Jack Leahy | Senior Editor
TED isn’t going to destroy the world, but it is having a lasting impact on how we interrogate ideas. The news that student societies – the Society for International Affairs chief among them – are beginning to adopt the TED approach as a model for undergraduate innovation is deeply concerning, given the extent to which that model conflicts with robust academia and actual innovation.
The videos are weirdly artificial, yet are some of the most watched in the short history of web-only video. There is a formula: the speaker recounts a personal struggle with established modes of inquiry. He or she takes inspiration from an epiphany, usually a parable from the creative arts, to declare a vision that will change humanity. It is as if all the pieces of the puzzle are in the box, but humanity is now enlightened as to how best to arrange them.
The videos aren’t given star ratings. Instead you have to rate them by checking words from a list: ‘jaw-dropping’, ‘persuasive’, ‘courageous’, ‘fascinating’, ‘beautiful’ and an array of similarly vapid adjectives. The camerawork and stage management worship the speaker. The crowd acts as a single, helpful entity akin to the studio audience for Everybody Loves Raymond: laughing, awwing, standing to ovate and whooping on cue.
TED treats thought like American Idol treats music.
The problem with the haughty and evangelical approach of TED Talks is that the voice of scepticism is discarded. The environment of prompted response is not one that supports meaningful or spontaneous interrogation. Instead, speakers mindlessly parrot ‘fascinating’ ideas without challenge. There are no questions here: in the cult of TED, everything is awesome and inspirational, and ideas aren’t meant to be challenged. Visionaries, as the change-drivers of our society, should be commended, not interrogated by mere intellectual mortals.
This is the same current of ideology that inspired the Provost to declare that he wants every student to be an entrepreneur. Vapid, meaninglessly universal designations like ‘inspired’, ‘innovative’, ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘creativity’ are the paragon of aspiration for anyone who’s anyone in the conference-going, technological crowd.
Of course, our society’s ills run deeper than a simple lack of innovators. If anything, an excessive respect for the freedom of enterprise has spawned a culture in which traditional academic activity – seen as uninspiring, stuffy, and all too concerned with old-school things like peer review – is undervalued. Talking blandly about the future is cheap and evasive and doesn’t need a firm grounding. It just needs to not have been said already. TED effectively treats thought like American Idol treats music.
In the cult of TED, everything is awesome and inspirational, and ideas aren’t meant to be challenged.
Consider this: the third most popular TED video, at the time of writing, is a 2009 exhibition of a ‘paradigm-shifting’ technology. The presenter, on this evidence, was labelled ‘one of the best two or three inventors out there’. The discrepancy between the fanfare enjoyed by ‘Sixthsense’ in its TED Talk and the impact of the product is stark, illustrating the absolute primacy of presentation in this mode of dialogue. It is peculiar indeed.
Ultimately, the TED phenomenon only makes sense when you realise that it’s all about the audience. TED Talks are designed to make people feel good about themselves, to flatter them and make them feel clever and knowledgeable, to give them the impression that they’re part of an elite group making the world a better place.
People buy in to TED for much the same reason they passively partake in certain societies: it gives them a chance to label themselves part of an intellectual elite. Actual intelligence is optional, and you need only to talk a certain language of inspiration to get into the conferences and networking events. This simply adds to the irresistible allure – but ultimately talk is cheap.
Illustration by Ella Rowe for The University Times.
