1. There is a sad state of affairs amongst Zimbabweans and Zimbabwean academics. I feel like we constrain ourselves and reduce the extent to which we can excel because we place petty issues over intellectual reciprocity.
2. Zimbo academics I have interacted with only value other disciplines and professions as far as those professions benefit them. You have geographers asking what use is a biologist or philosopher to him/her.
3. We look down on each others vocations and spend countless hours trying to outshine and belittle each others work to the extent that our professions end up being about how good we are vs the other.
4. When we were in our undergrad program and we were part of the College of Health Sciences we would ridicule those who were doing arts, BA was nicknamed Being Around, Vet Medicine was called Mbichimbwa etc. In short we saw no intrinsic value in other disciplines.
5. I remember having with a chat with some guy who had a PhD in economic history and as I told him that I was an Anatomist he retorted that he always saw no purpose for anatomy at the university😂...the guy was literally a whole PhD holder.
6. Universities grew out of schools formed by Philosophers...I saw someone on some tweet saying we only need engineering and sciences to turn around the economy, it is sad that despite our famed literacy we can be really obtuse! It is philosophy that birthed logic and law.
7. When men started asking questions about how the world worked, it was philosophy that inspired men and women to ask fundamental questions that birthed the physics, astronomy, biology etc. This is why a PhD has a "philosophy" component...a new way of thinking.
8. We must stop this habit of being overly bombastic about "what discipline Zim needs the most", it is just madness. We have lost decades of development in all areas we need every discipline. We need EVERYONE.
9. CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technique was "stolen" form how bacteria fight of viruses, today we are using it in trying to cure some diseases and reverse faulty genetics, we use it to study the role of different genes in development and function of different systems.
10. Today there is a billion dollar company which is called CRISPR therapeutics which is set to revolutionaries the way genetic diseases are treated. Imagine if someone somewhere had decided that funding research into bacteria was not as valuable as engineering!
11. My brother, sister, mother, father or whatever class you fall under, if you cannot see the value in exploratory and artistic disciplines, the fault is not the discipline, it is you my friend. You are the one with the problem..
12. Let the kids learn about thorax and abdomen of a locust, if your brain does not allow you to see value in that move on, it is not your area, one day those kids will make a new type of biodegradable packaging from locust skin.
13. Let those who are interested in the arts do that, one day they will memorialize all that we have gone through as a society through theatre and screen. We must avoid thinking that only one discipline can solve and contribute to the nations' growth.
14. We need people who can translate what the engineers think and package it for public consumption, we need those in the humanities to help us deconstruct our hypocrisy as a society, we need those in law to help us navigate our situation. Every discipline matters!
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