Why Did Our Scholars Fuck Up?

 

 

Hard to believe Stanley Kubrick’s 2000 Space Odyssey was made some forty over years ago – apart from being the grand daddy of all Sci-Fi movies; it set a new benchmark in serious space flicks in both lighting and sets. Even today when I watch it, it manages to rivet and enthrall as it did the first time.

 

One thing that I find fascinating about this movie is how the most interesting character isn’t a person; as it remains a very hao lian computer by the name of HAL 9000 – one that reminds me curiously of our supremo cult of the infallibility scholars – in the beginning it’s hard, if not impossible not to trust HAL. As we are told he takes care of everything from life support to making sure space bugs don’t stick to the windshield of the space ship – HAL seems to do such a good job most of the astronauts don’t seem to have much to do except play with peas, play chess and shadow box all day long.

 

But something soon goes wrong; it always does.

 

What’s interesting about the characterization of HAL is he isn’t just you run of the mill number crunching computer; in the movie, he even comes across as introspective and intelligent in the human sense – for one he mulls over stuff and even wonders over them in a curious sort of way that only humans do – that I feel adds an edge to the plot as we aren’t really sure whether HAL’s emotional (human) side possibly influenced him when he decided to do in his human cargo mid way in the mission.

 

As I said, the characterization of HAL reminds me a lot of our own scholar class – for one they are supposed to represent the cutting edge of human infallibility as in the words of HAL, “we are in every practical definition of the word….incapable of error.”

 

I don’t know for sure whether this was supposed to be parody of smartocracy on the part of Stanley Kubrick, but it sure had the desired effect – as many of us mull over this recession along with its related causes and effects; what has been less discussed has been the role of these super intelligent scholars and how they may or may not have played a part in this whole swan dive – much of it remains speculation, but if I had to plumb a guess; I am sure they played a monumentally big part, not only in the ground work, but also in the planning – only because investing on such a Byzantine scale is really a team effort – don’t get me wrong; I am all for confidence; but I am also reminded taken too far, it just slips into delusions of grandeur and usually that just means taking a wrong turn.

 

And all the evidence suggest this may yet be the root cause accounting for the anatomy of failure.

 

The outcome however is one that is better left unexplored – as the whole point of this post isn’t a barbed repartee as it remains a very serious conversation piece on shattered dreams and missed opportunities – one that should prompt us all to consider whether; the goody good machine would have been better served, if we had considered broadening our definition of intelligence beyond just the corsetted idea of nurturing the scholar class? How wise was it for instance to even trust so much to so few? Should we perhaps extend the ambit of intelligence to even overeach into the domain of practical wisdom? What about those who may have the diversity and breadth to add value to such a undertaking, but lack the pedigree?

 

This just opens up a can of worms that even brings into stark focus the dangers of surrendering the whole idea of decision making to only those who have managed to follow the yellow brick road to attain what we usually term; the best education and best results – that they should be considered intelligent is never in dispute; but what remains less certain is whether that narrow definition of intelligence translates into anything close to the “right stuff.” Evidently not it seems– in this respect the characterization of HAL and our scholar class embodies the timeless struggle for the elusive search for human excellence.

 

It’s one that I am sure will be discussed at length for many years to come.

 

As for me, I’ve go with the dogged eared lesser mortal any day – even if his record is less than examplar and patchy only because he is definitely more grounded and less inclined to leverage on his pedigree – and we all know, in life, it always pays dividends to doubt yourself a bit and from time to time even put yourself down, that’s really allows us to scale threats and opportunities wisely – wisdom.

 

As for the HAL’s of this world – one thing is crystal clear; the only thing we would be entrusting them with from this point onwards is managing a parking lot of bumper cars or a Singapore meterological station somewhere in the Artic to study bird migratory patterns; anything else would just be reinforcing failure. 

 

There is no way to say this politely – so I am not even going to bother taking the edge off it.

 

You all fucked it up! 

 

Darkness 2009