IN university, theory subjects often get a lot of flak not only from students but also from some academics and managers who perceive the sole purpose of universities is to serve industry

Theory subjects are the bane of students primarily because of the dense and “deep” concepts and topics they are expected to understand and the short time they are given to do that before they are assessed at the end of each 14-week period – the average length of a semester. 

Theory is often seen as an area of study far removed from the so-called “real world” and as somebody who actually enjoys teaching theory-based subjects, I beg to differ and defend my turf.

Practical subjects are naturally more interesting because they are tactile and actually involves doing things and learning gadgets in labs and whatnot.

To me, the simplistic binary of theory versus practical is purely ideological – they are two sides of the same coin. One can’t exist without the other. It’s just that when it comes to theory, not much seems to be happening outwardly and it’s hard to “show off”.

The public and industry players tend to forget that tertiary education and academia are industries in themselves that are driven by their own sets of expectations and business practices that are far from the assumed linear trajectory of training for work.

The bad word here is “industry” – one must treat it as an ideological construct entrenched in the machinations of the capitalist system, a system that has been theorised and discussed by scholars and experts alike under very different lenses. 

In Malaysia, we probably underappreciate the power of how theories help give us a broader context on how things work aside from the practicality of things. If you think about it, even our collective responses to the Covid pandemic and how to predict where it is going begins with theories which are then put into action by data mined from field research.   

During my recent tour of Indonesia, I realised that most university students (and some musicians and organisers) who attended the gigs were either studying anthropology or had majored in the field.

Anthropology seems to be the default humanities university major in Indonesia.

In Malaysia, the default major is mass communication, with public relations and advertising being the most popular choices. Journalism is the least popular – the smallest class I taught had two students at a university where I previously worked and the major was eventually shut down.

With this as a gauge of our collective attitudes and values, you could say the Malaysian attitude is one of servitude to industry as opposed to the servitude of understanding ourselves as social and cultural beings.

Public relations and advertising are professional fields entrenched in the corporate and capitalist ecosystem. One is focused on understanding humanity (anthropology) while the other is focused on how to deal with humans (mass communication).

Of course, I make this theoretical assumption also because as a singer-songwriter and musician, I am biased because I look up to Indonesia for its morw robust and interesting cultural industry and attitude toward identity and heritage, aside from the fact that I have ancestral roots in the archipelago that is now the modern Indonesian nation state.

It is telling that Indonesians drink a lot more coffee but don’t treat it as a symbol of status – great coffee is found in abundance at every street corner there – while in Malaysia, the café culture is mainly the domain of hipsters.

I’m sure many writers have theorised and written about coffee and intellectual discourse (caffeine is a stimulant after all) and it is in social theory that we see how seemingly mundane everyday rituals are rooted in deeper and more profound cultural meanings.

By using this example of Malaysia and Indonesia, I have attempted to apply the concept and theory of binary oppositions considered a fundamental organiser of human philosophy and culture in the humanities, i.e., to try to understand ourselves by understanding those who seem to be the opposite of us.

One has to understand that theories do not offer solutions (a fact often hurled at theorists) because that’s not the point of them. They are a form of abstract and contemplative thinking, important steps in guiding us in find out more about ourselves and our world.

Someone thinking looks like they are not doing anything because the activity is cerebral – again, a hard thing to “show off” in a modern (or postmodern, depending on your theoretical leaning) world whose yardstick is all noise and posturing.

We should embrace theories because a purely practical approach to life (as opposed to pragmatism) makes us subservient to industrial hierarchies and the price is our personal freedom and the ability to think for ourselves: the greatest God-given faculty that distinguishes us from other species.

Instead of chasing the carrot that dangles in front of us we should be asking “Why a carrot?” or “Who’s doing the dangling?”. Only then will we for once serve ourselves as opposed to being locked in a never-ending state of servitude.

That’s my theory anyway. Pun intended. – May 21, 2021.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.