The World where Knowledge is not fully Business

I recently came across Tagore’s thoughts on knowledge and knowledge sharing. 

1. “ ...............

      Where knowledge is free ;

      ...............

      ...............

      Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my Country Awake.”

                       - Taken from a poem in Gitanjali.

2. “You know the traditions of our country are never to accept any ‘material’ fee from the students in return for teaching, because we consider in India that he who has the knowledge has the responsibility to impart it to the students. It is not merely for the students to come and ask it from the master, but it is the master who must fulfill his mission of life by offering the best gift which he has to all who may need it. And thus it was that need of self-expression, of giving what had been stored in India and offering the best thing that she has in herself that made it possible and was the cause and the origin of these universities that were started in the different provinces of India. 

And I feel that what we suffer from in the present day is no other calamity but this calamity of obscurity, of seclusion, that we have missed our opportunity of offering hospitality to Humanity and asking the world to share the best things we have got. We lost our confidence in our own civilization for over a century, when we came in contact with the Western races with their material superiority over Eastern Humanity and Eastern culture, and in the educational establishments no provision was made for our own culture. And for over a century our students have been brought up in utter ignorance of the worth of their own civilization of the past. Thus we did not only lose touch of the great which lay hidden in our inheritance, but also the great honour of being able to contribute to the civilization of Humanity, to have opportunity of giving what we have and not merely begging from others, not merely borrowing culture and living like eternal schoolboys. “

                     Taken from Noble Acceptance Speech of Tagore

                     26 May 1921, Stockholm

[ I will leave it to you to ponder over underlined sentences for now. Glad to discuss them some other occasion.]

     

Though the country where ‘knowledge is free’ may sound too idealistic in this present times, I feel there are many of our practices we need to introspect.

I feel knowledge should be free and free flowing. The process of knowledge transfer, if entails cost, if involves earning a living, may be charged. But this, in no way, is the explanation for over commercialization of education in present times. 

Leaving education aside, what I am seriously concerned is with ‘knowledge holding’. Before actually discussing about it, let us consider some noble work done for easing knowledge transfer in modern times.

Google has done commendable work in its quest to make information organized and accessible. Though I am not certain of their commercial and obscure motives, I seriously like its mission statement - "To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.". Wikipedia, encyclopedia etc are equally great examples. 

Coming to commercialization of knowledge, there are many aspects to it.

I think it is correct to charge for the expertise which definitely would have involved years of labour and hard work. 

What can hamper the progress of Mankind both spiritually and economically is purposeful, parochial ‘knowledge holding’. It is not uncommon to come across the situation where a party holds knowledge or information just because of selfish motives, even when there would be no cost involved in knowledge transfer.

I recently was denied access to what could have been very useful information to me from a person who knew me well from years, and was sure I did not have deceitful intention in requesting the information. Though the information was not of much use to the  person in scenario, it could have saved me a lot of efforts.

(Unfortunate to say, I too had helped the person a bit in same project.)

The root reason for this ‘knowledge holding’ is I believe is lack of clear understanding of life and life’s real purpose. To quote Steve Jobs, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”. The only thing that remains after your death is the difference you have made to the World, for which free know knowledge transfer is very vital. Even our educated class need to realize that they have to broaden their goals beyond their self-interest. They need to realize that “giving what they have is great honour of being able to contribute to the civilization of Humanity.”

Charity is not the only way to ‘give’. Let us discuss charity, profit the real purpose of a business separately. Knowledge transfer is surely one of the methods of ‘giving’.

Let us pledge not to hold information and knowledge. Let us do our best to impart to others, what we know. It can start with as simple a step as ‘the discussion’. Lets have a World where Knowledge is not fully Business.