the darkest side of academia that the dark academia genre exhibits to me is the ivory tower. the superiority complex. the snobbery. deluding yourself that you are superior to other human beings because of your accumulated information, information used as justification to behave with contempt.
i’ve recently read the brilliant The Secret History by Donna Tartt, a staple book of the dark academia genre, and what marked me was the contempt with which the exceptionally intelligent group of main characters treated everything: from the people around them to technological advancements and innovations in any field which was not theirs (namely, the classics).
i’ve been contemplating that, personally, i am not interested in knowledge that cuts me off from the world. i am interested in knowledge that enhances every facet of my experience of the world. i am interested in knowledge that deepens my connection to myself and to the people i encounter. the moment knowledge instils a sense of superiority, elitism, and exclusivity, to me that is not knowledge. that is a trap of the illusion of knowledge.
the trap will come, and i’ve seen it in me plenty: at our core, we are meaning-making machines and our identity is built on separation, comparison and rejection. the mind will feed into the making of identity any information it gathers. but ultimately we are not slaves to it. when the allure of superiority peeks its head, it can be deconstructed – not from a place of fear or shame, but from a place of understanding and gentleness. that is knowledge to me. what excludes that, to me, is accumulation of information.
i love reading dark academia books because they mirror back to me my ingrained patterns (such as fascination with exclusivity; exclusive teachings, teachers such as Julian Morrow – writing an article on him at the moment!) & the many traps paving the / my way.
amaryllis 