In a recent conversation with a friend who works as an instructor at a major university, I was amused to learn a new term about which I was previously unaware.  It is the portmanteau word mesearch.  A fusion of the words me and research, the term is used to describe a feature of modern scholarship that has sadly proliferated in recent decades.   

Our purpose here will be to describe mesearch, and outline its relevant features.  We will define mesearch as scholarly inquiry that is framed by, and centered on, the writer’s own experiences, identity, or personal prejudices, to the exclusion of objective or external realities.  Mesearch is subjectivity taken to its ultimate conclusion.  The researcher, in effect, becomes the sole prism through which everything is filtered.  He becomes his own subject.  Unpleasant realities—namely, objective truths and the valid work of predecessors—is reduced to secondary significance, or even insignificance.  The creed of the mesearcher is simply this:  it’s all about me, my feelings, and my lived experiences, and I will not permit anything contradictory to obtrude into this safe world. 

It is a practice ideally suited to our narcissistic age.  It seems to flourish especially in the humanities and in the so-called “soft sciences.”  There was a time when scholars had the confidence and objectivity to conduct studies on topics in their field without imposing their peccadilloes, personalities, and prejudices upon their readers.  They were able to examine a topic neutrally, professionally, and in a detached and rigorous manner.  No more.  For the mesearcher, everything must revert back to the self:  my own experiences are my data points.  But what are the major features of mesearch?  It seems to be characterized by these factors:

Extreme subjectivity.  Mesearch nearly abandons objectivity altogether in favor of the mesearcher’s pet theories and conclusions.   

Cherry-picking of facts and conclusions.  Traditional research or scholarly inquiry has certain standards of acceptable rigor.  Because today’s mesearcher is incapable of measuring up to those standards, he or she seeks to abolish them altogether as “oppressive,” “burdensome,” or “old fashioned,” or implicitly evil by virtue of being connected to the “patriarchy,” “misogyny,” or other imagined bugbears. 

Elusive or nonexistent standards.  Traditional research can, or should be, verified by others.  It must be reproducible, at least to some extent.  But mesearch imposes its own standards, because it’s all about me.  This has the convenient advantage of making the “work” beyond criticism; for when one does not know the standard, one cannot judge. 

Lack of academic rigor.  Today’s mesearcher is essentially indolent.  But he seeks to conceal his laziness behind a smokescreen of gibberish and hocus-pocus, all designed to create a kind of alternate reality.  New terms are invented, new modes of thought proposed, and new standards demanded.  Implicit in all this is that the past in its entirely must be rejected as evil and oppressive. 

Self-interest or self-promotion as the primary motivation.  All of the preceding features might be amusing enough, if they did not conceal the mesearcher’s cynical goals.  The mesearcher is no harmless dolt.  He is a deeply cynical creature.  He has assessed the current cultural climate, and knows what he needs to do in order to advance.  He will concoct his worthless studies, ponder his self-created inanities, construct his own alternative universe, and denounce all who came before him:  but there is a plan to this madness.  And what is the plan? The plan is to intimidate and to control.  The mesearcher cannot survive on a level playing field; he must skew the rules to favor himself, using standards and criteria that cannot be measured by anyone else.

Because for the practitioner of mesearch, it’s all about me.   

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Read essays on moral, biographical, philosophical, and historical subjects in the collections Digest and Centuries.