Educated, Well-Read

Tara Westover in her memoir Educated: A Memoir lived a life diagonally opposite to mine, at least the childhood part. She grew up the daughter of a devout religious family with a somewhat-extremist faith as considered by the mainstream, while I was athesit indoctrinated.

Chinese people born after 1949 had no concept about higher beings and could repeat communist doctrines like “religion is an artificial product of culture , a psychological placebo against external hardships for the weaker minds” on command. Athesim is a huge part of Marxism, if not the base of it, for Marxism is grounded in the teaching that you should believe in science, in the totality of objective facts observable and reproducible rather than things merely conjured up in the consciousness.

When it comes to Tara, her family aren’t just religious according to our standards; they belong to a said “heretical” group under the Christianity umbrella- the Mormons. But here I should take the article head-space to quote the part declared in “writer’s notes” before the prologue “This story is not about Mormonism. Neither is it about any other form of religious belief. In it there are many types of people, some believers, some not; some kind, some not. The author disputes any correlation, positive or negative, between the two.”

Did I believe that uncorrelation going into her story? No. I scoffed at it because in my experience, beliefs have such irrisistable powers to shape a person’s mind and then their character and history, how could it not be about Mormonism if the writer was born in a mormon family? It turns out she was being brutally transparent: she and her famiy and most of her life’s acquaintances might be followers of a certain faith, but her pen as a writer was rasor sharp, not lacking compassion yet neutral and deep, despite or even, against any subconsicous tangling claws powered by family background, beliefs and emotions .

Apart from beliefs which I still insist are the fundamental makeup of a person’s spirit and henceforth personality, another thing in direct contrast to my background was that Tara’s Dad never signed her up for school while my parents, embodiment of Chinese parental aspirations, will have every fiber of my person trained and educated with the best resources available.

It was simply unthinkable to deliberately miss a day’s school for a child with parents like mine: it would be equavilent to taking away one day’s life from the kid, literally. My parents both suffered an empty youth longing for education- they were forced to join the army or go down to the villiages for “labor reducation of intellectual young adults” in the 1960s.What they wanted as a young person, they cannot help but try their best to offer to their beloved child.

Besides, the Chinese culture worships civilization, education, reading, literature, words and everything that is about mental enlightenment. So imagine my feeling of unblief (not that I don’t trust the authenticity of the writing) at reading Tara Westover’s life. When I came across the early episode her grandma encouraged her to run away with them so she can be put to school, I was desperately rooting for her “senses” to come together to make the “right” decision as a 9-year-old: go with your grandma, girl! You gotta go to school! You gotta find out what you are capable of ! But honestly, I didn’t even realize where that passion I forcefully plugged into her character stems from. I simply took it for granted that education was superb to not have for any kid, especially a girl. Again, a loaded yet un-self-aware belief.

When she “failed” to break the ice of deliberate ignorance that wrapped her in, the title was all that could cheer on my reading. After all, she will get educated eventually, according to the name of the book. Now looking back, I suppose I was the one to be educated through her book. Not necessarily because any of my prior or present opinions regarding “education rights” are stereotypes or prejudices needing correction, but exactly because through her mesmerizing and at the same time sobering narration I came to a realization: we don’t need to judge “right” and “wrong” for every single matter of controversy in our sight in order to move forward. More often than not, we can just step over it or skit around it. For example, as humans, our loving and beloved yet freakish family, our common yet idiosyncratic friends, our long-accustomed-to yet despised-by-outsiders traditions, not to mention our cherished yet secretly-belittled self with its long list of not-so-glorious events we rather forget than boast and are forever trying to rationalize. Maybe, we don’t need to take a stand about them right here and now. Maybe, we could even survive and thrive without ever making a moral rating of them. Just maybe, we can still love other and ourselves despite the long-unsettled weaknesses and conflictions.

As she said herself” there is a boldness in admitting inconsistancy, in admitting uncertainty”

I don’t remember I ever hear quietness or light-hearted mentions whennever the topic of parents were raised among my peers or those younger than me in China. We loathed the pressure grilled into our bones by their over-bearing expecation that we should do well in school, to say the least. Actually, most of us still don’t know we are so much under the influence as an adult that everything we make effort to do is seeking to prove that we can exceed their outlook regarding us. We keep ourselves in the clamp of “behaving children” tied up with confucious filial piety, and therefore never imagined to stand on their plateau to understand them, including their limits and their viewpoints.

Our parents’ generation of Chinese, particularly those born between 1950s and 1960s, took on the whole bearing of an economically deprived country at a transition. Staying afloat and righting the advancement course of their children were probably all they have achieved with whatever scanty resources in their hands. Civilized parenting with genteel and liberal family atmophsere was beyond their imagination, and honestly beyond ours as well until we have seen what life can be when diversity of cultures and economic affluence start to flow around us, to an extent.

The paucity of understanding toward the parents, marks a fundamental dent of self-assurance in a generation, maybe even, generations of Chinese people. it is bespoken at how as a nation we can be oversensitive to the west’ criticism against our political system or governing pattern, it is nevertheless also shown in how we couldn’t be above the guilty grip whenever we deviate from parents’ wishes no matter how irrational or unsuitable those demands are to our situations or desires, and it is betrayed by we are forever confronted and encumbered with a decision to either justify or denounce every single negative matter thrown into our face.

Tara may have been afflicted with the same burden of self-discovery, albeit in quite differing manners, for example, she had had a period of time during which she did everything in her power to disguise the abuse and shame brought on by some of her family memebers, having bought into all her father’s convictions and even having drawn them as her own conclusions. Whether that was simply a manifestion of absolute family loyalty, simplicity and impresionableness of the young, or fundamentally a lack of self-assurance, the cause can be traced to one thing: a critical thinking faculty wanting development. Through her pure strength in the spirit and a briliance of perception, something born with, Tara fought for and hold on to the opportunity to reshape her soul with education, so there is true freedom of choices in her mind based on more complete information and more balanced consideration of the world.

Our protagnist didn’t live a victim’s mentality, not even a weakling’s, as her percetions of what people might be thinking in dealing with her and what of her motivations were admirably yet painfully incisive. She cinched the truth of those moments she lived through and laid them bare before us lucky readers.