OUR COPY & PASTE GENERATION OF YOUTHS AND DEARTH OF FUTURE SOYINKAS
By
Tunji Ajayi
One major relevance of Norman Geschwind’s Dichotic Test is the confirmation that our brains are partitioned into left and right hemispheres. Geschwind (1926-1984) was an American behavioral neurologist. According to him, while the right hemisphere of the brain processes speech and language, our left hemisphere processes emotion, actions and reactions; hence behaviours. Babies acquire the language used around them easily. Thus, just like we acquire language, we acquire conducts too. Were it possible to confine a newly-born baby in a community of apes for far too long, he would acquire the language and behaviour of monkeys. Conversely, an exposure to good, orderly conducts has far reaching effect on a person’s general behaviour. Succinctly put, the society in which a man is bred has effect on his morality and conducts.
Yesterday marked the 86th birthday of the Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka, who has been a pride to the black race and the academia. Soyinka embraced scholasticism and hard work from youth. Added to this is his unfettered love for social justice which is a bastion of decent society; as opposed to our modern-day beleaguered society where, in the absence of justice and fairness we cry for peace in vain.
As the world celebrates this icon, what should be of great concern to us all is whether our modern day generation of youths which celebrates and honours vainglorious pastimes will ever have the honour of producing the likes of the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, the Chinua Achebes, the Ayodele Awojobis, the Tai Solarins, the John Pepper Clarks etc. We are now in a society that treats scholasticism with disdain and abhors reading culture. We run a school system where systemic failure holds sway. Unlike the good old days, we are a nation without school calendar. We glorify and reward pastimes above education. We run schools without libraries. We have syllabus without history and literature as subjects. The system’s body language shows it honours recreation far more than success in educational and scientific/technological breakthroughs which is the bastion of growth and advancement in the globalized world.
Thus, our modern-day youths no longer see reasons to read. Many students no longer see wisdom in buying books. For class tests, they simply Google and provide similar answers verbatim! They glorify pictures and videos! They are apathetic and allergic to wide reading! But they are hysterical at mere photographs and video footages! They grin excitedly at entertainment motion pictures.
Like John Quincy Adams, the 6th US president once said: “To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the sphere of existence.” Undoubtedly, the means of acquiring knowledge is through wide reading.
Anyone who loathes reading is worse than a stark illiterate. Perhaps when we ponder and act on this, our society will become a fertile breeding ground for literary geniuses. Verbum Satis Sapienti
*Tunji Ajayi, an author, creative writer and biographer writes from LC-Studio Communications, Nigeria
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