On the Necessity of being "Useful"

Use is something I think about everyday. How are students "using" the Writing Center at my school. Are they having effective (useful) sessions? Are the tutors feeling like they are "useful" in their sessions? Do administrators and faculty and staff think of the WC as a useful space?

Such concerns and considerations surrounding the topic of "use" are prevalent at all levels of education, in this country. Always, it seems, there are metrics to measure the outcomes of success for students: the "use value" of their education.

From these metrics, some people have come to the conclusion that getting a college education is no longer useful. That students who enter the workforce right out of high school might be better off because they won't incur heavy loans and will be making an income, sometimes a full decade, before the majority of their peers. That certain degrees are simply not worth pursuing...

Now, ironically, this post is not about championing higher education and pursuing a college degree--though I have written about the importance of college, especially to working class and first generation populations--actually, a colleague of mine told me to take a break from working (ever more difficult to do these days) to read about a useless but very beloved animal: the cuttlefish.

For those of you out there in the ether who know me. I love cuttlefish. It all began with a NOVA documentary on cuttlefish way back in 2007. The cuttlefish fascinated me because of its beauty, its quirkiness, and its intelligence. I was mesmerized by the flamboyant cuttlefish--watching this beautiful, bizarre, ancient creature walking across the bottom of the ocean. It's skin changing colors periodically to suit its environment...

So, cuttlefish = awesome, in my estimation. And my colleague--friend, really--wanted me to stop and take a break from my otherwise hectic, use-assessed-filled life, to enjoy something that the author of the article described as useless.

Yes, dear reader, Richard Conniff--author and opinion writer for the New York Times--writes an entire article in praise of "useless" animals. In "Useless Creatures," he suggests that animals, like art, music, and other exchange-value-based things, do not have an inherent "use" for humans. Or, rather, that once they do, these animals become important to use because of how they will heal our sick, advance our military, or feed our growing population. Scientific research (like most things that are done in higher education) has struggled to find "use-value" for the work that it does studying unique organisms because, without this particular use-minded work, they would receive even less funding than the natural sciences typically receive. My friend who sent me this article laments this turn in science towards the "use-value" of her research because scientific research is not always done with an eye towards how it is going to help humans. Lots of research is about discovery, ecological systems, and life histories of organisms, yet she, like so many others in the biological sciences struggles to find pertinence to the human world and its various issues so that she can receive grant support. At times, these justifications for her research seem forced and rather implausible.

Yes, our use-focused lives keep us always on edge. I wonder if this is what leads, in certain ways, to impostor syndrome in higher education: that we are not healing the sick, saving lives, but reading and thinking and discovering. Knowledge sometimes seems less sexy than action. Longterm research goals that take years to execute and to record/write seem to have little place in our attention depleted impatient society...

I will leave off with this one last point. Yesterday, I had a conversation with friends about whether or not turtles are true reptiles. We discussed the taxonomy of birds, whales, sharks, humans, platypus, and fungus. It was a great conversation and one I liked having because I never took a class on animal taxonomy. In fact, I am not sure that I ever learned much about this particular subject because phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Useful to me, a Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of English, Director of Writing Centers? Perhaps not directly, given my fields. However, the exchange value--the ideas and their worth--were totally useful. I love animals, I love classifying flora and fauna in particular regions with my trusty field guides, in short, I love nature.

So, the next time you start obsessing over the useful nature of xx (be that education, animals and their life histories, your local writing center or required writing class, obviously these are biased examples...) stop and question why usefulness is such an important aspect of how we classify what to learn, what work to do, and what causes to support. I, for one, am going to re-watch that documentary on cuttlefish even though it has nothing to do with my teaching or directing roles!