts talk at length about their expertise. Youtube videos allow you the same freedom but with an added visual component, and virtually free music apps allow you the freedom to explore your personal tastes without having to buy an entire CD for the two tracks in the middle that you MUST own for yourself.
The gatekeepers have increasingly less and less control, anyone with a smartphone, and internet connection and an idea can make a movie and upload it onto youtube, share it with friends and (on occasion) maybe that small movie will go viral. Anyone with a beat and a recording device can spit some bars to a rhythm and upload it onto the internet. Have you noticed recently that there are more sub-genres of music than you could even remember? That's because the internet makes it easier than ever before in human history to find someone else that our particular message resonates with. There is less and less reason to conform to societal norms because of how free the market is.
One area where this is still not as true is the public education system. Even though we KNOW that you could only hope to learn teeny sliver of the knowledge accessible to us currently, the system continues to dump that same sliver down the throats of children who are forced to attend school. Why is this ridiculous? Because information is more accessible than ever before and the education system is acting like it's not. Why not make what they're teaching in the most prestigious schools in the country widely accessible via the internet? Seriously, why not? Is the education system pro learning or are they for keeping their information so that people MUST pay and compete against one another to get access to it. Are we, as a society, for making life easier (and information more accessible) for one another or do we want to stay within this competitive system so that we may fight over who gets the "stamp of approval" (diplomas) from the institutions of "higher education". This kind of revolution of sorts that I am proposing would not have been possible even twenty years ago, much less when Margaret Mitchell was chosen back in 36', the technology wasn't invented yet, but it is possible now. In the face of global climate change, increasing over-population, atomization of more and more jobs, adaptability, emotional intelligence and critical thinking are becoming stand out traits that seem like our only hopes to keeping this boat we call human civilization afloat.
Why not make these changes in school you ask? Well because, from a primal perspective, the system produces complacent students who must be taught instead of investigating for themselves, who aren't allowed to choose the direction of their life, who are forced to compete against their counterparts for the "top spots" and who aren't given the chance to make immediate changes on the world around them. I remember as a kid I would think to myself "why doesn't just one billionaire build a massive house or building to house much of the homeless population? Why doesn't every city develop a way to house the homeless? Why don't adults fix climate change if they know how risky it is? Why do we have national debt if we're just going to pay ourselves back? Why not feed the hungry? Why do we ignore imminent danger? The easy fix, the obvious fix?"
I believe that we all have these thoughts as children, and it is school that grinds those hopes and dreams of a better world out of us, school takes our most precious years so that we cast aside our childhood-driven raw rationality and replaces it with complacency and the need to be at the top. Schools tells us that the world is the way it is and if you want to survive and prosper, you must keep your head down, follow the rules, be realistic, and ask permission. TERRIBLE advice if you want to move forward as humans, to make an easier existence for everyone, everywhere. The internet has opened the flood gates to the average joe making it big time and changing the world, now it's up to every one of us to make a change for change, stop putting up with bullshit and listening to the people who say you can't. We can all demand this change, that's how blacks and women got their rights and its exactly how you, and me, can make this world a better place for every single person who is born into the world without asking. Give the children choice. Do what you can't.
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/756b54bd-74d4-4733-ba16-490de9c76810.mp3 - Seth Godin's Akimbo podcast "You're it"
Do What You Can't - Casey Neistat thank you Casey
let's demand better.
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