Types of Knowledge
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Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
Brian O'Driscoll
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It is in the distant past that I had a lengthy association with two of the institutions on the list and very fleeting interactions with two others. I once had an annual gig with Ph.D. students at Cambridge. I did a Ph.D. at a very niche place in Albermarle street with a long history.
I did not make it in that world.
I left it at 42 which as we all know is a very important number.
Just as one might look at the six nations rugby table I occasionally have a look at the league.
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I like to see who is climbing up the charts.
French universities do not do well in international rankings, because their focus is Francophone internal. Few here have heard of some of the places I was at, they were not Harry Potter enough.
It remains an unanswered karmic question as to just why I ended up doing all that. It seems mildly anomalous given what happened afterwards.
It is in the commercial interest of the purveyors of knowledge to create a good brand and make sure that the Trust-a-Trader reviews are good. Bums on seats keep churches and universities going.
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There are different types of knowledge, STEM being one, Vajrayāna being another.
There is a tendency for evangelism which promotes genre. That which feeds us needs propagated and spread. We may genuinely believe that our own knowledge is important and/or vital. If we have benefited from it we may be keen to share. We may make a way of life or a business out of it.
I have thought about doing some more courses from time to time. But there is no obvious way to start. A traditional marketing route would be to write a book and then on the basis of that do some courses to help sales and raise profile. I am pretty sure that no publisher would be interested in funding me.
The type of knowledge that I have is personal and probably not transferable. This is because it is experiential. It has been largely interest driven on my part and is unlikely to have relevance to most.
I am reasonably sure that I could market “A” level in English, Chemistry and Physics, though my sell by date may be up.
As Brian suggests I know what my knowledge is. And I know where not to put it.
It is weird to see just how big business so-called higher education has become. Who would have thought some universities have billion dollar plus turnovers?
But they do. They have corporate entity mind-sets today.
I am so glad that given the gender wars etc. that I am free from all of that.
My lack of filter would not be tolerated. I could get very dogmatic about pretentious pronoun insistence.
It is an entire other world….
