Alas Shy Academics
I commonly meet … social scientists who will tell you about the implications of their latest research, yet if you ask them other questions they will respond in hushed tones of the most severe agnosticism. … Yet I find … these same people will hold very definite political views and act on them in their private lives. … This is one of my pet peeves. It is defensible to be truly agnostic. It is also defensible to … have “all things considered” policy views on matters we have not studied closely. It is not defensible to hold such views but, under the cloak of a not-really-meant agnosticism, refuse to put them on the social science table, so to speak. (I find that bloggers hardly ever suffer from this problem.)
I share Tyler’s peeve, because I just don’t see the point in being an academic who doesn’t aspire to be an intellectual – with coherent and informed opinions on many interesting and important topics. Oh I see the status-seeking point in the abstract, most academics are that way, but I just can’t relate.
Outsiders assume that if academics spend all this time discussing all those obscure questions, surely there must be armies of them discussing the big important questions. But in fact, most academics consider it presumptuous to speak there; such questions are reserved for very senior academics in their later “philosophical” years. Which, alas, means they mostly get ignored.
It is a true pleasure to talk with people smart and careful enough to become successful academics, yet willing to engage many big questions.
Your average academic is facing several issues:
1) She is the sort of person who comes to VERY considered conclusions and opinions after lots of thought and work. This is, after all, what academic research is.
2) Intelligence and deep contemplation are central to an academic's self identity. Arguing an issue, and losing because of a stupid arguement, would be a more central blow to self-identity than ducking the issue. IOW, 'tis better to remain silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak, and prove it.
3) Academics are, heavily, introverts, and also tend toward visual forms of learning. (I.e. learn by read or write, not be speak or hear.)
Writing allows folks to think through their opinions before posting, to craft and edit arguments. Spoken arguments on issues that are not central to one's research would be like writing a first draft in a different subfield at three in the morning and sending it unedited for review. The result most likely would be rather mortifying by light of day. (Not that people don't blog like that, but "shy" academics don't.) So, duck a conversation on a topic, but not an editorial or blog post.
I don't see being an 'intellectual' as being predicated on being a wit. (That is, being predicated on an ability to reel off an opinion, process the return, and give intelligent and strong arguments in 'real time' on issues the intellectual knows, but hasn't reviewed beforehand.)
It was once said by a wise man: "People's opinions are as different as their faces".. Being an academic does not mean one should not express exactly what he thinks. This is what makes him who he is..