Ceremony 7
Academic Oration
Wednesday 27 November 2013 at 1630hrs
JESUITS’ CHURCH – VALLETTA
Professor Martin R Zammit
B.A., B.A.(Hons), Ph.D.
Resisting the Call of the Siren
I am honoured to welcome you to this graduation ceremony, and equally honoured of having the opportunity to
address you on such an auspicious occasion.
“Your next encounter will be with the Sirens, who bewitch everybody that approaches them … For with the music
of their song the Sirens cast their spell … Drive your ship past the spot … if you wish to listen yourself, make
them bind you hand and foot on board and stand you up by the step of the mast… This will allow you to listen
with enjoyment to the twin Sirens’ voices.”1 Thus spoke the queenly goddess and enchantress Circe to Odysseus,
the “resourceful”, revealing to him the next stage of his eventful long journey.
Beware of the “Sirens”, then, and hold on firmly to the mast! In Greek mythology, these Sirens were female
creatures who lured and enchanted sailors with their most beautiful voices, causing them to shipwreck on the
Sirens’ island and be lost forever. Thus, the ‘siren song’ has come to mean the seductive appeal of something
which is potentially deceptive and dangerous.
In our time and age, we are surrounded by other kinds of ‘Sirens’, equally enticing and as dangerous as those
encountered by Odysseus. Their danger lies in their ability to catch us, very often, unawares and overwhelm us
completely, robbing us of one of our most precious mental functions, namely concentration. The much-dreaded
creatures I have in mind are nothing but the innumerable enticing distractions which implacably attack us from all
quarters, at all times, depriving us of the possibility to concentrate on the task we have at hand. Perhaps no other
period in human history has been so much characterized by such a relentless onslaught of distractions than our
postmodern age. It is to this phenomenon, and to the need to recover concentration, that I shall dedicate this
oration, particularly because of its relevance to all of us here present.
The English scientist Michael Faraday included concentration among the five essential entrepreneurial skills for
success; the other four being discrimination, organization, innovation and communication. On his part, Charles
Dickens once said: “I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and
diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.” These eloquent maxims go a
long way in stressing the need for concentration. It is the key to excellence in all fields of human activity in
general, and in the academic realm in particular. That is because nothing of scholarly value is possible without
proper concentration, which is only achieved when the right mental and physical conditions prevail. Alas, how
rare this mental commodity has become in our chaotic Communication Age!
One has to have a very resilient character to be able to claim that he or she are immune to distractions. We simply
cannot avoid them. Winston Churchill once compared distractions to barking dogs, saying “You will never reach
your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” This is the problem facing us: sometimes we
are unable to perceive our destinations because we have to ‘attend to’ a number of distractions, most of which carry
the label ‘Urgent’!
Academic duties include lecturing, researching, publishing, attending conferences, sitting on committees, and
performing administrative tasks. Obviously, lecturing entails long hours of preparation, whereas research demands
familiarity with new publications in one’s areas of specialization, and, above all, a good amount of reading. These
academic activities, if taken seriously, involve a tremendous amount of time and effort.
Students are in no better position, as they have to negotiate the tortuous labyrinth of ‘main areas of study’,
‘secondary areas of study’, ‘optional study-units’, and ‘electives’. Perhaps one could reconsider the worthiness of
the present academic programmes at the Faculty of Arts, based as they are on students’ exposure to multiple
disciplines. Although such a system does have its undeniable benefits, it does tend to fragment the students’
intellectual energies, possibly hindering their progress in the area of study they are most interested in.
When these academic pursuits are combined with the exigencies of one’s personal life, one is left wondering
whether there is enough time and energy left to cope, both physically and mentally. It is at this point that one
realizes that too many ‘sirens’ are calling, and one ought to hold even tighter to the ‘mast’ of personal equilibrium
and trace a clear course towards the ultimate goal.
For the past few decades, academic life has been plagued by an obnoxious trend which emerged from America
and quickly spread to much of the Western World, namely the ‘Publish or Perish’ syndrome. Its obvious
consequence has been that ‘quantity’, not ‘quality’, has become the yardstick for academic advancement.
Consequently, publishers, even well-established ones, do not hesitate to put on the market premature publications
which, either have nothing new to say, or else consist of outright rehashing of previously published material.
Needless to say that economic factors also conspire to enhance this trend and render it even more dangerous. It has
become extremely difficult to keep abreast with the plethora of new publications in one’s area of specialization – a
huge ‘distraction’ in their own right - much of which are the product of the ‘publish or perish’ frenzy. We
seriously need to exercise restraint and resist falling victim to this sterile trend in academic life. One ought, rather,
to rediscover the pleasant discipline of calm pondering and drafting of one’s research, submitting it for publication
only when it is mature. Ideally, one would need to redesign the academic calendar in such a way as to allow both
academics and students to have more time at their disposal to assimilate, mull over and finalize their research and
studies. Very often, one lamentably postpones this essential academic exercise to the Christmas or Easter recesses,
or else to the hot summer holidays. Having enough time at one’s disposal is as precious as research funding itself.
Only in this manner will academics and students alike be able to produce scholarly output of high standards, thus
keeping our academic auditors happy, and the quality of our services assured.
