AskAcademia-1495667812-6d5to8.json

{
  "sid": "6d5to8",
  "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/",
  "title:": "Why is society hostile towards academics?",
  "text": "Why is society hostile towards academics and, more generally, higher learning? I have had family members make comments to me before about the fact that I will be applying to PhD programs this fall. Usually, their questions are along the lines of, \"How is that connected to the real world?\" or \"How are you going to do research on something like politics (my field is political science)?\"Obviously, I don't let their comments deter me from my passion, research, but it is still bothersome that they feel that way.",
  "author": "bwh1997",
  "created": 1495667812,
  "updated": 1634082341,
  "over_18": false,
  "upvotes": 96,
  "upvote_ratio": 0.9,
  "comments": {
    "di08vtw": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di08vtw/",
      "text": "This is a deep problem with many roots:\n\n- For a long, *long* time, higher education really **was** indicative of class divides. Only recent have people in many classes become able to go to college, and even now it's still far from equitable. Just look at the college loan problem.\n\n- Insecurity. People associate higher education with knowledge that they don't have, and it makes them feel insecure. Nobody likes to feel stupid, so they rally against the academy, which is seen as having sardonic know-it-alls without practical compassion.\n\n- A lot of academia is **not** connected to the real world by design. The purpose of research is explicitly to pursue directions which *might* be useful, but to be relatively unconstrained compared to industry. I think you can see why people might think this is useless. It's easy to say \"well, why should we invest in your stupid niche topic when we can't even feed the poor.\"\n\nI think if you're going to pursue an academic life, you have to admit that--like any system--it has huge problems. Instead of downplaying those issues, it's best to admit them and work within the parameters of the good that it does, just as anyone in a big system does. People say the same thing about congress, and yet it's not as simple as \"just get a congressional spot and do it right.\"",
      "author": null,
      "created": 1495675066,
      "upvotes": 129,
      "replies": {
        "di103sj": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di103sj/",
          "text": "I think there's also an issue of trust associated with an information imbalance (and corresponding power imbalance). Much scientific data is completely inaccessible to non-scientists -- either physically (paywalls) or intellectually (papers are written for a specialized audience). We are essentially asking them to blindly trust in a system that they know relatively little about, to trust that we're not either overtly trying to screw them and that we're not just incompetent and kind of guessing. It doesn't help that there are highly publicized stories over the times that scientific claims were wrong or corrupted (e.g. the sugar lobby and research on sugar/fat).\n\nI mean, even as someone with a scientific background who's done some reading about the topic, I'm placing a lot of faith in the system when I claim that climate change exists. I just don't have either the time or expertise to read enough about the topic to fully understand why the current literature is sufficient to back that claim (and why its not flawed). I'm okay with this because I am closely familiar with the system and the checks inherent in it. But if you don't have personal experience with it, don't know scientists and don't see yourself represented amongst scientists, see stories about when science fails, and have someone telling you to do something that may negatively impact your life, it doesn't surprise me to see backlash. ",
          "author": "LeopoldTheLlama",
          "created": 1495724148,
          "upvotes": 37,
          "replies": {
            "di131ky": {
              "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di131ky/",
              "text": "Yeah, this is another awesome point, probably even more relevant than the three I wrote.",
              "author": null,
              "created": 1495727431,
              "upvotes": 7,
              "replies": {}
            }
          }
        },
        "di13pzn": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di13pzn/",
          "text": ">the real world \n\nI've never liked this articulation. How is working a twelve hour shift mining in a quarry more \"real\" than a twelve hour shift writing a research paper? How is a waiter stressing out over paying the bills more \"real\" than an adjunct stressing out over paying the bills?\n\nIs the physicalness of the labor positively correlated with its realness? Is a bank executive less \"real world\" than a cashier? \n\nIMO, the articulation of the non-academic world as \"the real world\" is just another manifestation of anti-intellectual sentiment within the contemporary idiom. \n",
          "author": "Prof_Acorn",
          "created": 1495728176,
