30 Years vs. 30 Days: A Battle Lessig Had to Turn Down to Win His War

When Larry Lessig, Stanford University law professor and copyright activist, announced he would not in fact run for a seat in the US Congress last week, he disappointed thousands of supporters of his cause: to change congress.

In a five-minute video posted on his blog (www.lessig.org/blog/), Lessig reasons that his competition, longtime Democratic Party member Jackie Speiers, was an opponent too difficult to defeat. What’s more, the polls showed he would not lose the election (which was only 30 days away) just by a nose or two, but that he would “lose in a big way.”

Jackie Speiers has a 30 year-long history with the Democratic Party, and has also been campaigning for a seat in the US Congress for over a year. Thirty days, Lessig rationalized, was simply not enough time to sway the minds of voters and win against such a popular and well-known candidate. Nor would it be enough time gain support for his latest initiative, which he simply calls Change Congress.

In essence, the “30 years versus 30 days” loss would discredit Lessig’s new pet project considerably. Losing the election in the Bay Area (California) by a landslide would signal to the rest of the country “that a Change Congress message has no salience or support. That would, in my view, harm the movement more than it would help.”

So exactly what is Change Congress? True to what its name suggests, the movement was created by Lessig as a means to weaken what he sees as the stream of corruption running through the US Congress, and his chosen weapon in this war is — to no one’s surprise — the Internet. The advocate of a “read/write culture” and founder of Creative Commons is now building a website to tackle the problems he perceives as damaging the integrity of the US Congress.

According to Lessig, the initiative is based on three main changes he would like to see in the US Congress today: 1) the end of Congressmen accepting money from lobbyists and political action committees, 2) a ban on earmarks, and 3) public financing for Congressional campaigns.

On this new website, Congressional candidates will be able to indicate their level of support to Change Congress and its proposed reforms, and people can make donations to those who back the movement. In addition, a page will be set up that encourages running against candidates who do not support Change Congress’s reforms.

Although Lessig says he does not see himself entering public service any time soon, he still questions his decision to not run for Congress this time around, despite certain defeat: “It’s impossible to make a decision like that without fearing that you made a fundamental mistake. Succeeding could have been amazing. It’s not a decision I will ever feel 100 percent comfortable with.”

But will this new undertaking detract Lessig’s attention away from his passion for liberalizing copyright laws and lobbying for reforms on intellectual property? Probably not. But perhaps while this cyberlaw warrior is busy trying to revolutionize what have become traditional political campaign measures, we’ll see a cease-fire on the “permission culture” versus “remix culture” front.

As the man said, “I never expected that this would happen quickly. I think it is going to take many years and many cycles. It’s going to take many more people becoming involved.”

Integrating Sculpture Materials in Drawing

Artists, dating back to the time of the cave drawings at Lascaux, have consistently looked for new materials to work with and to produce art with. Today is no different. Artists are always (or should be) looking for new media to work with or a new way to use that media and implement other media with it. It has certainly become an age of Mixed Media. It’s part of why Picasso is considered, by some, the most influential artist in history. Read more

The Power of Imagination

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Good-bye Angel Eyes: Jeff Healy — an Inspiration to Artists Everywhere

March 2nd, 2008 was a sad day for music lovers of all genres. Jeff Healy, one of Canada’s most gifted, most versatile, and most loved musicians, lost his lifelong battle with cancer Sunday evening in a Toronto hospital. He was 41 years young.

Healy suffered from retinoblastoma, a rare form of cancer that claimed his eyesight at the age of one. Still, undaunted by the ravages of the disease, he pursued his passion for music, and rose to become an accomplished, internationally renowned singer and songwriter, sharing his enormous talent as a classic rock, blues, and later on, jazz guitarist.

Healy’s publicist, Richard Flohil, in a statement to a CTV newscaster, said, “Visually, Jeff was an intriguing player to watch, because he played guitar — by any conventional standard — all wrong, with it flat across his lap. But he was a remarkable, a virtuoso player.”

No doubt Jeff Healy will be remembered for his diverse musical talent and for his awesome guitar playing, but I say Jeff Healy should also be remembered as inspiration to us all. Despite his crippling and often painful disease, this artist allowed his passion for music to rule his world.

