This past weekend, my wife and I watched Local Color, a movie presented as a true-to- life story of a summer in the early life of artist John Talia, when he was mentored by the Russian-born impressionist artist Nikoli Seroff – except that it’s not… exactly.  It took a while to track down the story behind the story, and it turns out that “John Talia” is actually George Gallo, the director of the movie, who did begin as an art student, but not of “Seroff,” but of the Lithuanian-born impressionist George Cherepov.  The use of the name Seroff was also confusing, because there was also a Viktor Seroff who was a scholar of the relationship between impressionism in art and in music.  Like “Talia,” director Gallo believes in representational art, and like the fictionalized “Talia,” after stints in Hollywood as a director, he was recognized as good enough to have his artwork featured in well-known New York City galleries.

The movie was shot on a literal shoestring, with most of the actors doing it for love and little else.  It never got wide distribution and received very mixed reviews, ranging from five stars downward.  While I enjoyed and appreciated it, in some ways the discovery that it was “fictionalized” bothered me far more than any short-comings it may have had, although I didn’t find many.  On the one hand, I can see why Gallo may have wanted to fictionalize the names, particularly his own, but by doing so, in essence, what could have been, and should have been, a tribute to Cherepov was lost in the process of creating an “image” of sorts.

I tend to be disturbed by the entire “image-making” process anyway, because the process of image-making obscures, if not totally distorts, the facts behind the “image.”  Certainly, such image-making is hardly new to human society and culture, although the power of modern technology makes it far, far easier.  Still, even in American culture, the images have run rampant over the truth, and in the process, often make heroes out of one man while ignoring the greater accomplishments of another in the same situation.  In “A Sacred Poet,” an article published more than thirty years ago in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov noted that, because of the popular poem, written in 1863 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, most people believe that Paul Revere was the hero who warned the America colonists of the imminent British attack on Concord.  While that warning did indeed result in a colonial victory, it wasn’t delivered by Revere at all, because he was caught by a British patrol, but by Dr. Samuel Prescott.  Yet Longfellow’s poem about the “ride of Paul Revere” created a lasting image of Revere as the heroic rider who warned the Americans, and that image has effectively trumped history for more than a century.

Every American presidential campaign is an exercise in image-making, and generally, the more successful the campaign, the more distorted the image… and the greater the potential for loss of popular and political support when facts to the contrary eventually leak out and become widely-known.

Perhaps George Cherepov was even less likeable than “Nikoli Seroff,” and George Gallo didn’t want to misrepresent the real artist. Or perhaps… who knows?  But it still bothers me, I have to say.

Recently, I’ve read more and more on both sides of the “debate” about whether the internet/world-wide-web is a “good” thing.  One ardent advocate dragged out the old
“Greek” argument that even writing was “bad” because memory would atrophy… and, of course, look how far we’ve come from the time of the Greeks, how much knowledge we’ve amassed since then.

And… in a cultural and societal sense, that accumulation of knowledge has, in fact, occurred, but I’m not so certain that we now don’t stand at the edge of a precipice, where, if we choose incorrectly as a society, we will slide down the slippery slope into ignorance and anarchy, if not worse. Some people already believe we’ve started to slide so much that we’ll never recover.  While I’m not that pessimistic, not yet, at least, I would like to point out a fatal flaw in the idea that technology results in a more knowledgeable society.

To begin with, let us consider the very meaning of “knowledge.” Various dictionary definitions begin with:  (1) a product of understanding acquired through experience, practical ability or skill and (2) deep and extensive learning.  The key terms here are understanding and learning.  The problem with the web and electronic technology in general is that most users fail to understand that access to information or facts is not at all the same as understanding those facts, their use, or, especially, their significance.  True understanding is impossible without a personally learned internal database.  Being able to net-search things is not the same as knowing them, and very few individuals can retain facts looked up unless they have a personal internal knowledge base to which they can relate such facts.

All too many educational “reformers” either tend to equate the learning of specific, often unrelated facts, processes, and discrete skills with education or knowledge, or, at the other extreme, they emphasize “process” and inter-relations without ever requiring students to learn basic structures and facts.  Put another way, information access is not knowing or knowledge, nor is learning processes and systems ungrounded in hard facts. Both the understanding of process and systems and a personal integrated factual “database” are necessary for an individual to be educated and knowledgeable, and far too few graduates today possess both.

The often-too-maligned educational system of the early and mid-twentieth century had a laudable objective:  to give students the basic knowledge of their society and the basic skills needed to survive and prosper in that society.  Did it often fail?  It did, and in many places, and far too frequently.  But that didn’t mean that the objective was wrong; it meant that all too often the techniques and means used were not suited to various types of students.

