H.G. Between November 1936 and November 1937, H.G. Wells delivered a series lectures in Great Britain, France and the USA about the impending problems of the world and how to fix them. They were published in 1938 under the title "World Brain", and are broad in scope. Wells advocated for the reorganization of education and knowledge distribution and believed we should probably get rid nationalism while at it.MIT Press just published a compendium of these lectures. It also includes related material Wells presented in magazine articles or radio addresses. The book also contains a foreword from Bruce Sterling, a science fiction writer, and an introduction written by Joseph Reagle (an associate professor of communication studies at Northeastern) who writes about popular culture, digital communication and online communities.Uneven informationWells stated that humanity had all the information needed to live in harmony and peace. However, this information was scattered and disorganized and not easily accessible to most people. They didn't have the latest information. This was due to technological advances in the early 20th century, which led to radioinformation, cars, and planes being constantly updated.His thinking was that if everyone had the same education, knowledge and understanding of what was important, it was possible to create a peaceful, productive, global society. Wells believed that without his education reforms, there was no way to transcend the chaos of meaningless, insularities that is our civilization.Wells advocated a Permanent World Encyclopedia to collect, standardize and assess the vast majority of human knowledge. He desired knowledge to be centralized and distributed by a World Brain that will replace the multitude of uncoordinated ganglia... A memory and a perception for current reality for all of humanity.He wanted to make education more accessible to a new generation of public opinion. He repeated the same analogy throughout the lectures: In transport, we have moved from coaches and horses to trains, electric traction, motor cars, and aeroplanes. Mental organization has simply increased the number of coaches, horses, and livery stables. He was worried that the people in charge were making it worse, especially those who negotiated The Treaty of Versaille which ended World War I, but led the world to a precarious place in 1938.He said that we don't need more education if it keeps producing the same kind of thinking. We need something completely new.A new educationWells had long ago abandoned all tribal affiliations and believed that everyone would be better off if they did the same. His future curriculum, unlike his past curriculum, did not waste time on the unpleasantness of King James and King John, nor the relative historical significance of events recorded in Kings, Chronicles, so everyone would be able to understand the many ways that humans have lived.He said that Patriotism is threatening to destroy civilization. Children should learn what archeologists, anthropologists and other historians are discovering every day about early cultures instead of their nationalistic interpretations. As they age and become more skilled, they are able to learn about the most recent developments in each field from the continually updated World Encyclopedia.Wells was a brilliant thinker and an excellent writer. He laments that mankind will continue to be as it is until it can think coherently. He also wrote, "I imagine this period between 1919-1929 will be called the Fatuous Twenties."It is easy to focus on the subjective nature of the plan and its paternalism, as this plan comes from a British man speaking from an Empire. He claims that his curriculum includes All the News Thats fit to Print. However, he doesn't seem to realize that it is All the News he believes to be Fit to Print or that these two mottoes don't necessarily go together.He gets to decide what is important for all people in the world to learn. He also assumes that everyone will think the same way if they have the same education. Wells, however forward-thinking he was was still a product his time. This might be a reason to give Wells some room.Wells vs. OrwellWells was not merely speculating that everyone could benefit from the same teachings. At the time, he was 70 years old and was already famous and influential for introducing people to new ideas through his writing. His influence was so great that he was appointed Director of Enemy Propaganda Against Germany by the British government during World War I. Even though Orson Welles' radio adaptation of War of the Worlds provided unambiguous proof of this power, it was still a year away.If you find a top-down, global education system and curriculum a bit Orwellian, that is because it was to George Orwell. He published "Wells, Hitler, and the World State" in 1941. In it, he claimed that Germany was closer to a well-run society where everyone thinks the same way and follows scientific lines than England. It was managed by a criminal lunatic and didn't turn out as Wells expected. Orwell also noted that patriotism, which Wells thought of as civilization-destroying, was the primary force inducing Russians and Britons to fight against Hitler. Thirty-eight-year-old Orwell saw, in a way that 75-year-old Wells couldnt, that technology and information would hardly lead directly to world peace and harmony.Wells, who was between the World Wars, looked around at the world and saw that the greatest problem was people not having access to the latest knowledge. A permanent world Encyclopedia could only lead to peace in the world, Wells believed. Wells' idea sounds very much like Wikipedia. We were able to turn his dream into a reality when we added the rest of the Internet to it. This allows everyone to access at least as many lies and truths as possible.Orwell viewed the world three years after the invention of the encyclopedia and realized that authoritarian regimes were inevitable. We still carry a Permanent World Encyclopedia with us eighty-four years later. But it has not brought humanity together in harmony or created a groupthink dystopia like Camazotz. It has done some of both. It has enabled people from far away to connect and form supportive communities by giving them instant access to all of humanity's knowledge. It has also allowed people to retreat into their ideological silos.
