I will be uncharacteristically brief. This topic does not merit an extended argument. I have no time to waste on inanities. Yet neither can I remain silent. I am piqued. Outraged actually.
The object of this outrage? Lengthy, obtuse, academic texts - I hesitate to label them essays as this usually denotes a semblance of intelligent flowing prose; documents I found in my Trash folder today. Three of them. All published in highly respected peer-reviewed journals. And all of them pure bunkum. Unintelligible drivel authored and sponsored under the guise of scholarly erudition.
After scanning the first piece, with the pretentious title A meta-analytic review of leadership impact research: Experimental and quasi-experimental studies, a total of 21 pages of sheer twaddle written by a quintet of individuals from institutes in the US and Singapore who should know better, I rationally concluded this must be a prank - especially as I am unsure how I got hold of the wretched things in the first place. Had I received them on April Fool's Day? I mused. If so then I probably tipped them into the Trash instinctively. Perhaps they contained malware or a virus...
At that point I noticed two similar specimens. I looked for some clues as to their source. Evidently they had been sent at the same time. Actually they could have been identical were it not for the claims of different authors on the covers. The abstracts offered no hint as to their authenticity as all three were utterly unintelligible. Indeed this actually increased my suspicions that I was the unwitting victim of a hoax.
Still partly incredulous, I skimmed the contents. In each case the paper had been concocted by a pair of individuals hailing from equally prestigious establishments as the first. But these two essays had even less to commend them than the first. I returned all three to the Trash and deleted them instantly. And then I started thinking!
I will not dwell on the circumstances that allow such vacuous, self-referential efforts to clutter up and waste our time, shrouding invalid abstractions in arcane nonsense and parading trivia under the pretext of scholarship. After all it seems to be a thoroughly modern dilemma that so many untalented individuals can avoid being productive members of society by holing up in our universities. I apologise if this rant sounds as though I have metamorphosed into an extremist right-wing radio jock!
But what really amazes me is that genuinely smart people, including the majority of highly regarded scholars who have contributed so much of value to the expansion of human knowledge, can sit idly by, condone, and be hoodwinked by such hogwash. Seriously!
Although I profoundly oppose the mechanism, I do twig that the corrupt system of academic patronage requires students to cite the work of their instructors and their peers, especially if promotion or tenure is in their sights. But where is the discrimination that should immediately expose the truth of such dire and inconsequential work? Endeavours that invariably insult our intelligence? Efforts that add nothing to human wisdom or discourse?
Surely it is the responsibility of universities to enact some form of quality control and rule against those who would perpetuate ignorance and folly? Surely they should vet their graduates' work more meticulously? Surely they should insist that a few universal criteria be applied to dissertations of any kind before being let off the reservation?
One would have thought originality must unquestionably be the prime criterion. It is not useful to replicate stuff we already know. Yet even the reputation of some well-known Harvard dons has been founded on their knack of discovering commonsense and rebadging it as innovation.
Contribution should surely be another? The investment we all make in education, through the taxes we pay to the state, must result in some kind of productive value for society - even if that value is philosophical or aesthetic in nature.
Clarity, too, is essential is new ideas are to be communicated effectively. Knowledge has no way of gaining traction if insights and discoveries are constantly wrapt in turgid, self-indulgent, tracts that obfuscate and confuse. Again that is simply game playing. It is of no value to anyone whatsoever.
That is all....
A Solemn Declaration:
I solemnly declare that I am not affiliated to any educational institution, and that I do not have any financial interests in, or enjoy any other form of allegiance with, any academic entity whatsoever - including Harvard University in Boston, the Elf School in Reykjavic and the Charles W. Howard Santa School in Michigan. This declaration notwithstanding the fact I narrowly avoided a near-hit just recently. Okay, okay. I am just a slow learner I guess.
Furthermore I declare that I will continue to avoid any such relationship in the future so as to ensure I retain my sanity for as long as possible given my advancing years.
I also declare my bias in these matters. I am not the most suitable person to be praising modern academe, although as an outsider I am not entirely comfortable criticising it. Woops. I just told a lie! I do admit a preference for learning organisations and the liberation of transformational knowledge rather than of dogma conveyed through instruction and bigotry within bureaucracies that do everything they can to constrain their communities from stepping into new epistemologies. I will leave it to you, dear reader, to decide in which camp that places me. No prizes offered - just go and submit your thesis today if your answer is "Unsure".
After an early stint as a lecturer in aesthetics, one of the most enjoyable periods in my life yet also a time when I began to achieve a level of expertise in the hypocritically clandestine and self-serving nature of tertiary education, I tried to avoid the scene altogether. I failed. Vanity persuaded me to relent twice - accepting invitations I ultimately had cause to regret. On the first occasion I was forced to resign for misleading Council - a cunning conspiracy I should have seen coming and one that precipitated my premature mid-life crisis. On the second occasion I was "strongly urged" to resign, which I did out of concern for my personal safety - this time for telling unpalatable truths to those who refused to acknowledge what seemed to be self-evident to everyone else.
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