You know what I'm proudest of?
I just happened by this blog about this female professor talking about tenure and her concerns about the process.
And I just realized that something really extraordinary that I am really proud of with this book and my work is the one thing that was hardest:
That I broke away from the university and its politics to write something that I thought needed the freedom for me to write for its own sake, rather than to appease any political environment, including the university, to be as honest as possible.
University politics are some crazy politics to navigate when you care about honest scholarly work. And it creates blindspots for academics that I want, as much as possible, to be able to recognize, shed light on them, and to create understanding in their place.
Life is political in a way that perpetually shuts down honest discussion, political or otherwise. Fear is our biggest obstacle to making progress, and fear both blinds us to our failures and shuts down discussion and debate and engagement and dialogue and understanding that might help us illuminate them.
Fear undermines honest understanding because it shuts down the communication and engagement that makes honest understanding more possible.
And universities, like life in general, are full of politics inspired by fear that undermine honest communication, engagement, and understanding.
The best way out of that fear is for us to let go of it and our foolish notion that we must inspire it to scare away all of our fears.
But absent that, since that is a very tall order, we can find freedom to share understanding outside of the purview of power dynamics that inspire fear and undermine engagement and understanding.
This is a time where we have foolishly romanticized inspiring fear in others to solve problems that fear can never solve since it undermines the understanding that is necessary to resolve most serious issues.
But there are always ways around the fear and those who monger it for whatever purposes.
Universities are the best institutions in the world, in my experience, for opening up our opportunities to share understanding without fear. And they still fall short. Every group, every institution, every relationship falls short as we learn to treat one another better and trust one another better as the foundation for supporting our mutual understanding and engagement to tackle and resolve serious problems that we face together.
And I'm proud of the fact that I have had this time outside of even the most open institution to consider the blindspots of all groups and institutions, even the most honest and decent and genuine, like universities.
I'm exhausted. I need a nap in a serious way.
Love,
Ben