One of the aspects of academic life which I find most distressingly distracting is the period which intervenes
between the writing of a scholarly article and its actual publication in a periodical or in a book. At times, four, five
or even more years pass before the author actually sees the fruit of his research finally published. It often happens
that publishers, one fine day, come back to you, pretending that you proofread your work by a certain deadline –
by the way, deadlines only bind authors, not publishers. This unexpected communication from the publisher
catches you completely unawares, at a time when one is totally out of touch with one’s piece of research prepared
three or four years before. At this point, one has to abandon all on-going jobs and do the necessary proofreading.
Once again, overwhelmed by this umpteen distraction, one cannot help feeling absolutely incapable of bringing
some organization to his or her work schedule.
Matters become ‘distractions’ when they divert our attention to things of secondary importance. It is not easy to
ignore, or elude, the call of the Information Technology ‘sirens’ which pervade our lives. Nowadays, academics
and students are expected, understandably, to be competent in numerous Information Technology skills which are
certainly beneficial to their overall professional development, and our University is investing heavily in this
direction. The ever-growing list of proficiencies, and the workshops which go with them, is a daunting one and
includes ECDL, Word processing, spreadsheets, powerpoint presentations, the Virtual Learning Environment,
Turnitin, Ref Works, and so on. At the departmental level one is also expected to manage the departmental
website and facebook page. And what should we say about e-mailing, ‘voicing-over-internet’, and the social
networks which are wreaking havoc on our daily schedules? Aren’t these new forms of enticing ‘sirens’? This
cyber hyperactivity is taking its heavy toll of our mental energies, severly hampering our concentration and focus
on the things we, academics and students, are expected to carry out in a scholarly fashion. We were promised that
Information Technology would make our lives easier! Is that really the case? Aren’t we hopelessly overwhelmed
by too much information, by too many distractions, by too much noise? No wonder that Pope Francis himself felt
the need to dedicate his general intention for the month of September to the value of silence, praying that [quote]
‘... people today, often overwhelmed by noise, may rediscover the value of silence and listen to the voice of God
and their brothers and sisters.’ [Unquote] It is only when we recover our mental peace and balance, and fully focus
our attention on the task at hand, that we perform best. Christopher Columbus was much aware of distractions and
stated that: “By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at one’s chosen goal or
destination.” – even though in Colombus’s case, he ended up on the other side of the globe!
Resisting distractions is a discipline which needs to be mustered concurrently with the other ‘disciplines’ offered
at our University. The more we resist distractions, the more time we can dedicate to what the Germans call
Sitzfleisch (literally ‘bottom flesh’), that is: the ‘power to endure, or to persevere, in an activity’. The secret
behind Georges Simenon’s prolificity – the Belgian author of more than two hundred novels – lies in his total
immersion in writing, finishing a novel in about eleven days. Time-management constitutes an integral element in
resisting distractions. Very often, it is important to politely decline a request, or invitation, which entails further
involvement in new commitments which rob precious time and concentration from the on-going projects.
Concentration is an indispensable prerequisite for the successful outcome of all our endeavours. This evening, we
are joined, amongst others, by a number of graduands who have finished there study programme in interpreting
and translation. They know perfectly well that, apart from their linguistic proficiency, a primary element in their
profession is concentration. A transversal thought, or other distraction, assailing the interpreter during
interpretation could have fatal consequences. The same can be said about other professions.
In my opinion, it is very important that academics and students recover the prerequisite psychological serenity
which is conducive to higher levels of academic creativity. Then we could happily join our voice to that of the
19th c. English poet Matthew Arnold who, in his poem ‘The Scholar Gypsy’ yearned for a time:
‘When wits were fresh and clear,
And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;
Before this strange disease of modern life,
With its sick hurry, its divided aims.’ 2
But alas, it is highly likely that favourable conditions of work, characterised by total concentration on the job at
hand, are nothing more but elusive mirages. The famous English novelist, essayist, poet, literary critic, academic,
and lay theologian C.S. Lewis, in his address entitled “Learning in War-Time”, had this to say about favourable
conditions of work: “We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting
ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or
other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want
knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never
come.”3
At this juncture, we might realize that there is little we can do against the distracting ‘sirens’. But it is worth
catching up again with the epical Odysseus who, unable to avoid the enticing sirens, remained tightly bound to the
mast of his vessel and sailed on towards his much-desired Ithaca. So long as we are firmly in control of our lives,
we shall overcome whatever distractions and difficulties are confronting us and see our efforts crowned with the
much-deserved success.
Finally, I congratulate you, dear graduands, on your success in your post-graduate studies. Your motivation, hard
work and commitment have come to fruition. May you resist, as much as possible, the ‘call of the Siren’ and find
fulfilment and happiness in your professional and personal lives.
Notes
1
Homer, The Odyssey, tr. By E.V. Rieu, Penguin Books, 1976, p. 190.
2
From: Keith Thomas’ ‘Universities under attack’: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n24/keith-thomas/universitiesunder-attack
3
Address given at Oxford University Church of St Mary the Virgin, October 22, 1939.