In a world of AI, everything suddenly seems possible. Those who have no musical background can suddenly compose a hit song. Those who can’t think or write effectively can suddenly produce a coherent article. Those who haven’t the slightest artistic bone in their body can suddenly create amazing graphics.

AI is rising in prevalence to such an extent that students even appear to be working harder to get AI to do their homework than doing that homework with their own two hands and brain. A MIT study recently labeled this trend “cognitive surrender,” which causes students to “effectively [override] their own intellectual agency with the output of AI.”

It’s hard to blame students for acting this way. Why do the hard work if someone or something can do it for you? Why learn at all if AI can answer our beck and call? But such questions miss out on the true reasons and advantages behind learning.

American founder Benjamin Rush explored the topic of why we should learn and what learning actually is centuries before AI arrived on the scene. The following six reasons he offered show us why, in this age of groundbreaking technical change, we should still be applying our minds and hearts to understand and grow in knowledge.

Learning “is friendly to religion”

Most people think that religion is for the unlearned, “the opium of the masses” as Karl Marx so famously put it. But according to Rush, learning and religion go hand in hand, for learning “assists in removing prejudice, superstition and enthusiasm, in promoting just notions of the Deity, and in enlarging our knowledge of his works.”

Sadly, we seem to have flipped this on its head in recent years. Religion – especially not the Christianity which founders like Rush espoused – has no place in today’s public schools. Instead, our schools preach social justice, critical race theory, and victimhood, all while test scores decline, knowledge about basic cultural literacy falls, and prejudices increase.

Learning “is favourable to liberty”

We live in a nation devoted to liberty, a liberty which also blesses us with the responsibility to direct and control our own government.

Yet such freedom “can exist only in the society of knowledge,” Rush says. “Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights,” he goes on to say, “and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal.”

We see this scenario unfolding in our society today as increasingly few of our citizens understand the difference between a right and a privilege, or even the simple difference between the three branches of government and what each does. Our citizens then demand laws and developments which promise considerable harm to them and their fellow countrymen, yet thanks to a lack of learning and instruction, these same citizens are unable to follow the logical conclusion and see the consequences of their actions. The few who do have enough learning and knowledge to understand will either be tempted to control their fellow citizens through an oligarchical form of government, or they will be completely overthrown and suppressed by the mob of ignorant masses.

Learning “promotes just ideas of laws and government”

A recent high profile court case has caused many to question whether Americans know what justice is anymore, or if they simply base matters of the law on their feelings and emotions. Justice prevails “when the clouds of ignorance are dispelled,” Rush writes. The fact that we don’t see justice prevailing in our land suggests that the clouds of ignorance are simply gathering at an ever greater pace.

Learning “is friendly to manners”

According to Rush, “Learning in all countries, promotes civilization, and the pleasures of society and conversation.”

Unfortunately, headlines in recent years are filled with reports of teachers quitting because of unmanageable classrooms, fights among students, and other horrific circumstances stemming from poor manners. If civilized behavior is the result of genuine learning, as Rush says, then one can’t help but wonder what exactly is going on in today’s classrooms, for it doesn’t appear to be learning.

Learning “promotes agriculture”

Rush calls agriculture “the great basis of national wealth and happiness.” In a time when agriculture is not as big of a profession as it was around the founding period, such advice can seem dated. But what Rush is driving at is that agriculture is a highly scientific practice, requiring well-educated and knowledgeable individuals not only to effectively till the soil, but to also market the fruits of the earth. As such, agriculture is “the great basis of national wealth and happiness,” and a nation that forsakes effective learning will never be effectively able to turn its labors into prosperity.

“Manufactures of all kinds owe their perfection chiefly to learning”

In the same way that learning promotes production through agriculture, so too, learning leads to positive production in other arenas. “[T]he nations of Europe advance in manufactures, knowledge, and commerce, only in proportion as they cultivate the arts and sciences,” Rush explains. But if America increasingly neglects the inculcation of knowledge in its students, will we eventually see our wealth and prosperity go down the drain?

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This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News. 

Image credit: Pickpik