>Regarding Yoshie's claims, too true, too true, sadly. I took a
>tenure-track job at a major state university (University of Tennessee)
>with no illusions about all the inane bullshit that goes on in mainstream
>academia, but nonetheless have been astonished by the degree
>to which my putatively left and left-liberal colleagues succumb to the
>aforementioned pressures and publish potentially intriguing and useful
>stuff in sterile journals read only by their orthodox peers (if at all).
it's structural. it's not a matter of moral purity. were they to, individually, buck the system that would only mean they wouldn't get tenure.
i used to tell my students i'd give them all As. YAY! they'd say. Then I'd ask them what would happen if all students taking courses in the soc dept got all As. YAY! they'd say. What about the entire uni? YAY! they'd say.
and btw, I'd ask, do you really think future employers are going to look at your GPA or at the name of the uni you went to? seed planted.
So if all ABC Uni student rec'd As, what would be the rep of that uni in 5-10 years?
oh, they'd say.
leaving aside the fact that i think mainstream methodologies, by themselves, are part of the problem, i think there IS a role for doing research read only by a narrow faction of interested, academic others. it can be translated by people using that research to build arguments. it can be used in meta-theories. it can be used as the basis for popular articles and books. there's a division of labor.
this is one of the reasons why I reject carrol's arguments here. everyone is not going to be pounding the streets doing activist work. some people are going to do other things: journalism, research, donating money, building think tanks, holding workshops, attending them, being models to others in their work/faith/social communities. being an activist tends to require a certain lifestyle and not everyone can obtain those lovely conditions for the entirety of their lives.
books, articles, radio programs, alternative media, etc., these are ways of cultivating the soil, preparing it for the growth.
academia is not where we are going to get material ready made for mass distribution. for that we need people to mediate between academia and the relatively more popular press. but these mediators need to understand the science. otherwise, they make ridiculous mistakes--like Michael Moore.
has anyone else noticed the increase in the use of PR techniques to widely circulate research findings? is it just my imagination that more of that is going on? or has it always been this way?
kelley