My problem is that I don’t believe in most of the things I
am supposed to hold dear as an academic. Few of the usual assumptions about
what is worth teaching and researching make sense to me. Values like the importance
of striving for the truth (what’s that?), and of preserving academic
“standards” seem, to me, misguided, meaningless, or at best, over-rated. I
can’t get worked up about plagiarism like most of my colleagues – why should
using the exact phrase used by someone else be such a sin, and if your first
language isn’t English, isn’t this the obvious thing to do? I have never been
able to join groups with common, comfortable assumptions about what is
worthwhile, and to get on in academia that is what you need to do. I pay
lukewarm lip service to some of it – like the conventional methods of
statistics as an approach to research, like papers published in top journals being
a gold standard for research, like the value of a first class degree, and so on
– but I can never actually believe in much of it.
This blog is an attempt at therapy for my condition. It is
intended to articulate some of my skeptical thoughts, to help me understand
what I really think. Obviously, I am not expecting many readers, but if you are
reading this then I am pleased, and would appreciate your comments, even,
perhaps especially, critical ones. (Incidentally, many of the details, like the
project on leadership and the third age, are fictional, but the spirit of my
comments is deeply felt.)
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