Reflections on a Year in School, or: Confessions of a Symbolic Analyst

To realize how pervasive the model and the rhythms of the academy have become in our society, you really have to go back to school. At least, I did.

Now that I've finished a year in graduate school -- my first in almost a quarter century -- I can newly appreciate how the academic calendar, the culture of deadlines and tests, the schizophrenia of "work hard, play hard," the sacred self-absorption of the young, the free-floating molecular communities of people with similar interests -- all this comes to us from the university, and its ancient connections to the cathedral school, the village church, the symposium, the "Greek system."

Perhaps I'm finally returning to what I was trained to do, bred and brought up to do: read and think.

Here's Robert Reich in his book, The Work of Nations:

"Symbolic analysts solve, identify, and broker problems by manipulating symbols. They simplify reality into abstract images that can be rearranged, juggled, experimented with, communicated to other specialists, and then, eventually, transformed back into reality. The manipulations are done with analytic tools, sharpened by experience. The tools may be mathematical algorithms, legal arguments, financial gimmicks, scientific principles, psychological insights about how to persuade or amuse, systems of induction or deduction, or any other set of techniques for doing conceptual puzzles."

I spent most of the year around people who had not been out in the world much -- although some had been out in it a lot more than I have -- and the rhythm of the academy was, to them, the rhythm of life. The fluent analysis of symbols was the yardstick by which they measured themselves. The deadlines set by professors and enforced by the academic calendar defined their seasons.

But so did a lot of other appurtenances that simply didn't exist when I was there age: PCs, iPods, cell phones, social networking. They stayed in virtual contact, building and maintaining friendships primarily by means of electronic digital technology rather than in person, enabling them to become more efficient but also making face-to-face contact kind of fraught, ambiguous -- uncomfortable.

The ability to tie together disparate ideas from different disciplines is the work of the computer, but now young brains are wired to harness that power and potential. Mine isn't, yet.

But the brain is sizzling with new neural connections and new ideas.

Which I'll have to share later.

--T.A.

Comments

[karen]

So glad to see that you're still connected to TA. What a fantastic year you've had-- going back again? Will you receive a Doctorate when this is done?

[Chaviva]

Yasher koach on finishing your first year. May our second years be non-life-threatening :)

[Richard Lawrence Cohen]

I'll look forward to learning more from you! Congratulations on a successful first year.