The Internet has made everyone an expert on pretty much anything they want to declaim about. After a wine-soaked evening last year Nadine Hutton and I discovered the art of gistology – the gist of things. Gistologists are talented folk who can then extrapolate, and take that fragment as far as it can go. It makes a lot of sense these days: some people say “You’re too deep, man”, yet others cheer “make them think!” So I guess the invention of Gistology has been my way of making peace with shallow thinking.
Wikipedia is the tool of Gistologists – why read anything when you can cut and paste the salient facts on millions of topics without leaving your desk? at the same time keeping a window open to a facebook conversation, a work-for-money document, and book.co.za? you can legitimately growl at intruders: “I’m working!” and pursue those snippets of knowledge that, like lint, when balled up, make a substantial bundle of something not very substantial at all.
In a world where carefully crafted profiles tell the world who we are, we can fiercely defend opinions about things that we know little about. We can absolve ourselves of any hard decisions, hard facts, as we merrily hit “publish” and there we are: published!
I humbly submit a new word to the world dictionary: gistology, n: the art of capturing the gist of any field of knowledge. In the future, there will be degree courses in gistology, where students will learn the art of fluffy thinking. A PhD in Gistology will be the liberal arts’ answer to the MBA, as this qualification will get you a job as a commissioning editor, presidential speech writer, or an academic. The Wikipedia University is now open for registration: come forward and be counted as a gistologist!
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January 28th, 2009 @07:47 #
Ouch, Phillippa. It hurts to have all my snippets of Internet-gleaned knowledge compared to balled-up bits of lint. I much preferred the delusion of erudition. Great post, by the way!
January 28th, 2009 @08:02 #
Kate is a Gistologist.
January 28th, 2009 @09:09 #
Eeek -- I've done all those jobs (except my speeches were for Cabinet Ministers). So my PhD is definitely in Gistology.
January 28th, 2009 @09:22 #
In defence of Gistology, I would like to submit that there just isn't enough time in the day. Enough time in LIFE! to get to the bottom of everything, so why not? My problem is that I was brought up by a professor of Anatomy who, although she called herself a dilettante, she was far more than that. A gistologist before the Internet was nothing more than an intellectual pioneer. In this postmodern, broken up world, where the attention span is so what was I talking about again? It's the new evolutionary leap that we need to make to move forward to the next level of consciousness. (maybe)
January 28th, 2009 @09:51 #
All knowledge unapplied and inaccessible is worth little more than the dust that settles on it in the dark corners of library basements. So, give me the gist and I will judge and question its veracity as ferociously as I would if it were full-length foolscap.
PS: Foolscap folio (commonly contracted to foolscap or folio) is paper cut to the size of 8½ × 13½ inches (216 × 343 mm). This was a traditional paper size used in Europe and the Commonwealth, before the adoption of modern international paper A4 paper (the most common standard size outside the United States and Canada).
PPS: Intriguing post, Phillippa.
January 28th, 2009 @10:34 #
Sounds like the way the method of reading the newspapers - from the headline boards posted to lamp posts, you get the gist of all the current horrors and mud-slinging.
January 28th, 2009 @10:42 #
Yip, another gistologist here. Knowing less about more is more interesting than knowing more about less.
January 28th, 2009 @10:47 #
thanks for the info about page sizes Richard. that's definitely going into the ball of lint! :)
January 28th, 2009 @12:18 #
As a proud copy-left gistologist, I must defend my cause. Perhaps my tweaked ego is coming out reactionary, haha, could be, well, so let it and I apologise for my foolishness in advance. Now I don’t know if this is exactly a flip-side to the theory of gistology … but I always find there is a little smack (ouch) of uppity indignance from the sectors of the serious specialists who see their monopoly on knowledge and sounding knowledgeable suddenly quite decimated by all this newly wanton free knowledge for all, everywhere, information in flagrante (it might not make sense, but I fancied that term there). Sometimes the serious specialists themselves are nothing more than deep gistologists, with little original thought or spruce associations in their work, but rather a long-honed academic gift for jargonizing and stitching together craftily in dense inaccessible terms the thoughts of others. They claim greater nobility than most people with heads and brains, and this claim is backed up by institutions, which grant letters of proof after names and titles, but in truth, they are like everyone, no more than common lint-balling gistologists in a crumbling kingdom of copy-rights and knowledge ownership. Moreover, universities are for the first time on their way to becoming truly universal, fall the walls! Freedom reigns! And finally, in my last howl as proclaiming tea-giddy gistologist, I say (agreeing on the point of evolutionary leap), all hail and welcome the age of associations!
January 28th, 2009 @13:16 #
Lovely, Alex. Now lie down and sip some herbal tea, you've had enough caffeine for today. ("Knowledge in flagrante" and "deep gistologists" particularly inspired, with the latter causing me great glee.)
January 28th, 2009 @13:27 #
Lovely Helen, it is The Tempest got in my blood and I must say it was a blast of utter magic (the costumes!!!!!!!!!!), so if that ticket deal is still on, I'm the fish, and biting!
January 28th, 2009 @13:47 #
Done deal. Let me know your schedule offlist, and I'll book.