tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813702045456690661.post3990166488848926191..comments2023-06-28T05:16:54.842-04:00Comments on anthropologies: Some historical notes on the decline of the universitiesRyan Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18008425994341539639noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813702045456690661.post-80125388892064617652013-02-19T15:49:29.441-05:002013-02-19T15:49:29.441-05:00quote
There have never been so many graduate resea...quote<br />There have never been so many graduate researchers chasing so few jobs. Universities are too rigid, top heavy and expensive to act as the research engine of contemporary societies and are being replaced by smaller, more flexible and hungry organizations. Research publications have become largely meaningless except for purposes of academic promotion<br />unquote<br />what tripe, at least in fields like chemistry, biology, physics, meterology.<br />esp repulsive is the statement aobut publications; yes, sturgeons law applies, but there are an astonishing number of spectacular publications turned out every day..<br /><br />the author pretends to self examine, but does so in a manner that excuses academia from its flaws: looking at the demographics, and the rate of phd production, the "job crisis" was easy to predict..that most professors rely on slave grad student labor, and are therefore unwilling to restrict the flow..that is what is going on.<br /><br />not sure i believe your veblen comment on academics; until recently, being an academic was exxplicitly second class, something for hard working sons of immigrants (eg, James Madison HS in NYC has more nobel laureates then all the prep schools put together, cause the ruling class rejects acadmia as poorly paid ) being an academic is to eplicitly not be part of hte power strucutre, except for a small number of yalvards.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813702045456690661.post-84522334548144555572013-01-19T12:21:24.975-05:002013-01-19T12:21:24.975-05:00Thanks Keith. Especially like your comment that in...Thanks Keith. Especially like your comment that in 1918, Thorstein Veblen observed that the way to get academics to work hard for little pay is to “tell [them] that they belong to the highest social class and pay them the wages of artisans (then in greater supply than now). They then sacrifice all their intellectual and moral principles in order to make up the difference.”<br /><br />Academics' motivations deserve some unravelling. Why is it that we are so good at identifying exploitation, but so willing to accept it ourselves? It does very much seem like we view ourselves as a kind of a priestly caste. A friend commented to me the other day that we think we're the "enlightened" ones and that swapping our services for money is somewhat beneath us. I think many of us consider that we're doing our jobs for the love of it - a vocation rather than a career - or are just glad that we're not scanning groceries in a supermarket. Regarding the fear that seems to permeate academia, we could take a good, hard look at how much of that we're permeating ourselves. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06900101889560535512noreply@blogger.com