The Direction of Intention

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Apples are not oranges.

Government is not business. It has fiscal responsibilities, yes, but the intention of government is fundamentally different than the intention of a business. Government is how a state (state = a group of people who share a common identity) manages itself. A group of people, even with a common story, has multiple points of view and has to have some mechanism for maintaining a healthy commons. Government concerns itself with what a community values. It is the functional layer of the question, “who are we?” Business is not in the least concerned with values. Business would have you believe that is provides something of value. This is sometimes true and sometimes not.

Education is not business. While it also has fiscal realities the purpose of education is not to make money. The purpose of education is to support a new generation of citizens, expansive, curious, dynamic, human beings capable of critical thought, constructive debate, capable of sharing and perpetuating a common narrative. Education is not about answers. It is about this question: Who are we (and the individual variation, “who am I?”)? If education is not about self-knowledge, then it is about nothing. The era of education-as-factory is collapsing on itself.

The arts will never make money; art is not business. The purpose of art is to hold, maintain and renew the identity of the culture. Artist’s hold the necessary sacred space for exploring the question, “who are we?” When the purpose of art in a culture becomes the making of money, the culture is already dead: despite its appearance the core of the apple is rotten.

News is not entertainment. The purpose of news is to report without bias the events of the world. Hopefully, news informs the community, it provides the necessary information for good decision-making. When the purpose of news becomes to attract the most viewers (make money), to influence opinion or to promote a point of view (make money), it is no longer news. It is something else.

In the collision between old world ideas and the reality of the world in which we live it is increasingly more difficult to discern between apples and oranges and it is more and more imperative that we remember how to do so. Confusing the intention of government, education, art, news,…, with the intention of business is to forget the essential in pursuit of the superficial. It becomes the default answer to the question, “who are we?”

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