What followed that system is certainly no better, and possibly much worse. When something like 40% of high school graduates cannot explain against whom the American Revolution was fought and why it was important, those students cannot be classed as knowledgeable.  Nor can the 60% who cannot write coherent complex sentences or understand them be considered educated.

A culture that exalts the ability to use technology over the ability to understand it and over the ability to explain even what society is, why it exists, and what forms of government benefit who and why is in deep trouble.  So is one where the process of accessing information is elevated over understanding what that information means and how to use it. That, by the way, is also known as thinking.

And yet, every day, and in every way, our society is encouraging an ever-increasing percentage of our young people to communicate, communicate, communicate with less and less real knowledge… and without even being able to understand truly how little that they know about the basis and structure of the world in which they live.

And concerning knowledge… that is the greatest illusion of all.

Several weeks ago, an article appeared in the local newspaper, an interview with the new artistic director of the Utah Shakespeare Festival.  He’s a product of the local university, where he learned his craft from, among others, Fred Adams, the legendary professor who established and ran for decades the Festival [which has won, among other honors, a Tony for being one of the best regional theatres in the United States].  The new director is an accomplished and effective actor, and there’s no doubt about that.  But what bothered me about the interview was that not a single word appeared about those who mentored, taught, inspired, and hired him, including Fred Adams.  Everything was about the new director, his talents, and his aspirations.  I can’t honestly say whether this was because he never mentioned those who had helped him every step of the way or because the interviewer left any such remarks out of the final story.

In some ways, it doesn’t matter, because, as the story ran, it’s all too symbolic of American culture today.  No one owes anything to anyone.  In fact, it’s even worse than that. Part of this change lies in an attitude that everything important exists only in the here and now, a change in what was once a core American value.  Southern Utah University, for example, exists only because, more than a century ago, a handful of local citizens mortgaged everything they had to come up with the funds to build the first building of the school – the building being required by the state legislature.  They did so because they felt that would offer a better future to their children and their community.  None of them ever received any financial reward, and their act is largely buried in history… except for a few older residents of the town and some university faculty.

Another symptom indicative of this change in public attitudes is reflected in the content of those largely useless student evaluations.  As a senior faculty member, my wife serves on the committee that reviews tenure and promotion applications for faculty. Since faculty members are now required to include all student evaluations and comments, she sees the comments from students across all disciplines in the university, and what is so incredibly disheartening is that there is virtually no real appreciation for professors at any level. The overwhelming majority of the comments – even of professors who have demonstrated incredible teaching effectiveness and who have gone out of their way to help students for years – deal with complaints, often insanely petty.

Part of this trend may be because all too many students don’t seem to know what’s important.  One student praised a professor because he once brought in soft drinks for the class!  Another faculty member was praised for bringing donuts. Exactly what does this have to do with education? Over the years, my wife and other members of her department have done such quiet deeds as paid student medical bills out of their own pockets, created student scholarships with their own funds, and personally helped students financially, offered hundreds of unpaid hours of additional instruction – the list is endless.  Once, say fifteen years ago, students seemed to appreciate such efforts.  Today, they complain if faculty members don’t smile when the students perform [yes… this actually happened.  Twice!].

In the interests of full disclosure, as the saying goes, I probably haven’t offered enough gratitude to those who helped me – but I have offered it, in speeches, in book dedications, and in interviews… and I didn’t forget them, visiting and writing them over the years.  And certainly there are notable exceptions, some very public.  One noted Broadway singer and actress, in giving a concert last week, paid clearly heart-felt tribute upon several occasions to her undergraduate singing teacher.  The problem is that these are exceptions… and becoming more and more infrequent every year.

The noted Isaac Newton once said that he had accomplished so much because he stood “on the shoulders of Giants,” but all of us owe debts to those who preceded us.  We didn’t do it alone, and far too many people who should know this fail, time and time again, to know that, to appreciate it, and to acknowledge it, both privately and publicly.

A little over a week ago, I did something – unintentionally – that I truly wish I could undo, and for which I’m very sorry. I was taking my morning walk with the over-energetic Aussie-Saluki when a car pulled over, and a strange man with a delightful and precise English accent asked me for directions to the Catholic Church.  I was glad to oblige, and promptly stated, “Just go to the end of the road; turn right, and it’s two blocks up.”

Simple enough.

