Academic Musings

As i embark upon this new and exciting journey called graduate studies, i am, again, thrown into the corner of my own meditations about higher education. While it would be quite an accomplishment for anyone to receive higher learning, the (abstract) reality and truth of what such learnings actually do to the human element inside us is nothing short of a systematic moulding. What i'm trying to say is this, and it frightens me to the core of my being:

When people become academics, it broadens the gap between them and the not-so-accomplished "others" in a way that is at once both a (capitalist) conspiracy and the workings of an intellectual cultism. I am thinking about the cons of academic learning, here, for i grew up hearing the pros. What happens is you go through a long period of undergraduate indoctrination wherein you learn various theories and literary practices through the political views of various professors whose views, in turn, reflect the dogma of the university as a whole. When you are being indoctrinated, you think that you are actually learning because you are told to "think critically". The irony is that, in the end, when you sit down to write an exam, or an essay, you are told that you have to "support" your opinions and "cite" sources because it reflects academic integrity and shows how talented you are. What students don't realize is that as they "cite" and "support" their "opinions" they invariably mirror/mimic/reproduce a knowledge system that is equipped with the glorious power of a (contained) intellectual tradition. By the time you begin to have an opinion, you not only realize that it is not your opinion but the branch of knowledge you have come to associate with, you also notice that opinions come after influence.

O.K, let us say that you decide to go further, and you wish to pursue the Arts. Now, you are a part of an academic elite, you can now do something which up to 98% of the world's population cannot do: you can comfortable speak in an abstract language which only a few people like yourself can understand, you help to maintain an elitist pool of knowledge (and maybe add to it) and you could close your eyes to the gaping gap between yourself and the uneducated poor; in other words, you can close your eyes to concrete reality and never be asked to open them; unless, of course, you decide to use your "credentials" to work for Red Cross, UNICEP etc. You may say, "i will be an activist!" But how far will your "activism" goes, and who will most likely be left out?

When we use words like "academic musings" we are already in a different fan club. We belong to, or at least, trying to get into, the club of "privileged decision makers" and "movers and shakers of the world", whether we know this to be true or not. Some say that poor uneducated abused women are abused because they do not have an education. Well, o.k., education/indoctrination gives you some choices, but. What happens when the abused woman goes to find help and is turned away because of red tape, perhaps, who knows, there is a waiting list at the shelter? Who, then, becomes the "problem" to society, the drunken husband or the educated service worker who is also under the guidance of her more educated "superior"? What about other things like having a government that ensures that all the people it is supposed to be "protecting" have equal access to food, clothing, shelter, jobs, medicare, libraries, technology and the pursuit of happiness? Surely, the well being of citizens should always come first, or at least, be on the top of things. But what does this have to do with higher learning? Academic learning shows you the gap between the past and the present, it gives you intellectual tools to notice the difference and then subtly helps you to widen those gaps and differences. So, if we must have it, an academic education should not be our only education, i'd say. We should also learn about the core of what makes us human, that is, vulnerable mortal flesh with a brain, a sex drive, and an insatiable appetite for progress. Academics must be introspective and self-critical.

Academic learning can make us all hermits, in some a sense. And whether we cripple beneath it, crumble, or reign supreme over it, we must understand that it's a language/knowledge cult, and that there is nothing "equal" about it. A medical doctor can spend three minutes with a patient (and not so much as call her by her name), and in this three minutes, examine her and hands her a prescription without explaining a diagnosis or getting to know her personally because he's not paid for all that trouble. The greatest task for all of us, i believe, is to find an equilibrium between higher learning and "other" learnings: that would be quite an accomplishment.