I like this quote from Taleb, and I think it ties interestingly in with some discussions currently going on among some of my friends on Facebook concerning the wonders of the Internet. This also brings thoughts about deschooling and democratic schooling into a certain relief .... my learning has always been both inside and outside the institutions where I study and work and I find that a certain dynamic balance can be achieved - but that clearly the institutions can be stifling and soul-killing, no doubt about that .... Taleb's current MO of working on his book while seeking advice and editing on Facebook is also very interesting!
CHAPTER ON EDUCATION
Self directed scholarship has an aesthetic dimension. For a long time I had on the wall of my study the following quote by Jacques Le Goff, the great French medievalist, who believes that the Renaissance came out of independent humanists, not professional scholars. He examined the striking contrast in period paintings, drawings and renditions that compare Medieval university members and humanists:
"One is a professor surrounded and besieged by huddled students. The other is a solitary scholar, sitting in the tranquility and privacy of his chambers, at ease in the spacious and comfy room where his thoughts can move freely. Here we encounter the tumult of schools, the dust of classrooms, the indifference to beauty in collective workplaces,
There, it is all order and beauty,
Luxe, calme et volupté "
