Purpose
The re-emergence of the far right has caused a crisis of confidence for a great many people. Is this what happens when postmodernism takes hold? Is this ‘late capitalism’? A post-truth/post-literate world? The collapse of civilisation? Or collective brain rot? Has fascism emerged once more? Can humanity survive rapid climate change? Will ‘common sense’ prevail or is this what led us here?
War tells us there is something in the threat of death that focuses the mind on compliance. People under duress follow orders thinking it will save them. But at the very moment resistance is most urgent and most likely to succeed, the logic of survival falters. The perpetrators fulfil the fates of all. It was true at the Nazi extermination factories as it was true at Oradour-sur-Glane. Of course, the moment to act, the point of inflexion, is stark to the historian looking back at the event, when all is done.
My main motivation as a researcher has been to remediate my lack of knowledge; a deficiency first exposed to me during a brief career in politics. One would have thought the expensive schooling and undergraduate studies I had accrued would have prepared me for practical politics. At some point, scientific management (Taylorism) took hold of universities so that education became fragmented and directed at training undergraduates for particular occupations or otherwise providing them with transferable skills. As a result, many academics are overly specialised in their knowledge to the point they are unable to interpret the complex world around them. Not that this stops many an expert waxing lyrical in the manner Socrates once observed: the more expert one becomes, the more one erroneously feels their expertise applies broadly. I have found the humanities to be ignorant of the sciences and vice versa; often, the same can be said within the same field or sub-field. In the case of undergraduate students, knowledge lasts until the close of examinations. We all partake in what Peter Ackroyd calls intellectual bulimia, purging ourselves of context to face the world innocently each time.
So, I’m embarking on a years-long journey through human history to discover for myself the modern paideia (ideal education). The purpose of this blog is to share a catalogue of what I’ve been learning. I’m sure no one will read it, which provides its own comfort. But if someone ever did read it – perhaps, late one night, doomsurfing the internet – and found themselves wanting to make a suggestion, then I hope they would feel free to do so.
