Source:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/postgraduate/story/0,,2058388,00.html
Comment
How did John Locke get by without the web (and pies)?
Patrick Tomlin
Tuesday April 17, 2007
The Guardian
I was thinking the other day how similar I am to the great philosophers down
the ages. It's not that I've written any great philosophy; it's just that my
working days are probably not too dissimilar to theirs. Presumably they went
to the library, got out books or journals, made notes and thought about
things, much in the way I do. My working life is probably not that different
from that of Hobbes and Locke. Except I very much doubt that John Locke
would have taken time out from penning Two Treatises of Government to make
"full of pie" his Facebook status, as I have just done, or to send an email
asking "what bees make milk?" (answer: boo-bees), as I did earlier today.
Computers and the internet, of course, represent a major change in how
everybody works, and students of timeless and intractable questions are no
exception to that.
I realise that this makes me sound like a seven-year-old incredulous at the
notion of a world devoid of in-car DVD players, but I genuinely struggle
sometimes to imagine how people managed without the internet. I recently met
a fellow doctoral student at a conference, and we got chatting about our
respective projects. A couple of days later, I received a seven-point email
carefully explaining various problems or pitfalls he could see in the
argument I was making; it has helped me immensely. Would he have had to
write me a letter in days gone by? Would he have bothered?
I also have a couple of works-in-progress knocking around that I've
forwarded to a couple of people. Would I once have typed these out and
posted them to the people in question? Once I received their comments, would
a new draft have been typed from the start, rather than changes inserted
into the document? Clearly, people got by - and produced some wonderful work
- in the pre-digital age, but sharing and revising it must have been far
more laborious.
Doctoral students have also found the web useful for sharing experiences.
When I first proposed this column as a monthly glimpse at the doctoral
experience, I assumed the idea was so original it would make my editor's
eyeballs extend out of their sockets on stalks. I now realise (thanks in
part to my habit of Googling my own name) that there are many blogs dealing
in the same subject matter. I particularly like Gooseania, written by a
maths PhD student. I learn that this is to be turned into a book. I hope the
success doesn't go to the author's head: I hope to be reading about his
forthcoming appearance at the junior topology seminar rather than how he got
papped stumbling out of Chinawhite's with Jodie Marsh.
One thing that concerns me is that this increased ease of communication
(downloadable journals, email exchanges, video conferencing) might encourage
individuals and institutions to think that doctoral students can complete
their courses from afar. Most of the few good ideas I've had in my academic
career have arisen during, been due to, or been tested by conversation with
people working in similar areas, usually outside of formal seminars. And the
many, many bad ones I've had have been similarly dispatched by such
exchanges. If we encourage the idea that technology allows for an
increasingly disparate student body, I think academia would suffer terribly.
There are other disadvantages to the information age. It is through the
wonders of the internet that my parents know Guardian readers think I'm a
"whingeing sod" and a "mopey little weasel". Then there is the
aforementioned Facebook, bane of an increasing number of people's lives, as
highly addictive as it is pointless. I've just wasted 10 minutes looking at
a Facebook group set up by a journalist writing an article about wasting
time on Facebook. And if there's not an irony in that, then I'm not a mopey
little weasel.
· Patrick Tomlin is researching a doctorate in political theory at Oxford
University. His column appears monthly
------------------------------------------------------
--
Salvatore Scifo
Communications,
MeCCSA Postgraduate Network
Communication and Media Research Institute
School of Media, Arts & Design
University of Westminster
Watford Road, Northwick Park
Harrow
HA1 3TP
MeCCSA Postgraduate Network
http://www.meccsa.org.uk/pgn/
|
