April 9, 2006

Dear Colleague,

    "Only connect," E. M. Forster famously said. He was speaking as a moralist. As a moral being, we need to feel connected to—caring and responsible for—all living things that swim into our field of vision. However, connection also has a social sense, and in that sense it can connote something that is the opposite of moral. You want to succeed in life? Well, you need to be connected with the right persons. You want your paper to be favorably reviewed and published? Well, you better belong to a specialty group and curry favor with—through redundant citation—the top dogs of that group.

    Another word for making connections, one that has become popular in the social sciences, is "networking." Do you have the right kind of networking skills to rise up the hierarchy? Networking gives one power—the power of belonging. What an individual says, even if it is important and powerfully said, may go unheeded. What a group says, even if it is trivial and confusedly said, may be not only heard but acclaimed by, first, fellow members, then, the members' own connections.

    Networking empowers an individual, but it also weakens him, as the expression "being caught in a net" suggests. Being caught in a net—even being a willing part of a net—implies a loss of agency and mobility. A scholar in a tight network forfeits his right and ability to think for himself.

    Thinking, indeed, is the only means to break free of the net, for thinking is the only true action. You say, "Wait a minute. Isn't the thinker desk-bound, whereas a bounty hunter, someone like Indiana Jones, is the archetype of a man of action?" No, I would reply. The thinker may stay in place, but only so that his mind can freely roam in "strange seas of thought." Indiana Jones, by contrast,  may go from here to there and everywhere, but note this: almost everywhere he finds himself in a tight spot. His mobility, in other words, is an illusion.

    Thinking is discouraged in primitive and folk communities. Why? Because it is extremely anti-social. When a man thinks, he is removed from his community and environment: he becomes insensitive to other people, the birds and the bees. Worse, his thoughts—sound or just weird—are invitably /not/ those accepted by his group. A bizarre turn of our time is retrogession to an earlier state of development, when people had to be connected—part of a network—to survive. Modern society doesn't need to be always connnected to survive; it can afford the lone thinker; and what thinking—real thinking—is not done alone, in the privacy of a room or in a lighthouse (Einstein's ideal place for post-graduates), after the seminars and heated discussions? The thinker's slogan might almost be, "Only disconnect."

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu