How would you define Antidisciplinarity?
Antidisciplinarity is a difficult word with an easy explanation. It basically boils down to radical collaboration, moving beyond the boundaries separating academic disciplines in order to collaborate across difference.

What does that mean in practice?
Imagine a group consisting of a physicist, a psychologist, an economist, and a graphic designer. They’ve all been trained in their specific discipline, internalizing a language, way of thinking and talking, ideas about right and wrong, and basic views of time, truth and human nature. When asked to collaborate on a project, they end up in misunderstandings, in a cycle of status management, confusion, and disharmony. Why do such conflicts occur? Basically, because we don’t know ourselves very well. This lack of awareness of what’s driving our own behavior makes it difficult for us to understand and collaborate with others. Adopting an antidisciplinary mindset means stepping out of your own discipline to see it more clearly, ask better questions and listen generously for a more complete view of reality.

Why does it matter?
On an individual basis, I think we could all benefit from a reality-check, to remind ourselves that our opinions are not the truth, but rather a result of our previous experience, education, culture and upbringing. By engaging with people who are different from us, we can learn to reduce our blind spots, understand the other side and perhaps even gain some humility.

From a global perspective, the interconnected, complex and ever-changing nature of the challenges ahead will require this kind of radical collaboration. Global warming, social injustice and cultural hegemony will not be solved by a group of homogeneous experts relying on standard ways of doing things. Instead, we should be tapping into the collective effort of curious generalists who are aware of their own biases, interested in exploring uncharted territory, and not afraid to fail.

So, you’re proposing an “Antidisciplinary revolution”?
Well, I’m not suggesting that we overthrow governments or incarcerate specialists, but we must look at what has happened within academia since the start of the 19th century. The industrial revolution radically increased the need for specialists, and within academia the number of scientific disciplines practically exploded. This led to a series of magnificent contributions to science and humanity but also to an escalating division of knowledge. A large part of academia today looks like the Tower of Babel, one giant family speaking thousands of languages, knowing more and more about less and less and increasingly losing touch with reality.

What do you think we should do?

I think we should establish more academic laboratories working across and beyond disciplinary constraints, aware of the intricacies of human collaboration, willing to break free from conventions and open to exploring the spaces in between. Such places are rare, but as a collective, to survive, we must look for the possibilities that lie beyond the realm of certainty.

Today’s academic institutions have a moral responsibility to provide students with the skills, patience and determination to thrive in such radical collaboration. In a time of rampant polarization, crumbling democracies and distracted despots, we simply cannot afford to lose sight of the bigger picture.