While we are the most educated generation in history, we seem increasingly unable to address—or even take meaningful action on—the various social challenges and crises that are deepening around us. This paradox, which we term the ‘educated impotence paradox,’ raises questions about whether most of the education, training, and content we consume may ultimately represent a profound waste of time and money. Effectively, it highlights a didactical crisis. At the same time, it is striking that these pursuits constitute enormous industries. The business of MBAs, for instance, is a massive global enterprise promising effective, visionary leadership—yet its real-world impact is questionable. If it truly delivered, we would see graduates driving meaningful social change, but the evidence is largely missing.
While there are various reasons for the discrepancy between high levels of education and little meaningful impact, we believe a main reason is the exhaustion of the potential of the current paradigm we are operating within. A didactical approach confined to the same paradigm cannot provide meaningful solutions to issues and crises that have resulted from that same paradigm. While this may seem daunting, it is actually a positive conclusion—meaningful change and solutions are highly accessible but ‘just’ require a different way of thinking and operating.
In reaction to this awareness recently we have been shifting more of our attention towards didactics —the art and science of how we teach and learn. We believe we have unique views on what a new didactical paradigm should constitute and entail. As a result we believe we are much more capable of providing effective trainings embedded in and as part of wider philosophies and ways of thinking, like Health Risk Management, that effectively provide a new desired paradigm and synthesis.
While the topic itself is too broad to cover in full, this article highlights several thought-provoking examples and insights.
Impotence to generate culture and cultural exhaustion
In contrast to movies from, for example, the 1980s and 90s, it feels like contemporary films rarely achieve the same level of innovation and amazement. In fact, it is common for modern movies to be adaptations of older films or to fit within certain overused genres, such as superhero movies. This trend isn’t limited to cinema; we can observe similar patterns in other cultural domains, such as music and literature. This phenomenon is particularly relevant in the context of didactics, as it exemplifies — within art — the broader issues of stagnation and creative exhaustion we observe in society.
Making movies today is easier than ever before, with wider access to technological resources— think of smartphones, affordable cameras, and editing software — and an abundance of free educational resources. However, this accessibility does not seem to translate into the creation of appealing or culturally impactful films. In many ways, the industry even appears impotent in generating culture. Interestingly, the few films that do manage to make an impact are often grounded in simple, relatable settings, and tend to focus on social themes that resonate more deeply with the public.
Examining the movie industry reveals an over-reliance on CGI and a focus on macro-themes like interstellar or superhero settings. These two trends are interrelated as these settings within macro-themes justify the heavy use of visual effects while also concealing the inability or unwillingness to present genuinely new ideas or to address social and existential themes in art. This is significant as artists are defined by their distinctive creativity and cultural intuition. Historically, artists have demonstrated an early sensitivity to emerging social dynamics, often anticipating and articulating issues long before society was ready to confront them, serving as catalysts for eventual change. In line with this, film is fundamentally a didactic medium — aimed at inspiring, exploring, and encouraging deeper reflection on the realities it presents. So when movies no longer fulfil these roles, it ultimately reflects a broader didactic failure — a system unable to cultivate the kind of filmmakers who can generate new cultural directions and fulfill the deeper social role that art is meant to serve.
Educational consumerism and selling of illusions
The global educational system— including postgraduate education, such as MBAs and the self-development sector — constitutes a vast industry with an enormous economic impact. MBAs are especially noteworthy: they often demand extremely high tuition fees while making grand promises, yet they’ve come under increasing structural criticism — even from former graduates. These critiques go beyond dissatisfaction with the curriculum; they reflect a broader disillusionment with MBA programs as cultural and ideological institutions. This growing skepticism, fueled by a lack of compelling evidence justifying their prestige, cost, or real-world impact, leaves one to wonder whether MBA education has simply devolved into credential shopping.
