4 ms·

If the true purpose of academic hierarchy is for wealthy elites to compete through the status of affiliation, especially with whomever has the most fashionable,

by p4wnc6 11y ago

If the true purpose of academic hierarchy is for wealthy elites to compete through the status of affiliation, especially with whomever has the most fashionable, progressive opinions and presents them in the most esoteric and obfuscated way yet can still have others call it "art," then most of the bad behavior of this post seems to just be rational business on the part of the academics. As much as we like to talk about rewarding academics for actually making breakthroughs that have positive effects in the lives of most others, that is all just talk. Want we really want is to collect academics like they are elusive Pokemon cards ... the more obscure their abilities, the better, as long as they can be plausibly connected to whatever cause, regime, or attitude is favored in the in-group where that academic's works wield influence.

carbocation 11y ago
As an academic trainee in the life sciences, I am curious to know if you are positing this question across all disciplines.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  My personal belief is that it is a significant effect across all disciplines, but that the objective nature of some disciplines offers occasional ways to combat it. My own academia experiences were in machine learning and image processing, and even there it was a heavy competition for demo ware. All ideas were basically vetted for their plausibility of leading to a TED talk or a conference keynote demo. If you proposed something or showed passion for something, but it wasn't clear that you could talk it about it while wearing a black turtleneck, then it got rejected pretty quickly. Little if any time was ever given to whether the fundamental questions were good ones or whether their answers constituted value-adding directions for humanity to move in. And don't even get me started on teaching. I once got yelled at by an adviser because I spent the time to write up my recitation notes for my probability students in TeX, instead of just scanning my unreadable hand-written notes. Good luck convincing them that investing time into how to teach something is worthwhile. The process of moving past qualifying exams did include some objective hurdles of study (sort of quality control for the university's or department's brand) but it largely consisted of convincing certain key status figures that you were On Their Team and would be a good spokesperson for the sorts of positions and ideas they most wanted to affiliate with. It will surely vary by discipline, geography, political climate, etc. But I think this is the dominant reason why we have academics at all. I do not think that the well-worn stories about funding fundamental research for society's benefit are even remotely true.
  - lvs 11y ago
    I can assure you that many others are toiling away in areas that could not plausibly lead to a TED talk. It's not all show-and-tell prestidigitation, but some areas are heavier in that regard than others -- like machine learning, for instance. Your response is rational, however, in its critique of many fields and forums. I'd like you not, however, to denigrate the incredible sacrifices being made by researchers in all fields of study. Of course, the snake-oil rules the day at the moment, but those are just the most vocal and observable of workers, and they cast the rest in an unfortunate and undeserved light. The startup world, in many ways, shares a large responsibility for this perniciousness, as institutions all vie with press releases for investment and donation money more now than ever before with the goal of reaping short-term profits in the marketplace.
    - p4wnc6 11y ago
      While some fields have higher-end media outlets like TED talks or infotainment-style demoware, or like Richard Thaler's role in the recent movie The Big Short, other fields might have less sensationalist outlets like a Senate subcommittee hearing, a scientific press release, or inclusion in a documentary film or important literary outlet -- and any of these can lead to follow-on speaking engagements or invitations as an academic adviser or dignitary in various circumstances. And even in the case of Senate hearings, it's often not about accuracy or objectivity, but instead about Supporting The Correct Team. The point is not what is the maximum media exposure of a given field. The point is that in any field, there is a small elite class who mostly controls (as cultural gatekeepers) the ability for lower-status and aspiring researchers to advance, much like party politics. They form networks of editorial boards, committees for awarding tenure, and have nebulous connections through upper management of academia, corporate boards, endowments, politics, and celebrities. Yes it can vary by field, but you see the same pattern either at a big scale or a smaller scale. I certainly believe many researchers enter the research profession with pure motives. But it is the ones who quickly learn to sublimate their desire for intellectually rigorous research and social betterment in favor of political skills who naturally rise to the gatekeeper positions. Sadly, the pure and highly impressive research labor of a lot of these lower-status academics is just pure waste. I don't mean to denigrate the academics for this -- their motives are pure; they are just operating in a rigged system where the only means to significant success is to "wise up" and realize that the best "product" you can provide is to sort of auction off the ability to affiliate with you by sublimating yourself to someone's coalition in exchange for resources and notoriety provided by that coalition.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
calibraxis 11y ago
You might be interested in Shukaitis & Graeber's "Constituent Imagination" (available on Library Genesis): "Or is there something wrong with universities in general? "On the other hand one could just as well ask: why is it we assume that creative and relevant ideas should be coming out of universities in the first place? The modern university system has existed only a few hundred years and during most of that time, universities were not places that much fostered innovation or the questioning of received knowledge. They were largely places for compiling and redacting received knowledge and teaching students to respect authority. The old-fashioned stereotype of the professor as a greybeard pedant fussing over some obscure interpretation of a Latin epode, unaware of or disdainful of the world around him, was not really that far from the truth. For the most part, universities were dominated by figures who were scholars but in no sense intellectuals. "[...] From this perspective, what we saw in the ’60s was something rather unusual: a brief moment when the model changed." (Though regarding the sciences, Graeber mentions a combination of 1970's neoliberalism plus managerialism & bureaucratization of universities.)
mcguire 11y ago
Interesting. I doubt you would have any trouble publishing your theories in any sociology journal.

