The phrase "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations", or IDIC for short, is the foundation of the Vulcan philosophy of life that symbolize "the elements that create truth and beauty" from the tv show Star Trek. Their symbol for this philosophy is an off centered triangle overlapping a circle that looks like this:
50% of all students across all fields fail to complete the dissertation they start, and the number of Latinos who earn a doctorate is less than 10% in 2021. The numbers were worse in 2016 when I walked the stage in my fancy viceroy looking robe. So yeah, it felt special, a small bit because so many of my sci-fi heroes were scholars or accomplished academics. To be honest the only person who could have graduated from the Vulcan Science Academy in my family was my father. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northern Arizona University with degrees in Chemistry and Microbiology, and probably could have gone on to do graduate work if he didn't invest his graduate funding into feeding three sons.
On the day of our graduation many of my classmates were wearing sashes expressing their representation and pride in their ethnic, geographic, historic, and familial heritage, which was really friggin cool. I was less compelled to do so. It wasn't for lack of pride; I loved being up there getting my stripes and being hooded, rocking my last name and repping a lot of brown kids who don't get the same opportunities I did. But the Vulcan patch for me felt even more aspirational than honorific. Here was a Mexican kid from South Sacramento getting a doctorate and all he could think about was how it brought him a sense of connection to the kind of higher education academy that Spock belonged to. I'm a Star Trek nerd like my dad was, and the idea of joining Starfleet and kicking it with Dr. McCoy and the explorers on a starship, embracing the same spirit of making the cosmos a better place, through promoting the humanities, science, inquiry, curiosity, and ethics....Dude. Shoot that reality (fantasy) into my veins!
As impressive or signifying as a credential like a doctorate can be, it is first and foremost a toolbox to be applied towards a higher level of problem solving, and towards expanding knowledge. Problem solving for the public good and expanding knowledge are laudable endeavors whose value transcend eras of human history. From Pythagoras theorem in math to Bell Biv Devoe's discovery to never trust a big butt and a smile, knowledge discovered and formulated then shared has shaped all of our lives.
But as Michael Shermer once observed, humans are pattern seeking story telling animals who are quite adept at telling stories about patterns whether they exist or not. Even knowledge created by doctorate holding scholars reflects the stories we tell about patterns from the societies and communities we live in. Command of these stories, of narratives, and critical examination and awareness of our narratives has been as important (nay influential) as any knowledge formulated and shared.
All that to say that the narratives we live in, the good ones, the powerful ones, the subtle ones, are all possibly bullshit. Even my brown kid who loves Star Trek and wants to be on the USS Enterprise fantasy, rooted in aspiration and education, family and history, and human potential has a pile of bullshit in its orbit. How??? Well, it's exclusionary (a very human centered organization with a lot of white men in leadership), it's very very didactic in terms of ethics (that it routinely flaunts) which are enforced by a massive military, and very biased against different non-humanoid life forms. And it's essentially the UN in space versus everyone else who looks evil and threatening (like the Klingons, Cardassians, the Breen, the Jem'Hadar, the Gorn, the Romulans, the Dominion, the Borg...). It's very patriarchal, even in space.
But these are all narratives. Pick one, or a few, just know that you are formally picking a deliberate story about how it all works and how you fit into the story. Base it in your values, and go out into the world and play the song in your heart. IDIC is part of mine. So is Ellington, Los Lobos, Bertrand Russell, bell hooks, Ella Baker, Hannah Arendt, Public Enemy, Richard Davis, Donald Byrd, The Beatles, Andrew DelBanco, Mike Davis, Franz Fanon, John Sayles, Sarah Vaughan, Art Blakey, Sarek, Spock, every student I ever helped, and dozens of others. As a Vulcan philosopher once said:
"I am pleased to see that we are different. May we together be more than the sum of our parts."
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