Loads of Information: Four Ways to Use It
Unless you have a lot of information, reasonably categorized and carefully archived in your mind, you are unlikely to become an effective synthesizer. The lack of information is fatal; information that is not properly labeled and thoughtfully organized is easily misused; information that is too tightly coded in a single way cannot be put to a variety of uses.
An example: You can’t speak or write cogently about the causes and the outcome of the First World War, unless you have a lot of information. That information needs to be stored or archived in ways that are accessible: which countries were involved, what were their initial—and evolving—economic, political, military, and social conditions; who were the political and military leaders and how were they selected, promoted, and replaced; what were the principal avenues of information and communication; what happened on battlefields at various times and under sundry conditions… and so on.
But if the information is too tightly categorized in just one way, you will be unable to access and draw on it in other ways. For example, say you have archived the United States as never becoming involved in wars beyond its shores; in that case, you can’t explain reasons for the entry of the United States in 1917 and the role it ultimately played in the victory of the Allies. Or if you have England and France archived as intrepid enemies, you can’t explain why they were allies from 1914-1918. And if you deem Woodrow Wilson to be a great leader, you can’t explain the weaknesses of the Versailles treaty or the failure of the League of Nations…. or, for that matter, why his name has recently been dropped from a graduate school in Princeton.
Coding, categorizing, archiving all need to be flexible, subject to updating and revising, as appropriate. It’s that flexibility that allows one to become a competent synthesizer.
My understanding of the synthesizing mind was recently enhanced as I reflected on a column in The New York Times.
Jane Coaston notes that she was (and presumably still is) an information junkie. She reflects: “I can still list every American president in chronological order… I have always wanted to learn more—whether it’s about the history of the Xia dynasty or about what drives homelessness in the city that I call home.” I call this the Information Junkie Mentality.
Given this predilection, it’s not surprising that Coaston initially undertook a scholarly turn. The Scholarly Mentality features a drive to understand things better, as well as the joy of knowing,
Coaston also became a debater and enjoyed debating; but she came to realize that the driving force for many (though not all!) debaters isn’t a craving for information but rather a lust for victory. As she puts it,
“it’s an irrepressible need to achieve some sort of win in a conversation with someone who will inevitably regret participating in it.”
I’m terming this the Debating Mentality. It denotes persons who yearn to participate in such competition and who draw on accumulated information chiefly to eke out a victory… or to sulk should they lose to someone who has stored away even more pockets of information.
Coaston notes that debate team energy is abundant in our society… seemingly everything is up for debate. But in her view, this mentality “separates us from the importance of the subject matter being debated, even if it’s the lives and experiences of real people.” As she puts it,
“What debate team lacks—and what an academic team delivers—is empathy….when we actually have to understand something or someone , we create an opening for caring…. We can always tap into academic team energy to read and watch and think and disprove our own false beliefs and become better people in the process.”
Let’s call this the Empathy Mentality.
I have no intention or desire to put words into Jane Coatson’s mouth (or her word processor). As a student of synthesizing, here are the lessons I’ve gleaned: To be a competent synthesizer, you need to have lots of information—reliably but flexibly categorized and stored.
There are several ways in which to draw on that information:
Some people store information just because they enjoy doing do—the Information Junkie Mentality
Some people store information so that they can draw on it in debate and score a victory, which makes them feel good, or lose the debate, and feel impoverished—the Debating Mentality
Some people store information so that they can draw on it for scholarly work—enhancing our understanding of complex topics and phenomena—the Scholarly Mentality
A particularly admirable use of information is to catalyze empathy and thereby help others—the Empathic Mentality
As an educator, I’d like to go beyond the Information Junkie and Debating mentalities—whatever their advantages. I prefer to nurture the scholarly mentality; and encourage the empathic mentality.
Reference
Coaston, J. (2022). Opinion | When Every Conversation Becomes a Game, We All Lose. NYTimes.com. Retrieved 24 June 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/04/opinion/academic-team-debate.html.