Josh is a good young
man. His autism does not define him except insofar as it is both a blessing and
a curse to him. A graduate from the University of California at Irvine, as well
as an aspiring cartoonist with an ingenious imagination, he has trouble shaking
surprise from others when they learn the identity of his alma mater. When he
took Professor Stegman’s Data Structures class at Palomar College, he probably
did not expect to make many friends. Ordinarily, he tends towards shyness and
reports recurrent social rejection by his peers. Nonetheless, an exceptionally
creative mind such as his, all ready having accomplished much academically, did
not either expect that he would be facing expulsion under false auspices. Yet
this was precisely what happened, as I bore personal witness to, towards the
end of the Spring semester of 2018. Josh, having failed once more to make
friends in class that might lend him a helping hand, referred instead to his
own research, via the Internet, in finishing one of five or six laboratory
assignments that would each determine nine per cent of his grade.
Unfortunately, he was not alone. Several other students who shared the class
with him, UNBEKNOWNST TO JOSH HIMSELF, had the same idea, so they all ended up
referring to the same source. I know not whether or not these students were
likewise charged with plagiarism. Professor Stegman refused to tell Josh who
they were. This is puzzling, because it puts Josh in a situation where, were he
guilty, he would all ready have known their identities from conspiracy with
them. Conversely, if he is innocent, then he will have no knowledge of their
identities, and as such he will have no means of proving his innocence to his
instructor. The only sensible reason for Professor Stegman’s privacy is,
therefore, that Stegman believes that Josh might prove his own guilt
definitively by referring to their identities, which ostensibly only a guilty,
uninformed Josh might have had access to. This creates a sort of schizophrenic
double-bind; if Josh should happen to discover their identities, he will prove
himself guilty, but if he fails to do so, he is guilty by default. Not only has
the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” been reversed; he cannot even
prove his own innocence, nor shake the guilty verdict by any means whatsoever!!
I decided to
investigate this Data Structures class for myself. As per usual, employment
obligations have set me behind drastically, and I found myself, enflamed by
morbid curiosity, reviewing the lengthy Syllabus for the course. Enclosed
within the text file is this chilling paragraph:
“Although you are
allowed to help other students, you are never under any obligation to do so. If
you feel uncomfortable answering a student’s question for any reason, please do
not attempt to answer the question. Instead, suggest that the student see the
instructor.”
In the absence of an
available instructor of sound mind, a number of students referred to an other
monarch, one that had served them to excess previously: the Internet. Of
course, Stegman’s philosophy (read “dogma”) of helpfulness in the academic
environment and project is the very summary of Ignorance, whether by a Buddhist
standard or one from the West. There is obviously a moral obligation for all of
us to share the knowledge that we’ve acquired if it was never intended
exclusively for us. Furthermore, discomfort in the abject sense does not
assuage this matter, but it aggravates it. The principal substitute for ethical
behavior is of course emotivism, the tendency to simply “inform” one’s
decisions by affect alone.
Stegman’s philosophy
reminded me of my most recent visit to the Open Lab. I was disappointed not
only by the absence of my favourite tutors but by the presence of a congested
crowd. Plenty of young, ambitious students were working on their various codes.
Some of them were even in my class, and I had good reason to believe that they
were working on the same Lab Assignment that I am about to fail right now.
(Most probably regardless of whether or not I keep writing this desperate
plaint.) A great deal of them were working in teams. The most bizarre aspect of
the situation was this, however: that not one of the people that I even tried
to speak with who were part of these teams showed any sign of willingness to
talk to me. They dismissed me based on prejudice, an observation I can state
for a fact because of the simply fact that I had no prejudice in approaching
them. It may be true that the female programmers I tried to speak with I came
to first, since they reminded me of my favourite tutor Rachel, whose intuitive sensitivity
to others’ styles of learning and needs to learn made her extremely popular as
a teacher. That notwithstanding, I was open and direct in both my questions and
my declarations. Yet the program would not run; they were not having it. So
instead I got help from my only friend in that Data Structures class: Michael
Hermes, a brilliant, level-headed whiz-kid who had Asperger’s Syndrome. Why do
I feel the need to point that last part out? Put plainly: it’s ironic that under
the monarchy of ablism and rugged individualism the one helping hand that I
could grasp came from the Disabled Class. So to speak, of course.
I explained to Michael’s
Nurse Celia that I was distracted by the crowd and hence found concentration
difficult to muster. She understood; she is empathic. When everyone in the
classroom forms an exclusive clique, all of their conversations serve the
obverse of a social purpose for the Outsider. Interestingly enough, it was this
same tendency that helped me to understand the Java programming language, if
only insofar as I could comprehend how private and public classes interact.
Michael’s smiled at the analogy, which was really a connection I made between
Data Structures and that ancient Medieval Principle of Systems Theory. Michael
said rolled with the metaphor, comparing private classes to introverts and
public classes to extraverts. I reversed the analogy, insisting upon an irony I’d
observed time and time again: that extraverted people tend to be more private
because they define themselves so much by the exclusive groups that they’re a
part of. Michael smiled in tacit agreement. An introvert would be able to read
his silence as concession, though I still remember the shock of hearing my old
Debate Professor comparing this simple observation, the very essence of any
kind of love, Platonic onwards, between human beings, to assault. To this day,
I am haunted by the fear that others have of silent consent, only because it
means that extraverted thinking has become so monarchical that it has robbed
life of Life.
The Fisher believes
in Contemporary Systems Theory, at least insofar as she will praise Malcolm
Gladwell for his observations. Whilst I have enough Debater left in me to tear
the Outliers to shreds, I rest
assured that all is well, for she is not apparently fanatical of temperament.
It’s ironic: the same philosophy that suggests that we would all get by with a
little help from our friends is what makes it so difficult to make friends. I
found a friend in Michael, as I had in Josh, because we were all clinical
loners who did not possess the SKILL to discriminate between people who were so
kind as to reach out to us, whether to help or for help, and most often both. Conversely,
I’ve found all too many ladder-climbing chimpanzees who want to keep to their
own academic tribes and to perpetuate the In-Group/Out-Group conflict. It is
quite redundant, though I rest assured they won’t get far. It hurts me to
observe them from this height, however, not just out of pity for their lowly
ways, but all so out of bitter recollections of the times they shook me down.
Nobody likes a lofty outlier. Not even Malcolm Gladwell.
[({Dm.A.A.)}]
No comments:
Post a Comment