Introduction

It can be a bit surprising, but the second part of Schumacher's Small is Beautiful the part on resources
starts with a chapter on what he sees as the greatest resource of all: education. The chapters that follow
deal with land, resources for industry, (nuclear) energy and technology. The order is significant and
revealing in itself: something immaterial --education precedes the more material things land, fuels and
what we normally understand by natural resources. Is it, by the way, not striking that "immaterial" for us
has also come to mean "insignificant, trivial, unimportant"? That seems to indicate that we think more
highly of things material, physical things, than of things immaterial or metaphysical things.
That is precisely what this interesting chapter is about: about what Schumacher calls "our task of
metaphysical reconstruction". Metaphysics is where we deal with the deeper questions of the nature of
man, the universe and man's place in the universe. 'Meta' means 'beyond', and we indeed here move
beyond the mere physical (scientific, know-how) questions to the meta-questions the answers to which
create meaning and give us a sense of direction (know-what). Something we seem to have lost, hence the
need for that "metaphysical reconstruction". It is in this sense that he talks about education as our
greatest resource: when it deals with and gives answers to these deeper questions about who we are and
what our place is in this universe, then education is our greatest resource.
The Greatest Resource - Education
Schumacher starts out by indicating that people usually look at education as the answer or the key to all
kinds of problems or challenges. A new problem, a challenge ahead: more and better education will solve
it. Yet, at the same time and in view of the crisis of western civilization, it is justified to ask if there may not
be something wrong with our education (or with what it has evolved into). We seem to be having all the
scientific and technological know-how we need, and still we get in trouble. Schumacher argues that we
tend to use it destructively because wisdom is lacking from our education. Science and engineering have
taken over and have reshaped our education. In the name of neutrality and objectivity, whatever comes
out of the science and engineering efforts is left for others to see what must or can be done with it. But
education in no way (or no longer, rather) offers guidance, it doesn't give direction, it doesn't enable
people to help them decide what to use, what to do or how to deal with resulting problems. While it is
crucial to have that kind of reference point that sense of direction so that things can develop in a way
that benefits man (as opposed to the destruction we see everywhere).
So, science and engineering says Schumacher produce know-how, but the task of education lies first
and foremost with the 'know-what': the transmission of ideas of value so that we know what to do (with the
know-how). Know-how is a means without an end, and more education is only a good thing if it produces
more wisdom. Therefore values are what education should be about, and the important thing is that these
values become part and parcel of our mental make-up. Values have to transcend the level of sheer
formulae: they have to become the ideas and values through which we think and feel, the instruments
through which we look at, interpret, and experience the world.
By no means our brains are empty: they are filled through the words and even the grammar of the
language we think in with numerous ideas and values that have seeped in. They come from elsewhere
it may take a couple of generations from the birth of an idea to when it fills the mind of a new generation
and mostly they are the instruments with which we think rather than the results of our thinking. As such
we can be largely unaware of them, and if we observe them, it seems we observe them in others first
where we may call some of them prejudices (they are not the result of judgment, but simply crept in), or
they are tacit assumptions or presuppositions... Whatever, the point is that what we do when we think is
apply pre-existing ideas to given situations or sets of facts to make them intelligible. And what we do with
our ideas of value is evaluate judge situations.
Again, what we should be looking for in education is ideas that make our world and our life intelligible, only
then can there be a meaningful sense of participation. According to Schumacher we know how to do many
things, but do we also know what to do? Do we have the ideas and education to help us choose? Science
helps us to acquire knowhow but cannot produce ideas by which we could live, it tells us nothing about the
meaning of life. And it is extremely important that we understand why things are as they are, and what we
are to do with our lives.
But, what about the humanities? Can we not find ideas to live by in the humanities? Schumacher selects a
list of 6 leading ideas here, all coming from the 19th century: they are ideas that dominate the minds of
educated people of today (70'ies). All must contain elements of truth, otherwise they couldn't have
become so powerful in shaping our minds and our thinking. The problem is their claim of universality. (We
offer no opinion on whether these ideas still shape our minds as powerfully at the beginning of the
21st century.) He further observes that the people that brought forth these ideas are very seldom ruled by
them, unlike later generations where these ideas seem to have gained power over people's lives.
