When I recently told a classmate that I was considering writing my first opinions piece on the topic of opinions, he declared with irony fit only for south of Power Street, "That's so meta, bro." What he meant to exclaim was "Have you no shame!?" — a statement meant to highlight the meaninglessness of such an idea and my writing it in the first place. Little did he know that his jab would become a lead in a real-life Herald opinion piece. How's that for meta, bro?
I bother with this brief anecdote because academic shame, or any notion of intellectual self-consciousness, is profoundly dangerous for the flourishing collegian. It hinders meaningful discussion, breeds feelings of inadequacy and not only de-prioritizes academic engagement, but also renders it terrifying. And unfortunately for us, despite a grading system engineered to encourage educational risk-taking and a generally cheery disposition, there's a bit too much of it to go around at Brown these days.
Now, before the pitchforks descend upon me for decrying self-criticism, let me make an important distinction between self-consciousness and self-awareness. Self-awareness is the experience of your history teaching assistant taking you aside to explain that empty references to James McPherson and a half-dozen uses of the word "contingency" do not make for a good history paper. Self-consciousness, on the other hand, is the kind of insidious dread that prevents a student from stating an opinion, making a point or, God forbid, even asking a question in said history lecture.
Ask a random Brown student if he or she had ever been in a class where a professor's simple question was met by a Bueller situation — blank stares, seat shuffling and not a raised hand in sight — and you would be hard pressed to hear a single one say "no." Perhaps it is a simple case of nobody reading anything ever, but the more plausible explanation is that students are saturated with a fear of peer judgment, of being wrong and, consequently, of being dumb. In essence, we are too aware of our status as undergraduates and too unaware of our role as thinkers.
Two weeks ago, Stanford professor Claude Steele spoke about how stereotypes — such as women underperforming in the sciences — often become self-fulfilling prophecies for minority group performance in the classroom. This follows a somewhat basic rule that if you hear something enough, you just start to believe it.
It is possible, though, that the most dangerous and deeply embedded academic stereotype is simply the belief that if a statement is factually incorrect or provokes disagreement, then the student is inherently unintelligent — or, even worse, that any kind of intellectual endeavor will be met with a negative response from one's peer group because they find it trivial or inconsequential.
Students seem to be more concerned with getting through the academic end of college than milking the experience for all it is worth. Such an attitude may not stem from lack of interest, but rather from lack of support. Support may provide the antidote to our fear of thought.
Many courses in the humanities grapple with the dichotomy of the positive and the negative. Negative thoughts are inherently unproductive, nonconstructive and bad for the soul as they beget more negativity. Positive thoughts, on the other hand, are constructive and encouraging, pushing one forward and supporting the individual.
Call me a rider on the recent anti-cynicism bandwagon, but the simple solution to our paralyzing self-consciousness may just be the cultivation of a positive community — one in which speaking up is encouraged, disagreement is appreciated and, above all, nobody believes too strongly in the maxim that being incorrect is inherently bad. By genuinely supporting each other in the development of ideas, interaction with other students is no longer guided by a negative self-consciousness but rather a positive excitement.
Furthermore, when our conception of failure becomes more about engagement and less about right versus wrong, our discussions will flourish in a freedom from pervasive anxiety. The far-fetched idea does not become stupid, but interesting because it provokes the most intriguing responses.
In a way, this idea embodies freedom from fear in the broadest sense. When we focus on doing, rather than worrying, we can stop being Hamlet and start being Prince Hal.
Sam Levison '14 tried to not be self-conscious while writing this piece.
You can contact him at samuel_levison@brown.edu.
