People do learn, don't they?

People are motivated to learn aren't they?

Yes. The only question is what the motivation is. One motivation has been discussed previously. Fear is a powerful motivator. However, it is not good at developing a civilization and it is not good at developing goodness in human beings. It is good for getting people to do our bidding. However, when one person inflicts his will on another person, then both people suffer. This is not the way to develop humanity.

There are examples of successful learners. Many people have found enjoyment in learning. Perhaps everyone has done so. People learn jokes just to enjoy being with people who are in a joyful mood. People develop talent just to enjoy people who appreciate witnessing that talent. Some people develop talent just because they pursue some private idea of what perfection means. There are many talents that people have developed without giving much thought at all to the development of those talents.

Somehow, people get the idea that it is important to learn something, then they go and learn it. Sometimes, the facility for learning is advanced, and sometimes it is absent. When Isaac Newton developed his ideas about mathematics, these ideas were new to the world, and noone was there to help him. Now, every university campus and many high schools have people and materials to make it easy to learn mathematics far more advanced than Newton's. Sometimes we wonder what a Newton or an Einstein would achieve given the head start of a modern person. Whatever a person's motivation is, when facility is available, then the results of any effort to learn are much advanced. If those facilities are not available, then much motivation is necessary.

This leads to the conclusion that motivation is not the difference. Rather, it is the presence of facilities for learning that makes the difference.