The Extended Learning Universe

The story so far – a new ecosystem of learning is emerging from the twilight of the university system.

This Cambrian explosion of independent scholars, learners, and thinking communities are experimenting with the future of theoretical and practical inquiry outside the confines of the academic guild.

These groups have leveraged the connective powers of the internet to disseminate their ideas, find conversation partners, and cultivate new modes of convivial learning. From hosting in-person retreats to organizing virtual seminars, or publishing zines and newspapers to launching incubators for long term creative projects, this space is seizing our cultural moment in which the old gatekeepers are losing their grip on many hearts and minds.

Independent intellectuals are pioneering new playbooks in real time, re-purposing and re-imaging academic practices for the medium of the internet in order to bring high quality learning experiences to a dizzying array of people — self-taught working class folks, white collar workers dissatisfied with professional culture, parents educating their children, artists theorizing their creative practice, community leaders and activists thinking circumspectly about our political moment, young people critically engaging the shifting landscape of economic opportunity, and many others besides.

Rather than pursuing ideas simply for the sake of ideas, the people in this ecosystem engage learning from within the coordinates of their lives, addressing practical questions of culture, politics, and society even as they explore key thinkers and texts. Plus, because they come from such varied material conditions, their intellectual work isn't overly calibrated to the niche circumstances of striver managerial elites or reactionary downwardly mobile professionals.

While most of us aren’t up on the latest debates about Hegel (but if you want to be, I can point you in the right direction!), many of us are nonetheless keenly aware of the pervasive financial challenges in our communities, the falling quality of public schooling, the visible and accelerating social instability, the increasing strictures on our actions, and the expansion of new forms of technological domination.

By cultivating a revival of learning, thinking, and building which is not aligned with elite social and political institutions, I believe that these communities hold the promise to incubate and launch the milieus, mechanisms, and mindsets which will constitute the next thousand years of human inquiry.

Much like St. Columba gave birth to a flourishing literary culture at his monastery on Iona in the wake of the collapse of the Roman Empire, so too this decentralized network of learning practitioners can forge the foundation for whatever comes next.

On a shorter term horizon though, these creators and learning communities tend to be small, geographically distributed, lacking in financial capital, buffeted by the worst tendencies of the algorithm, and facing a variety of other headwinds.

While some scholars have demonstrated a proof-of-concept for what a sustainable independent intellectual practice can look like, many questions remain about what the scholars, writers, artists, and students in this space want to achieve, or whether these projects can eventually become financially viable.

Some of those who achieved escape velocity furnish others with success stories, providing insight and inspiration to those continuing to pioneer new ways to produce good work and serve their students. However, much more work lies ahead to grow this space by developing higher quality learning offerings, understanding the needs and desires of students, providing more on-ramps, and devising business practices and mechanisms capable of liberating scholars to do their best work.

From talking with creators, organizers, and students in many of these groups, I've encountered the problems and opportunities which need to be engaged thoughtfully for this ecosystem to thrive, and in the coming years I aim to help uncover these challenges further, to develop language for discussing them more widely, and to draw on the experiences of creatives, writers, scholars, organizers, inventors, and learners to identify strategies which will help the people and projects in this space grow to reach their full potential.

Even as burnout seems to be setting in for many, and the wave of post-Covid enthusiasm has subsided, I'm convinced that now more than ever is the time to roll up our sleeves to dig in and build the future of this ecosystem. I have been building and participating in these space for three years now (but was following it for years before that), and I see my calling less about making a name for myself or my ideas, and more as cultivating this ecosystem as a whole. I'm the kind of guy who loves to let a thousand flowers bloom. Plus, if we can expand the pie, that means more for everyone.

This isn't about building an audience anymore; we're trying to change how people engage their passions and their work, how families approach education and house holding, and even how our communities govern themselves. This is a bottom up, decentralized revolution built on the simple but radical possibilities inherent to human beings learning and talking together.

Welcome to the Extended Learning Universe.