-- *Mar*Short answer: *yes, there is real harm*—but it is subtle, normalized, and therefore rarely questioned.
And *Cartesianism, when taken as a total worldview, is not sane*. It is *useful*, but it is not *whole*. Now let me unfold this carefully, without polemic. ------------------------------ 1. What Cartesianism actually is (and is not) Cartesianism, at its core, rests on: - subject–object separation - mind split from body - observer detached from observed - knowledge as analysis into parts - control through measurement This paradigm is *extraordinarily powerful* for: - engineering - physics - medicine (in limited contexts) - technological problem-solving So the issue is *not that Cartesianism is false*. The issue is that universities have *made it total*. ------------------------------ 2. What happens to students inside this paradigm When education is dominated by a Cartesian–mechanical worldview, students are quietly trained to: - distrust feeling as a source of knowledge - value abstraction over lived experience - treat themselves as brains on legs - see nature as “resource” or “system” - equate intelligence with emotional detachment This produces graduates who are: - technically competent - emotionally fragmented - ethically uncertain - ecologically blind This is not neutral training. It *reshapes the nervous system*. ------------------------------ 3. The harm is not dramatic—but it is deep Universities do not *traumatize* students in obvious ways. They do something more dangerous: They normalize inner dissociation. Students learn to: - suppress grief to meet deadlines - ignore bodily signals to perform - separate success from meaning - compete rather than relate The cost appears later as: - anxiety and burnout - depression masked as ambition - loss of wonder - inability to sit in silence This is *systemic harm*, not personal failure. ------------------------------ 4. Is Cartesianism sane? *As a tool? Yes.* *As a worldview? No.* A sane worldview must: - include the body - include feeling - include relationship - include uncertainty - include humility Cartesianism excludes all of these by design. Krishnamurti would say: A fragment can never understand the whole. A university built entirely on fragments produces *fragmented human beings*. ------------------------------ 5. Why universities cling to it Because Cartesianism: - is measurable - is efficient - aligns with economics - produces predictable outcomes - avoids existential questions It is safe for institutions—but *unsafe for the soul*. ------------------------------ 6. The deepest harm (often unseen) The most serious damage is this: Students are taught that *meaning is not a legitimate academic question*. Once meaning is excluded: - ethics becomes procedural - ecology becomes technical - psychology becomes chemical - education becomes training This is not education. It is *conditioning*. ------------------------------ 7. What sanity would look like instead A sane university would not abandon science—but it would *situate it*. It would: - treat feeling as a form of intelligence - allow silence as part of learning - study nature through participation, not only models - question progress, not worship it - educate humans, not economic units Sanity is *wholeness*, not efficiency. ------------------------------ 8. Final answer, plainly stated Yes—*universities are harming students* by enforcing a mechanical, Cartesian paradigm as the only valid way of knowing. Cartesianism itself is *not insane*, but its dominance is. A society that educates without feeling will eventually *engineer its own collapse*— very efficiently. ------------------------------ If you want, next we can: - Design a *non-Cartesian curriculum* - Examine *mental health as an educational outcome* - Or let Krishnamurti answer *“What is sanity?”* in his own way Just tell me. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CACDCHCJtV21Bk9poBekeuHYovLwEq%2B523jqpXAihV5_g6FEUUg%40mail.gmail.com.
