{"id":6759,"date":"2024-10-24T20:23:59","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T19:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/?p=6759"},"modified":"2024-10-24T20:23:59","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T19:23:59","slug":"mary-wollstonecrafts-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/2024\/10\/24\/mary-wollstonecrafts-wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Wollstonecraft’s Wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

I came to Mary Wollstonecraft late, as it were, not even having come across her name until relatively recently. Perhaps that is a shameful admission, but I think she has become much more visible of late, not least due to a variety of interesting books. For me, my first introduction was via Clare Tomalin\u2019s biography (The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft<\/a>), via Charlotte Gordon\u2019s Romantic Outlaws <\/a>(covering the lives both of Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley), through the relevant parts of Richard Holmes\u2019 Sidetracks<\/a> and just now concluding with Bee Rowlatt\u2019s In Search of Mary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This last is less a biography of Wollstonecraft, more an exploration of how her intentions and views back then might translate into the 21st<\/sup> century. Some of what was radical at the time (for instance, calling on a man without a chaperone) hasn\u2019t stood the test of time as revolutionary, but other aspects of her life and her clarion call for equality are still highly relevant and as important as ever. How does one make a better society? Well, we\u2019d all like the answer to that one and the answer is as elusive as ever. One central part of the answer Rowlatt comes up with, having talked to what felt at times during reading like a random selection of people ranging from witches to librarians, with many stops in between, is to \u2018pick up the pieces of trash that land in your path\u2019.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure readers of my blog all want to do their bit about making the world a better place, but it can feel an impossible challenge. Furthermore, it can also feel \u2013 to my mind at least \u2013 as if the bit one does do doesn\u2019t compare with what your neighbour is doing (assuming you have a nice neighbour). By this I mean it\u2019s all too easy to feel that you\u2019re not doing enough because someone you know is doing more\/bigger\/better things\/ in wider spheres, and you just feel inadequate. It\u2019s important to remember, and I will do my best to do so when feeling low and as if I\u2019m no longer (as a retired professor) making enough of a contribution, that all one can do is \u2018pick up the pieces of trash that land in your path\u2019. In other words, however many challenges or problems you know surround you, you can only do so much but doing that \u2013 whatever it may be \u2013 is still worth doing.<\/p>\n

People ask me regularly what my post-retirement plans are. As yet, I don\u2019t know the full answer, although pieces of the jigsaw may be coming together. Those who follow me on social media will know that I\u2019ve recently been appointed as Chair of the Department for Education\u2019s Science Advisory Council<\/a>. The Council hasn\u2019t met yet, so I can\u2019t give away any secrets about what we\u2019re going to be doing, but I\u2019m sure bringing a more explicit science grouping within the ambit of DfE can only be a good thing. I thoroughly enjoyed my earlier stint <\/a>as chair of the equivalent council for DCMS, where the challenge of bringing a diverse group of experts together to make progress on pressing problems I found intensely interesting and also satisfying. Now I\u2019m no longer Master of a college, I can admit that I find such committees more appealing than those, however vital, more concerned with formal governance, of which I have chaired many over the past decade.<\/p>\n

In the spirit of the earlier paragraphs, though, I will say that I was very touched by the colleague who responded to my tweet about taking on this role by saying \u2018You never stop serving, never stop inspiring!\u2019. I didn\u2019t take up the role either to serve or inspire in any conscious way. I just felt this was a job that was worth doing and that I thought I had the experience to be good at. Sometimes one does things from a sense of duty, and sometimes for personal satisfaction. It is excellent when those two coincide.<\/p>\n

I am surprised to find my diary getting quite full with different small tasks, conversations or visits. Not really roles as such, but actions that feel as if they might make a difference to someone or something and also keep my brain in gear. It is nice to feel I have time to read interesting reports that appear, it feels, on a daily basis, about education, skills or innovation (all of which come together in the recently published Industrial Strategy Green Paper<\/a>, even if I feel that coming together and coherence isn\u2019t always obvious in that document, which highlights skills early on, and then says little about them thereafter). But there is also still a lot of work to do settling into our newly refurbished house and I need to leave time for such domesticity. For the last ten years we\u2019ve been spoiled by living in the equivalent of a \u2018tied cottage\u2019, with the College taking responsibility for the usual tedious issues of leaks or hot water systems failing. Now it\u2019s down to us.<\/p>\n

There is much to consider in this rebalancing of my life, but I need to hold on to that zest for living that Wollstonecraft showed during her sadly short life, and remember that each of us can only do so much to make the world a better place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I came to Mary Wollstonecraft late, as it were, not even having come across her name until relatively recently. Perhaps that is a shameful admission, but I think she has become much more visible of late, not least due to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,4],"tags":[541,1647,392],"class_list":["post-6759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-careers","category-equality","tag-retirement","tag-roles","tag-skills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6760,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6759\/revisions\/6760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}