In
writing a glowing personal reference for me, to use with my prospective
applications to Universities for a teaching job, State Senator Milton Marks of
California chose to describe me professionally as “thorough.” I wonder
where he got this idea from, but certainly not from a personal observation, I
hope. Perhaps, he knew what he was doing. I guess that to describe a scholar as
‘thorough’ is as formulaic in America as describing an applicant
as ‘ideologically seasoned and morally stable’ had been the formulaic
requisite of all character references in the Soviet Union, of blessed memory.
But
if I had a say in my own academic referencing, I would never have gone along
with Senator Marks, but rather with Nietzsche, applying to myself what he says
about himself in Ecce Homo: “I am always
equal to accidents; I have to be unprepared to be the master of myself.”
This applies to me almost perfectly, both in other scholars’ opinion of me
(Permyakov, Smoke, and several others), and in my personal understanding of my
own nature. (The big deal, however, is that, honestly, only the second part of
it is a perfect fit, while the word “always” in the first part may not
have always been true, unfortunately. I still have to learn a lot about
how to be always prepared to be unprepared…
Coming
back to the question of thoroughness, on some occasions a
well-intentioned compliment may turn out worse than any disparagement, when it
entails a false perception, and therefore a false identification. A
bird misidentified as a fish will have its wings soaked in water by
its well-wishers each time they want to do it a favor. In this regard, the word
thoroughness may seem like a really nice word to use in describing “a
gentleman and a scholar,” but it is in no way appropriate when it is applied to
the other type.
Nietzsche’s
Jenseits (253), quoted below, contains the idea of different types of
scholar: philosopher versus scientist. Attributing to the English this
mediocrity of the spirit that characterizes the scientific, rather than
creative mind of the original thinker, I wonder if Nietzsche is objectively
right. or, reflecting an anti-English bias, he is merely committing the sin of
an intellectual “racial profiling.” In this connection, it is funny how I
myself have been misdiagnosed by Senator Marks, who called me “thorough,” which
in Nietzsche’s usage may represent the assiduousness of the English type,
whereas my real disposition, fortified by my fondness for Nietzsche’s wild and
random kindred spirit, makes me seriously suspect myself of belonging to that
other, distinctly random type. In fact, here is what I can quite honestly say
about myself.-- Being this so-called “thorough” comes to me with an
effort, whereas being profusely creative, and intellectually random, comes with
no effort at all. Appearances must be so deceptive, or perhaps they are not
even appearances, but some preexistent stereotypes, used in lieu of these
appearances!
Anyway,
here is Nietzsche in Jenseits (253): “There
are truths which are recognized best by mediocre minds because they are most
congenial to them; there are truths which have charm and seductive power only
for mediocre spirits: we come up against this, perhaps, disagreeable proposition
just now, since the spirit of respectable but mediocre Englishmen: I name
Darwin, John Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spenser, is beginning to predominate in
the middle regions of European taste. Indeed, who would doubt that it is useful
that such spirits should rule at times? It would be a mistake to suppose that
the spirits of a higher type that soar on their own paths would be particularly
skillful at determining and collecting many small and common facts and then
drawing conclusions from them: on the contrary, being exceptions, they are from
the start at a disadvantage when it comes to the “rule.” Finally, they have
more to do than merely to gain knowledge--- namely, to be something new, to
signify something new, to represent new values.
Perhaps, the chasm between know and can is greater, also uncannier,
than people suppose: those who can do things in the grand style, the creative,
may possibly have to be lacking in knowledge, while, on the other hand, for
scientific discoveries of the Darwin type a certain narrowness, aridity, and
industrious diligence, something English in short, may not be a bad
disposition.”
In
this connection, I repeat again that, in so far as the “unscholarly” form, and occasionally
flighty substance of my most current writing is concerned, I have nothing to
improve, nothing to apologize for, and nothing more “academic” to offer to
potential students. In a way, what I am today is consistent with what I used to
be in my luckier younger days, when I ridiculed in my mind the trodden path of
the professor: “If you wish to offer me that doctorate, I could, perhaps,
consider it, but I would not want to go through the tedious motions of the
standard procedure just for the sake of obtaining a meaningless piece of
paper.” Indeed, I must have been reckless and silly, as seen from my distance
and in the context of subsequent events, but at least Permyakov could
understand, if not approve of, my stubbornness (I guess, he was too critical
of himself in this respect, being a world-renowned scientist without any
academic certification or even an honorary PhD rank, and could not possibly
advise me to tread that same path!), while today’s another Grigori, Perelman, would certainly be equally
able to understand and appreciate my erstwhile stubbornness…
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