Rogue Scholarship.

Like Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain who was shocked to discover that he’d been speaking prose all his life, I’ve had a second career and wasn’t aware of it. In addition to being a writer, I am also a placebo scholar. I didn’t know such a thing existed until I read about it in today’s (6/22/10) New York Times. Actually, I didn’t read the article. Like a true placebo scholar, I read the teaser, “Scientist at work: Tor D. Wager, placebo scholar” and feel entitled to expound upon it.

The classic example of a placebo is the sugar pill that, somehow, cures the subjects of a medical experiment as well as the real drug. Another example would be my knowledge of French. I’m a dab hand at “menu” French (the only surprise I get in a French restaurant is if the food is bad) but, in conversation, I use what Raymond Chandler would call “A sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter speaks.” Yet, it’s enough to get me through a vacation in France with only a few mild reprimands. Voila, le placebo.

Okay, I’m being a little modest. I can, for instance, puzzle out what the characters are saying – and singing – in the classic French film, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (Lay Para-PLOOEYS duh SHARE-burg.) If you haven't seen this movie, I confess that it’s not exactly written by Albert Camus. Although, that would be interesting: Boy meets girl on beach in Cherbourg, Boy beats girl to death with umbrella (le parapluie) . . . on second thought, there’s probably no future for L’etranger de Cherbourg.

Another example would be my knowledge of nineteeth-century literature. Take Anna Karenina: I’ve never read it, but I have seen the film version several times and strongly believe that reading the novel would be a lesser experience if I didn't see Greta Garbo in my head. The same goes for Madame Bovary (Jennifer Jones) Pride and Prejudice (Greer Garson) and Moby Dick (no women – a complete waste.)

Is placebo scholarship as socially useful as the medical kind? No, but only because real scholarship, as they say, is not the cure for cancer. Look at higher education, it’s hardly changed since the Middle Ages. We still study some form of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric and logic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, astronomy and geometry) but with an overlay of British imperial training and the German mania for organization. None of which has anything even remotely to do with the way people learn. About the only thing that the modern university does well is serve as, in the words of Erik Erikson, a “psycho-social moratorium.” That is, it delays emotional maturity until society is able to absorb young adults into the labor pool. As such, however, it’s a wonderful laboratory for advancing sex, drugs and rock-and-roll and thoroughly deserves our heart-felt gratitude.

Thus, I’d like to welcome the scientist, Tor D. Wager, and everyone else to the ranks of placebo scholarship. It’s a cheap distinction, but not a small one.