David Peat

Re-envisioning the Planet 169In September 2000 I was responsible for putting together aroundtable meeting of academics from a variety of countries and disciplinesto reflect on the future of knowledge, education, and the universities.The general conclusion we reached was that, in the main,universities no longer fulfill their role as centers where experts from awide variety of fields can debate and discuss ideas together. The externalpressures placed on the universities have compromised their abilityto do free and high-quality research. This is particularly true of theso-called orchid disciplines; those subjects and areas that do not guaranteeimmediate and practical return.The participants felt that academics should have an unwritten contractwith the future—to provide an education that will open youngpeople’s horizons, educate, and inform them, and so produce morerounded individuals.What can replace the universities? Maybe smaller formal and informalacademies 1 where people could gather together and debate, butthese too could have their drawbacks, for they will always be in dangerof falling into the same traps as the universities. When we see even the1Academies are often loosely knit, informal groups where people can come togetherto exchange ideas, stimulate, and challenge each other. The supreme exampleis the Platonic Academy that flowered in Renaissance Florence under Marsilio Ficinoand the patronage of Lorenzo di Medici. It was located in a villa in the hills above thecity where philosophers, poets, and artists (of the caliber of Michelangelo) couldmeet in a collegial way. The same function was served by the salons of nineteenthcentury France.Black Mountain College in North Carolina was a catalytic center of exchange inart, music, and literature during the early 1950s. It was there that the poets RobertCreeley and Charles Olson experimented with a freer, although disciplined, approachto poetry, and through the Black Mountain Review gathered together those of similarminds such as Alan Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams, and Gary Snyder. The BlackMountain center was also where the composer John Cage met the artist RobertRauschenberg. The two were to exert a strong mutual influence on their respectivearts.The author is at present attempting to create an academy in the small village ofPari, Italy, where he lives. The Accademia dei Pari is a group of artists, psychologists,and academics who meet from time to time to discuss our contemporary society andits values.