Political philosophy – only the bravest souls venture into the territory. With ancient works ranging from ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu to ‘Society Must Be Defended’ by Foucault it was perhaps only a matter of time before academics jumped on the Obama bandwagon and started writing articles and commissioning research on how philosophical our great hope for change actually is. In a recent article for THE, Martin Cohen compared Obama’s political technique to that of Machiavelli’s Prince. Why bother? What does it achieve?
The way I understand it, academics when carrying out research generally aim to increase the sum of human knowledge with their contributions. Whether it enriches their celebrity or secures grant money, research must also be entertaining with the ever added element of ‘media’ now throwing the academic world into disarray. I say that it is now because the public seem to finally be interested in academia generally. With the rise and fall of Big Brother and the American elections being prime examples, people are interested in what academics have to say in analysing societal developments. Why someone scratches their arse on live television or the psychology behind choosing a certain colour for a political poster fascinates ‘lay people’ and earns those intellectuals behind it considerable sums of money. A large section of the academic community is being corrupted with the incredibly human urge to be liked, and the financial benefits do not exactly put them off!
Historically academia was rebellious, research and innovation designed to confound our expectations and educate the species. Now the growth in demand for academics to turn their life’s work into manageable media sized chunks means that only what is palatable can be publicised easily. Can any truly shocking, but necessary, research truly be entertained by the masses in pub-like discussions?
‘Reception studies’ is a relatively new branch of academia, where rather than study the original source, the focus is directed at how the source is perceived by a modern audience. The study is therefore removed from the original enquiry. It is not so much a question of what we can understand but a pseudo-psychological question of why we understand it. Analysing what we believe the masses will interpret is surely an admission of academic failure. Is there really nothing left to discover but to discover new ways of looking at what we have already discovered? This approach makes all new research appetising to the populace and answers the fundamental formula for celebrity: how does it relate to me, me, me?
Why should it matter to you? What do we gain from journalists like Charlotte Higgins interpreting Obama’s rhetoric as being reminiscent of Cicero? Why are there degree courses on ‘Public History’ and ‘Science Communication’? Should academic advancement be tailored for the masses or simply left as the confusing work that it is in order to preserve the innate beauty of knowledge in its inherent chaos?
With talks of the UK and US HE institutions combating global ignorance together this issue is important. What exactly are we to teach the world? What are we teaching ourselves? The academic community is pandering to the demands of a world that needs things to be explained simply to them. Rather than expecting citizens to learn off their own back, we are dumbing down our rhetoric to appeal to the lowest common denominator. We are heading down a slippery slope and one that I fear we will not be able to return.
The pure, glory days of academia seem to be over. Has academia lost its teeth already?
Wednesday, 29 July 2009
Monday, 20 July 2009
Rudeness
Rudeness. A plague on society. And one that doesn’t seem to be abating any time soon. Everyone hates it and yet, seemingly, no one can honestly claim that they have not succumbed to the back handed compliment or the under-the-breath curse. Bad manners, ill temper and a lack of consideration for our fellow man are necessary by products of a society that has been growing rapidly since we first climbed out of the primordial soup. Human groups have been developing and expanding in accordance with every Darwinian and evolutionary theory for thousands of years, but it is with recently announced shocking statistics that I am most concerned.
Type in ‘personal space’ into any reputable search engine and you will find page after page of websites espousing various psychological reports claiming that the average person requires a certain area of space to live comfortably and without fear of invasion. With anger and bile closely linked to invasion of privacy and an increasing number of crimes being committed as a result of random acts of aggression on neighbors over land boundary disputes, is it really hard to believe that the rocketing increase in the world’s population isn’t fracturing ‘civilised’ society?
Since the 1960’s the total worlds population has doubled from just over 4 billion to approximately 8 billion. With quality of life assured to most Westerners due to a surplus of food and a relatively unlimited access to health care, this number is set to carry on increasing so that in 2050 the predicted number of people inhabiting the earth will be 10 billion. Evolution explains all of this development. As creatures fighting to survive on a harsh planet human beings are expected to adapt to their surroundings in a way not seen in most animal life. It is widely accepted that we mould our environments to suit our own purposes. We design tools to make life as easy and as comfortable as possible for us.
A psychology lecturer once told me an interesting story. He had spent his doctoral thesis researching the ratio of infant cranial diameters to a woman’s pelvic size. He discovered that approximately every 15 years the average babies head size will increase, in line with evolutionary trends, by a fraction of a millimeter whereas a woman’s average pelvic size would not. Logically, he concluded, women will eventually cease to be able to give birth naturally to their offspring leading to an increase in caesarian sections. Something that is arguably directly opposed to natural selection. The same psychologists wife became pregnant and due to complications with the birth his son had to be born by c-section. The very same psychologist, who spent a large proportion of his career researching this very moral quandary, was faced with the very human decision: save my family or save the human race? To this day he does not regret his decision, but he also wonders about the ramifications of his, and others’ decisions.
