If we cannot today implement an education that yields full understanding, we can certainly do a much better job than we have done up to this point. T… - Howard Gardner

The cause of this state of affair is undoubtedly complex. In my Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed (2011), I argue that the challenge to truth comes from three complementary sources: (l) increased knowledge about the wide range of cultures around the globe, many of which hold apparently incompatible views about the world; (2) the postmodern critique of such traditional notions as truth, according to which claims to truth are seen as simple assertions of power; and (3) the human tendency, particularly during adolescence and early adulthood, to adopt relativistic stances (“you’ve got the right to your opinion, just like I have the right to my opinion”). Whatever the relative contributions of these and other factors, it seems clear that leadership becomes more difficult when everyone’s story is considered equally valid, independent of corroborating evidence.

By the time the child has reached the age of seven or so, his development has become completely intertwined with the values and goals of the culture. Nearly all learning will take place in one or another cultural context; aids to his thinking will reside in many other human beings as well as in a multitude of cultural artifacts. Far from being restricted to the individual's skull, cognition and intelligence become distributed across the landscape.

"Indeed, knowledge that one will be judged on some criterion of "creativeness" or "originality" tends to narrow the scope of what one can produce (leading to products that are then judged as relatively conventional); in contrast, the absence of an evaluations seems to liberate creativity."