by p4wnc6 11y ago

carbocation 11y ago

As an academic trainee in the life sciences, I am curious to know if you are positing this question across all disciplines.

p4wnc6 11y ago
My personal belief is that it is a significant effect across all disciplines, but that the objective nature of some disciplines offers occasional ways to combat it. My own academia experiences were in machine learning and image processing, and even there it was a heavy competition for demo ware. All ideas were basically vetted for their plausibility of leading to a TED talk or a conference keynote demo. If you proposed something or showed passion for something, but it wasn't clear that you could talk it about it while wearing a black turtleneck, then it got rejected pretty quickly. Little if any time was ever given to whether the fundamental questions were good ones or whether their answers constituted value-adding directions for humanity to move in. And don't even get me started on teaching. I once got yelled at by an adviser because I spent the time to write up my recitation notes for my probability students in TeX, instead of just scanning my unreadable hand-written notes. Good luck convincing them that investing time into how to teach something is worthwhile. The process of moving past qualifying exams did include some objective hurdles of study (sort of quality control for the university's or department's brand) but it largely consisted of convincing certain key status figures that you were On Their Team and would be a good spokesperson for the sorts of positions and ideas they most wanted to affiliate with. It will surely vary by discipline, geography, political climate, etc. But I think this is the dominant reason why we have academics at all. I do not think that the well-worn stories about funding fundamental research for society's benefit are even remotely true.
- lvs 11y ago
  I can assure you that many others are toiling away in areas that could not plausibly lead to a TED talk. It's not all show-and-tell prestidigitation, but some areas are heavier in that regard than others -- like machine learning, for instance. Your response is rational, however, in its critique of many fields and forums. I'd like you not, however, to denigrate the incredible sacrifices being made by researchers in all fields of study. Of course, the snake-oil rules the day at the moment, but those are just the most vocal and observable of workers, and they cast the rest in an unfortunate and undeserved light. The startup world, in many ways, shares a large responsibility for this perniciousness, as institutions all vie with press releases for investment and donation money more now than ever before with the goal of reaping short-term profits in the marketplace.
  - p4wnc6 11y ago
    While some fields have higher-end media outlets like TED talks or infotainment-style demoware, or like Richard Thaler's role in the recent movie The Big Short, other fields might have less sensationalist outlets like a Senate subcommittee hearing, a scientific press release, or inclusion in a documentary film or important literary outlet -- and any of these can lead to follow-on speaking engagements or invitations as an academic adviser or dignitary in various circumstances. And even in the case of Senate hearings, it's often not about accuracy or objectivity, but instead about Supporting The Correct Team. The point is not what is the maximum media exposure of a given field. The point is that in any field, there is a small elite class who mostly controls (as cultural gatekeepers) the ability for lower-status and aspiring researchers to advance, much like party politics. They form networks of editorial boards, committees for awarding tenure, and have nebulous connections through upper management of academia, corporate boards, endowments, politics, and celebrities. Yes it can vary by field, but you see the same pattern either at a big scale or a smaller scale. I certainly believe many researchers enter the research profession with pure motives. But it is the ones who quickly learn to sublimate their desire for intellectually rigorous research and social betterment in favor of political skills who naturally rise to the gatekeeper positions. Sadly, the pure and highly impressive research labor of a lot of these lower-status academics is just pure waste. I don't mean to denigrate the academics for this -- their motives are pure; they are just operating in a rigged system where the only means to significant success is to "wise up" and realize that the best "product" you can provide is to sort of auction off the ability to affiliate with you by sublimating yourself to someone's coalition in exchange for resources and notoriety provided by that coalition.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

calibraxis 11y ago

You might be interested in Shukaitis & Graeber's "Constituent Imagination" (available on Library Genesis): "Or is there something wrong with universities in general? "On the other hand one could just as well ask: why is it we assume that creative and relevant ideas should be coming out of universities in the first place? The modern university system has existed only a few hundred years and during most of that time, universities were not places that much fostered innovation or the questioning of received knowledge. They were largely places for compiling and redacting received knowledge and teaching students to respect authority. The old-fashioned stereotype of the professor as a greybeard pedant fussing over some obscure interpretation of a Latin epode, unaware of or disdainful of the world around him, was not really that far from the truth. For the most part, universities were dominated by figures who were scholars but in no sense intellectuals. "[...] From this perspective, what we saw in the ’60s was something rather unusual: a brief moment when the model changed." (Though regarding the sciences, Graeber mentions a combination of 1970's neoliberalism plus managerialism & bureaucratization of universities.)

mcguire 11y ago

Interesting. I doubt you would have any trouble publishing your theories in any sociology journal.