Good scholarly work is one of humankind’s greatest achievements but also one of the most fragile and hard to attain. It takes a vibrant society with stable and ameliorate natural conditions within which it can thrive. Beyond that basic and fairly self-evident point other things must also be considered. These things are of the human world; how we relate to one another and the physical world in which we live. The Zeitgeist of, and general level of authoritarianism of the society plays a large role. In medieval Europe for example, you could hardly talk about atheism freely and openly.
So a viable civilisation thriving in a healthy biosphere gives potential for scholarly work to arise. Though it helps inordinately if the society is open to new ideas and has a culture of debate and systematic enquiry at least amongst its elites. The zeitgeist of a society is crucial as to whether this is achievable. Also, whether it is authoritarian and whether racial, sexual and cultural diversity are accepted in turn are crucial. On a more personal level, providing you are fortunate enough to be living in such a society, you need to be privileged enough to get the education, be skilled enough, have enough time and be healthy enough to invest the energies required for good scholarly work. Even then you need to be motivated, have a routine, and be disciplined. Once you have achieved these mere trifles a healthy academic disposition is required.
Talking about the complex in a real, meaningful and constructive way requires a number of things. One definite one is to, at least for a time, suppress ego, the craving for certainty and nice clear final answers to problems. Karl Popper’s line of ‘ something that tries explain everything explains nothing’ holds true. As does that of Voltaire; ‘Uncertainty is an unpleasant condition, but certainty is absurd’. So once you’re in the position where you can do scholarly work and you are motivated and skilled enough there are still some nasty intellectual potholes waiting to catch you out. Some main ones I would highlight are that it is easy to get:
· Confused
· Lost up your own pontificatory rectum
· Be too generalising or reductionist about issues
· Make too many assumptions (unacknowledged)
· Lose your point in trying to sound clever
· Over theorise beyond what is required
· Not be clear enough in your argumentation to get your point across
I would not advocate that it is so much a case of exorcising these foibles from yourself as if they were demons, more that they are things you need to be aware of so that you can contain and restrain them, and prevent them from overcoming your work.
There, creating good scholarly work, easy as remembering Pi to 1000 decimal places.
