https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07nwqs3
Last week I had the privilege of attending the Ulster University Chancellors’ lecture at St Anne’s Cathedral given by one of my childhood heroes, James Burke. People of a certain vintage will remember him fronting the BBC coverage of the moon-landings, one of my earliest memories, but what I really remember him for is for Tomorrow’s World and his seminal TV series “Connections.” Tomorrow’s World sought to predict the future in terms of technological innovation, with mixed success, while Connections explored the link between different people, inventions and ideas throughout history. His lecture last Tuesday night, entitled “The Future isn’t what it used to be” in some ways was a combination of the ideas behind these two TV series, in that it explored how we might make predictions about the future based on our understanding of the past... And in it he urged us to see the importance of linking different spheres of knowledge... demonstrating, as per his old TV series, the connections which took humanity from the music of Mozart to helicopters and beyond in 9 not so simple steps (you can see this for yourself on Burke’s website the k-web/knowledge-web...)
As someone who graduated 30 years ago in a degree that focussed on behavioural and evolutionary genetics, before working in the theatre as an actor, director and technician, then moving into Methodist ministry back here in Ireland with a passion for politics, history and certain sports, its well seen why James Burke might be my hero. But my interest in divergent spheres of knowledge is not just useful in pub quizzes and for shouting out the occasional answer to BBC 2’s impenetrable quiz “Only Connect”... It also reinforces my belief that we need each other in all our amazing diversity... No one can know everything about everything. Not even James Burke. We need experts (contra Gove) in different fields and, as Burke emphasises, we need generalists who see the connections between those fields... This is one of the reasons I am not entirely convinced by the espousal oof the so-called STEM curriculum in schools these days, or even STEAM, with arts half-heartedly bolted on to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We need technologically skilled students, but that does not discount the importance of artists, actors, historians, linguists and theologians/philosophers, in their own right or hybrids of them all.
We also need people who hold diametrically opposed ideas about certain things, because we need different perspectives or things get out of balance, and sometimes the truth is not found in the middle but at the margins...
In the Bible Paul talked about the church as the body of Christ needing all its different parts... including those bits like the appendix that seem redundant and wobbly bits that no-one wants to see in public. So it is in society... If we were all physicists it would be like the body only being made up of a certain type of brain cells and no guts... Or if we were all artists it would be like us being all heart and no hands... Or if we were all politicians... well you get the idea...
We need each other... We need each other’s insights and skills... And that is true whether we are talking about a church, a community or a nation... No-one knows exactly what the future might bring, not even James Burke. Some of his predictions in the past have come pretty close, including this one from 1985, although if truth be told, I believe he underestimates the power of selfishness to derail progress...
Given that the past weekend has seen the global climate strike and the International Day for Peace, and that we are still in the midst of massive political and economic uncertainty as regards Brexit, we need to start listening to voices outside of our own little echo chambers, and work together in the face of some who are looking out primarily for themselves at massive potential cost to the planet, the poor and future generations, in terms of conflict, economic inequality and environmental degradation.
Burke may not be fool-proof in his predictions of the future, but he is right in saying that the secret of a better tomorrow is making the right connections...
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