Although blind, Healy began teaching himself to play guitar when he was just three years old. He was performing on stage by the age of six, and a few short years later, was considered a teenage prodigy, having put together his first band, Blue Direction.

As a rocker, The Jeff Healy Band produced such popular hits as the romantic “Angel Eyes,” the soulful “How Long Can a Man Be Strong,” and a stirring cover of the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” He recorded and played side by side with the likes of George Harrison, Mark Knopfler, and Stevie Ray Vaughn. As a blues guitarist, Healy paired up with such musical geniuses as B.B. King and Jimmy Rogers.

Not feeling limited by his success as a rock star, Healy explored the musical realm of jazz, his true love, and released several CDs later in his career, earning him acclaim as an accomplished classic American jazz guitarist.

In his close circle, Healy was described as having a wicked sense of humor, as never feeling sorry for himself because of his illness, and as a generous, down-to-earth, warm-hearted soul.

Now that’s a true artist, through and through.

Healy’s first rock-blues CD in eight years, Mess of Blues, is to be released in the next few weeks in Europe, and later in April in Canada and the US. Can’t wait to hear it, although it will be a bittersweet experience, knowing that these are the last notes that will ever be played by one of the musical greats of our time.

Sincerest and heartfelt condolences go out to Jeff Healy’s family and friends. We’ll miss him too — his music, his courage, and his angel eyes.

Down At The Speakeasy…

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Dr. John Hinchcliff - The future of Education in the Post-Industrial Age

Every Creative Artist knows that thrill of imagination unleashed upon the as yet seemingly blank canvas and page of our future, and the realization that there is opportunity for change and hope for improvement. This thrill is not a simple intellectual pleasure, nor is it one of those isolated moments of emotional intensity, it’s a soaring high of integrated feeling that sets neurons and endorphins rushing into the moment of creativity that is explosive and exuberant in its nature, and we revel in it!

That’s what I feel when I read various parts of the following address on the Future of University, a speech that Dr. John has delivered many times and which has been published in an academic journal in the USA but never before publicly released. Once again, I recognize that here is a man who sees the world (Us, Humanity) the way I do, in trouble, but also harboring the incredible potential for true greatness free of the folly of ideas that are no longer relevant, indeed, part of the problems we now face as humanity.

Dr. John does not spare the institution of academe from criticism and makes particular relevant reference to the 40,000 studies of media violence world wide, and nothing done to address it by education. But why should education take care of our industry, anyway? Personally, I think we Creative Artists should.

A documentary, PBS Frontline: Merchants Of Cool, you can watch for free (55 minutes) addresses precisely how and why the problem Dr. John references is created and sustained, creating a dwindling spiral of declining social and cultural standards that is all too obvious to far too many.

In this address Dr. Hinchcliff makes some startling and confident assertions which I believe address the very heart of the relationship we as a human race need to rethink and redefine; the relationship between technology and humanity.

THE FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSITY: SOME ETHICO-EPISTEMOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS by John Hinchcliff

Mortar boards, gowns, professors, and hoods will still be found within halls of academe when the curtain finally falls on our civilisation. The University has gradually changed and survived for a millennium in the West and longer in the East. This long history, loyal alumni, significant endowments, cherished traditions, social prestige and momentum combine to suggest that the end is not yet nigh.

Undoubtedly, however, all-too-many manifestations of the University will perish. Those institutions without the capacity to change or a sufficient momentum inherited from their history, high status, or a huge bank balance must go the way of all flesh.

More importantly, civilisation itself is in jeopardy. The elite University could opt to sit comfortably on the sidelines lamenting and commentating lucidly on the decline. But if the education offered is transformative with a future focussed, altruistic, creative and empowering pedagogy then the University could contribute significantly and positively to our well-being.

