Alter-Nomad: On Education

Technical mastery and societal responsibility are two sides of the engineer. An expert who mastered the aspects of his craft on a given production line, as well as a manager capable of integrating both a collaborative logic and a self-development practice to solve a technical problem involving many stakeholders. A science keeper, but also a vector of evolution through creation, or destruction. I graduated as a software engineer. It was a childhood dream. In my country, engineering is an institution, separate from the traditional university system — the Grandes Ecoles, a merit-based system of competitive selection dating back to the Napoleonic era. Engineers were part of a military corp created for one purpose: to build engines of war. I am not referring to a past long forgotten. Unfortunately, it has never been truer. Something as harmless as computer vision can become a mass destruction weapon when it is integrated into drones. Engineers have huge responsibilities toward society, and this reality presents us with numerous ethical questions. If life is short, we might as well make it meaningful. Facing this daunting responsibility, I came to the conclusion I must strive to become a “skillful individual”, as Montaigne puts it. I need the knowledge to understand and assess objective criteria, which can only be attained by seeking constant education and intellectual independence. This is what my travels are about at the core: overcoming borders, both physical and intellectual (independence), and encounters (constant education by meeting people whose culture differs from mine). This idea of travel is deeply ingrained in me since childhood. I enjoyed comparing myself to a gypsy nomad, and this photography lasted until my engineering studies. Throughout all those years, I came to imagine nomadism as a sustainable way of life to become a better engineer. I am 24 now. I never stopped slow traveling, and it allowed me to find my own interpretation of my role in society as an ethical engineer, which involves entrepreneurship.

We often quote Montaigne’s essay as a precursor to modern education. According to Montaigne, the goal of education is to birth skilled individuals, meaning, people capable of judging things for what they are, rather than mere scholars. Inspired by the wisdom of ancient Greek philosophers, Montaigne proposes core educational values such as the absence of dogma and independent thinking. Institutional education is a huge step forward. It is trendy to criticize the schooling system, but mass education is still an amazing thing. We grow by interacting with others and campuses happen to gather thousands of students. It doesn’t mean we cannot do better. We have a lot of progress to make. We have to re-learn how to learn. We have to encourage free thinking, introspection, and collaboration. Science, with awareness.

With the rise of Renaissance humanism, travel is rehabilitated as an educational tool: the giant superhuman Pantagruel of Rabelais follows an initiatory journey. Joining in an adventure is a means to discover, to know and to understand, as to redistribute this new knowledge by relating one’s own experience. Traveling is an apprenticeship that provides independence (cf Walden, Henry-David Thoreau), self-mastery and control over fear. Wandering is a form of purification, dispossession leading to transcendence. This is what religions illustrate: Buddha, Caïn, Jesus, Moïse, etc. realizing an asceticism through travel and attaining enlightenment (knowledge of truth). Not just a purification, a rebirth to integrate more successfully into daily life, as Ulysses shows us. To Don Quijote, this enlightenment is translated into an ideal. He is in a quest for an ideal in the form of his Dulcinea. To Proust, travel is a way to confirm a truth: to give perspective to books through your own existence. A relearning to ensure a truth that might appear dogmatic at first. In the craftsmanship model, journeymen must set on a trip to acquire the necessary skills to become master artisans. A beautiful travel is liberating. The character of Corto Maltese is the perfect allegory of travel as a way to re-enchant the world: you just have to understand it to see there is room for change and beauty.

Education enables flexibility: “one has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness”. A skillful individual left the cave to experience the sun and be blinded by its intensity. Facing this cold hard reality head-on is growing hard. I grew up with this quote from Che Guevara written on the wall next to my bed in the family house. I remember writing it as a teenager learning about politics and trying to act cool and contrarian. I didn’t quite grasp it at the time. When you grow hard, it’s tempting to choose the easy path and grow bitter or to feel superior, so stay tender. In Buddhist terms, cultivate compassion. It is important to balance self-development with compassion. Being quick to adapt is the basis for survival, the root of evolution.