ABSTRACT
Charles Darwin (1809-1881) has a deserved reputation as someone who knew how to hold his tongue. Discussing in his autobiography his tendency to delay publication, he explains how sixteen years passed between his first observations on sundews and the eventual book Insectivorous Plants. Such procrastination, he wrote, ‘has been a great advantage to me; for a man after a long interval can criticise his own work, almost as well as if it were that of another person’ (Neve and Messenger, 2002: p. 81). Significantly for the topic of this chapter, Darwin remembered also that those years of fruitful work began one summer when he was ‘idling and resting near Hartfield’ and noticed insects being trapped by the sticky plants (ibid.: p. 80). The suggestion is clear: by idling, he got an idea. Idling, delay and procrastination – and their virtues – form the organizing
theme of this chapter. As an umbrella term I shall use the term ‘quietude’, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘the state or condition of being quiet or calm’. My broad aim is to offer a perspective of Darwin that emphasizes his own interest in the quieter ways of science. As we shall see, Darwin’s ambitions to work steadily and without event were frequently thwarted. I will use his frustrations in this regard as a way of casting light on the contemporary and growing debate about the form, and especially the pressures, of the research life. We can sketch the matter thus: to judge by commentary on the research life, the academic resource of quietude has become an endangered species, if not yet completely extinct. Conversely, scratch any scientist – perhaps any researcher – and all will agree that the charming Darwinian moment quoted above, so clearly a well-judged moment of pause and refreshment, points to
an important truth. In the development of science, no-one should neglect the importance of lolling about. In the spirit of the theme, my argument is roundabout. The chapter is largely
a venture into some well-known byways of Darwinian mythology, foraging for insights into his undeniably contemplative sensibility. Yet the wider aim is to make these Darwinian selections gesture also to contemporary anxieties about speed and competitiveness in the research life. In short, if Darwin’s troubles drive this chapter, it is the anxieties of today’s researchers that provide the background hum. First, though, a word about the richly suggestive term ‘quietude’. In relation
to the academy, I invoke it here as a benign and generative style of work that stands in contrast to the rush to publish, to institutional exaggeration and to professional self-aggrandisement. Fortunately those particular vices, though so common as to seem the norm, do draw criticism. Blaise Cronin, editor of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, signals his unease this way: ‘At the risk of sounding like a fogey, there is something to be said for deliberative writing and deferred gratification … Perhaps what academia needs now is a Slow Writing movement akin to the Slow Food, Slow Cities movement’ (Cronin, 2013). For Cronin, it is haste that is the problem: ‘I am even more persuaded of
the need for both up-and-coming as well as established scholars to take their foot off the accelerator.’He sees an alarming degradation of quality. Manuscripts are written too quickly with little attention to bibliographic correctness and ‘junior scholars are now running like rats on a treadmill’ (ibid.). He quotes approvingly Anthony Grafton’s recommendation that ‘slow scholarship – like slow food – is deeper and richer and more nourishing than the fast stuff’ (Grafton, 2010), and he suggests that the daily fight to secure funding and priority is leading not only to poor work but also, occasionally, to chicanery. Nor is Cronin a lone voice here: his complaint that the benefits of steady scholarship are at risk from simpler, measurable forms of productivity joins a drumbeat of concern that is now quite assertive. In pushing Darwin forward as someone who can illuminate the current
debate about the culture of science, I am not suggesting that he was a scientific monk who can inspire us by his dogged isolation. On the contrary, the relevance to us of Darwin’s quietude lies in his ambivalent attitude: he might have enjoyed the silence of his study, but he was also ambitious, knew the value of communication and anxiously sought the approval of others. This mix very likely resonates too with the contemporary scholar and exploring such resonance is a major ambition of this chapter. As a retiring nineteenth-century country squire, Darwin could take steps only distantly possible or relevant for a scientist today (such as building an eight-foot wall in front of his house). Nevertheless, I shall argue that his almost constant struggle between the norms of scientific productivity and his personal style of doing science is highly instructive today. For quietude is a relative term, taking a position that contrasts with noise and excess. Darwin’s determination to preserve a kernel of silence, while still
maintaining a busy domestic and professional identity, provides, I will suggest, a thought-provoking model for today’s scientists. ‘Struggle’ is a highly appropriate word to apply to Darwin’s working life.
His was a somewhat turbulent character and his life was full of incident. He combined a desire simply to be left alone to pursue his work, with an acute watchfulness over how others viewed his ideas. And he was harried by any number of domestic demons, including worries about money, the upbringing of his children, and – particularly – ill health. Perhaps the best way to understand the significance of Darwin’s interest in quietude is this: that such peace and quiet that he did obtain did not come easily and was always the companion of stress and disturbance. Darwin did indeed construct an impressive fastness in the Kent countryside and he carefully moderated incursions from the outside world. But internal disruption, in the form of his noisy and numerous children, his rebellious gastro-intestinal system and his itchy skin, and his generally lively sensibility, would never allow him to settle down as a true contemplative. Even in death, with a village funeral and burial next to his dear brother Erasmus planned, large forces intervened: scientists and politicians, intellectuals and deans together achieved something quite different, a ceremony in Westminster Abbey. His wife and absolute confidante, Emma Darwin, missed the funeral, preferring to stay at home.