The University confronts its future

Most contemporary futurists focus on the challenges of, and coping mechanisms required for, the Knowledge Society. This is fundamentally necessary given the dramatic technological changes and challenges beaming in at us. A good example is that offered by David Pearce Snyder in “From Higher Education to Longer, Fuller, Further Education.” I endorse his contentions that the single global electronic marketplace, dropping birth rates, declining enrolments, the international migration of high value jobs, the low numbers of new high-tech jobs, soaring costs of classroom teaching and administration, the efficiencies and effectiveness of e-learning, and the success of “edu-preneurs” are all combining to require a re-direction for higher education.

The University of the future, suggests Snyder, will be much smaller concentrating on three initiatives. First, because of the need for life-long learning, alumni will connect in collaborative on-line learning with educators. They will bring crucial “practical intelligence” from the workplace and help educate the neophytes.

Secondly, scholars will contribute to public enlightenment by adding new material to, and organising the exponentially growing knowledge within the “on-line ‘open knowledge’ system”. New trans-disciplinary subjects such as nano-ecology, isotope hydrology, forensic accountancy will appear, and even “new kinds of human beings”, will transform our culture. The university will focus on exploring the boundaries of knowledge.

And, thirdly, scholars will participate in “topical affinity groups” in cyber-space seeking to gain mastery and add to knowledge.

Unquestionably, as Snyder contends, the University must come to terms with the incredible challenges of the new technologies of the Post-Industrial Knowledge Society. However some key dimensions and difficult challenges will remain unchanged. Specifically, we have inherited the mantle of Western Civilisation’s determination both to progress and to control knowledge to the limit. Echoing the ambitions of the fifth century BCE, pre-Socratic philosopher, Protagoras, who said “Man is the measure of all things,” we are committed to the historical quest for rational, scientific, and technological knowledge. We hail Euclid for his theorems with their neat QEDs, Plato for his organising Forms, Aristotle for his system of classifications, Descartes for his clear and distinct ideas, Newton for his clockwork universe, and so on.

Certainly, we have been served extraordinarily well by the wide range of significant improvements to our health, communication, travel, comfort, and convenience made possible by this scientific and technological struggle to gain mastery over the constraints of ignorance. But an essential and primary commitment of the Knowledge Society is, as ever, to the expert “technical fix”. We do need more and more technical fixes in our high–tech age. And we increasingly marvel at the amazing advances. But the major and age-old question persists as to whether there is a technical fix to solve every problem, both mechanical and human. For example, are we at all confident that a blue-ribbon team of technical experts can design the optimal university, or healthcare system for a preferred future?

High Tech, Higher Ed, and the High “I” Society

A number of competent scientists and philosophers are projecting a future where the convergence of biotechnology, nanotechnology, computer science and robotology will progress us to the perfection to which we aspire. (Snyder cites Kurzweil and Dyson.) In this future “tech-utopia,” we will not need to suffer any disease or even die. For example, bio-gerontologists are conquering the seven factors causing our aging. And soon, it is alleged by highly reputable scientists, we will be able to replace all worn-out or inferior body parts, augment significantly our intellectual capacity by down loading the encyclopedia, dictionary and text books into our computer brain, sweeten our psychic dispositions with chemical fixes, nurture the god module in our brain for enhanced religious experiences, and so on and on……. until we become a perfect android. The quest for control and perfection is being won for us by the brilliant discoveries of our scientists and technologists. In the end, there will not be any need for professors, universities or even people.

If this is our future, then the following essay was written in vain. The researchers in our universities will help us achieve our earthly paradise. The future will be essentially technology driven. Glory be to the Technical Fix in the Highest. Some in academia, on the other hand, believe that another future would be preferable. We cling to the hope that we are not predetermined by a religiously technocratic imperative. We affirm the wisdom of Existentialists, Quantum Physicists, Chaos theorists, and other noetic thinkers through the ages who would chart a different destiny based on an alternative paradigm, embodying a different set of values and ethical assumptions.

In fact, we despair at the enthronement of the technical fix and endorse the call by M.I.T.’s Professor Joseph Weizenbaum “for a dose of “technology de-toxification”. We are not satisfied by specialist and empirical analyses of the issues that are often superficial and fragmentary, and characteristically fail to address the complexity of the metaphysical dimensions. In the same way we cannot be satisfied with the media’s infatuation with “bite-sized” information that passes for commentary. We fear the obsession with the will to power, to control, to regulate, and to conform while somehow and inconsistently advocating the right to do our own thing. “What’s more than this, I did it my way” has become a universal theme song. But who is the “I”? And why is there an “I”?

