Empathy Afar

Observations about Academia

Recently, I had an interaction which reminded me of an issue within academia that I had discovered years ago but had escaped my memory. We talk a lot about the problems of academia but the benefits seem to be assumed and we never really get into what it is for and if it works. So really, what is the use of academia and what standard should be brought to bear?

Perhaps, in fact, it is this failure that caused academia to fail - we never stopped to look at what academia affords, how it does so and what might break that. Before you get too excited, I’m not going to try and solve the totality of this question, but show you one important aspect to academia that you may not be aware of. To that end, I shall share this personal story, hoping that you’ll see something that is important not just to the fall of academia but much of what you see in the world today that makes no sense.

It all started out quite innocently, as a visit with someone (PhD, of course) who was teaching at a large university. A nice walk around a beautiful campus, visiting the sights, checking out some graveyards and then rounding out with a delightful lunch. With all the turmoil over funding, the conversation moved away from the personal and into the sphere of governance (not politics, that is an oft misused term).

In the course of this conversation, there was a bit of a gap in perspective between us that became obvious. As someone employed by a university, fear had clearly overridden logic, reason and rationality due to the perceived threat of financial hardship. Facts which proved the point that ‘funding was being misused’ were ignored in favor of ‘more taxpayer money to the university because they are underfunded’. Interestingly, this is in a state where the university is so large, it is the largest employer. The idea that they needed more money was a bit strange to me.

Eventually the conversation turned to other things that were no longer getting funded via USAID. The argument for funding these projects (none of which helped universities) was worse than weak, it was shameful. One such thesis was that theoretical children on farms in African countries could not learn to read because the US was not sending money to a branch of the BBC. The idea that maybe we could directly fund an effort to just teach them to read (rather than have the Brits send farmers free radio receivers) was met with shock and derision.

Now, this clear break in perspective between us might be understandable in some context (oddly, you can always find a context to fix a problem) but it is hardly the point, here is where the kicker came in. Our conversation drifted (thankfully) back to the personal. It became clear that this person was so disconnected to family and friends that they could not understand the motivations for standard behavior. On the order of why would you bring your child to work (our culture has a whole day dedicated to this idea) or why someone might want to live where they work, rather than commute long distances (being friends with your co-workers, knowing the area you work in, connecting with co-workers in a less formal setting, etc.) all of which seemed super obvious, at least to me.

Ultimately, it was clear that different values were at play here, not different methods or tools, just a total change in what is seen as most worth paying attention to. This shocked me initially until I recalled that I had seen this before in academia, it’s a staple of what they do (better than most and it’s important to have). There is a reason academics tend to call for empathy as a solution to problems, they see all problems as far away and all solutions as empathy. This empathy somehow doesn’t apply to those close by (they are close by after all) so they ignore and have zero understanding of those closest to them physically. This empathy only at a distance phenomena is something that we should likely explore owing to our need to solve problems at scale which tend to be far away.

Interestingly, this pattern is well exemplified in books, movies, personal stories, the lonely child bored at home while a distant father and mother who is off to work at the university or stuck in the library (perhaps a personal library the kids are never allowed in) without much time for the children. There are some people who just seem to live more in their heads and therefore have more of a connection to far away things, fantasy ideas of the world and are trying to work through the ideals to make things at scale, better. It makes sense that they feel more connected to things not physical, but focus on things distant indeed. All places you have never been but are aware of preside in your imagination alone.

So that, my friends, is one aspect of what is going on - we have a bunch of people more concerned with an imaginary ideal of the world (usually rooted in fantasy) that are ignoring what is happening here and now near them. Combine this with the inevitable mimicry and we end up with a bunch of people pointed at ‘college’ as an ideal, trying to act out ‘academic’. What if they cannot? What if they are not suited to paying attention to things far away (perhaps they prefer in person interactions over books). They then might try to do what the academics do and change the world to be closer to their vision, with no way to project the consequences. Fair enough because academia, after all, is supposed to help change the world for the better.