An Evolving Aesthetic of Research

And the award for most grandiose notion of self-worth goes to…

I have had a lot on my mind lately. As we all have, of course. Our modern time is one rife with a shortage of neither uncertainty nor information. It is a time that is loud, in more than one sense of the word, as we realize moreso every day how important our relationship to Data will be moving forward. Not only our relationship with Data, but I believe even our relationship with the Tangible (as so far that Data can be considered Tangible here). Our relationship to the Past, warts and all, will dictate our relationship to the Future, both our fears and dreams.

Of course we all ponder these great things about how to learn or help or grow. We consider all ourselves to be well-read, open-minded, and socially aware. And we probably all are, more or less, big picture. But how could we do this better? How can we shake up our current discourse with our peers, or our discourse with ourselves, even? I am increasingly becoming a supporter for the Decentralization of Education, and I am not even 100% certain what that entails. I certainly believe that there is ‘something’ to this notion of Decentralized Education – a type of research methodology or aesthetic that allows for both questions and answers, rather than focusing on one or the other. A type of academic discourse or engagement that need not specialize or prioritize one “-ology” over the other. Data is everywhere, history is literally breathing down our neck, and the “answers to the universe” are in the air we breath in ourselves.

As a firm believer that a Story can be directly converted to Data, largely inspired by my Archaeological study background, I find it difficult to imagine that learning, or simply the processing of certain Data, continues to be considered something that only certain people can do. I am a big fan of what the Academy stands for, and wake up disappointed every day by where the Academy is going. We need not complain about the same things here: the staggering prices, often mediocre administrative systems, impacted student matriculation count and a bizarrely Byzantine hiring protocol (don’t need to even mention the word ‘tenure’). I even wonder if I would be able to sincerely recommend going to university to an 18 year old right now given how many of the universities are responding to the current global crisis. I understand the social need to get a College Degree, and understand how many will feel, rightfully so, in a weaker position without one. But putting the social/career pressures aside, how much will one gain from a University that they need to pay a premium fee for? With major Universities being forced to resort to brief Zoom calls on a weekly basis, a closure of physical facilities, and consequential difficulties to continue to properly ‘network’, I am sometimes even wondering what the University of Leiden logo will truly mean on any degree post 2020.

Queue my recent recommitment to the idea of a blog, or some sort of online presence in this line of thinking. I know, I know, the last thing we need these days is more noise distracting from the signal. But I am too simple-minded to see a better course of action at this point, and I feel the need to try to express myself in some capacity. If I can figure out some way to work towards something that helps someone, regardless of the scale, I think I can sleep soundly. Now I just need to figure out what that what might be. And of the few skills I have to my name, research is one near and dear to my heart. And not just ‘scientific research’. A more of a “gonzo research” if you will. A research that keeps you up until 2am with curiosity and the upteenth pot of tea next to you. A research that envelopes itself into a worldview or theory without slipping too into any of the flashy Grandstanding. A research that flourishes from community, not just research presented to a community. If we distill the corporate concept behind the product of an “Education”, we can hope that customers leave with at least the ability to “Understand”. One need not be an expert before their thoughts are valid, simply the ability to just look at the information at hand is more than enough to spark true learning. We know we can do this, we witness the might of such a decentralized utilization of the Internet nearly every day. We just perhaps need a little more work on finding the frameworks, protocols, and vocabularies for how we can apply such methodologies and ideas to our daily lives.

I am new to such a grassroots “publication” of content. I have some ridiculous ideas: audio interviews with fellow early career researchers in and out of the Academy about how they learn, book and article reviews on a blog or newsletter sort of platform, a Theory Watch to give overviews of fundamental theories from the mainstream (post-processual archaeology, anarcho-primitivism, Science of Philosophy, etc.) to the fringes (Flat Earth conspiracies, Stoned Ape theory and other fringe-anthropological ideas), and no doubt other ideas (the Gamification of the logistics I find extraordinarily fun, as well as how Machine Learning concepts are changing our ideas for Education). Of course, a collection of any and all resources and cases of decentralized, ‘gonzo’ (or however you would like to call it) education that result from my countless hours spent chasing this, and related, rabbit hole both on and offline.

Perhaps you have some ideas you would like to add. This is a rather vague and general (read: almost useless) idea that is still very early in development. I see something there, for what that may be worth, I am just still not quite certain what it is. I suppose that is a great divider of humanity: those who are certain they can only think, and those who only think they are certain. Nonetheless, I think there is space for both camps to coexist healthily, but that is just me.