Talk amongst yourselves

Amid the tales of gastrointestinal woe, a rant by the boss on the state of academia:

Perhaps I'm being too cynical, but I'd have a hard time believing that these folks are doing anything but exclusively writing for themselves, and not for any of the people they are actually writing ABOUT.

I don't think that's cynical at all.

A former mentor of mine (who, if I'd not turned my nose at his invitations for collaboration, might have actually convinced me to stay in grad school) described the "sociological literature" as a cocktail party, clustered around the "big names" (those with umpteen citations) in the big journals.

I suppose at the time, the cocktail party idea seemed rather enamoring, given my penchant for enjoying both strong drink and droll conversations. But in retrospect, it's exactly this insular quality that both Court and my former advisor describe that turned me off to academia. That, and the fact that the cost of admission to the party - in terms of time and energy devoted to writing missives that few will read - is way too high.

The idea of sitting around with other "top scholars" (which assumes I'd even reach that level of renown), patting ourselves on the back for neatly placing the "empirical facts" inside our theoretical box, doesn't seem very attractive if one's actual goal is to help people.

I'm just sayin'.