The Effect of a Lecture

Has less to do with the information it provides than the context it creates

Caspar David Friedrich Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon (1824)

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“He who grasps the problem as a whole, has calmed the tempest raging in his soul.”

                                                                                                   Schiller, Homage of the Arts

My previous post to Extra Muros, which bore the title of “Know When to Hold ‘Em” ended with a valediction for my longstanding, but unconsummated, interest in the ideas and influence of Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel. Once, however, I pushed the “send” button, something strange happened. Rather than moving on to a fresh topic, I found myself obsessed with the subject I had just consigned to a tape-sealed cardboard box in the back of the most distant pseudo-garage of the self-storage facility of my mind.

This experience may have something to do with the perversity of my inner gaze, which prefers to dwell on things I deem of little value than pay attention to matters I consider consequential. (Word to the wise: whatever you do, do not ask me to explain the trajectory of situation comedy in the 1960s and 1970s, let alone the path trod by Country Music over the past half-century.)

I might also blame my dislike of conclusions. (While I try to make a virtue of this antipathy, often by pointing out that the strongest part of a book lies in its middle, I will, in moments of candor, confess that I am, quite simply, one of those people who prefers the suspension of judgement to the casting of opinions in metals of the harder sort.)

Those things said, the chief cause of my inability to put Hegel (or, to be more precise, thoughts about his influence) to bed seems to have a lot to do with the extraordinarily high quality of the two hundred and twenty-three minute lecture than the peculiar way that my peculiar mind makes sense of the peculiar things it encounters. Engaged in fifteen-minute segments, each of which was separated from the next by a period that ranged from two hours to a week, Dr. Lindsay’s talk provided me with a framework that allowed me to assemble the flotsam and jetsam of five decades’ worth of reading, thinking, writing, and teaching on neighboring subjects.

For the self-directed learner, and, in particular, the autodidact who makes extensive use of learned (as opposed to chatty) podcasts, the lesson is clear. If you are looking for information, read. If, however, you are looking for context, fire up a podcast and listen to it while doing the mindless chore you have been postponing all week.

For Further Reading:

"Know When to Fold 'Em"

The Science of Learning

The Value of Lecture Notes

A Short History of Lecture Notes

Eighteen wheels, and a dozen lectures