The Bullshit of Academia

Hello intrepid reader!

It has been a long while since I last published a post here on the Magical Realm, and this has been because of—wait for it!—my university. In its usual way, the university has left me stressed out, in doubt, and wondering what to do next. Partly, it’s avoidable mismanagement on the side of both the university and the housing association: I am meant to be moving out on the 15th of July, but I have no idea who the new tenant will be, and I have a lot of furniture I need to sell. Naturally, my room came completely unfurnished; were I to extend the luxury of furniture to the new tenant, both of us would benefit. Instead I must live with the uncertainty.

Then there’s the idiotic choice of dates: I will have my graduation ceremony on the 1st July, my final internship report the day before, and have only two weeks to move out. This is despite the fact that the first years start intro week at the end of August. The rationale? None. Or at least, none that a sane person could comprehend.

It gets worse: although I have to move out on the 15th of July, I don’t get my official diploma until August 30th. What the hell does my university think I’m going to do in the intervening six weeks? (Hint: it’s not holidays or travelling. A great deal of bureaucracy must be conquered in order to have the diploma delivered by post.)

Still, the title of this post does not single out my university in particular (although, buyer be warned). Rather, there is an underlying problem here, common to many universities across the globe: the bullshit of academia.

Teaching Useless Skills

I have spent a great deal of time and effort, during the past 3 years, in perfecting skills that will be useless later on in my career. I speak here of such things like citation styles (an archaic mess that belongs in the 7th circle of Hell); or the various muddled conventions of academic writing, like passive voice; or indeed the whole sorry mess of journals, impact ranking, H-index, et cetera ad nauseam.

All practical applications of writing—i.e writing that people want to read and which makes money—follow conventions that oppose the dictums of academic writing. I am not referring to such things alone as writing a novel, essays, or journalism pieces; indeed, business writing, too, shares more similarities with a journalism entry than your typical academic paper. Practical writing uses active voice; the intent is to sell something, be it a story, your CV, or a product. Good writing gets to the point. When presenting an argument, the reasoning must be comprehensible and the conclusions clear.

The weasel words of academia—“generally”, “this indicates that”, or, my favourite, “to what extent”—have no place in business writing. Superfluous jargon or verbiage, likewise, must face the guillotine. (I exclude technical terms here, which are necessary in order to be precise.)

Teaching Useless Courses

Another pet favourite of liberal arts courses is the teaching of superficial nonsense courses as general requirements. In my case, it was such wonderful things as: “the Global Identity Experience”; “Big Questions in Future Societies”; or Advanced Research Writing. (ibidem)

The problem, let me be clear, is not always the material itself. It is instead its superficiality. Philosophy of science, for example, is a huge discipline with a rich and wonderful history. (And plenty of real-world applications, for that matter.) Yet its treatment in Global Identity did not do it any justice. Qualitative methods, likewise, is a practical course, but covered insufficiently.

Creating Knowledge (not)

The crux of my criticism against academia, as taught in undergraduate courses, is that it inculcates bad habits in students in order to succeed in the academic game; that it teaches certain important topics too superficially, and places too much attention on unimportant things; but my argument also contains a distinctly scientific criticism.

Academics like to delude themselves into believing that they create knowledge. From the perspective of epistemology, it is obvious that the purlieu of academia only covers propositional knowledge, and not other forms of knowledge which are valuable in the pursuit of human flourishing (for example, practical knowledge, moral knowledge, or friendship). Economists like Hayek will tell you—correctly, in this case—that the private sector is also responsible for creating a great deal of knowledge.

But even with these caveats, there remain more problems for academia. The first is one of social conventions—I refer, once more, to the aforementioned passive voice, citation styles, and pretentious journals. These social conventions are dangerous enough on their own. In order:

• Passive voice obscures the nature and strength of the claim being made. Exempli gratia, “Results indicate that the prevalence of rape culture on campus is proportional at 25% (95% confidence interval: 21–29%).” Active voice: “A small-sample size questionnaire with dubious methodology, carried out by feminists with an agenda, found that approximately one quarter of women on campus were raped.”
• Rick & Morty (2000) found that stress made consumers less likely to judge information correctly... versus... A study, “The Effects of Stress on Consumer Behaviour” (1) found that stress made consumers less able to judge information correctly. (Guess what: author name and year tells me absolutely nothing about the the claim being made. Give me a useful description and number your reference list!)
• Pretentious journals, or journals with no standards. One rejects potentially valuable research on technicalities. The other publishes crap. Naturally, everyone wants to get published in the pretentious journals, which, via supply and demand, are given even more power to enforce pointless requirements.

