> But it may be the case you found the points more obvious, because you
> were already more conversant with such ideas? Kind of like a math
> intro would be obvious to someone who already did much math?
That had occured to me, more because I suspect I've had wider work experience than most of the grad students I've known. I take great delight in trying to disabuse academics of the notion that work is more meaningful or productive in the private sector (more intellectual self-hate, I guess). I find quite the opposite, at least in what I've done.
The author does seem to have a sense of outrage born of disappointment at discovering that intellectual freedom and the Quest for Knowledge still has a boss. That must be crushing if you go straight from undergrad into grad school and don't know how good you got it. All I know about him is from the book and an approving review in ZMag, but that matter of his being fired strikes me as unintentionally funny. IIRC, he got fired from some Nature-level physics publication after more or less bragging that he had written the book while at work. Now we see the violence inherent in the system!
He has a wider thesis that he gave lousy support for, basically applying Chomsky/Herman's observations about professional intellectual life to the natural sciences: that since professionals work on their own without close supervision, they have to be taught to internalize obedience to power, and this is done by a combination of weeding out people with "the wrong attitude", framing debates, etc.
Ok, interesting, but it falls apart with the examples he uses. One way of framing debates is the practice of boxing equations in publications, that is, highlighting in the course of a derivation an equation that the author thinks is particularly important or illustrative. Like you're not supposed to point anything out because that would hinder the reader from questioning the moral premises and social assumptions of a step in algebra.
Another framing device is the paper abstract -- he presents an abstract about some abstruse bit of solid-state physics, and points out that it says nothing about the implications of the missile system that it can be applied to. Is there no other place to talk about that?
-- Andy