The Ivory Tower

The ivory tower is a place where my generation and the one before it have gathered desensitized to the tragedy of our world. They try to act as though they are separate and even superior to the entertainment side of our culture when in fact they are part of the same problem. That of apathy, and defeat. The generation or two before mine may have actually physically felt that defeat, but my generation is desensitized. This new generation of scholars have even less of an urgency to solve the worlds pressing problems. The great minds of the last twenty years have gone into finance, manipulating numbers in order to make more money for themselves and those who are already rich. They are complemented by those who enter the academic world within a specific area of study. They look at their discipline as separate from the outside world. As if their ideas and sphere of influence dies once it hits reality, yet they want to distinguish themselves in front of their family and peers with titles and awards. Like the entertainment business and finance industry, these professional academics are just as selfish. The point of our existence should be to enlighten the others, to expose them to the truth: that there is no self, inasmuch as the self being the center of any one's existence. We are a collective bunch and we cannot allow human body's separate us from the fact that every human being shares the same molecules. What we study at universities is all very important and I respect many fields of scholarly research, but if we cannot feed every human in the world, I see no need for further research in theoretical physics, in mathematics, in history, in sociology, in any of those fields unless they are aiming to fix the biggest tragedy of our known existence: That most people in the world do not have sufficient access to food, water, shelter, and medicine, and that the earth is perpetually being polluted by corporate interests who exacerbate the human problems at every chance of making a profit. Until that problem is solved I see no need for an ivory tower just for the sake of an ivory tower.