Another problem, well documented by this point, is the “neo-liberalisation” or industrialisation of research output. This is a topic all of its own, and one that I cannot cover in sufficient detail within this mere blog post. I only point to the effect: a huge amount of research is published, much of it unreadable by laymen or non-specialists, and whose scientific merit is difficult to evaluate.

So what to do?

I often see that academics are reluctant to suggest solutions to a problem, either relying on weasel words (“x and y claims are subject to further research...”) or leaving it to someone else (“policymakers”, whatever that means). I don’t have all the answers, but I can suggest some obvious first steps. To begin with: academia and academic teaching should collaborate much more closely with business, industry and successful professionals. Academia is not real life, but real life has a lot to teach academia.

Secondly, scrap the archaic citations, academic verbiage, and passive voice.

I promise you that not only will academia benefit, but students too.

Yours truly,
A frustrated student.

A Long Year

Hello readers!

It has alas been some time since I have last written to you. But rest assured that a great deal has been going on; in fact, the purpose of this post is to recount on this year’s events. There are many, and I will split it into three broad sections: academics, writing, and a few tidbits about my personal life. In my usual style, these reflections will be paired with a few wayward analyses.

Until then, a quick update regarding my present situation: I am now in Romania, after a long day in airports. I will be visiting Vatra Dornei, a mountain town; there I will take photos (which of course I shall release) along with inspiration. Or, well, that’s the plan.

Anyway...

The Wonders of Academia

Having completed my first year at Amsterdam University College, I have a number of observations to make regarding both the university and academic life in general.

To begin with, the former. The AUC, as it’s handily abbreviated, is uncommon in its teaching model: it has a student body of only 900, and they are rather diverse, ranging from all four corners of Europe—be it Sweden or Italy, Albania or Portugal—and beyond, from the Americas, New Zealand and Russia. Indeed, the AUC’s motto is “excellence and diversity in a global city” (which the students lightly mock by calling themselves “the excellent and diverse people of AUC”).

Despite this, the student body is also remarkably uniform. Partly this is as a direct consequence of its size: with only 900 kids, it’s much harder to capture the smorgasbord of life experiences that a university of 30,000 can. Partly it’s as a result of socio-economics, with few Muslims or people from African descent to be seen (at least relative to other places). And partly it’s as a result of its politics—the AUC is Liberal with a capital L.

Anyway, the more personal question I should be asking is “Have I enjoyed my time here?” And for the most part, I have. I have made very good progress, obtaining a number of As and A–. The workload has been... managable, really. I have after all managed to do a hell of a lot of writing (of which you will learn soon).

It hasn’t been entirely rosy, of course. One reason, as I irrelevantly put it, is the wonder of academia. The prevailing academic culture is dry, formalistic, and devoid of common sense. I should precede that statement with the qualifier “mostly”—there are wonderful exceptions, full of clarity and wit—but they are exceptions.

A good example of this are citations. We learned three types of citations in our academic writing class—APA, CSE and MLA—and all three are a pain in the arse. There’s also Harvard, Chicago, and numerous others; each is more tedious than the last.

To explain, these citation styles all require that the author follow very strict, unhelpful, and inflexible formats for how they cite sources. APA asks for (variable-1 variable-2) where variable-1 is author name—last name, mind you—and variable-2 is the year of publication. MLA asks for (author-name page-number) in the same format. If you need to cite a source written by unknown authors (which are actually fairly common) you have to resort to other complicated rules. If your source is an ebook, MLA is a pain; if your source is historical, APA also looks weird.

An example:

APA: Stupid sociologist A believes that weird concept x is useful in explaining whatever; but stupid sociologist B argues that weird concept y should be used to explain it. (Woodward 1990; Back 1990). However, yet another stupid sociologist C thinks both concepts are needed. (unspellable name 2000).

APA cont.: Marx (1857) in his Das Kapital argued that...

Mises (no page number because it’s a fucking ebook) argued that...

And this is before we even get to the bibliography/works cited/references/whatever synonym your style demands. The rules there are so complicated that it’s impossible for a normal, sane human being to try and remember them; we’re left to using software to do it for us.

