Two generations ago CP Snow authored the book “The Two Culturesâ€, which identified the two cultures to be ‘literary intellectuals’ (humanities) and natural scientists. He constructed the problem in this way:
“I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?”
This is considered to be the equivalent of asking: “can you read?†My point is that the gap between the two cultures today is as wide as it was when Snow drew attention to it two generations ago. At one time in the past this divide might have been considered to be bridgeable by the two cultures; I suspect that is not a possibility. I think it is not a possibility because both cultures have been co-opted by industry.
Our intellectual cities are filled with skyscrapers of narrowly specialized knowledge; all owned by corporations. We have only highly specialized intellectuals focusing ever more narrowly on a specialty that will gain high pay with bonus or life-long tenure with high paying grants.
Corporations will never allow this specialization to cease and so we must find another way if we hope to retake our lives from the grasp of corporations.
A Ritual To Read To Each Other
If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider?
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give, yes or no, or maybe
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
-William Stafford
I think that a solution to the problem rests in a concept I label “September Scholarâ€. I label myself as a september scholar because I began the hobby of self-actualized learning at mid-life and because my quest is disinterested knowledge. I have always pursued my interest in understanding my world; but as a hobby it began at mid-life. I then began to have the time when the call of family and career began to slacken.
Disinterested knowledge is an intrinsic value. Disinterested knowledge is not a means but an end. It is knowledge I seek because I desire to know it. I mean the term ‘disinterested knowledge’ as similar to ‘pure research’, as compared to ‘applied research’. Pure research seeks to know truth unconnected to any specific application.
I think of the self-actuated learner of disinterested knowledge as driven by curiosity and imagination to understand. The september scholar seeks to ‘see’ and then to ‘grasp’ through intellection directed at understanding the self as well as the world. The knowledge and understanding that is sought by the septemberscholar are determined only by personal motivations. It is noteworthy that disinterested knowledge is knowledge I am driven to acquire because it is of dominating interest to me. Because I have such an interest in this disinterested knowledge my adrenaline level rises in anticipation of my voyage of discovery.
We often use the metaphors of ‘seeing’ for knowing and ‘grasping’ for understanding. I think these metaphors significantly illuminate the difference between these two forms of intellection. We see much but grasp little. It takes great force to impel us to go beyond seeing to the point of grasping. The force driving us is the strong personal involvement we have to the question that guides our quest. I think it is this inclusion of self-fulfillment, as associated with the question, that makes self-learning so important.
The self-learner of disinterested knowledge is engaged in a single-minded search for understanding. The goal, grasping the ‘truth’, is generally of insignificant consequence in comparison to the single-minded search. Others must judge the value of the ‘truth’ discovered by the autodidactic. I suggest that truth, should it be of any universal value, will evolve in a biological fashion when a significant number of pursuers of disinterested knowledge engage in dialogue.
The experience the september scholar seeks is solely determined by his or her own internal ‘voice’. The curiosity and imagination of the learner drive the voice. Our formal education system has left most of us with little appreciation or understanding of our own curiosity and imagination. That characteristic so obvious in children has been subdued and, I suspect, stilled to the point that each one attempting this journey of discovery must make a conscious effort to reinvigorate the ‘inner voice’. We must search to ‘hear’ the voice, which is perhaps only a whisper that has become a stranger in our life. But, let me assure you, once freed again that voice will drive the self-learner with the excitement and satisfaction commensurate to any other experience.
I seek disinterested knowledge because I wish to understand. The object of understanding is determined by questions guiding my quest. These guiding questions originate as a result of the force inherent in my curiosity and imagination.
I claim that those who become september scholars, if there are tens of thousands of them, can become the populist elite of the future. These populist elite can fill the void left by those we have, in the past, considered to be the elite.
