As humans, education plays a major role in our lives. The law states that we have to attend school all the way through 12th grade, but then there’s college, masters programs and graduate schools. Education can last a lifetime, and we should never stop learning. By looking at “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace, one can see that education is imperative because lack of education leads to confusion, general ignorance and false beliefs.

Wallace starts off this piece (which was also a commencement speech he gave at Kenyon College in 2005), with a joke. Two young fish swim in a river when an older fish swimming the other way passes them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” (Wallace X). As the two younger fish swim along, one turns to the other and says, “What the hell is water?” (X). This joke, however simple it may seem, plays an important role in Foster’s argument. This fish are uneducated, and thus unaware of their surroundings. They do not know what water is, much less that they live in it. Being aware of one’s environment is a necessity in life, and without that information, one can easily get lost in a world that they apparently know nothing about.  However, as one gets older, they learn new things and become more knowledgeable. In society, we often see the older people as wiser and more experienced, whereas the young members of society are viewed as naïve. It therefore becomes the responsibility of the older generations to educate the younger generations, who will in turn educate the generations below them, and so on.

Wallace not only addresses the lack of education head on, but also states claims that one might not have realized on their own. Wallace also argues that everything you experience revolves around you, something humans wouldn’t think of because this “basic self-centeredness” is “so socially repulsive” (XII).  He remarks, “The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor” (XII). Until reading this, a person would never consider himself or herself to be the center of the universe. By explaining this theory to people, it makes them think, and therefore educates them. As stated previously, education is a necessity in the world in order to avoid confusion, false beliefs and general ignorance, and the lack of education here leads to ignorance because this idea is something humans would never think of on their own. Due to this lack of education, people cannot view things from every angle, and it takes somebody else to point it out, just as Wallace has done. 

Wallace does not only address problems like lack of education, but also misconceptions about education. He says, “So let’s talk about the single most pervasive cliché in the commencement speech genre, which is that a liberal arts education is not so much about filling you up with knowledge as it is about quote teaching you how to think” (XI). Similar to an episode of Mythbusters, Wallace debunks the widespread belief that a liberal arts education has “just a material payoff” (XI). Wallace goes on to talk about why the liberal arts cliché is not insulting, claiming that “… the really significant education in thinking that we’re supposed to get in a place like this isn’t really about the capacity to think, but the rather about the choice of what to think about” (XI). Wallace argues that obtaining a liberal arts degree does not mean that one has been “taught how to think,” but rather that person has been taught how to choose what to think about, which is much more important. Every person knows how to think, but these liberal arts students have been educated further than people know. It is important that everyone is educated and stays educated based off of the world around him or her to prevent false beliefs like these.

It is obvious that the lack of education leads to confusion, general ignorance and false beliefs in society. Wallace argues that not only is education important, but rather necessary in society. By not being able to view life from every angle, each person has a biased, skewed view on society, and this lack of education leads to people not reaching their potential.

