Gimlé

The discussion of academia continues, tracked and started by Dorothea.

The irony here being that I agree with most of what Dorothea has said on the matter (in fact, have found it rather hard to find specific valid criticisms of her slating of academia that doesn’t sound like “but I like it”) and yet I am studying full-time for a PhD. I’ll have to explain that some day. I know my reasons. Might be useful for others if I told them.

I’m not, on the other hand familiar at all with the situation described by The Happy Tutor. The words “self-hating losers” and “$150,000” especially don’t ring a bell.

Maybe your average European university is poorer than your average American one (outside of the few like Oxford, Cambridge and selected new Universities like East Anglia, you can call them the celebrity Universities).

The point being that very few people in the universities I’ve gone to earned something like $150,000. And given the industrialisation of University production (the mass-manufacture of qualifications) the number of universities where somebody does will drop fast in the next few years.

And I’d never ever even contemplate using the phrase “self-hating losers” about my Comparative Literature students. Intensely proud. Fanatically stubborn. And capable of drinking any old English academic under the table.

Then again, that describes most Icelanders in any case. Academic or not.

That, I guess, is my only real criticism.

This discussion has treated the word “academia” as if it is only a part of the American economic life and culture.

The system is similar all around the world and will only grow more similar as the Americisation of Europe continues.

But…

Pride. Satisfaction. Rage. Self-doubt. Confidence. Them’s words of culture and psychology. You can talk about the similarities in the system all day long. But the people and nations differ, as does their handling of the system.

So talking about the system and how it treats people is a valid and necessary thing. But the talking about what sort of people come into the system and what they are like when they come out of it—

That’s something that varies wildly depending on the country and culture. Generalising wildly will be a blatant lie at best and a gross insult at worst.

Talk about how you came out of it to your heart’s content. The fact that Happy Tutor was once a self-hating loser is an interesting point and shows the vast difference between the the old “loser” Tutor and the current excellent writer.

Baldur Bjarnason.
Clifton, Bristol.