I think there is a hierarchy for the transmission of knowledge between the source and the common man or woman.
I consider the source of knowledge to be books written by individuals such as Emerson, Kant, McLuhan, Marx, Habermas, Feynman, etc. A second level is the individual who writes what might be called ‘secondary sources’. College professors write these generally, but not always. I think then there is a third level that is written by the ‘populizers’. These populizers have become experts in the particular domain of knowledge and they also have keen writing skills that allow them to convert difficult material into a form readily understood by the layperson.
A fourth level is what I label to be the ‘supplementor’ or ‘populist scholar’. I created this name out of thin air because, to my knowledge, no word exists in the English language for this knowledge transmitter. Perhaps I am not aware of such a word because there are very few who undertake such an assignment or because there is such little use for such a word. There is no money in it so only a unique individual in a unique circumstance is likely to take on such a task. Perhaps this might be a good place for a quote I found that really resonates for me.
“All men, like all nations, are tested twice in the moral realm: first by what they do, then by what they make of what they do. The condition of guilt, a sense of one’s own guilt, denotes a kind of second chance. Men are, as if by a kind of grace, given a chance to repay to the living that it is they find themselves owing the dead.”
“Coming to Terms with Vietnam,” by Peter Marin, Harpers, Dec. 1980.
I consider knowing to be analysis and understanding to be syntheses. Our schooling has prepared us to become good workers and voracious consumers. This preparation has produced a cornucopia of delights for some small percentage of the world’s population. But our real problem is learning how to live together as a coherent group. We need individuals who understand so they can help others to understand.
In my opinion the world badly needs a cadre of individuals focused on helping the population understand where it now stands so that it can begin the arduous task of determining where it might wish to go.
[b]The cadre I speak of are those who recognize that schooling is just the beginning but self-actualized learning needs to be a lifetime project. The action to be directed by this function of ‘supplementation’ goes through the land introducing people to the concept of self-actualized learning. Just as they add Ca to OJ to supply the missing calcium the body needs, we also need an intellectual supplement. I think these post-schooling scholars are these necessary enlighteners the world needs. That is where you and I come into the equation.
We post-schooling scholars become the Johnnie-Appleseeds distributing the seeds called self-actualized learning and wherever those seeds fall on fertile ground there sprout another citizen capable of understanding reality in its many layers.[/b]