Martin Buber on Education
The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda. Education means teaaching people to see the reality around them, to undersand it for themselves. Propaganda is exactly the opposite. It tells the people, "You will think like this, as we want you to think!"
Education lifts the people up. It opens their hearts and develops their minds so that they can discover the truth and make it their own. Propaganda, on the other hand, closes their hearts and stunts their minds. It compels them to accept dogmas without asking themselves, "Is this true or not?"
The trouble is that this is not only a conflict of ideology. It is a conflict of tempo. The tempo of propaganda is feverish, nervous. It is the pace of television and radio. It is the pace of the newspaper headline, the cry of the vendor in the street. Whereas education goes at a slow pace. It is the pace of teachers talking with their students. It is the pace of a man reading by himself in a room. It cannot be hurried or speeded up and remain education."