          "upvotes": 18,
          "replies": {
            "di142py": {
              "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di142py/",
              "text": "[deleted]",
              "author": null,
              "created": 1495728573,
              "upvotes": 19,
              "replies": {
                "di14ml9": {
                  "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di14ml9/",
                  "text": ">low paying low respect job like waitressing.\n\nAnecdotal, but I made more waiting tables than I did adjuncting, averaged out to hourly net. Social capital is different, though.\n\nBut you're saying that the notion of \"real world\" is rooted in common labor, or labor people encounter in the day-to-day? ",
                  "author": "Prof_Acorn",
                  "created": 1495729193,
                  "upvotes": 11,
                  "replies": {
                    "di14ysy": {
                      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di14ysy/",
                      "text": "[deleted]",
                      "author": null,
                      "created": 1495729571,
                      "upvotes": 4,
                      "replies": {
                        "di15gnn": {
                          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di15gnn/",
                          "text": "I can see that, sure, but such a categorization seems to also lend weight toward the term and concept \"real world\" being another idiomatic manifestation of anti-intellectual sentiment, even if those who use it don't intend it as such. There is nothing more \"real\" about manual abundant labor than esoteric labor.\n\nAnd the term is used often attached to pejorative statements against college students (e.g., \"When you get to the real world...\").",
                          "author": "Prof_Acorn",
                          "created": 1495730128,
                          "upvotes": 3,
                          "replies": {}
                        }
                      }
                    },
                    "di14rag": {
                      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di14rag/",
                      "text": "> But you're saying that the notion of \"real world\" is rooted in common labor, or labor people encounter in the day-to-day?\n\nI'm just not even talking about wage policies and expectations, so I (though not the person you're talking to) apologize if I did imply that.\n\nI suspect that many people do think people in academia don't work that hard, and that's another and separate bias that doesn't reflect reality. Probably because their views of what science is happens via the most famous rockstars who have already succeeded and appear to have fun and posh careers.",
                      "author": null,
                      "created": 1495729340,
                      "upvotes": 1,
                      "replies": {}
                    }
                  }
                }
              }
            },
            "di14o9p": {
              "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di14o9p/",
              "text": "Well, you bring up a good point. But I didn't mean that the humans working in academia don't face real world problems. But rather that research explicitly does not have as its goal to address immediately actionable problems (although there may be some intersection), it thinks big and long term.\n\nCertainly you are right that the people working in academia are hard working and have lives similar to those in the rest of the workforce.",
              "author": null,
              "created": 1495729244,
              "upvotes": 5,
              "replies": {}
            },
            "di19oc7": {
              "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di19oc7/",
              "text": "[deleted]",
              "author": null,
              "created": 1495734719,
              "upvotes": -5,
              "replies": {
                "di4077i": {
                  "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di4077i/",
                  "text": "have you ever written a research paper?",
                  "author": "riggorous",
                  "created": 1495893181,
                  "upvotes": 1,
                  "replies": {}
                }
              }
            }
          }
        },
        "di19kjr": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di19kjr/",
          "text": "> A lot of academia is not connected to the real world by design\n\nthis never hit me harder when I asked my Management professor if he had any recommendation on software systems (something he was recommending we use in an organization) and he drew a blank. \n\nIt showed that he had little experience with what exactly he teached (he just had all the research knowledge about it) so there is a big divide between research and execution. \n\nThere are many researchers who are also practitioners, its those few who aren't that get the most ire. ",
          "author": "jewdai",
          "created": 1495734604,
          "upvotes": 1,
