Having successfully imprinted upon an adult, the juvenile faces a new problem.
It must find others like itself.
This is not as straightforward as it sounds.
The young Homo academicus has already acquired a conceptual vocabulary, a set of intellectual preferences and, in many cases, an emerging conviction that certain things are important.
But the tertiary environment is densely populated.
Everywhere it looks, there are other juveniles.
Some are interested in things the animal has never heard of.
Some use unfamiliar words.
Some appear to believe that the things it has been taught are important are not important at all.
A period of considerable uncertainty follows.
The juvenile must learn to distinguish between difference and deviance.
This is the beginning of herd formation.
Recognising One's Own Kind
In the early stages, juveniles appear remarkably indiscriminate.
They will talk to almost anyone.
They may sit beside a student from another discipline.
They may attend an unfamiliar seminar.
They may even read a book recommended by someone they have only just met.
These behaviours tend to decline with age.
As the juvenile becomes more strongly imprinted, it develops increasingly sophisticated methods for recognising members of its own population.
The process begins with language.
A juvenile hears another animal say:
"I'm interested in the relationship between..."
It listens carefully.
Another says:
"We need to think about this historically."
The juvenile becomes alert.
A third says:
"I'm coming at this from a more materialist perspective."
The juvenile now knows that it has encountered a member of a recognisable population.
The words themselves are less important than the signals they carry.
The animals are saying:
I see the world in a way you will recognise.
The Academic Accent
Members of the same population gradually develop a common vocal repertoire.
This is known as the Academic Accent.
The accent does not necessarily involve pronunciation.
It is an accent of thought.
Members of one population may habitually say:
"This raises the question of..."
Members of another:
"We need to situate..."
Another:
"The problem is that this assumes..."
And another:
"What I'm interested in is..."
The expressions are perfectly ordinary.
Their distribution is not.
Researchers have discovered that experienced observers can sometimes identify an academic population from a single sentence.
The method is currently being refined.
The First Recognition
The moment when two juveniles discover that they belong to the same intellectual population is often subtle.
One says the name of an author.
The other pauses.
A moment of recognition passes between them.
"You've read them?"
"Yes."
The animals are now socially connected.
The author has functioned as a recognition signal.
The same phenomenon occurs with concepts.
A juvenile mentions a distinction.
Another responds:
"Exactly."
This may be the beginning of a lifelong intellectual relationship.
It may also be the beginning of a research centre.
Herd Formation
Once sufficient numbers of juveniles recognise one another, aggregation begins.
The animals gather in cafés, seminars, reading groups and corridors.
They exchange information.
They recommend books.
They complain about other departments.
They discover that they have the same intellectual enemies.
This last feature is especially important.
Nothing binds a herd more efficiently than the discovery that another herd is wrong.
Researchers have therefore identified shared opposition as one of the principal mechanisms of academic cohesion.
The young animals may initially have very little in common.
But if all agree that a particular theoretical position is inadequate, a social bond rapidly develops.
The animals have discovered a boundary.
The Formation of the School
A sufficiently stable herd eventually acquires a name.
This marks a major developmental transition.
The group may now describe itself as:
a school;
a tradition;
a movement;
an approach;
a perspective;
a community;
or, in more advanced cases, a conversation.
The terminology varies.
The ecological function is remarkably consistent.
The herd has become capable of identifying itself.
It now possesses something resembling collective plumage.
Shared Plumage
Academic plumage is initially acquired from individual adults.
As herd formation proceeds, it becomes communal.
Members begin using the same terms.
They cite the same authors.
They ask similar questions.
They display similar forms of scepticism.
They may even develop common preferences concerning the proper pronunciation of foreign names.
This is not merely imitation.
The animals are signalling mutual recognition.
A mature specimen can enter a room containing several hundred academics and immediately identify its own kind.
It may do so without knowing any of their names.
It has learned to recognise the plumage.
Citation Grooming
Once a herd has formed, citation becomes increasingly important.
Members cite one another.
This serves an obvious intellectual purpose.
It also serves a social one.
A citation communicates:
I know you.
Repeated citation communicates:
We know one another.
A dense network of citations therefore provides a form of social grooming.
Researchers have observed that young animals who receive citations from established members of a herd may become more confident in their social position.
Conversely, prolonged absence from the citation network may produce signs of distress.
In severe cases, the animal begins publishing papers entitled:
"Rethinking the Literature."
The causes of this behaviour remain unclear.
The Citation Circle
In some populations, citation grooming becomes highly organised.
Several mature specimens cite one another with sufficient regularity that an outsider might mistake the process for coincidence.
Field researchers call this a Citation Circle.
Members of the circle appear to benefit from mutual recognition.
The behaviour is not considered unusual.
However, when the same behaviour occurs in non-human species, researchers sometimes use the term mutual grooming.
This terminological difference has not been adequately explained.
The Juvenile's First Conference
Eventually, the young animal is permitted to leave the local herd.
It travels.
This is known as academic migration.
The destination is usually a conference.
The juvenile arrives carrying a bag containing:
a laptop;
several charging cables;
a notebook;
a conference programme;
and a level of uncertainty that it hopes will not be detected.
The habitat is unfamiliar.
Hundreds of mature and juvenile animals are present.
The juvenile scans the room.
Then it hears a familiar term.
It turns.
There are others.
The herd is larger than previously imagined.
This can be an emotionally significant moment.
The juvenile discovers that the local population is not the whole species.
There is a world beyond the department.
The Conference Call
At conferences, the animals use increasingly elaborate recognition signals.
A specimen may approach another and ask:
"What are you working on?"
This appears to be a request for information.
In practice, it performs several functions simultaneously.
It identifies intellectual territory.
It establishes social position.