We cannot tell people that they cannot have children. We cannot tell people that there are not enough resources or enough space on the planet to procreate as we wish to. But something must be done. In a satirical novel entitled ‘A Planet for the President’ a character calculates that for every US citizen to ‘live comfortably’ they would need 3 ½ planet earths worth of space. Just for America. If violence is increased due to a lack of space, then surely a booming population is detrimental to survival?
How can we support scientific advancements? How can we seek medical interventions that prolong life? How can we as a people continue to procreate without thinking of the consequences? The answer: selfishness. The problem is for the next generation to solve, the generation that is in the abstract and the generation that is yet to be.
The world is too small, the resources too few and the self centeredness too great. In the short term our world leaders wish to be known for freedom of speech everywhere, for freedom to worship everywhere and for freedom to learn for everybody. If everybody speaks then can anything truly be achieved? If everybody worships everywhere can tolerance of different ideals truly be attained? If everybody is free to learn everything then why do societal divisions based on knowledge still exist? All are big questions and all are ones that cannot possibly be answered. Because they cannot be, the debates will rage until eventually we can debate no more. Historians have been writing for thousands of years about the decline of morality and honour in society and it seems that every writer praises the ‘golden era’ before him. I wonder what people will say about the 21st century in another thousand years?
Rudeness is just the tip of the iceberg.
Type in ‘personal space’ into any reputable search engine and you will find page after page of websites espousing various psychological reports claiming that the average person requires a certain area of space to live comfortably and without fear of invasion. With anger and bile closely linked to invasion of privacy and an increasing number of crimes being committed as a result of random acts of aggression on neighbors over land boundary disputes, is it really hard to believe that the rocketing increase in the world’s population isn’t fracturing ‘civilised’ society?
Since the 1960’s the total worlds population has doubled from just over 4 billion to approximately 8 billion. With quality of life assured to most Westerners due to a surplus of food and a relatively unlimited access to health care, this number is set to carry on increasing so that in 2050 the predicted number of people inhabiting the earth will be 10 billion. Evolution explains all of this development. As creatures fighting to survive on a harsh planet human beings are expected to adapt to their surroundings in a way not seen in most animal life. It is widely accepted that we mould our environments to suit our own purposes. We design tools to make life as easy and as comfortable as possible for us.
A psychology lecturer once told me an interesting story. He had spent his doctoral thesis researching the ratio of infant cranial diameters to a woman’s pelvic size. He discovered that approximately every 15 years the average babies head size will increase, in line with evolutionary trends, by a fraction of a millimeter whereas a woman’s average pelvic size would not. Logically, he concluded, women will eventually cease to be able to give birth naturally to their offspring leading to an increase in caesarian sections. Something that is arguably directly opposed to natural selection. The same psychologists wife became pregnant and due to complications with the birth his son had to be born by c-section. The very same psychologist, who spent a large proportion of his career researching this very moral quandary, was faced with the very human decision: save my family or save the human race? To this day he does not regret his decision, but he also wonders about the ramifications of his, and others’ decisions.
We cannot tell people that they cannot have children. We cannot tell people that there are not enough resources or enough space on the planet to procreate as we wish to. But something must be done. In a satirical novel entitled ‘A Planet for the President’ a character calculates that for every US citizen to ‘live comfortably’ they would need 3 ½ planet earths worth of space. Just for America. If violence is increased due to a lack of space, then surely a booming population is detrimental to survival?
How can we support scientific advancements? How can we seek medical interventions that prolong life? How can we as a people continue to procreate without thinking of the consequences? The answer: selfishness. The problem is for the next generation to solve, the generation that is in the abstract and the generation that is yet to be.
The world is too small, the resources too few and the self centeredness too great. In the short term our world leaders wish to be known for freedom of speech everywhere, for freedom to worship everywhere and for freedom to learn for everybody. If everybody speaks then can anything truly be achieved? If everybody worships everywhere can tolerance of different ideals truly be attained? If everybody is free to learn everything then why do societal divisions based on knowledge still exist? All are big questions and all are ones that cannot possibly be answered. Because they cannot be, the debates will rage until eventually we can debate no more. Historians have been writing for thousands of years about the decline of morality and honour in society and it seems that every writer praises the ‘golden era’ before him. I wonder what people will say about the 21st century in another thousand years?
Rudeness is just the tip of the iceberg.
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