If our future is to succeed in the revolution of rising expectations according to “my way”, and if we are seeking to become the perfect, all knowing, materially replete and therefore successful species, then our universities should endorse the competitive self-seeking for growth and material enhancement. We should be efficient, effective, focussed, and drive with our university into Paradise. We should nurture future generations into the ethic of unimpeded productivity, enterprise, achievement and success. And, as a consequence of this drive, we should expect that our societies and universities will be aggregates of separate individuals who enrol only because higher education will enable them to maximise their own quest for success, whether it be status, salary, promotion, or personal affirmation.

Perhaps the human enterprise and the University depend on this ethic. After all, the Titan god, Prometheus (meaning ‘foresight’) struggled to steal fire from the chief god, Zeus, to enable lesser mortals to heat, cook and see. Prometheus through this act made life worth living and, as a consequence, he has been hailed as the Father of Civilisation. Of course, he and all succeeding generations of mortals have been punished with the evils, such as hard work and disease emerging from Pandora’s Box. But, we somehow believe that, with our intelligence, our increasing knowledge, our incredible technology and our persistence, we will lessen the sting of Pandora’s punishments and once again enjoy species perfection.

If the force of these expectations is too entrenched, we will be forced to endure what is left of our time as a civilisation with universities that reflect these preferred societal values. But some of us in academia hope that our societies and universities might reflectively and reflexively explore a value system more appropriate for self and sociality. We believe that a more altruistic ethic could be embraced to guide us and our society into a more sustainable, if less “perfect,” future.

Society, Community and University

Scholars of government and politics usefully distinguish between a “society” and a “community”. A society encourages individuals to maximise their own self-interested performance, providing they contribute some resource for the wellbeing of the group, do not harm others, and respect the need for the authority of law to maintain order and justice.

A community endorses the values of a society, but has a different emphasis. It seeks, in addition, to affirm the altruistic values based on caring for, and sharing with others, respecting the needs of our fragile ecology, and serving the greater good of the community before self-interest. When a member of the community succeeds or fails other members celebrate or commiserate with genuine personal empathy. Co-operation, trust, mutual respect, and responsible actions are taken as common practice. By this caring and sharing and by the commitment to the long term well-being of the community, the citizens shape a meaningful home for the future of their socio-cultural experience.

Unfortunately, this notion of an altruistic community seems rather quaint and old fashioned. Service above self organisations, churches, youth organisations such as Scouts and Guides and even sporting clubs are losing numbers and influence. The Ayn Rand ethic of selfishness which encourages the doing of your own thing seems to be in ascendancy.

A university committed to the values of Prometheus and Protagoras may well survive or even thrive into the future. But it may not be recognised as a beneficial force for the future well-being of our civilisation. While committed to furthering self-absorbed individualism and the mechanically focussed values of technocracy, history may ultimately condemn the university for having hastened the collapse of our civilisation. Correlatively, if our University is going to be a positive influence for society’s survival into the distant future, our educators and administrators need to review their epistemological assumptions.

In the long and august learning tradition from Protagoras, to Newton, whose world view has reigned supreme for several centuries, and through to our Meta-Industrial Information Society, many universities have willingly embraced the apparent advantages of intellectual control, certainty, de-contextualised detachment, objective examination, careful measurement, and the commodification of knowledge. Similarly, the institutional church through the ages has sought intellectual control and theological certainty to guard against heresy. There has been little respect in the Promethean pantheon of pedagogical (or theological) virtues for such woolly aberrations of human intellectual progress as uncertainty, mystery, paradox, chaos, ambiguity, enigma, complexity and doubt. These mean failure to mere mortals who prefer to strut their quest for omniscience, omnipotence and perfection like the gods.

