He was a learned man - an
‘intellectual’ - but he had based his beliefs on a tome; a rather esoteric
document with a memorably exotic title published by an American scholar. Time
caught this ‘intellectual.’ The many subsequent publications of this American
scholar repudiated his first theoretical effort that used complex mathematics
as a model for design strategies. This scholar’s later writings - many
multi-volumes - became rich in a more intuitive, practical, emotive approach to
design, but in spite of this repudiation, our 'intellectual' remained steadfast
to the original vision. He constantly argued and defended his beliefs, pouring
scorn and contempt on all who saw sense in the different, subtler, more personal
organic approach to design and doing. It did not seem to matter to him that the
original author of his ‘bible’ had veered away from it: changed.
Our ‘intellectual’ never came
to see any sense in the later design approach in spite of the original author’s variance.
Our ‘intellectual’ was always right. No matter what argument was put up, no
matter what proof, he disparaged all who thought differently to him. Once he
praised a thesis that he believed was the very best of the year. The thesis
confirmed and developed the stiff and formal logic of the intellectual’s
preferred approach to design. Others thought that another thesis that promoted
a different, richer, more instinctive approach, was much better, not only in
subject matter, but also in execution. The intellectual totally disagreed and
would not even consider the others’ positions. So the others took the scholar’s
‘prized’ thesis and read it. It was handed back covered with red marks that
highlighted factual, grammatical and structural errors in the text and its
logic. The intellectual refused to pass any comment on this assessment and
never showed any desire to discuss the issue. The prize was given to his
preference.
One finds that the staff and
writers of Quadrant, an Australian literary and cultural journal, seem
to have much the same problem as this intellectual. There appears to be a total
disregard, and worse, a rudeness, shown to those outside of the preferred
‘conservative’ group: ‘the smelly little orthodoxies (of) unthinking Leftism.’
Irrespective of position or argument, others who might differ will never be
heard or be published in this journal. It is like the staff and writers of the
similarly ‘conservative’ The Spectator magazine: no differing opinion
and nothing critical of it or them will ever be published, but everybody
involved gleefully feels free to blast away almost abusively at all and sundry,
giving the false impression of a fresh and open approach to all ideas, not just
those of their own. This magazine publishes an interesting section on words,
but its own errors in its texts, when highlighted, get ignored in the general
enthusiasm of the self-congratulatory harangue. Quadrant appears
self-centred in this same way, but less screaming, more ‘correct,’ but no less
aggressive. Here all seems to be about mates and beliefs that get reinforced by
each other gleefully quoting themselves and those who are in agreement, while
savagely mocking those who don’t think likewise, with the editor using his
authority of having the final say to produce the first and last blast in a
‘masterly’ overview. There is an illusion of caring for ideas and exploring
these with rigour, but sadly this enterprise is carried out in a very selective
zone of ‘conservative’ self-interest. It is a framework that lessens rationales
and arguments by their limitation of scope of interest and the firewalls
involved in these perceptions. Disappointingly, this circumstance diminishes
both of these potentially excellent publications.
One does become critical of
silly intellectuals. Just intellectuals calling themselves by this title makes
them appear, in the array of crude concepts, as ‘self-pleasurers’: indulgent
- dull gents; and ladies too. One has to remember that science, as with all
ideas, progresses with disagreement, with challenges and disputes; with
questions, doubts and doubters rather than with a gentle, happy, safe
acquiescence. The latter position is just too easy, too comfortable to promote rigour, even though it might produce a fake image of authority and scholarship.
It is a little like university staff who cluster likewise to protect
themselves, their positions and their ideas by gathering like minds together,
appointing previous students and colleagues as staff, while shunning those who
might be critical of them, or who might question their thoughts and actions, or
lack of them in order to avoid the awkward challenges and difficulties of
difference: see On Education in the right hand column.
Karl Popper made it clear -
there is greater depth in doubt than in safe agreement and the sycophantic confirmation
of mates: see his Conjectures and Refutations. The quality of any
conjecture relies on the quality of the refutations. There is only a benefit in
open questioning, never a problem, even if some like to promote this latter
view with personal ridicule. We must remember that this questioning
discomfort is better than the safety of the closed shop when it comes to the
development of ideas and the growth and perception of futures. The protection
of any position is like inbreeding - it has the same negative results:
deformity and insanity. Why is it so difficult to understand this? One might
have hoped that an ‘intellectual’ should have understood the problems with this
particular limited relationship. Perhaps these persons are too concerned with their
own self-important labelling as an ‘academic’ or ‘scholar’ than with the
resolution of the quality and the beauty of an idea, allowing it to become what
it wants to be rather than what the individual chooses it to be, or would like
it to be. These people seem to spend just too much time criticising others
while protecting themselves, their clan, and their own ‘unique’ thoughts; displaying their agreeable cleverness, unchallenged.
Being ‘all of one mind’ does
not make you right; it only means that you are a member of a club. Architecture
is not immune from this ‘safe’ grouping either with its cliques of time and
fashion. So it is that the role of the critic in the profession and practice of
architecture, and in the teaching and training of this profession and its practice, remains so
important: essentially crucial. The question is: how does one open minds to
unknown challenges, to the testing of different questions? There is little
point in debating anything if one is there only to protect a position. The
value of such interaction lies in the situation where both parties are prepared
to listen to each other, to learn, and to change positions if the ideas and
their inherent sense and logic call for it. To be like our first
‘intellectual’ and to persevere with a position irrespective of it being
repudiated by its originator who had the openness of spirit to be prepared to
look, listen, and to change rather than languish in a lie, will achieve only
what one thinks to be so. There will be no surprises. We must remember that, as
Heraclitus said, ‘All is change, and change alone is unchanging.’
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