FOREWORD FROM THE EDITORS: The Issue at Hand
This world is of a single piece; yet, we invent nets to trap it for our inspection. Then, we mistake our nets for the reality of the piece. In these nets, we catch the fishes of the intellect but the sea of wholeness forever eludes our grasp. So, we forget our original intent and then mistake the nets for the sea. Three of these nets we have named Nature, Mathematics, and Art. We conclude they are different because we call them by different names. Thus, they are apt to remain forever separated with nothing bonding them together. It is not the nets that are at fault but rather our misunderstanding of their function as nets. They do catch the fishes but never the sea, and it is the sea that we ultimately desire.
Martha Boles, Universal Patterns
When we first set out to make this issue, we were inspired by Yale’s 50WomenatYale150—a campus-wide celebration commemorating the 50th anniversary of coeducation in Yale College and the 150th anniversary of women students at the university.
Galvanized by its ethos, we aspired to celebrate diversity. We saw no better time than the present to advocate for the inclusion and consideration of marginalized communities in social, political, and environmental spheres, and to highlight the importance of interdisciplinary discourse in such efforts. Despite our ideas, however, summarizing these goals into one punchy theme proved difficult. Calling this our “diversity” issue never felt right. In fact, a “diversity” issue would counter the very notion we aimed to challenge—the idea that “diversity” is something that can be celebrated at a convenient time in Yale’s history, and go unnoticed until the next big anniversary reminded us of its value once more. Putting a name to this issue felt more restricting—and tokenizing—than liberating. As we sent out calls for pitches in September 2019, the “theme” of this issue always remained a vague, blurry cloud of potential topics—always, we made sure to note, open to additions and interpretation—rather than a sharp, punchy word.
We have our excellent writers and editors to thank for creating work that embodies this vague, blurry cloud of ideas. We think the diversity of their work speaks for itself. They reveal the harmful (and sometimes deadly) effects of Western models of mental healthcare and medical tourism, and invite us to imagine more culturally-conscious, sustainable practices. They advocate for an emphasis on responsible science communication and the need to tackle climate change with a unified, global effort. One author’s discussion of the biological underpinnings of multi-generational socioeconomic inequality provides excellent support for another author’s piece on what we lose when we value an education in one discipline over others. They ask us to think critically and be comfortable with contradiction: is the “overeducation” of women really the reason why marriage rates are declining? Is the university setting of an ethnic studies department at odds with its goals?
Our authors approach big questions through lenses of genetics, economics, public health, anthropology, environmental science, and politics. More than ever, it’s evident to us that, in order to engage meaningfully with the issues of today’s world, we need to accept that—like this issue—we cannot always define everything with a few simple words or a catchy, reassuring theme. The complex issues that the world faces require us to inhabit the vague, undefined spaces between traditional academic boundaries. We must recognize that such widespread, multidimensional problems might never come into full focus, and that parts of these problems may always remain blurry.
We hope you will join us in celebrating the diligence, effort, and dedication our DISTILLED team poured into this 2020 issue, and to welcome all the complexities and uncertainties their work has to offer.