          "replies": {
            "di40950": {
              "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di40950/",
              "text": "*taught\n\nmost researchers are a priori practitioners, because there isn't any other type of practitioner in quantum physics or medieval french poetry.",
              "author": "riggorous",
              "created": 1495893279,
              "upvotes": 3,
              "replies": {}
            }
          }
        }
      }
    },
    "di0a8md": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0a8md/",
      "text": "A lot of people just don't know exactly what a PhD entails. When I tell people I'm doing a PhD in stats and wanna go into pharmaceuticals, they look at me quizzically and ask \"why not do your PhD in chemistry?\", when in reality, there are probably more open jobs for statisticians in the US pharmaceutical industry than there are actual head/lead scientists\n\nMy point is, people just don't know  ",
      "author": "idothingsheren",
      "created": 1495676839,
      "upvotes": 55,
      "replies": {}
    },
    "di0bkqx": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0bkqx/",
      "text": "When the hostility comes in the form of questions, you could take the opportunity to answer the questions sincerely. \"How is that connected to the real world?  Great question! I want to work in XX area to learn more about XX and what we learn may have applications for XX...\"  Think of it as an opportunity to combat ignorance - something you'll be doing for life in academia.",
      "author": "equus_gemini",
      "created": 1495678594,
      "upvotes": 28,
      "replies": {}
    },
    "di04hnr": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di04hnr/",
      "text": "'There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that \"my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.\"'\n\nIsaac Asimov, Column in Newsweek (21 January 1980)\n",
      "author": "lalochezia1",
      "created": 1495669421,
      "upvotes": 98,
      "replies": {
        "di078ve": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di078ve/",
          "text": "Also, academia trends strongly liberal, much more-so than other well-educated professions like finance or medicine. As opposite ends of the political spectrum become increasingly polarized, it shouldn't surprise us to see concomitant increases in hostility towards liberal institutions like media and academia.",
          "author": null,
          "created": 1495672930,
          "upvotes": 53,
          "replies": {
            "di0ift7": {
              "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0ift7/",
              "text": "> concomitant \n\nlook at the brains and the *nerve* on this guy, using big words like concomitant!",
              "author": null,
              "created": 1495689244,
              "upvotes": 32,
              "replies": {
                "di0ozzn": {
                  "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0ozzn/",
                  "text": "I forgot what thread this comment was replying to and got really irritated that vocab words were provoking enmity. Then I remembered that this was, in fact, in keeping with the theme of the thread. Well done.",
                  "author": null,
                  "created": 1495705485,
                  "upvotes": 6,
                  "replies": {}
                }
              }
            },
            "di2653y": {
              "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di2653y/",
              "text": "It's almost like when people understand more about the world and how it works, they start to trend liberal in their ideologies. \"Reality has a known liberal bias,\" as they say. Also almost like being exposed to more different types of people makes you more tolerant of different types of people.",
              "author": "TheBlackHive",
              "created": 1495776167,
              "upvotes": 3,
              "replies": {}
            }
          }
        },
        "di0obia": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0obia/",
          "text": "The american anti-intellectualism has peaked nowadays and is clearly visible, here in reddit as well.\n\nThese are times i lose my hopes with humanity.\n\nI think it partly has to do with ideologization of certain academic areas though. I mean, of course it is supposed to happen, but for a while it created a cult behaviour which shut all ideas coming from the leas educated, traditional folk.\nI can see that they have sharpened their knives a long time to get a shot back which culminated in this anti-intellectualism wave.",
          "author": "dodo91",
          "created": 1495703592,
          "upvotes": 6,
          "replies": {}
        }
      }
    },
    "di1vltl": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di1vltl/",
