I’ve written repeatedly about the importance of having ideas, why it’s ok for scholars to have lots of bad ideas, and the need to find ways to filter out your bad ideas before you spend time turning them in to bad papers. But there is an important flip side, which is that scholars — beginning and aspiring scholars especially — need the space to let them work on ideas without getting discouraged or prematurely judged as bad scholars. Indeed, I think this is one of the things most missing from our current law school - fellowship track in legal academia: a place to develop fragile ideas.
This is from a post about start-up culture, but I found it quite relevant to academia:
How do you [generate ideas]?
It’s important to be in the right kind of environment, and around the right kind of people. You want to be around people who have a good feel for the future, will entertain improbable plans, are optimistic, are smart in a creative way, and have a very high idea flux. These sorts of people tend to think without the constraints most people have, not have a lot of filters, and not care too much what other people think.
The best ideas are fragile; most people don’t even start talking about them at all because they sound silly. Perhaps most of all, you want to be around people who don’t make you feel stupid for mentioning a bad idea, and who certainly never feel stupid for doing so themselves.
Stay away from people who are world-weary and belittle your ambitions. Unfortunately, this is most of the world. But they hold on to the past, and you want to live in the future.
Unfortunately, both our online and academic cultures are increasingly moving away from being spaces for the exploration of fragile ideas — ideas that might turn out to be good and important but also might turn out to be bad or dangerous.
We academics should be brainstorming ways to change that.