Except… I’m one of those people who have no innate sense of left and right.  I’m not directionally impaired in the sense of getting lost; I almost always know where I am, and have enough sense [acquired painfully from my wife] to ask directions when I don’t.  I’m also very good at providing written directions to others.  But when I’m caught off-guard as I was on that morning, with my thoughts more on other matters, from the plotting of the newest book to what a beautiful morning it was, I often speak before full consideration of my words.

The road used to end where I meant for him to turn, but it hasn’t for more than a year, since the city extended it a half-mile downhill through a winding canyon to meet up with the Cross Hollows Parkway.  Instead, there’s only a stop sign there now.  And… as a result of my left-right confusion, I told the English gentleman to turn right, rather than the correct direction, which was left.

But I didn’t.  About twenty seconds after he drove off, I realized what I had done and started waving and running after the car, Aussie-Saluki delighted that we were running.  Alas, he never looked back… and by the time I got home and went looking for him in the car… he was nowhere to be found.  I just hope he found the right church.

Now… the other side of the story is…  Equally inadvertently, the directions I had given him were precisely correct in taking him to the nearest LDS Stake [church], if almost three-quarters of a mile away, rather than the four blocks to the Catholic Church.

So… either way… I’m either regarded as a directional idiot, theologically challenged in not even knowing which church was which, or determined to steer the poor man away from his church of choice to another faith [even though I’m not a member of either faith].

As so many people have often probably said, I just wish I’d thought through what I’d said a little more carefully…. And because I never knew who he was, this is the only apology I can offer.

The other day I came across a series of articles, seemingly unrelated – except they weren’t.  The first was about why Vietnam is now producing perhaps the majority of great young chess players in the world.  The second was a news report on the Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition in Salt Lake City, and the third was a table of the average salaries of U.S. university professors by area of specialty.

The Vietnamese are producing chess champions and prodigies, it seems, because [gasp!] they pay them.  Gifted young players are paid from $300 to $500 a month to learn and play chess, and the best get all expenses paid to play in tournaments world-wide.  These are substantial incentives in a country where the average monthly family earnings are around $100.  Of course, American teenagers spend more than that monthly on what the Vietnamese would likely consider luxuries, and in the United States young chess players must count on the support of family or charitable organizations… and despite being one of the largest and most prosperous nations in the world, we have comparatively very few international class chess masters.

The finals of the Gina Bachauer Piano Competition were held in Salt Lake City last week, and of the eight finalists, one was Russian, one was Ukrainian, and the other six were Asian. This pattern has been ongoing for close to a decade, if not longer.  We haven’t produced a true giant in piano performance in decades, but then, the top prize is a mere $30,000, hardly worth it for Americans, apparently, not when it takes 15 plus years of study and hours upon hours of daily practice – all for a career in which the top-flight pianists generally make less money than whoever is 150^th on the PGA money list.

All this might just tie in to the salaries of university professors.  The three areas in which university professors’ salaries are the lowest are, respectfully, from the bottom: theology/religion; performing and visual arts; and English.

I’m cynical, I know, but I don’t think that this is coincidental.  In the United States, mainstream religions [who generally require some intensive theological training] are losing members left and right.  The highest-paid performing and visual artists are those who can provide the most spectacular show, not the most technically sound performance, and most “professional” pop singers could not even match the training or technical ability of the average graduate student in voice, but technical ability doesn’t matter, just popularity, as witness American Idol.  As for English, when 60% of all college graduates aren’t fully technically competent in their own language, this does suggest a lack of interest.

The other factor in common in these areas is that the average semi-educated American believes that he or she knows as much as anyone about religion, singing, dancing, acting, and English as anyone.  And that’s reflected in both what professors are paid and in what experts in those fields are paid. The problem is that popular perceptions aren’t always right, regardless of all the mantras about the “wisdom of the crowd.”  The highest paid professors – and professionals – in the United States today are in the field of business and finance.  That’s right – those quant geniuses who brought you all the greatest financial melt-down since the Great Depression, not to mention the “Flash Crash” of a month or so ago when technical glitches resulted in the largest fastest one-day decline in the market ever.  Oh… and just as a matter of national pride, if you will, why do professors of foreign languages get paid 8-10% more than professors of English? Especially when the mastery of English is at a decades-low point?

More to the point, it’s not just about singers, writers, English professors, but about all of society.  We may complain about the financiers and their excesses, but we still allow those excesses.  We may talk about the importance of teachers, police, firefighters, and others who hold society together, but we don’t truly support them where it counts.

As a society, we may not always get what we pay for, but you can bet we won’t get what we don’t pay for.