      "text": "My family is a family of immigrants. Aside from me, no one else is in science or even remotely close, and, certainly, no one is going for a PhD. My relatives' idea of success is money (because it represents the stability that they didn't have due to being refugees fleeing a war-torn country) and a life of comfort. They aren't hostile so much as they are ignorant of what academics (and scientists) do. \n\nIt bothers me as well. And it still bothers me because you can try to explain it to them, but some of them have already formed an idea that they won't release. But for every five relatives who are annoyed that I am not out making bank, there's the one slightly younger relative who is fascinated and supports my work. Hope you'll find more favorable ratios eventually! ",
      "author": null,
      "created": 1495761026,
      "upvotes": 8,
      "replies": {}
    },
    "di0e0ze": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0e0ze/",
      "text": "Book-learnin' vs street smarts. There are a lot of people who value the latter and rail against the former. ",
      "author": "thechiefmaster",
      "created": 1495681916,
      "upvotes": 11,
      "replies": {
        "di2680t": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di2680t/",
          "text": "It really irks people when I know more than them about both their computers AND their cars. Benefits of being an academic who grew up poor and rural.",
          "author": "TheBlackHive",
          "created": 1495776328,
          "upvotes": 8,
          "replies": {}
        }
      }
    },
    "di0ezo1": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0ezo1/",
      "text": "It isn't hostile to academics. There's a lot of us/them thinking in all professions, including academics, which involves a lot of confirmation bias when searching for hostility towards the \"us.\" Academia isn't unique to thinking that society at large is at odds with it: military, liberals, conservatives, agriculture, conservation, etc. The list goes on.",
      "author": "eimurray",
      "created": 1495683333,
      "upvotes": 11,
      "replies": {}
    },
    "di0hvj8": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0hvj8/",
      "text": "It's difficult to evaluate outcomes in education, and people are used to primary education, where crappy teachers are paid as well as outstanding ones. ",
      "author": "Nessie",
      "created": 1495688152,
      "upvotes": 3,
      "replies": {}
    },
    "di0jqeq": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0jqeq/",
      "text": "It could be that society now is more interested in making money than valuing higher learnings.",
      "author": "unknown_knight",
      "created": 1495691972,
      "upvotes": 5,
      "replies": {}
    },
    "di1483p": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di1483p/",
      "text": "[deleted]",
      "author": null,
      "created": 1495728745,
      "upvotes": 5,
      "replies": {
        "di4z7e7": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di4z7e7/",
          "text": "I wouldn't say any degree is necessarily more profitable than another, though. I know plenty of unsuccessful people with business, science, and even engineering degrees.\n\nI also know people with arts degrees who haven't completely failed at finding a good-paying job. \n\n\nI suspect the ability to find a job has much more to do with one's aptitude and skill, plenty of successful people have degrees in fields unrelated to what they ended up doing. ",
          "author": "volumineer",
          "created": 1495948398,
          "upvotes": 1,
          "replies": {}
        }
      }
    },
    "di18qcv": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di18qcv/",
      "text": "I don't see widespread hostility to academics, either as a collective or by discipline. While there're certainly sectors of society that are unfriendly to some academic pursuits, and to academics in general, they don't represent the majority.\n\n>Usually, their questions are along the lines of, \"How is that connected to the real world?\" or \"How are you going to do research on something like politics (my field is political science)?\"\n\nAnd you interpret *that* as hostility?\n\nAsking questions because they don't understand?\n\n",
      "author": "deaconblues99",
      "created": 1495733704,
      "upvotes": 2,
      "replies": {}
    },
    "di0ncu2": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0ncu2/",
      "text": "I've been reading a bit of the internet reactionary movement (don't worry just for fun) and they have a whole big shtick about the \"cathedral\", made up of the press and the universities, which directs american thought. The idea is that academics will unintentionally align their thinking into the ideology that is most successful at spreading among them, and then this is given to the people whether it is good for them or not.\n\nNow I don't think the typical American goes this far, but I do think the idea of undue influence is fairly pervasive, and not totally wrong. The reactionaries just take it to an extreme. I don't experience this too much in my field (a hard science), but I think the soft sciences (I'm including political science in here) do pretty often become used for policy and legitimizing lines of thought. And so I think people are a bit spooked by the idea of academics they know nothing about and didn't elect having such a say in their lives.