These leading ideas are: the idea of evolution where higher forms continually develop out of lower forms
(1); the idea of competition, natural selection and survival of the fittest (2); the idea that all the higher
manifestations of human life are nothing but necessary supplements of the material life process (3); or the

higher manifestations can simply be reduced to the dark stirrings of a subconscious mind (4); the general
idea of relativism there are no absolutes, no norms or standards, no truth (5); and the triumphant idea of
positivism valid knowledge only comes from natural sciences and must be based on generally observable
facts (6).
The thing is, these ideas are of a non-empirical, metaphysical nature themselves and Schumacher argues
they are themselves a bad, vicious, life-destroying type of metaphysics. The problem is not in science but
in the philosophy put forward in the name of science. Over time, we have become so fascinated with
(physical) science and its method things have to be demonstrable and explanations conclusive that
what did not live up to this model was no longer respected (and thus ignored or forgotten about) or it was
reshaped after that very scientific model. So out went metaphysics and ethics, or looking at it differently
what we were left with was very bad metaphysics and lamentable ethics. Rather than reason and faith, it
are our hearts and our minds that are at war with one another.
It is not so much overspecialization that is the problem, it is the lack of depth of the subjects, the absence
of metaphysical awareness, the fact that there is no clarification of our fundamental convictions. The
presuppositions of science must therefore be clarified, and its place in the cosmos of human thought.
What, for instance, is the view of human nature that underlies present-day economic theory? Most
economists are not even aware of there being such a view underneath what they say; but everything
changes if that underlying view changes. That view, the centre that holds all subjects, our most basic
convictions that have the power to move us, should be made explicit. We can only be 'whole' if we are in
touch with that centre. That is what metaphysics and ethics is about. They transcend the facts but should
nevertheless be true to reality an apparent paradox for positivistic thinkers.
This metaphysical reconstruction will need some sorting out: we'll have to accept a number of basic ideas
that run counter to what has seeped into our minds (ideas some of which stem back to the 19 th century).
We should, first of all, understand that there is a hierarchical order, that there are grades of significance,
that there is something like a higher level of being. Otherwise there is no meaningful task for man on
earth. Secondly, even if we cannot help thinking in opposites which in logical thought cannot be reconciled,
in the lived reality of everyday life we have to transcend these problems and reconcile them on another
level: that of love, beauty, goodness and truth. Some things do not have a solution in the ordinary sense of
the word, and it is dangerous to reduce divergent problems (in politics, economics, education, marriage,
etc) into convergent problems problems that can be solved in the abstraction of physical sciences and
mathematics. The real stuff of life lies elsewhere.
A third thing that needs sorting out concerns ethics (which really belong to metaphysics), something that
seems to have been hollowed out gradually. If as some say morality is bunk, it is no longer possible to
talk about higher, or about 'good', because these things in the current (inherited) mind-set go back to
things mean and vulgar (such as obsessional neuroses etc). If everything is relative, where can young
people look for the guiding image if they want to form and educate themselves? We have, according to
Schumacher, even degraded words like virtue, love, temperance, words without which ethical discourse
cannot carry on. We are now totally ignorant and totally uneducated in the subject which is most
important. Something has to take the place of the soul- and life-destroying metaphysics inherited from the
nineteenth century.
The final passage of the chapter runs as follows:
"The problems of education are merely reflections of the deepest problems of our age. They cannot be
solved by organization, administration, or the expenditure of money, even though the importance of all
these is not denied. We are suffering from a metaphysical disease, and the cure must therefore be
metaphysical. Education which fails to clarify our central convictions is mere training and indulgence. For it
is our central convictions that are in disorder, and, as long as the present anti-metaphysical temper
persists, the disorder will grow worse. Education, far from ranking as man's greatest resource, will then be
an agent of destruction, in accordance with the principle corruptio optimi pessima (the corruption of
the best is the worst of all)."
And the very last words of Small is Beautiful - the last lines of the epilogue - point in the same direction:
Everywhere people ask: 'What can I actually do?' The answer is as simple as it is disconcerting: we can,
each of us, work to put our own inner house in order. The guidance we need for this work cannot be found
in science or technology, the value of which utterly depends on the ends they serve; but it can still be
found in the traditional wisdom of mankind.