I heard
of this word “unlearn” a few years ago. A gentleman blogger was using this word
repeatedly, but without putting any weight behind what it means. Indeed he did
not even define it in the negative sense of it not being something that has
already been defined; say, learn. The word has the status of a mere jargon, to
be un-understood!
Then,
we grew apart in the blogosphere and I thought I was rid of this word. Then came
a news item in the Times of India,
the source of all my recent troubles! The article is titled, ‘Right education needed to make 2020 a
success story’ by Sanjeev Rastogi datelined April 5, 2013.
As
reported, Shashi Tharoor, quoting the once has-been and in my perspective the
never-been futurist Alvin Toffler, defined the illiterate of the 21st
century as those who cannot “learn, unlearn
(my emphasis) and relearn”. That word; please gag with me a fork.
This
word “unlearn”, one hears only in the non-plebian environs of airport
bookstores! As I do not fly, citing contrails and AGW concerns, I am pleasurably
and illiterately grounded. Thank my stars.
Tharoor
had indeed understood that to unlearn one must have learned something in the
first place. While he was addressing some educationists at the conclave Times of India’s Schoolonomics
(obviously an appropriately named event in which “unlearn” will fit in snugly),
he could have cited a personal anecdote of “unlearning”, bringing it into sharp
relief, resonating deeply with himself, with the audience and even Alvin
Toffler!
Obviously,
Tharoor had learned “cattle class”, but when he used it, he was forced to “unlearn”
it quickly, definitively and abjectly. What remains for him, then, is to relearn
“cattle class”. Will he get an opportunity soon enough lest he forget the word?
Another
question popped into my mind. If “cattle class” is the only word he had learned
in his stint with the UN, is he fit enough to be the junior minster in the HRD
Ministry of GoI? Yes, and that is his second opportunity, to relearn “cattle
class”. You see, that ministry is for the “cattle class”, of the politicians,
to be sure. We Indians do not care about, indeed even acknowledge that we have
human resources. So, instead of flying “cattle class” Shashi Tharoor defines “cattle
class”!
Tharoor
has learnt, unlearnt and is now relearning “cattle class” and that is the progress
that comes with unlearning.
Given
all this flipping and flopping about learning, I think I will be better off learning to unlearn this word “unlearn”!
Raghuram
Ekambaram
10 comments:
I too found the concept of unlearning rather absurd. Can one really unlearn anything?
Maybe alzheimer's or dementia are the tools to unlearn? Not sure about this, but if one gets cured of them, then they get back their memory and hence would have relearned?
Bringing in Alzheimer's within the ken of Shashi Tharoor, Amrit?! You are bold!
But I understand. :)))
RE
Matheikal, that is a good question. But before that one has to define unlearning and that has to be beyond forgetting or ignoring.
It has to be something like fundamental ignorance - one-does-not-know-he-does-not-know type of thing, I believe. That, in my book, is ignorance and not unlearning.
RE
What have I learnt to unlearn?
As you have not learnt about unlearning, Balu, you have nothing to unlearn!
RE
There is one more possibility for unlearning. I have heard many people who use the word revert as in “I will revert to you”. So if they indeed revert to a state, then all that they learned from that state up to the state just before they reverted would be unlearned. No?
You are thinking of thermodynamical "state variables"! This is as good as Shashi Tharoor and Alzheimer's!
There are more than a few who say, "I will rvert / return this back to you!" I ask them whether they can return something "front" to me :)
By the way, in the movie English Vinglish (Sridevi starrer)this was siad and it must have been like a slp in the face for all this pidgin English speakers! I loved it.
RE
Raghuram
I have a good physicist friend in US (prof in Hawai)called John Learned !
And, Pala, there was a very highly respected and perhaps the greatest American judidiciall mind that did not get on to the US Supreme Court - his name was LEARNED HAND! :)
By thet scale the title of UNLEARNED FOOT should go to ROBERT BORK, a Ronald Reagan nominee and THE original "originalist"! Intellectually, the forerunner of Antoonin Scalia. Bork thinks the US Constitution should adhere to what the original framers had in their minds when they wrote that document, as no one afterwards has had any mind!
RE
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