\n\nTake for example that whole debacle over gender identity up in Canada. Essentially they've written a law that recognizes things like gender fluidity and gender being unconnected to sex. Now whether you think those are true or not, it's still a case of a position created by and pushed by academics becoming public policy without the people \"catching up\". And even the idea of the people catching up to academics is essentially assuming academics have full control on the direction of progress.\n\nSo from the perspective of a layperson it can seem like an elite class disconnected from the views or support of the people, which nevertheless controls them. You know, an aristocracy.",
      "author": "freet0",
      "created": 1495700865,
      "upvotes": 3,
      "replies": {}
    },
    "di0w92i": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0w92i/",
      "text": "For the US case, at least, this is hardly a new phenomenon: [see](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006LSVB1M/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)",
      "author": "ph0rk",
      "created": 1495719420,
      "upvotes": 1,
      "replies": {}
    },
    "di1ea1m": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di1ea1m/",
      "text": "I dont agree with the OP. In my experience society in general respects academicians.",
      "author": "BryanRyan02",
      "created": 1495739772,
      "upvotes": 1,
      "replies": {}
    },
    "di0jsv6": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0jsv6/",
      "text": "Because remember all those idiots you met in primary, middle and high school? They grew up! And now since they haven't died in infancy and childhood they feel vindicated to say their opinion is worth something (it isn't), especially as the media says that all people are equal, which is a lie, and equally important, which is also a lie. That's why. It's a downside of a liberal democracy or any other regime which praises mediocrity, stupidity, \"being just as fine as you are\" or the base classes (hindouism-and-Mohand-Gandhi-personal-beliefs-rooted Indian democracy, proletarian socialism of the Soviet Union, theocratic Islamic democracy of Iran and so forth).   ",
      "author": "TheYearOfThe_Rat",
      "created": 1495692125,
      "upvotes": 1,
      "replies": {
        "di0k9ku": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0k9ku/",
          "text": "that explanation doesn't sound very helpful. There are obviously complex cultural and sociological reasons behind distrust of academics. And saying that because people are stupid, even if it were true, it can't be the only factor. There are countries with more or less distrust of academics than the one you live in, so you could do a comparative analysis between countries that trust academics and ones that don't and try to find the reasons for this in so far as you can.",
          "author": null,
          "created": 1495693165,
          "upvotes": 12,
          "replies": {}
        }
      }
    },
    "di0kx9v": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0kx9v/",
      "text": "I find in Europe this isn't the case, compared to the US. Anti-intellectulaism is even less prevalent in Asia.",
      "author": null,
      "created": 1495694676,
      "upvotes": 1,
      "replies": {
        "di12heo": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di12heo/",
          "text": "I disagree.\n\nEurope and Asia are more technocratic, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are less anti-intellectual. There is a lot of derision, especially in Asia, for fields that are not perceived as \"productive\" or \"useful\" - much more so than in the US, where maybe we make fun of the humanities, but where it is commonly believed that it's okay to do whatever makes you happy even if it's less socially beneficial than doing something else. In other parts of the world, people will be much more accusatory about you wasting money and time on studying anything that isn't engineering or finance.\n\nI was about to post a top-level comment that OP's examples seem less like hostility towards academics and more like hostility towards humanities and social science fields, which I encountered a lot of when growing up in Europe with both my parents PhD holders.",
          "author": "riggorous",
          "created": 1495726817,
          "upvotes": 10,
          "replies": {
            "di13sz4": {
              "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di13sz4/",
