Academia has become abjectly miserable and abusive in its practices. It no longer offers good but low-paid jobs for smart non-conformists, it just offers it's special brand of misery based on some long-past promise of this.
Given this, only the mediocre stay (and compounding it, anyone who stays has no reason to be better than mediocre). And that is a huge, huge loss to the whole project of the development of human knowledge, something that has a long history in Western society.
Something like this seems to get posted every time academia comes up. I'm sorry for the people having shitty experiences and being forced out of academia, but it's important not to exaggerate the problems. I've been through two UK universities, and I'm now at a US university, and I still meet plenty of very smart people doing interesting things.
Yes, there are shitty bits in academia, like the intense competition. But we should focus on where the problems are and how to fix them, not just write the whole enterprise off as shit.
With all respect towards your implied bitter experiences that led to your leaving academia, it's not the mediocre who stay (though I've met mediocre researchers). Mostly, it's the people who have a very good chance at a permanent job, which is a combination of the following factors:
* The incredibly workaholic
* The incredibly specialized into a well-funded field
* The incredibly skilled
* The incredibly good at the scientific method
* The incredibly savvy at the academic game
* The lucky bastards
* The even more incredible scientific polymaths
I'd say that any combination of two of the above factors will suffice to keep someone on the academic track for a while longer. Note how rare those factors actually are.
With all respect towards your implied bitter experiences that led to your leaving academia...
Hey, parent here. Love your "incredible" assumptiveness about my experiences. "Respect" to you too, baby, dude.
Actually I've never been an academic myself, not even slightly. OK, I have had friends and relatives that who've been failed as well as very successful academics so I have some idea of the culture but be that as it may.
Your post seems likely a way to showcase the versatility of the adjective "incredible", usefulness with new age cretinisms and your "implied success" there, well, except I don't see any.
The assumption seems to be that intellectuals still have a home within the university. The enthymeme in the air is that those unfortunates who were unable to find suitable employment in the academy do not deserve to live the life of the mind. But the university is no longer an institution “where teachers and students can pursue unconstrained the life of the mind.” This activity cannot be the exclusive domain of a tiny elite.
Comments
Honestly,
The situation is simpler.
Academia has become abjectly miserable and abusive in its practices. It no longer offers good but low-paid jobs for smart non-conformists, it just offers it's special brand of misery based on some long-past promise of this.
Given this, only the mediocre stay (and compounding it, anyone who stays has no reason to be better than mediocre). And that is a huge, huge loss to the whole project of the development of human knowledge, something that has a long history in Western society.
Something like this seems to get posted every time academia comes up. I'm sorry for the people having shitty experiences and being forced out of academia, but it's important not to exaggerate the problems. I've been through two UK universities, and I'm now at a US university, and I still meet plenty of very smart people doing interesting things.
Yes, there are shitty bits in academia, like the intense competition. But we should focus on where the problems are and how to fix them, not just write the whole enterprise off as shit.
With all respect towards your implied bitter experiences that led to your leaving academia, it's not the mediocre who stay (though I've met mediocre researchers). Mostly, it's the people who have a very good chance at a permanent job, which is a combination of the following factors:
* The incredibly workaholic
* The incredibly specialized into a well-funded field
* The incredibly skilled
* The incredibly good at the scientific method
* The incredibly savvy at the academic game
* The lucky bastards
* The even more incredible scientific polymaths
I'd say that any combination of two of the above factors will suffice to keep someone on the academic track for a while longer. Note how rare those factors actually are.
With all respect towards your implied bitter experiences that led to your leaving academia...
Hey, parent here. Love your "incredible" assumptiveness about my experiences. "Respect" to you too, baby, dude.
Actually I've never been an academic myself, not even slightly. OK, I have had friends and relatives that who've been failed as well as very successful academics so I have some idea of the culture but be that as it may.
Your post seems likely a way to showcase the versatility of the adjective "incredible", usefulness with new age cretinisms and your "implied success" there, well, except I don't see any.
The assumption seems to be that intellectuals still have a home within the university. The enthymeme in the air is that those unfortunates who were unable to find suitable employment in the academy do not deserve to live the life of the mind. But the university is no longer an institution “where teachers and students can pursue unconstrained the life of the mind.” This activity cannot be the exclusive domain of a tiny elite.
See http://mg.co.za/article/2013-11-01-universities-head-for-ext...
I think that "The incredibly specialized into a well-funded field" is not optional. The second one is.