Oh look! It's an academic faux pas!

Jul 19, 2011 13:02

Here's an email I just sent, with some explanatory emendations ( Read more... )

academia, higher ed, random

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lolaraincoat July 19 2011, 20:35:06 UTC
Ah hah hah! yes, this is that kind of story.

I don't think the author of the article was especially brave, though; I think he was just dumb. And in two ways. First, he didn't absorb the social lessons about avoiding pointless conflict and meanness which you, for instance, learned through being a low-level assistant at that journal. Also the lesson about how our worlds are very small and you should always, always, be as kind as you can be because all kindness comes back to you. And all meanness too. Which is why you find me omitting all names and complaining under a pseudonym. And why I will never, ever review the book.

Second, he's dumb in that rather than reading my article with some thought and then building on it to make his own argument ("I agree with Raincoat and also would add ... based on ... other evidence") he invented a straw man version of my argument and structured his own against it. "Raincoat is obviously wrong when she says that the moon is made of green cheese. In this article I intend to prove that the moon is made of delicious figgy pudding.")

I expect a certain amount of social dumbness from younger male scholars (isn't that sad? but there you have it) but the dumbness in putting together an argument is a bit unusual for someone at his level.

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goseaward July 19 2011, 22:47:29 UTC
And now I have "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" running through my head.

In general, I think, lots of young scholars (especially the dudes) look at reputation as a zero-sum game: if you want to have it, you must defeat the people superior to you mano a mano! As if collaboration cannot exist. (I don't excuse myself here, but I suppress it as best I can...)

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lolaraincoat July 20 2011, 02:59:29 UTC
I think that this is exactly right. Thank you! Yes! That's what's going on here, and it was puzzling me, but yeah. That explains it.

It's so dumb. I am a valuable ally, in that I have as much power as you can have in our tiny sub-field without having a named chair at an Ivy League institution. And I'm really well known in our field for being helpful and friendly and nice, especially to younger scholars. Why would you not want me as an ally? Why go out of your way to alienate me? Sheesh.

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