May 22, 2023·edited Jul 1, 2023Liked by Connecting The Dots
There's slightly more to this, at least in the academic context. The thing is that these theories are not all bad. They do have good nuggets of insight that are quite useful, and that's exactly why they didn't go extinct on their own: academics really like novel concepts that are complicated and fun to play with. They don't like ideas that are kind of simple and boring. Academics are also intellectual snobs, though many will outright deny this while blithely saying, "The working class persistently vote against their interests. It's the lack of education, I say!" while nodding sagely and then voting to defund the police and open up a safe injection site riiiiiight where all the working class people live, far away from their ultra-nice suburban half-million to million dollar houses. (Then naturally, they go, "HOMELESS PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE, TOO, YOU BIGOT!" when said working class neighbourhoods reject these policies! What, you don't want your kids to step on infected needles??!? BIGOT!)
So there is a fundamental lack of self-awareness combined with a type of intellectual self-love you'd have to see to believe. It's incredible.
Academia is also pretty small and cutthroat, and a lot of the tenure track positions are based on how discreetly you can take your competitors down while remaining likeable (you get scored on collegiality at most places). Maybe not a nice way to describe it, but I've seen a lot of departments that were clearly out of the pits of hell as run by Mean Girls (but not actual girls; a lot of the deans are, in fact, guys).
Combine the influx of people flooding academia and other smallish job markets, their basic personalities, and the limited tactics you can employ to get ahead, and you'll get what we're seeing today: PhD's pushing snake oil ideologies with clever-sounding, sophistic arguments that make them sound smart and competent and TOTALLY academic job-market material. (Seriously, have you ever spoken to a newly minted humanities Ph.D wokebro? Dear *god*. *Shudders*. Their egos blot out the sun.) They also are highly on alert for any sign of deviation from the party line because that's a tool for getting rid of someone (and guess who replaces that someone?).
Tl;dr: It's not just the theories. It's also the personalities. The egos, mind, and the environment holding them.
Note: This comment is a huge generalization. I know things vary across regions and institutions.
There's slightly more to this, at least in the academic context. The thing is that these theories are not all bad. They do have good nuggets of insight that are quite useful, and that's exactly why they didn't go extinct on their own: academics really like novel concepts that are complicated and fun to play with. They don't like ideas that are kind of simple and boring. Academics are also intellectual snobs, though many will outright deny this while blithely saying, "The working class persistently vote against their interests. It's the lack of education, I say!" while nodding sagely and then voting to defund the police and open up a safe injection site riiiiiight where all the working class people live, far away from their ultra-nice suburban half-million to million dollar houses. (Then naturally, they go, "HOMELESS PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE, TOO, YOU BIGOT!" when said working class neighbourhoods reject these policies! What, you don't want your kids to step on infected needles??!? BIGOT!)
So there is a fundamental lack of self-awareness combined with a type of intellectual self-love you'd have to see to believe. It's incredible.
Academia is also pretty small and cutthroat, and a lot of the tenure track positions are based on how discreetly you can take your competitors down while remaining likeable (you get scored on collegiality at most places). Maybe not a nice way to describe it, but I've seen a lot of departments that were clearly out of the pits of hell as run by Mean Girls (but not actual girls; a lot of the deans are, in fact, guys).
Combine the influx of people flooding academia and other smallish job markets, their basic personalities, and the limited tactics you can employ to get ahead, and you'll get what we're seeing today: PhD's pushing snake oil ideologies with clever-sounding, sophistic arguments that make them sound smart and competent and TOTALLY academic job-market material. (Seriously, have you ever spoken to a newly minted humanities Ph.D wokebro? Dear *god*. *Shudders*. Their egos blot out the sun.) They also are highly on alert for any sign of deviation from the party line because that's a tool for getting rid of someone (and guess who replaces that someone?).
Tl;dr: It's not just the theories. It's also the personalities. The egos, mind, and the environment holding them.
Note: This comment is a huge generalization. I know things vary across regions and institutions.
EXCELLENT.
I think this does an EXCELLENT job of explaining the absolute nonsense being passed off as "The Science."