Leaving Academia

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here is an essay about a professor leaving academia. 

I went to U of I.  There were parts of it that I enjoyed, and the culture wasn't that bad.  But I can see parallels.  For me it was more a matter of looking at the way education was going, and deciding not to get involved in public education as a teacher.  It was obviously going down the tubes, and that was decades ago; it's infinitely worse now.  So too, many colleges.  :/  I couldn't stop it.  I could sure get the hell out of the way.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> The face of academia is decaying like everything else in this country. <<

Sadly so.

>> It's one more thing you think someone smart would see as a warning sign about how America's culture is trending downwards . . . <<

I never cease to be amazed by the blindness of other people when it comes to ignoring things like that.

>> but since there's money to be made off of student debt and it's more profitable to beat the spice out of faculty and staff . . . the people who could fix it are too busy counting their fat stacks of cash and getting their 18 holes of golf in.<<

Of course, the rich never see warning signs. Even individual ones rarely do, and when they do, nobody listens to them. They're like stockbrokers, they think things will keep going up forever and then are shocked by the inevitable crash. It's like, what, they've never seen a sine wave or a predator-prey graph? 0_o

Re: Thoughts

[curiosity]

As smart as they think they are, you think they'd be somewhat aware of their own hubris. But you know, the more I interact with people the more I notice that the better off someone is doing, the less they actually consider things like that. I guess for every tax bracket someone goes up, their perception drops by one point.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

It's an echo chamber effect, the same problem that cuts into their compassion. Money insulates. Too much money starts doing real damage.

The more money people have, the more ability they have to self-select places and people they like. Most people around them tell them they're awesome, even if they're not, aside from the tendency of rich people to snipe at each other. They have less and less contact with people who will risk offending them by being honest when they're doing something stupid. They can control the environment to a point that they stop needing to pay attention to it routinely.

Which means they're blindsided by things they can't control. :/

Re: Thoughts

[curiosity]

Boo. Wealth breeds contempt. All the way around. Including contempt for common sense. I wonder if that isn't just a built-in feature. A self-correction option for when humanity goes off the rails.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yes, it is.

So is the fact that prosocial behavior breaks off when society turns toxic or when there's a plague. Mob formation is a safety valve. Doesn't look like it unless you know exactly what to watch for, but it's among the more reliable ways to tear down a tyrant -- it switches off self-preservation. That goes all the way back to hominids mobbing large predators as a last resort.

Re: Thoughts

[curiosity]

Well then things are going to get crazy interesting here shortly. Time to make some lemonade and set up a lawn chair to watch the show.

Re: Thoughts

[johnpalmer]

Hubris is part of what makes them the money-movers. Banking and finance are really pretty boring when done well and with social responsibility. But if you want to be one of the people who looks around for money to squeeze out of a system, it's probably necessary to think of yourself as the one who REALLY counts.

When the goal is to both scoop money out of an area, while convincing the other people that you're doing them a favor, it takes a particular kind of person.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

... otherwise known as a con artist.