The Frustration Of The Autodidact

I spend a lot of my time reading literature and studying in the humanities. I'm currently reading a college textbook on the history of Ancient Greece. Some people would consider it strange to read a college textbook when you are not in college and will not be getting college credit for studying the subject. Therefore I would like to discuss the motivation of the intellectual and his place in our society.

Most people do not read books for knowledge or pleasure. Most people consider their education to be over and done with after high school or college. The intellectual continues to do a lot of reading and pursues his studies throughout his life. I never thought much about this until I read
something startling by the poet and writer Charles Bukowski. He very simply wondered what compels the people he knew to pursue their literary interests. I'm not going to hunt for the passage but it was a fairly long and impassioned rant in which he questioned himself about his literary ambitions and questioned pretentious cultural aspirations in general. Although I've often wondered why I bother to be so high brow, I'd never known anyone else to express such disgust with culture as one's own preoccupation. Even the meanest peasant pretends to value the arts so it was a revelation to ask oneself in one's heart of hearts why it should be pursued as an interest or a vocation.

After giving it a lot of thought, I've determined that the intellectual doesn't really choose to waste his time with intellectual matters or the fine arts. The life of the mind is not to be avoided if you are cursed with a certain degree of intellect. Your level of reading comprehension pretty much dictates what you will predominantly be reading and whether you will read at all. To the extent that you can pick up information from your reading and find the topics interesting or enlightening, you will continue to read at that level. However, occasionally I find myself bogged down in a very tedious read, forcing myself to finish the book, and wondering why the hell I'm putting myself through this torture. It is tempting to be cynical and suppose that there is a lot of vanity in this pretentious scholarship, but the truth of the matter is that it is very hard to do nothing but play video games and read detective novels if you could be reading Dostoyevsky. To be honest, a Dostoyevsky novel might be very engaging for a few chapters but eventually becomes a real slog. Once the reading of it has become a chore you only continue for the sake of finishing a Dostoyevsky novel which is a very slight accomplishment but at least more of an accomplishment than watching TV. The intellectual reads and writes and thinks due to the lure of the occasional enlightenment and minor accomplishment.

Unfortunately our society does not offer any recognition for the slight accomplishment of reading a Dostoyevsky novel. You were not expected to have read it and there will never be an occasion to demonstrate any knowledge of the book. You are unlikely to ever come across any references to the book except in your further reading. If you were enrolled in college and taking a course in World Literature, you could get some credit for having read the book but nobody outside the classroom can read the book and expect to be praised for it. This may seem like a strange complaint but I'm making the point that knowledge is not valued for its own sake and isn't seen has having enough intrinsic value to be validated except in the context of the institution of higher education. Therefore to read a college textbook when you are not enrolled in a college course is seen as being bizarre or eccentric because it seems a thankless chore. The intellectual may be inclined to pursue such knowledge for its own sake but he isn't given much encouragement to do so.

In the Information Technology industry it is possible to get credit for what you know or have learned through experience by taking a certification test. It is possible to study on your own for these certification tests and gain official recognition of your knowledge. You then have credentials
which have value in the workplace. This encourages many adults to study and learn on their own without requiring them to spend a lot of money for college instruction. This system came about because technology changes too rapidly for professionals to keep up their credentials through the institution of higher education. If our society really prized education and cultural refinement and wished to encourage it in every way possible, it would expand the certification concept into many other areas, including the humanities, and thereby encourage many more adults to study for recognition. It is not that the institutions of higher education have become too authoritarian in their hold on knowledge because all the materials and textbooks are freely available to the general public. But they have become too authoritarian in their hold on intellectual recognition and they have priced it well beyond the means of the average person.

posted by Robert Robbins @ 6:32 PM