              "text": "> Europe and Asia are more technocratic, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are less anti-intellectual. There is a lot of derision, especially in Asia, for fields that are not perceived as \"productive\" or \"useful\" - much more so than in the US, where maybe we make fun of the humanities, but where it is commonly believed that it's okay to do whatever makes you happy even if it's less socially beneficial than doing something else. In other parts of the world, people will be much more accusatory about you wasting money and time on studying anything that isn't engineering or finance.\n\nYou do make an excellent point. Out of EU/NA/Asia, I do think that Asians accept education especially in the medical field (physician, pharmacist, dentist, etc...) that doesn't really fit into the engineering/finance. Also, this breaks down by precise country as Korea (eng) is not Japan (no social sciences) nor China (medical professions OK).\n\nI agree that there is some hostility toward humanities/social science field but I think it's more extreme where tuition is considered (US/UK) than on the continent.\n\nIn addition, I find continentals much more open to the arts than those in the US/UK and much more appreciative of a PhD than those in the states.",
              "author": null,
              "created": 1495728267,
              "upvotes": 3,
              "replies": {
                "di15cbg": {
                  "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di15cbg/",
                  "text": "\"Continentals\" is British myopia",
                  "author": "riggorous",
                  "created": 1495729994,
                  "upvotes": 2,
                  "replies": {
                    "di162lo": {
                      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di162lo/",
                      "text": "what is this garbage. I use it to differentiate the phases of my life (lived in many countries). out of all of the them, I'm the least British.",
                      "author": null,
                      "created": 1495730800,
                      "upvotes": -2,
                      "replies": {}
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        "di0r7j8": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0r7j8/",
          "text": "Might depend on the circles you are in, but the backlash on gender studies has been at least equally strong in Europe. For me that backlash became symbolic for the lack of understanding and the agony towards an academic field. Also If you're studying in the social sciences or humanities you have to justify that choice very often. ",
          "author": "jwltr",
          "created": 1495711057,
          "upvotes": 13,
          "replies": {
            "di0vb4s": {
              "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0vb4s/",
              "text": "I'm talking about the extent to which society values educated people. In Europe, titles matter as they confer respect. A PhD matters.\n\nIn America, everyone asks \"What do you do?\" usually pegging people to how much money they make. This almost never happens in Europe.\n\nRemember that the UK is the US for nearly all purposes (hyper-capitalism.)\n\n",
              "author": null,
              "created": 1495718138,
              "upvotes": 2,
              "replies": {}
            },
            "di0shen": {
              "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0shen/",
              "text": "[removed]",
              "author": null,
              "created": 1495713607,
              "upvotes": -11,
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    "di0sb3f": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0sb3f/",
      "text": "Is it? which society?",
      "author": "360Saturn",
      "created": 1495713281,
      "upvotes": 1,
      "replies": {}
    },
    "di0e028": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0e028/",
      "text": "there is significant empirical evidence to suggest that academics, to a large extent, serve the powerful, and not the people. \n\nTake the following examples: \n\nNAFTA hurt working people in all 3 countries it was applied to, yet 300 of the top economists supported it and said it would make things better. (you can read this in a 1993 new york times article. Economists have also recommended the policies that third world nations carry out in general. These policies are despised to such an extent that you typically have to murder a large amount of peasants to force them on the country. google these: The chicago boys, and the Berkeley mafia. \n\nAmerica has overthrown over 50 governments since 1945 yet there is very little scholarship on it, and the public is largely unaware of this imperial system because academics simply havn't written/talked enough on it. Some scholars in academia outright lie, like samantha power, who said the american government looked away in east timor when in fact they supported it directly. \n\nIn the sciences, academics have developed nuclear weapons, the internet, computers. Some of these things are useful, and some are simply services to power. But the public has no choice in what research $$ goes into or not.\n\nThen there are more extreme things like postmodernism, and identity politics. It's hardly useful for working class people that an academic writes 500 pages on abstract gibberish of social constructions\n\nThere are books like: manufacturing consent, and the politics of genocide, which model and make predictions about academic and journalistic propaganda. \n\nHere are 3 examples of academics that serve power.