Does a solution exist for this? Is it possible to cite academic sources in a pain-free manner? Of course; it’s only a question of imagination, and maybe some good quality software design. In-text citations could be done with a number, like [1], perhaps followed with an optional field for additional clarity. The optional field could be an author name, the name of the work being cited, or really anything that is appropriate in context. So the above could read:

Sociologist A [1][Woodward] believes that... Sociologist B argues [2][Back]

Marx [1][Das Kapital]

Mises [1]...

Bibliographies could be structured logically rather than arbitrarily, so instead of:

Ayer, A. (1936). Propositions about the past and other minds. Language, truth and logic (1952nd ed., pp. 19). New York: Dover Publications.

Berkeley, B. (1710). Treatise concerning human knowledge (Dover Edition ed.). New York: Dover Publications.

Brink, D. (2014). Aristotelian naturalism in the history of ethics. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 52(1), 814.

You could have:

1. Title: Propositions about the Past and Other Minds.
Author: AJ Ayer (Alfred Jules Ayer)
Publication year: 1952
Publisher: Dover
etc...
2. Title: Treatise Concerning Human Knowledge...

This would make it far easier to both produce and read citations. But still, academia continues with this arcane, time-consuming and moronic practice.

I haven’t yet touched on the other absurdities that prevail in academic circles; indeed doing so would require more breadth than I have in a blog post. I’ll just leave you with this little bundle of joy.

This Article, a third in a series of related works, explores the representation of sexual identity within Critical Race Theory and other forms of anti-racist discourse. I argue, after examining representative texts, that anti-racist discourse is often "heteronormative" -- or centered around heterosexual experiences. Most commonly, anti-racist heteronormativity occurs when scholars and activists in the field fail to analyze the homophobic dimensions of acts or conditions of racial inequality and when they dismiss, either implicitly or explicitly, the "morality" of gay and lesbian equality claims. This Article recommends that scholars in Critical Race Theory and related fields adopt a more multidimensional lens for studying oppression and identity -- one that treats forms of subordination and identity as interrelated, rather than as mutually exclusive and unconnected.

—By some stupid academic. Sorry, no fancy citations here.

The Joys of Writing

Moving on, in another perhaps sarcastically titled section, I come to my writing.

Back in November, I made a huge decision: I abandoned my novel in progress, the Ark, and began writing Fallen Love instead. It was not a decision I made lightly—I had after all been working on the Ark for more than a year. But I feel that in the end it was the right one. Put simply, the Ark was not the book I was meant to be writing; the premise was incoherent, the conflict was lacking, and it just didn’t turn out the way I wanted it.

Fallen Love is also a challenging project, but it is one I am enjoying. I still have much work to do, but I am getting there. Partly, this has been result of perfectionism on my part: I am not easily satisfied. But a more detailed explanation will require another blog post.

In other areas, I have been with Red Pers—an online newspaper run by an AUC student—for more than six months now. I have written a large number of articles, many of which I have linked here. To make it easy for you, they can all be found here: http://www.redpers.nl/author/alex/

I am hoping to expand into paid journalism soon, details of which I will be releasing once I have something concrete.

Finally, I have also been busy writing essays. My first, entitled Fantasy versus Science Fiction: A Curious Divergence, will be published by Issues in Earth Science—for which they are giving me a modest prize. I have also written another essay, on university education, which I hope will get picked up.

The Vicissitudes of Life

Living in Amsterdam has thrown some challenges at me. Some of it has been largely predictable; it was Benjamin Franklin who remarked, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I have indeed paid taxes, as well as asked for benefits, and generally wrangled with the bureaucracy.

Another truism that has been proven is “there’s no such thing as free lunch”—because it costs money, and time to cook, both of which have been important aspects I have had to contend with. The financial side has been manageable, due to a combination of my parents, my grandparents, and the state. As for the cooking side, I have devised a number of dishes that meet my requirements: relatively low cooking time, health, animal welfare and impact on the environment. The exact details I may share later, but it has involved lots of wholegrain pasta, rice, lentils, and copious amounts of soy products.

Finally, there has been love, which I feel demands another catchy cliché. Perhaps: “When you’re in love, it’s like the universe revolves around you and the person you love. Actually nobody really gives a shit.” I am exaggerating, of course, but you get the point.

Conclusion

It has been a long year, as the title alludes. I have written countless essays, and taken countless exams; I wrote till my fingers bled; and I lived, experiencing the three permanent features of life: lunch, taxes, and unrequited love. Now, it is time for me to wrap up. I will write again, so keep following!