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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33042 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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Why would we do such a nutty thing? Because we like a certain lifestyle. We’re willing to move several economic strata downward in return for jobs where (in principle) no one can fire us without cause, or tell us what we’re allowed to say or publish.

What? Is Scott making the argument that people go into academia for freedom of speech? That the tantalizing carrot of maybe-someday being allowed to speak your mind without losing your job is what drives down faculty wages? That uber-talented researchers who are willing to accept below-market salaries need to worry about job security?

No, people become professors because they like indoctrinating teaching the youth. It makes them feel important and powerful.

I'm sure there are fields that are not like that, but in STEM (my own area) and even History (where I have relatives, and which is otherwise a complete politicised shitshow), I can assure you that most everyone absolutely loathes teaching and would be happy if they never had to interact with anyone below PhD programme level again. (Exceptions are concentrated at liberal arts colleges. A handful exist elsewhere, mostly people who burnt out in research.)

The dream of tenure (for someone in a pen-and-paper area) is that I will no longer have to work on the vapid BS that makes grant-giving agencies and "top" conference reviewers happy. Many tenured professors I know have not published in a decade to anything apart from workshops of the type where if you go in their stead as a student half the kindly grandpas in attendance ask you about how X's kids are doing in college (and X made sure to ramble to you about it before you left, so you can respond), and invite-only special journal issues run and read by the same 15 people.

For most of the professors I know teaching the youth, or at least Freshman and Sophomores, is their least favorite part. I'm sure they'd be happy to lead senior seminars forever.

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