Drama of Academia
Academia… The place to serve enlightenment for all… Or is it? Academia is often advertised as “the home of science”, but the home of science is where the science happens, where one discovers or invents something new. Academia is not that place – to the extent that there are way more going on in academia than “just science, guys!” stuff. It is hard to tell what academia is all about…
The drama of academia is in its hidden incentives disguised as the service to the science and enlightenment of individuals. Very unfortunately, unsuccessful academic institutions have played major role in taking people’s freedom of thought away. Instead, people have been brainwashed to believe in the freedom of speech – a freedom, presence or absence of which makes no difference when granted to a herd of sheep. The point is, if you don’t know how to think or what to think freely, independently, and critically, your words won’t carry too much weight or make a difference anyway.
No one has to buy what I have said here, obviously. I also do not mean that academia is “purely evil” and that nothing good can come out of it. What I am saying is that it is not exactly what I used to think it was, which might also be what many people still think of academia. It is a good exercise to think about some of the common issues that keep happening in academia, with a good attitude to propose solutions.
Having spent the last 20 years of his life in academia, I know that it is hard to build even a near-perfect academia. It is hard to make big and good things, well, big and good. Scale affects almost everything that can be affected in any possible way – the number of bad actors increases, the system is exploited extensively without any mercy upon its other innocent members, everyone loses hope and good faith after a while, good actors slowly become worse, and the whole thing starts to sink harder than the Titanic, but in a slower fashion. So, my safest best has been to do my own science, indepedently, for my own pleasure, instead of caring about fake reputation, gamified ranking systems, superficial recognition with awkard award ceremonies, and many other bulshitery.