Academia: an island of knowledge in an ocean of ignorance

Although they have been studied for academic credit in our University curricula, we have not allowed the irrationalities of the subconscious as explained by the behavioral sciences, or the mysteries of existence as explored by the Existentialist philosophers, or the confusions and uncertainties suffered by literary geniuses, or the collective insanity of self-aggrandising conflict in the world wars and arms races as described by historians – to have any real influence in the way we learn, teach or administrate. Strange philosophies like Taoism of ancient China, which is based on endless change, had to be anathema. And, it seems we have been incapable of attending to the wisdom of the twentieth century Quantum Physicists, Chaos theorists and Existentialists.

Niels Bohrs, the philosophical guru of Quantum Physics, Heisenberg, Born, Schrodinger and Pauli, all challenged the almighty presuppositions of certainty, control and order. These physicists described the phenomena of nature as being uncertain, unstable, spontaneous, paradoxical, ambiguous and confused. Like the Taoists, they perceived the world of Quantum Physics as comprising constant change and transformation. Chance is fundamental and inevitable. It is not a matter of our ignorance but, as Pauli said, of the “irrationality of matter”. Science can only take us some distance… beyond which there is mystery. No law of nature can tell us when, for example, radioactive disintegration will occur. Heisenberg introduced us to a convincing case for the Uncertainty Principle. Kurt Godel demonstrated mathematically that even mathematics can never offer us complete certainty. Arguably, the greatest twentieth century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, concluded that philosophy “will never reach the essence of truth about the world”. He turned to reading Tolstoy and the Gospels. There will always be some uncertainty and never a supreme and perfect answer.

The Existentialists such as Marcel, Buber, Sartre, Camus, Kierkegaard, Unamuno, Berdyaev, etc., have requested that we explore our subjectivity as well as our objectivity, our suffering as well as our intellectual discourse, our dying and our despair as well as our scholarly exercises in the ivory tower, our intuition and feelings as well as our intellect, and our willingness to take risks or “leaps of faith” out beyond our institutionally sanctioned certainties. In-depth, essentially personal, empowering, affirming, “I-Thou” relationships are crucial for some Existentialists. Replacing the Cartesian “I think therefore I am” with “I am therefore I think” the Existentialists sought to integrate the search for meaning within the uncertainties and complexities of our unique individual and community experiences. Importantly, the Existentialists challenge us to go beyond the rational, the neat formula, the analysis, the empirically verifiable and the technical.

The writings of Henri Poincare, which led to Chaos (or Complexity) Theory, dealt another body blow to the Western infatuation with order, control and certainty. This was amplified and corroborated by the work of mathematicians and computer scientists, who, with their high speed super machines, perceived the chaos factor within many stable but complex systems. Many events turn out as expected. But there can be a complex set of “perturbing” factors causing instability, disorder, and uncertainty. The turbulence of tap water, the irregularities in the shapes of snow flakes, brain activity, the weather and the stock market etc, all manifest the reality of chance or randomness and the unpredictability of nonlinear behaviour.

No one is saying that there is not a crucial place for precision, order, classification, structure, Newtonian physics, the technical fix, etc. But we are saying that life is so complex that the order in Nature is open and beyond our human intelligence, and, it seems, beyond our technological possibilities of control which are finite and therefore limited.

We are saying essentially something that is self evident: we are limited, finite, imperfect people destined to be pilgrims in search of that order beyond chaos which must perpetually remain beyond our grasp. And the recognition that we occupy together the tiniest fragment of a corner in the unimaginable depths of a complex and, ultimately, mysterious cosmos with its countless billions of suns and planets must be pre-eminent in our mindsets. Again, we dare not pretend to Omniscience or Omnipotence.

Pruning old growth, renewing the roots

Forced to confront ambiguity and uncertainty, scholars and administrators in the university of the future will come to recognise that we must find complex – sometimes enigmatic – values-based answers to many of our human and Natural issues. Over-simplification based on slogans such as “progress” has been a motivating impulse of the organised, ordered, and controlled Newtonian world view for too long. From this we must recover. At last, we must explore and assess the values and epistemology shaped by leading noetic scientists and philosophers of the twentieth century!

