Searching for certainty

I am 20 years old, and I don’t know a damned thing. Not for certain, anyway. In fact, I’ve had this sinking feeling recently that the more I learn at Columbia, the less I know for sure. It’s unsettling. I think.

I haven’t always felt this way. As far as I can remember, my time in elementary school—also known as the best years of my life—was full of academic certainty. I knew that Columbus, a hero, had discovered America. I was convinced that all of politics could be captured by the maxim, “Democrats are good and Republicans are bad.”  I was positive that Shel Silverstein was the greatest poet that had ever lived. I was one happy redhead.

Seven years of middle school and high school made quick work of all that. In sixth grade, I learned that the Vikings
had probably discovered America a few hundred years before Columbus. In eighth grade, I was taught that “discovered” in that context was sort of a misnomer, seeing as there were millions of people living on these shores before the Vikings ever built a boat. In ninth grade, one overzealous history teacher informed my class that Columbus, far from a hero, was, in fact, a “genocidal maniac.” My other convictions met similar ends.

Each successive year of school brought with it increasingly complex ideas in the four core academic subjects, and with this complexity came increased uncertainty. By senior year, I was learning about calculus in math, Newtonian physics in science, post-modernism in English, and revisionism in history. All of these subjects either called into question what I thought I already knew (calculus, revisionist history), contained in them some impetus for doubt (post-modernism), or would themselves later be displaced by even more complex and less certain disciplines (Newtonian physics, all of the above).

And all of that before I set foot in a Columbia classroom.

At college, my house of cards finally came crashing down. Without getting into specifics, Columbia has destroyed and continues to destroy my last vestiges of academic certainty by introducing me to theory.

In her lecture last Friday on the gap between theory and practice, Dean Moody-Adams discussed the purpose of theories. Apparently, their use lies in “explaining observations, understanding concepts that structure observations and basic beliefs, predicting future events, and acting in a way that conforms to the best and deepest understanding of the world.” If we take a step back, we might say that these four purposes could just as easily be the four “purposes” of all academic disciplines, not just philosophy.

The idea is not a particularly revolutionary one. All I am saying, really, is that academic pursuits aim at truth (certainty). The truth, we hope, will help serve one or all of those four purposes. Since the truth—or at least the whole truth—at which each discipline is aimed has yet to be discovered, we are left with theories, which are the lifeblood of academia. The successful ones inch us toward certainty. The unsuccessful ones can shift us away from it.

And thus we get economic theory, differing schools of psychology, all of the opinions we read in CC, opposing interpretations of history, scientific hypotheses, etc. We are taught the best ideas put out there by the smartest people, but are never told which ones are right. No professor can grant us certainty. And this is what keeps me up at night.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. I sleep like a baby. But the idea that I don’t really know anything has caused me some anxiety. I did go through a few “why am I even bothering with this education” moments. It’s also what caused me to name my column “Excuses and Half-Truths.”

But recently, I’ve realized that I am not entirely devoid of certainty. Not on a personal level, anyway. Just like my third-grade self was certain he liked Lunchables and “Rugrats” and N’Sync (suck it, Backstreet Boys), I am now absolutely positive that I like tortellini and “Arrested Development” and The Hold Steady. And I know that whenever something like a complete lack of confidence in everything I’ve ever learned starts to make me nervous, I can turn off my brain, sit in front of my computer with a big bowl of pasta, and enjoy the dramatic stylings of Dr. Tobias Funke.

What’s more, I’ve realized that all this academic uncertainty is really a great thing. For one, I like learning (don’t deny it, Columbia—you feel the same way). And on the other hand, it breeds theories, which breed progress, which takes society one step closer to the utopia in which I get to sit around all day, eating tortellini and watching “Arrested Development.” At least, that’s my theory on what total knowledge would bring. Feel free to come up with your own.

Neil FitzPatrick is a Columbia College sophomore. Excuses and Half-truths runs alternate Tuesdays.