I was telling the sibling that I don't have a post today (for realz).
After hearing my reason for it, she suggested that that be my post.
Ergo, here it is:
You're supposed to read - "I Went To The Library Today Full Stop"
While at the library, looking through the stacks, I started thinking about the idea of reading and theorizing one's actions in the real (read non-academic) world. While this is in part prompted by my own attempts to articulate how I feel about The Academe, it is more immediately triggered by Sita's post.
Sure, we're all a little bit snobby about knowing more about our own fields than others, yeah? At the same time, what bothers me is that often (so often, too often) the snobbery associated with theorizing seems deliberately exclusive - with the result that it (the idea of theorizing) spirals upward and locks itself in a tower, proud at its inaccessibility.
I've seen my peers do it (Hells, I've probably done this too) and more disturbingly, I've been in classrooms that pedagogically encourage this kind of theorizing (clearly, I'm trying not to say anything more accusatory).
This is disappointing.
What use is knowledge that you can't apply? What use is theorizing as an end in itself?
And what in the name-of-all-that-is-blue-and-flies is the point of simply sneering at people who don't theorize?*
And this is why and where Sita's call to theorize - to question one's premises, impulses and motivations offers a bridge, a way of connecting Theory, Praxis and Practice.
*I have a lot of Opinions about the levels of judgement in graduate school, but also in the Academe in general. I'm not even touching that here.
After hearing my reason for it, she suggested that that be my post.
Ergo, here it is:
I went to the library today.
You're supposed to read - "I Went To The Library Today Full Stop"
While at the library, looking through the stacks, I started thinking about the idea of reading and theorizing one's actions in the real (read non-academic) world. While this is in part prompted by my own attempts to articulate how I feel about The Academe, it is more immediately triggered by Sita's post.
More important than (making a change in the world) is to simply think about the way the world is today, is the need to do so critically. It is not enough to wake up one day and say "I want to be the change I want to see in the world." You have to go about trying to understand what it is this change you want to see in the world is. For which, (and this is where I am possibly a snob), you have to read.Like she says, later in her post, part of what being the academy does is train you to think of things critically. And I agree, ideally, every one of us needs to theorize our actions - I'd say everyday actions, but, at the very least those "grand initiative / change the world" actions.
Sure, we're all a little bit snobby about knowing more about our own fields than others, yeah? At the same time, what bothers me is that often (so often, too often) the snobbery associated with theorizing seems deliberately exclusive - with the result that it (the idea of theorizing) spirals upward and locks itself in a tower, proud at its inaccessibility.
I've seen my peers do it (Hells, I've probably done this too) and more disturbingly, I've been in classrooms that pedagogically encourage this kind of theorizing (clearly, I'm trying not to say anything more accusatory).
This is disappointing.
What use is knowledge that you can't apply? What use is theorizing as an end in itself?
And what in the name-of-all-that-is-blue-and-flies is the point of simply sneering at people who don't theorize?*
And this is why and where Sita's call to theorize - to question one's premises, impulses and motivations offers a bridge, a way of connecting Theory, Praxis and Practice.
*I have a lot of Opinions about the levels of judgement in graduate school, but also in the Academe in general. I'm not even touching that here.
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