Science Dick

Haven't posted for some time now. Have been in a state of revision for a while, and am now mostly in a state of disarray. Fuck it.

Anyway, time for a rant...

A scientist friend of mine has previously informed me of the phenomenon of the "science dick". This refers, essentially, to the esteem attached to one's research in science, and the sharing of said research. Basically, the scientist will collect his or her data, and as he does so his or her science dick will grow (it is an equal opportunity appendage, you'll be happy to hear). Eventually you just gather all your colleagues around, flop it out on the table and cry "Look at this baby!" to anyone and everyone within earshot.

Ok, so I'm over simplifying the scientific process somewhat here. Hell, I'm even oversimplifying the idea of science dick. But it is to make a point. Y'see, the beauty of science dick is that anyone can have one. You just have to put the work in. It doesn't favour any particular kind of person. You don't have to be a dick to have a science dick. And I'm not so sure this is the case in philosophy.

Philosophy dick, if it exists, is largely based on excessive self-esteem. For some reason, there is a climate of rampant alpha-maleism in the world of philosophy (and, I suspect, the humanities in general). The standard approach to any philosophical discussion in the world of academia is to shout the other person down. You tell them how misguided they are, how they're coming at it from entirely the wrong angle, and how they don't understand what they are talking about. The same kind of thing exists, albeit in a far more rhetorically snobbish way, in exchanges within philosophical literature; a paper is written, someone writes a reply, the original author replies to that (this time condescendingly pointing out how their interlocutor has missed the point of the original paper), the interlocutor replies once more... and the whole thing descends in to name calling (I'm really not exagerrating this; ad hominem attacks are really quite common, in some form or another). You are also, as an academic, encouraged to be self-aggrandising. Humility will get you nowhere. The result of this is that, unless you are willing to enter in to this remarkable display of cock-waving you are likely to be marginalised within the philosophy community. I've seen this happen on a number of occasions.

Of course, this aggression does serve a purpose. Submitting your work to the disapproving glances of your colleagues and social betters can be a good way to get the feedback necessary to improve it. And it encourages a... competitive attitude. Let's face it, debate would be pretty rubbish if everyone was just looking to agree all the time, and philosophy requires that we discuss and debate problems in order to try and move beyond them. Or at least reframe them occasionally.

But it is worth noting that different disciplines do work differently. I've been lucky enough to sit in on a group crit session at an art school before now, and was frankly astonished to find out that people were being quite genial, picking out things they thought were good about the work and offering ideas about ways they could possibly be developed. It occurs to me that this might be something that would be useful in the world of philosophy. Not that it never does occur, of course. And not that the general critical approach within philosophy isn't supposed to be positive. But, nonetheless, it is quite rare and would certainly make academia a less forboding place to be.

The problem is that criticism, haughtiness, alpha maleism and dismissiveness are institutionalised in the world of philosophy, meaning you have to be very thick-skinned to get by. Either that or fairly arrogant. But not all of us want to whip out our philosophy dick at every given opportunity. Sure, sometimes it is fun to do so. God knows I've tried to flail mine around now and then (to little effect). But this should be done among friends, in the same way you'd happily call your mate cunt-breath in the pub. The pub is, in fact, one of the few places where you can whip your philosophy dick out unproblematically. People can take it with a pinch of salt there.

And with that sentence I might well be winning some kind of prize for the most innapropriately mixed metaphor ever. Salty dicks or otherwise, there is, of course, a place for argument and criticism in philosophy, just as there is plenty of cattiness and arrogance in the world of the arts. But insofar as it is as prevalent and institutionalised as, in my experience, it is at the moment, I can't help but feel it is an overwhelmingly negative thing. I've sat through so many workshops and seminars in which nothing gets done just because nobody is fucking listening to anyone else in the room. Not that it would be any better if every argument in philosophy turned in to a love-in (might be more fun, but I still doubt much work would get done), but the ability to listen and occasionally adopt a consolidatory attitude could both allow more work to get done (the idealist in me hopes that traditonally the point in arguing has been to reach a conclusion) and make the academic atmosphere less poisonous and intimidating for those working in it.

It has occasionally been remarked that the history of Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. This is, of course, bullshit. But perhaps something we should hope to resurrect from Plato is the Socratic method. Socrates would insist upon his ignorance upon pretty much everything. He would engage his friends and contemporaries in conversation in order to allow them to look closely and analytically at their own beliefs, leading them in the conversation and therefore allowing them to overcome any misconceptions or inconsistencies they might have. I'm fairly sure I haven't seen any modern philosopher insist upon their own ignorance, feigned or otherwise. Perhaps they are overcompensating.

Or maybe I'm just not cut out for this philosophy lark...

Sex Eggs

For some reason I just started wondering if it would be possible to popularise the phrase "putting all your sex eggs in one basket" as a synonym for monogamy. I felt the need to share this, but just not anywhere where anyone might find it. I'll just continue sniggering to myself for now...

On which note...

Kudos Royal Mail, Kudos...

Tiny Letters!

As I have said before, this blog is largely a repository for my thoughts. Usually these thoughts can only ever exist in the abstract. Sometimes it is because they are purely conceptual (philosophy and whatnot). Sometimes it is because they are wildly impractical (like the time I decided that Newsnight would be vastly improved by filling the studio with panthers). But occasionally, very occasionally, they become manifest...

This is one such occasion.

The idea first popped into my head when I was chewing gum (the gum of Moustache Heroes fame). The gum in question comes with, very considerately, little pieces of paper with which one is supposed to wrap up the gum before throwing it away. However admirable this use, it is not the one that I first considered upon seeing it. My head went; "Hey! Tiny paper! You could write tiny letters on that stuff, y'know."

And so I went on to my Facebook page and sent out an appeal to anyone who fancied recieving a tiny letter, eventually finding nine volunteers. I should point out now that I only used the gum paper for one letter, as there wasn't a lot of it and it turned out that my handwriting is near illegible when miniaturised (apologies to the two people who have received the handwritten letters). After that I reverted to using a computer and printing out the letters (a surprisingly complex process involving writing the letters in a giant font size, zooming out to make it look small, screen grabbing and then printing out the results before trimming to size... there's almost certainly a simpler way to achieve these results but then I'm not one for making life easy for myself).

Anyhow, I wanted to do this properly so I decided to make a pile of tiny envelopes. What point is there in sending tiny letters if you're not popping them in tiny envelopes? So I went online, found a video about how to make envelopes and miniaturised the process. The result was this:




Now everything was falling in to place... I popped each letter into an appropriate envelope, popped a stamp and address on each and we were ready to go. For some reason I also put football stickers in a number of them.




If nothing else, I have achieved remarkably cute post. Will just have to wait and see if any of it gets delivered or if it all just gets mulched up in the sorting office...