Last Thursday, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading invited me to a public lecture entitled: \u201cSelf-Delusion\u201d. Thinking that this might be a less-than-subtle message for me, I attended. The lecture was enjoyable with plenty of beautiful slides and a lively and engaging presenter and was certainly thought provoking, which was, I think, its intention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\ncentral theme was our delusion that the individual (i.e. \u201cself\u201d) is important.\nThe speaker proposed that, although individuals do important things, the key\ndriver is the collective. Therefore, he argued, it is the contribution that the\nindividual makes to the collective, rather than the individual themselves, that\nis important. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\ncollective could exist on many levels: the family, the community, the country\nor the entire planet; the latter was really the focus of the lecture where the\nnotion of the collective was taken beyond the human collective into the entire\nplanetary collective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The speaker\u2019s\nargument was supported by many examples from ecology and from agriculture;\nessentially, we are akin to worker ants. And, if we see (\u201cdelude\u201d) ourselves\notherwise, trouble ensues: the ultimate extension of the argument was that\nself-delusion is linked to chaos, with the core theme being environmental loss\nand climate change. Interesting. Strong supporting examples and arguments were\nmade, and I think any audience poll taken at the end of talk would have been\ngreatly in favour of what the presenter had said. And, of course, there is some\nsense in the argument. But, there are many flaws too, including some obvious\nones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterwards\nI reflected on the ideas presented in the talk, considering the University as\nthe collective and we staff as the contributing individuals. I think in our\nsetting, a balance needs to be struck between the individual and the\ncollective. In my blog of November 2018 on \u201cScholarship and Collegiality\u201d I\nwrote \u201cscholarship acts to promote\nexcellence in both research and teaching and allows individuals to flourish for\nthe benefit of the institution and beyond. However, scholarship alone is\ninsufficient for universities to function; this requires collegiality, the\nuniting of individuals for a common purpose and respecting each other’s\nabilities to work toward that purpose. In my view, only when we all truly\nembrace the duality of scholarship and collegiality will we fully achieve what\nwe wish for ourselves and our institution, its staff and its students.\u201d I\ncame to this same conclusion again late last Thursday evening: success of the collective\ncan only be achieved by all individuals striving for excellence in a supportive,\ncollaborative, respectful, and collegiate environment. Thus, there are\nindividual talents and there are individual roles, responsibilities and\nexpectations, but in the end, it is the collective, and its success and\nsustainability, that matter. Maybe we really are just sophisticated worker\nants. Or am I deluded?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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