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The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
| SERIES: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner AUTHOR: Jim Schofield |
STRANDS: WRITING / PHILOSOPHY |
ABSTRACT: This short paper is about serious study, and the almost inevitable isolation that such research can impose upon the dedicated specialist. And the reasons for this challenging position are not entirely down to the researcher’s deep moves into territory wholly unfamiliar to almost everyone else, but also, and to a significant, extent due to our Society’s general ground and methodology. Solutions are expected to be simple, and we make them so by our embracing of the principles of Plurality – the conceptual division of everything into Wholes and Parts, plus the methodological erection and investigation of Domains made conducive to extracting such entities and their relations. But the actual self-developing World is not like that! For such is a simplifying methodology which enables “solutions” to be found, but which are definitely NOT of Reality as it really is. So, if you get deeply into your area, and you are aware if the distortion caused by selective Domains, you rapidly leave behind such simplifications (for the technologists to exploit) and instead begin to address the holist World as it is, your results then can appear absolutely meaningless to those still inhabiting a pluralist view of everything. For what characterises consensus is always an eclectic mix of separable, pluralist simplifications, and significant contributions that transcend such artificial views do not comfortably fit at all. Indeed, the requirement that all allowable contributions fit easily into a consensus was easily accommodated, because for most members of such a fraternity all knowledge was second-hand and never self-revealed! But there is an alternative to serious life’s work condemned to the back of a wardrobe. You can publish on the Internet! |
SYNOPSIS: 1.The isolation of the serious researcher is described, particularly in experiencing the usual lack of a response to seemingly esoteric concerns. 2. The assumption of Truth composed of “simple Parts” is shown as the basis for such reactions, and itself also that it generates a methodology, which separates areas of study into maintained Domains. 3.The Consensus is generally NOT of a community of specialist discoverers, but, on the contrary, of dealers in second-hand knowledge. 4.True researchers are rare. So the majority are likely to subscribe to such a consensus. 5.The result can be that significant work does not see the light of day, and ends up in a Life’s Work, which is never published. 6.The suggestion is that the true researcher bypasses the dead-end closed shops, and publishes on the Internet. |
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