ALF

Giant roach? I don't get it.
Originally uploaded by melmikell

I pretty much hate academia.

Or rather what it does to the people who pursue it as a career path.

This of course is a bit of an issue when your partner is cruising down the academic highway toward Leather-Elbow-PatchVille.

But as far as I'm concerned it's fucking Scientology.

First they strip perfectly capable people of their confidence.
They constantly undermine. They criticize. They set up different rules.
They allow you to grope in the dark.

Then they introduce a mentor who can lead the way.
But only so far. he's there to get your trust then spin you again.

There are barriers and onstacles to overcome.
Each is seemingly arbitrary. But each is the key to the next level.
And you won't quit - because you've already put in so much time and effort.

So you go from proposal to outline to thesis to the quest for publication to job search to quest for more publication to possible tenure based on publication - and each stage opens you up to criticism from the anonymous; to rounds and rounds of changes; to stages of limbo.

It's just fucking soul destroying.

The brightest, most capable, fabulous people I know have been turned into shells of self doubt by this system. Unable to see their intelligence, their wit or worse - their purpose - in the murky sea of things that need to be done.

Worse though are the kids that have only ever been in academia. Because they believe that it's all that matters. That it's the ivory tower from which all wisdom is thrown down to a mob desperate for scraps. They have a genuine belief in their own superiority that lives alongside a desperate inferiority complex - am I good enough at this? what if I'm wrong and there is life outside of the ivy covered walls.

These kids are aggressive, condesending, shallow and utterly without charisma. And they shouldn't be. It will take tenure - and then some to mellow them out and allow them to become the smart, funny, secure adults that they should always have been. They're stunted.

Oh and don't get me started on the politics of getting a job. Offers go out to number 2 choices in the belief that the number 1 choice will take so long to reject an offer that the number 2 will no longer be available. People are allowed to try to impose their own superiority by attacking those interviewing for a position, in public and without real motivation other than malice.

It's fucked up and I hate it. The people that I like the most (and some that I really don't) spend too much of their time miserable in pursuit of a goal that was never really their original objective - forced down a path of discontent by a process that need meat for the grinder.

Well enough the Academic Liberation Front is now in session. Let's save as many of these people as we can. Let's deprogram them. Let's show them that impact doesn't only come from articles in a journals. That they can have a direct impact on the world, rather than a citation in another paper that will be read only to be cited. Let's show them that there are paths that aren't relentless. That there are careers that don't routinely undermine. That they are sufficient as people.

And then let's introduce them to REALLY dirty sex