The world does not need successful people

Adapted extract from an article entitled 'What is Education for?' by David Orr, in 'In Context' 27 (USA).

There is a myth that the purpose of education is that of giving you the means for upward mobility and success. Thomas Merton once identified this as the 'mass production of people literally unfit for anything except to take part in an elaborate and completely artificial charade.' When asked to write about his own success, Merton responded by saying that 'if it so happened that I had once written a best seller, this was a pure accident, due to inattention and naivete, and I would take very good care never to do the same again.' His advice to students was to 'be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success.'

'Be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success'

The plain fact is that the planet does not need more 'successful' people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, story-tellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these needs have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.

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