The broader self-development industry, itself a multi-billion-dollar market, shares a similarly consumerist tone. Many self-help books boast catchy titles and promise transformation, yet the content they deliver is often trivial, repetitive, or lacking in depth. Rather than guiding genuine development, they tend to promote a superficial sense of progress — one that feels good but rarely leads to lasting change. Ultimately, this means these industries sell illusions, with little regard for the complexity of real-world, systemic realities.
Graduate un(der)employment crisis
The didactical issues described in the previous section are deeply intertwined with economic ones. While education is undoubtedly important for personal development and cultivating an informed understanding of the world, most people pursue education or training primarily to become well-equipped and more desired in the job market. In this sense, educational institutions bear a clear responsibility. More broadly, the relationship between continuous education and job security forms a kind of social contract between the individual and society. In this view, someone who consistently develops valuable skills and knowledge earns a reasonable entitlement to meaningful employment. When society fails to uphold this contract — when qualified graduates cannot find adequate work — it constitutes not just an individual misfortune, but a broader social failure.
In this context and looking at developments in the market, we must conclude that proper employment — meaning employment that corresponds to individuals’ level of education — and longer term job security are becoming an issue of increasing magnitude. This trend is likely to be further exacerbated by developments such as the rise of AI, intensifying global competition, and ongoing economic difficulties. This trend also undermines the credibility of current institutions to provide an education that leads to meaningful and secure employment. As a result, it becomes increasingly important for individuals to form independent and informed perspectives on which competences and skills are truly worth investing in — especially with regard to future job security and long-term relevance.
The issue of individualistic reductionism
One major issue in today’s dominant paradigm is individualistic reductionism — also referred to simply as reductionism — which describes the tendency to reduce complex challenges to individual-level explanations and concerns, while overlooking the broader economic, political, and social structures in which these challenges are embedded. Crucially, this philosophy stands in direct opposition to model thinking, which emphasizes the need to understand systems holistically. For individuals striving to drive meaningful change, individualistic reductionism can be deeply frustrating, as it overlooks the fact that lasting transformation often requires intervention at the structural level first.
The issue of reductionism is surprisingly critical in evaluating the meaningfulness of any didactic method, as it is inherently conservative and pro-status-quo. Educational institutions predominantly teach theories, models, and frameworks that are strongly aligned with paradigms dominant in the marketplace. Consequently, these curricula moderately to strongly reinforce the prevailing paradigm, along with its embedded views and values.
This alignment is appropriate and beneficial as long as the paradigm itself remains functional, as these views are then supported by a significant weight of evidence and practical success. However, when these dominant models break down, the teachings become not only obsolete but effectively counterproductive, perpetuating outdated thinking that obstructs the adoption of more relevant and innovative approaches. This alone is significant, but it does not even account for the additional economic and political incentives that institutions have to uphold the established system. Nor does it consider their extensive influence as gatekeepers within sectors like media and public policy.
Conclusion and relation to broader philosophy
In this article we have actually got into a disperse set of phenomena and symptoms related to the education impotence paradox. The significance of this paradox lies in its fundamental connection to broader economic, social, and artistic challenges. It exposes a reality in which didactic systems not only fail to fulfil their own promises but also fall short in delivering the outcomes and solutions expected in the mentioned domains, pointing to a deeper failure within our educational frameworks and the overarching structures that sustain them.
As in many of our other discussions, these issues ultimately converge on several recurring themes. A key conclusion is that individualistic reductionism is inherently conservative, reinforces the status quo, and plays a central role in driving the education impotence paradox. This, in turn, highlights the continued importance of model thinking, critical and active consumerism, commitment to principle-based approaches, and the courage to embrace new paradigms rather than reinforcing outdated ones. Ultimately, the legitimacy of ideas and educational paradigms should be measured by their ability to fulfil their promises and their broader social impact. In essence, it is each individual’s responsibility—much like when managing their health —to choose educational content that not only feels good temporarily but genuinely enhances their thinking and ability to stand their ground.