It tests for compatibility.
And, occasionally, it determines whether the other animal is worth talking to for the next forty minutes.
The response is carefully calibrated.
"I'm working on something around..."
This is usually followed by a phrase broad enough to permit further conversation but specific enough to establish territory.
The exchange is a form of social mapping.
The Outsider
Not all juveniles find a herd immediately.
Some remain socially unclassified.
They may have interests that cross several populations.
Their vocabulary is mixed.
Their citations are unpredictable.
They attend seminars belonging to different herds.
They may say things like:
"I think both sides have a point."
This is considered concerning.
The animal has failed to display sufficient territorial commitment.
Researchers have identified this condition as interdisciplinary drift.
It can persist for years.
Some individuals eventually recover.
Others become deans.
The Herd and the Individual
The formation of a herd produces a curious psychological effect.
The juvenile becomes more confident.
It now knows what it is interested in.
It knows whom to read.
It knows whom to cite.
It knows which arguments are sophisticated.
It knows which arguments are naïve.
It knows which conferences matter.
Most importantly, it knows that other animals agree.
This is highly stabilising.
The animal no longer has to construct its intellectual world from scratch.
The herd has already done much of the work.
It provides a map of relevance.
The juvenile can now move through the conceptual environment with confidence.
The Map of Relevance
This map is rarely written down.
No mature specimen says:
"Here is a complete list of things that count as interesting."
Instead, the map is inferred from behaviour.
Certain questions receive attention.
Others do not.
Certain authors appear repeatedly.
Others disappear.
Some distinctions are treated as fundamental.
Others are regarded as naïve.
A juvenile learns these differences through participation.
Eventually it becomes difficult to remember which ones were learned.
The map begins to feel natural.
The Problem of Excessive Similarity
Herd formation has obvious advantages.
It also carries risks.
If members of a population spend too much time together, their conceptual plumage can become increasingly homogeneous.
Their questions converge.
Their preferred explanations converge.
Their references converge.
Eventually, a disturbing phenomenon may occur.
The animals begin to agree.
About almost everything.
This produces a state known as conceptual overgrazing.
The herd has consumed most of the available distinctions within its territory.
New questions become difficult to find.
At this point, the animals may respond in one of two ways.
They may migrate.
Or they may invent a new distinction.
The second response is much more common.
The Birth of a Distinction
A new distinction can have enormous ecological consequences.
Suppose one juvenile notices that two things previously treated as identical are not quite the same.
It says:
"I think we need to distinguish between..."
The herd falls silent.
This is a dangerous moment.
A new distinction has appeared.
Other animals examine it.
Some adopt it.
Some reject it.
Others say that they have been making the distinction for years.
If enough animals adopt it, the conceptual territory changes.
A new form of plumage becomes available.
The juvenile who introduced it may become an adult.
And the distinction may eventually become part of the inherited vocabulary of the population.
Intellectual Mutation
Not every new distinction survives.
Some disappear almost immediately.
Others reproduce rapidly.
A successful distinction may appear in papers, conference titles, research proposals and doctoral dissertations.
Eventually, juveniles may encounter it without knowing who first introduced it.
At this stage the distinction has become culturally endogenous.
It belongs to the herd.
Researchers have compared the process to mutation and selection.
The analogy is not universally accepted.
A committee has been established to investigate it.
The Boundary Call
As populations mature, they develop ways of identifying outsiders.
One of the most effective is the Boundary Call.
A specimen hears an unfamiliar argument and responds:
"That's a rather different way of framing the issue."
This may sound welcoming.
It is not necessarily so.
The phrase can indicate that the speaker has detected a conceptual trespass.
Other Boundary Calls include:
"I'm not sure that literature is directly relevant here."
"That's not really how we would formulate the problem."
"I think we're using the term differently."
These signals are rarely aggressive in form.
Their function is to maintain the boundary.
The Strange Peace of the Herd
Despite frequent boundary disputes, neighbouring populations rarely destroy one another.
They coexist.
They attend one another's conferences.
They cite one another occasionally.
They serve together on committees.
They even describe one another as colleagues.
The arrangement is remarkably stable.
The reason may be that each population requires the others to define itself.
A herd knows what it is partly because it knows what it is not.
Thus the presence of other populations is not merely tolerated.
It is ecologically useful.
The rival herd provides a boundary against which identity can be maintained.
The Mature Herd
Eventually the juvenile ceases to think of itself as a juvenile.
It has acquired plumage.
It has acquired a territory.
It has acquired a network.
It has acquired a history.
And it has acquired something even more valuable:
a population to which it belongs.
The animal now possesses enough confidence to begin reproducing.
It can recommend books.
It can supervise students.
It can introduce concepts.
It can tell juveniles which questions are interesting.
The herd has successfully transformed the uncertain young animal into a mature specimen.
But something else has happened.
The animal has learned not merely what to think about.
It has learned with whom to think.
This may be the herd's most important function.
As evening falls, the animals begin to disperse.
Some return to their offices.
Others gather in cafés.
A few remain in seminar rooms, still arguing about a distinction that has occupied the population for several decades.
The juveniles listen.
The adults speak.
Across the habitat, familiar calls can be heard.
"Exactly."
"That's what I've been arguing."
"Yes, but..."
"I'm not sure I agree."
The herd is settling for the night.
Tomorrow, it will begin again.
And somewhere among the juveniles, one animal is about to encounter an idea that will make it look differently at the world.
It may belong to this herd.
It may leave it.
Or, perhaps most dangerously of all,
it may begin to wonder whether there are other herds.
Next week: Episode IV — Courtship and Display
In which the mature animals begin to exhibit their plumage, compete for attention and resources, and gather in large seasonal aggregations known as conferences.
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