We can also say that, because there is this incomprehensible complexity, the university of the future must empower its scholars to think differently and be capable of greater imagination and creativity. When there is complete order and control, there is no vitality. For example, a heart beat that is totally regular can indicate a coma, powerful anaesthetic, disease, or the onset of a heart attack. In a healthy heart beat there are small fluctuations. Of course, too much randomness in the heart beat can mean disability or death. So, in a community – especially a community of scholars in the university, while encouraging irregular and innovative “thinking outside the square”, there must also be an ethical responsibility to the well-being of the entire community.

Academic tradition has long extolled the virtues of curiosity, creativity and imagination among both faculty and students as hallmarks of scholarly enterprise. However, because career preparation has now become the principal public – and private—purpose of all post-secondary education, the university as a whole has become increasingly dominated by the utilitarian virtues of the marketplace, not the spontaneously sceptical quixotic virtues of scholarly inquiry. In this respect, futurist Snyder’s proposal that universities “spin off” their professional and career-prep schools poses intriguing possibilities for restoring academia’s broader scholarly mission just at the moment that the knowledge explosion confronts humanity with an urgent need for such scholarship.

However, I offer additional comments. First, it is as crucial for vocational, as well as research universities, to provide a learning that is creative as well as entrepreneurial, and ethically responsible as well as technically proficient. Some vocational universities already take a lead in requiring liberal studies in their curricula. Secondly, vocational universities will be involved in exploratory research but it will be a connected or engaged research where the learning process integrates practice with theory, each challenging and empowering the other to provide some action focussed outcome. Thirdly, as long as tenure and promotion necessarily relate to a sycophantic deferential to conservative administrative structures and self-interested funding agencies there will be a dearth of robust challenges to the old thinking. I would like to see every academic article contain an afterword, written either by the author or colleague stating why the article was worth writing and what difference the article will make in progressing us to a better future.

A post-industrial university for a post-certain world

A truly transformational Post-Industrial University might actually encourage us to live by the wisdom of Copernicus, who challenged the existing two thousand year old world view that saw humanity comfortably domiciled in the cockpit of the universe, with a controlling paternalistic God just out there beyond the seven stars. Our humility before – and our real sense of engagement within – the awesome depths of space will demand answers that both “deny our nothingness” and challenge us to recognise that our interdependence and co-existence depend on us caring for our little green and blue globe without which we are nothing.

In such a Post-Industrial University, academics and administrators might take to heart the wisdom of the Existentialists – theistic, atheistic and agnostic alike – who challenge us to acknowledge our subjective assumptions within the vagaries and mysteries of our human experience. Objectification, which leads to separation and alienation, will no longer be paramount. Academics will be participants involved in creative, responsible and risky thought and action. We will explore ourselves, our meanings, and our purposes in play, music, art, literature, philosophy and other dimensions of experience, in the humanness of our realities, beyond the pale of the technical fix.

In the Post-Industrial University, scholars will accept that their reflections on society and Nature should embrace the convictions of Existentialists and Quantum physicists. The definition of “scholar” will eventually include involvement in the actual intellectual and physical dynamics of the complex process of change. One of the clauses defining a New Zealand University is for it to be a “critic and conscience of society”. This does not just mean writing neat, double spaced, footnoted, objective and authoritative analyses of our problems. It means engagement. For example, there are about 40,000 articles available worldwide demonstrating a connection between media violence and violence in society. But how often do we find academics offering practical suggestions based on actual experience for ending this destructive, media encouraged, and uncivilised titillation of bestial brutality? In a sense, explains a Quantum Theorist, the non-involvement of academics is a form of relationship which exacerbates the problem.

If the issue in question is regarded as a problem “out there” in objective reality, to be fixed by some technical solution, then we can more easily and conveniently distance ourselves from the problem and lose our own sense of being contextually connected. All-too-easily – and irresponsibly – we can ignore any responsibility for personal involvement.

In a future where academic knowledge is holistic and chaos-tolerant, no longer will we attempt to solve problems by applying a localised dose of technical fix. As much as possible, we will seek to become fully aware of the interrelating and complex dimensions of the entire system to determine which part, or which relationships, may be responsible for the breakdown. Existentialists, Quantum Physicists and Chaos theorists require this holistic engagement with our problems however complex they may be.