\n\nIf you go back in history a bit, in the 1920's there was an academic called henry goddard that 'proved' immigrants were imbeciles, and stupid. \n\nmilton friedman gave a thumbs up to chile's dictatorship for it's economic policy, which turned out to be a disaster, on top of the fact that the dictator tortured 30,000 people on a very savage way. \n\nIn your own profession the political scientist harold lasswell advocated the use of propaganda and rewritting history by academics in his 1927 dissertation on propaganda during the war. He also advocated opinion polling by political scientists so business could control the public with propaganda more easily. \n\nsome academics do really important work and try to engage with the ordinary folk, but a lot don't. So there is every reason to be hostile to academics. Until academics give a far bigger effort to bridge this gap, go out into the world and try to talk to people about things that matter, then i think the hostility will remain.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n",
      "author": null,
      "created": 1495681880,
      "upvotes": -28,
      "replies": {
        "di0fbmb": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0fbmb/",
          "text": "deleted  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.9038  [^^^What ^^^is ^^^this?](https://pastebin.com/FcrFs94k/87548)",
          "author": "Fallline048",
          "created": 1495683846,
          "upvotes": 39,
          "replies": {
            "di0gf86": {
              "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0gf86/",
              "text": "Well if you talk about something that people care about, you will find that at least some people do have a lot of desire to learn, that's why people like chomsky and others that are involved in popular education are very popular. if no one had a desire to learn, i doubt they would bother.\n\nMy characterization of Friedman is absolutely correct.\n\nAssessing whether academics support power or not isn't exactly rocket science. No one would dispute a claim i made if i said heidigger or frege supported nazi's. you can simply find that out by reading what they write and comparing it to the powerful.\n\nthere are comparative methods of testing whether academics support power or not, like in the books i mentioned. One good example has been to compare scholarship on america's foreign policy with countries the western capitalist elites don't like, and you can make predictions of that, which is what herman and chomskys propaganda model does. Although this was a study of the media, it generalizes for academia as well. \n\n",
              "author": null,
              "created": 1495685604,
              "upvotes": -19,
              "replies": {}
            }
          }
        },
        "di0r5qs": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0r5qs/",
          "text": "Na man you're not hating on academics - you're hating on economists. There are whole departments where you would feel yourself quite at home.",
          "author": "riggorous",
          "created": 1495710948,
          "upvotes": 9,
          "replies": {}
        }
      }
    },
    "di0ow6o": {
      "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di0ow6o/",
      "text": "Academia is complacent in wealth transfer from the middle class to the oligarchs, and behave immoraly in the name of \"progress\":\nExamples:\n\n-The scientifically-driven green revolution killed the family farm, and now it is being cemented in its grave with gmo crops designed to work with a suite of toxic petrochemicals, all while leaving the Earth barren for anyone without access to the money for machinery to use these crop/chemical systems.\n\n-An out of control pharmaceutical industry resulting in an opioid addiction/death crisis among boys put on powerful stimulants before age 10...FDA approved based on academic work on drug effectiveness! The drug companies get rich, while the middle class loses its men.\n\n-Automation of manufacturing removes the craftsman from production. True or not, eggheads are blamed for robots.\n\n-LD50 studies where rabbits are choked on toothpaste. What did we learn and why? This is just immoral and disgusting.\n\n-Scientists participating in junkets to Hawaii, a location among the most remote and ecologically sensitive to the presence of more people. Climate change was a major topic of ASLO 2017. I've got an idea to reduce emissions: don't hold the national meeting in Hawaii!\n\nAcademia, in my and many others opinion, has put living a good, purposeful life out of reach for middle class Americans. Furthermore,  academics go down immoral research rabbitholes and fail to practice what they preach. There is a lot to hate.",
      "author": null,
      "created": 1495705196,
      "upvotes": -22,
      "replies": {
        "di13pv1": {
          "link": "/r/AskAcademia/comments/6d5to8/why_is_society_hostile_towards_academics/di13pv1/",
          "text": "You're a moron.",
          "author": null,
          "created": 1495728172,
          "upvotes": 3,
          "replies": {}
        }
      }
    }
  }
}