When Education Loses Its Roots

I felt quite disturbed when I recently watched a video circulating on social media. At a music festival in Jakarta, a Quran memorisation challenge was paired with alcoholic drinks as part of a promotion. A visitor was asked to recite a surah in order to receive a free drink.

For some reason, the first thing that came to my mind was not simply anger. I actually felt concerned and asked myself, how did we get to this point?

The Quran is a holy book revered by Muslims, while alcohol is something forbidden in Islamic teachings. The two belong to different value systems, yet they were brought together in a gimmick to attract attention. The public reaction is certainly understandable. However, once the controversy subsides, there is a more important question than simply finding who is to blame: what is actually happening to us?

Why can something considered sacred be so easily moved into the realm of entertainment? Why does respect seem to lose out to the desire to create something attention-grabbing? Are we beginning to lose the ability to distinguish between what can be turned into a game and what should remain respected?

Perhaps this issue is not just about one video or one gimmick. The incident may be a reflection of a broader problem: the increasing ease with which we separate something from its meaning, the sacred from its sanctity, symbols from the values they contain, and knowledge from wisdom.

That is where I then ask, what is wrong with us?

I deliberately use the word ‘us’. For it is too easy to point to the younger generation as the party that must be held responsible for the erosion of values. Yet today’s generation did not grow up in a vacuum. They grew up in a world that we built together. They see what we display, hear how we speak, and learn from how society treats the values it holds.

Socrates taught the importance of examining oneself. Therefore, a problem like this cannot be adequately answered by asking who is at fault. We also need to dare to ask: what have we done that respect can be so easily eroded?

Education, after all, does not only take place in schools. Children learn from family, society, the media, digital spaces, and even from how the market pursues profit. They learn not only from books and teachers, but also from what they witness every day.

Amid such circumstances, we face the risk of producing a generation that experiences a gap between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge grows so quickly, but the growth of wisdom does not always keep pace. Intelligence increases, but moral sensitivity does not always grow in the same direction.

A person can be very clever, yet lack sensitivity towards others. They can master technology, but do not always consider the impact of their actions. They can enjoy broad freedom, but lose the ability to respect others. The problem is not always that people do not know what they are doing. Sometimes, the problem arises when people have the ability, but no longer ask whether that ability is being used in a way that is right, proper, and brings about good.

That is where knowledge begins to lose its direction. Aristotle long ago reminded us that education is not only about the accumulation of knowledge, but also the formation of virtue. Knowing what is good does not automatically make a person good. Goodness must be trained, habituated, and realised in action.