Life, Slowed, Down

 

Ferris Wheel #1

 

As some of you know, I have been pretty sick for the last week. Rather than think of this as a freak occurrence, I would like to think of this last week as a down payment on my academic sanity.

Why, do you ask? In a school environment, there seems to be this itch. This slight discomfort under the skin, the kind you can pick at but not quite reach, a nagging point of ennui. Rather than be perfectly content with the freedom and the support to pursue the study of a particular issue, the choices available and the amount of intellectual production witnessed floors me from time to time. What is my reaction, and that of many of my colleagues? Ratchet up the output, work that much harder, and rack the brain, the library, and any tangential event happening for an idea that is both original and authentic.

Originality is all about living under the idea that this concept, this product starts with me, or you, or George Ferris. This drive for the first-of-a-kind is a positive attribute to a point, but it can drive you up a wall every time you discover another has expressed your idea or developed your concept.

Authenticity is even trickier. How do we produce that which helps us express the truest sense of who we are? Where is the place of our shifting identities (how we are slightly to completely different people with our family, with different friends, with our significant others)? Without certain answers, there’s a shared buy-in at working for authenticity in our lives. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote that “no man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.”

Which brings me to my short-term changed pace of life and its insights. These two goals (originality, authenticity) can’t be rushed. We can’t hope to force that next breakthrough in Islamic historiography or literary theory by brute force. Music, arts and sciences need muses, dreams and interactions that can’t be planned—they just happen in the course of living with an open mind. I’m once again reminded of my course meandering its own way over yet another cup of tea, staring into a quiet night.

Researcher’s Dilemma

There was an editorial some time ago in the New York Times about Virginia Commonwealth University taking money from Philip Morris for research:

In short, the article shed light on a secret deal between the tobacco giant and the university to have Philip Morris retain proprietary control, including the final say of what study results were published. The article posed the issue of accepting certain industry support in general, and it roundly condemned the forfeiture of publishing rights on research results to companies.

In a difficult economic situation, academic institutions will suffer just as the private sector has. With endowments tied to the market and reliance on large donors a vulnerability, the question becomes: what kinds of research ethics are worth fighting for? It is already a reality that campus politics does impact what kinds of research are supported; that the projects a research university pursues is in important ways tied to who is willing to financially back these studies. At the same time, you have case like that of Dr. Nemeroff from Emory University, who took huge kickbacks for consulting pharmaceutical companies.

How do we definitively draw boundaries for academic researchers versus researchers-for-hire? How can donors be encouraged to give to research that is not agenda-driven? It seems to be getting increasingly difficult.