While I was in the
middle of reading David Foster Wallace’s essay, “Getting Away from Already
Being Pretty Much Away from It All,” I was suddenly reminded of the irrelevant fact
that he was a philosophy (and English) major in college (Thank you, Wikipedia).
This distraction caused by the human capacity to recall information obtained in
the past brought to mind another, more personal memory about a comment my
mother made a long time ago. As to why it took me a decade to realize how
disturbing and offensive the comment was, I don’t know, but then again
hindsight is supposedly 20/20. Upon realizing that my mind had already wandered
off too far from Dave’s journalistic adventures in the Midwest, I knew it was
time for me to put the book down and respond to my thoughts.
Approximately ten years
ago, one of my father’s coworkers was, for a variety of reasons, pathetically
unpopular in the community we—or rather, my parents—dwelled in. I was too young
to understand how adults can be cruel the way children can be cruel (spend a
few hours at your local playground and you’ll understand). At the time, I was
unaware of the destructiveness of social alienation. I don’t think I even tried
to comprehend the situation, but I was nonetheless a bystander, so at least I
knew that something was going on. I can’t reconstruct the events the led to my
mother’s declaration of her observation, but I do remember what she said: “He
graduated with a degree in Philosophy; of course he’s strange.”
Perhaps she had a point.
People who study philosophy probably are a little strange, but strangeness is relative.
Without a “normal” group to function as the pivot of society, the tiny fraction
that is considered “strange” wouldn’t be strange at all. I am writing this not
because I sympathize with the man (I don’t know him personally), but because I
sympathize with his interest; namely philosophy. What I think is strange is the
way my mother used the poor man’s philosophical education to make sense of his
strange behaviour.
I am not a philosopher,
nor have I received proper academic training in philosophy, but I respect those
who refuse to succumb to mainstream thinking, or what I’d like to refer to as
the “automatic consumption of information.” It is too easy to go about one’s day
without ever questioning why we do certain things and why others don’t: the
illusion of a frictionless existence. Oppositely, one might also harvest anger
within themselves because they do certain things that others don’t and vice
versa, but anger and disappointment aren’t exactly useful sentiments—at best,
one’s rage raises public awareness of certain issues; at worst, riots and wars
happen.
Being for or against
something for the sake of being for or against something will not solve even
the most mundane of humanity’s woes. Understanding the reasons that drive
others to do what they do only completes half of the equation. Understanding
the reasons that drive us to do
certain things is just as important in the quest to come to terms with the diversities
of ideas, opinions and ways of life.
As much as I am saddened
by the way the majority of communities that highly value practical pursuits
disregard philosophy, I have to be clear in stating the core of my concerns.
Philosophy as an institutionalized discipline is not non-existent—universities
around the world have been taking existentialists, realists, and other Ists
under their wing for centuries—which means that formally, it is recognized.
What many communities need, especially here in Indonesia, is not necessarily
philosophy with a capital P, but philosophy as a daily habit of careful
thinking. If we were to confine philosophy to an environment as isolated as the
university, it’s only natural that those who are excluded from the gated
community would have suspicions towards it. It is the absence of the connection
between philosophy and daily life that creates the sort of mindset that many
people, including my own mother, have grown accustomed to over the years.
Two weeks ago, I had a
long chat with an old friend who had just completed her undergraduate degree in
Philosophy earlier this year. She joked about how utterly useless philosophy appears
to be in the real world, and having majored in Sociology (fashionably termed
“Comparative Societies and Cultures” by my alma mater), I could wholeheartedly
relate. But then it dawned on me; it’s not only those outside of the Philosophy
Holy Zone who fail to see philosophy’s usefulness in everyday life, but also
those who are (or were) in it. Though my friend does not regret her choice,
since the courses she took had fulfilled her inherent sense of curiosity, she
still hasn’t figured what she should do with the bulk of knowledge in her
possession. This further justifies the need for philosophy to be in sync with
daily life.
But how can this be
done? Should professional philosophers be rewarded in order for them to make a
living out of their passion? Or should the philosophical aspect of every branch
of knowledge and every profession that is based on that knowledge be more
emphasized? This all depends on how one wants philosophy to function—as an end
or as means to an end. The first option could go terribly wrong if philosophers
were to be treated like celebrities by an audience that is unable scrutinize the
presented arguments, but merely admires and nods in unison (automatic
consumption!). The danger of mainstream thinking/A.C., after all, lies not in
the content of an idea, but in the assumption that the content is absolute.
This makes the second option more favourable, but it would be difficult to
determine which aspects of a particular discipline or occupation are in fact
“philosophical.” The problems here are those of categorization and
standardization. On the bright side, however, the skills (not the textual
content) that students of Philosophy are expected to learn in university have
proven to be “useful” in a variety of professions. This
article published by The Atlantic
suggests that critical thinking skills, among a set of other convenient tools
that can be used to tackle real-life problems, are the indispensable assets of
Philosophy graduates.
Universities, however,
are not the only source where one can acquire critical thinking skills. A sense
of curiosity to understand—not solely to know—is something that just about any
of us are capable of developing for ourselves, and for those around us.