So, in such a Post-Industrial University, academics and administrators will seriously encourage society to challenge leadership that, in the name of progress, pursues irresponsible, arrogant and greedy misuse of the sensitive and finite resources of Nature in the name of progress. Codes of Ethical Practice will be adopted as governing documents.

Most people now know and are deeply concerned about the various Damocles swords hanging over our heads, such as global warming, pollution, energy depletion, water shortages, terrorism – especially biological terrorism – ozone depletion, destruction of forests, poverty, organised crime, and nuclear arms race, etc. Most people now understand what Einstein meant when he said:

“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

Now we need to know what to do. Now we need some practical ethical principles to guide us into our future.

Of course, acting on our knowledge involves the risk of making mistakes. The university of the future which empowers (i.e. gives away power) and encourages people to think and act innovatively will recognise that making errors is always a distinct possibility. And, clearly, there should be no penalty for error. I recall reading with sadness that a Nobel Prize winning scientist admitted he submitted as his research proposal the results of already successful research to prevent the authorities being incredulous at his research plan, and judgmental should he not succeed.

“Leonardo Da Vinci…the world’s greatest inventor…illegitimate…was denied a classical education…was able to ‘think outside the square’ and be liberated to see the world differently”

Also, this should mean, as David Snyder suggests, that in the future, academic ability will not be dependent upon the status of scholarly credentials from a particular university. The creativity of a person can be hampered by mindsets that are imposed as sacrosanct by a particular institution with mana or by a pre-eminent culture. One biographer of possibly the world’s greatest inventor, Leonardo Da Vinci, recounts that, being illegitimate, he was denied a classical education focussing on Greek and Latin cultures. As a consequence, however, he was able to “think outside the square” and be liberated to see the world differently from his peers.

The Post-Industrial University must recommit itself to all of the its ancient, venerable purposes of scholarship, so that the campus can once again be a place – real and/or virtual – where knowledge and wisdom are pursued; a place where innovative ideas are tested freely among scholars – both students and professors – and where educated and responsible activists openly prepare themselves to change the world. It will be a place where great visions are shared and challenged and nurtured by plans for action. It will not depend on keeping the politicians and profit-driven corporations placated for research grants. Teachers and administrators will not fear for their next promotion if they dare to ask tough minded questions. It will be a place where people are taught to engage as critical and conscientious citizens, knowing how to work successfully within the system to build a better future.

Essentially, the post-industrial university would be a place where the baleful query of T. S. Eliot – “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?” – would never apply. At last, the university will recognise that all our knowledge must be subject to certain value-laden principles. It is these principles, both ethical and epistemological, that will determine the directions our society – and humanity – will take into the future.

Perhaps, as David Snyder suggests, alumni in the workplace, who engage collegially in life-long learning experiences with the community of scholars, will more readily bring to the learning processes a sense of the complexity of reality, a recognition of the need for practical values, and an epistemology which better connects with our “human-all-too-human” (Sartre) predicament.

If our universities do not recover a set of life-respecting ideals, we might legitimately feel quite pessimistic about the future. There is no reason at all to blindly expect that our civilisation is bound to persist “’til the end of time.” Twenty-six other civilisations have perished because of a lack of wisdom. We are not immune from the same fate. Indeed, our problems and life-threatening challenges are growing apace because our ethical and epistemological values are failing to impact on our developing knowledge and technological competence.

Some commentators are saying it is already too late. Perhaps our Post-Industrial Universities will prove them wrong?

The Creative Artist’s Challenge - 42 is not the answer

I agree with Dr. John on so much from the article above but it’s not up to academia alone; it’s up to all of us and artists have an important role to play. The imagination, skill and craft we have employed to the benefit of industry and commerce must now perform the harder role of inspiring humanity to improve its relationship with life, the universe and everything, for 42 is not the answer, the answer is in our ability to create an infinite potential for the human race that we may in fact evolve. As John Hinchcliff has pointed out, that will not happen when we move forward in the old paradigm of ideas that have so obviously failed us. Imaginations…get to work!