"Hi" from Arizona

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PhilosopherSarah
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"Hi" from Arizona

Post by PhilosopherSarah »

Hi there!

I just read Jacob's book and found this forum. I thought I'd just say "hello". I am hoping to meet some like-minded souls.

I am 33. Up until now I have been pursuing a career as an academic philosopher. My experience in academia has been disheartening, and I plan to "retire" in 2019, after seven years "working" as a philosopher and philologist.

I guess I have just started questioning the value of formal education, and I worry that I am complicit in a system that actually hurts young people. I hope to be able to offer my skills in some way, just not within the confines of my career. I feel like our culture really needs a lot more philosophy -- and not the strictly academic variety!

I definitely agree with the notion of 'early retirement', where early retirement is understood as having the freedom to contribute to the world in ways that one defines for oneself. These past couple of years I stopped believing in a lot of our institutions. I figure I can trust myself and my own agenda more than I can trust institutions that serve a morally blind economy.

It is all a little scary, because I have little idea what my contribution will look like -- or whether I will even succeed. But the falsity of my life just caught up with me, I guess.

I am fortunate to have saved and invested pretty well, albeit not enough to not work part-time. It is likely that I will end up working part-time at a bookstore, where I hope to organize community book clubs. I am hoping to eventually build a tiny house. This summer I am taking a construction workshop. I have a lot to learn!

Anyway, hope to talk with some of you! It looks like some philosophical discussions are happening on here! :-) Actually, one of the reasons why I think this lifestyle is so powerful is precisely because it gives people time to think, reflect and do philosophy.

Sarah

daylen
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by daylen »

I'm in love with philosophy.

Top three philosophers.. go!

PhilosopherSarah
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by PhilosopherSarah »

Plato is my absolute favorite. I was a Plato scholar. I am really glad the ERE book uses the allegory of the cave! It made perfect sense to me. In fact, when I went through all of this questioning, the only thing that kept me totally sane was Plato. :-) (Well, mostly sane!)

I sort of have a love-hate relationship with Aristotle. I have come to really appreciate Confucius. I tend to gravitate toward ancient philosophy (my specialty in academia), but I like a range of more contemporary philosophy -- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martha Nussbaum, Thomas Nagel, Erich Fromm, etc. Of late I have liked Emerson, who was heavily influence by Plato. I think Plato is the only one I 100% love -- maybe because he is not really a dogmatic philosopher.

Who do you like, Daylen?

daylen
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by daylen »

I have been working through Nietzsche and Wittgenstein recently. It is taking me a while to understand their work, but I definitely enjoy the process.

Other than that, I have really only studied some Plato and Kant, but I am eager to learn more.

hutchol
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by hutchol »

Hi Sarah! I've always half-wanted to be an academic due to a love of sitting in the library all day, but I know it's not really like that! I've ended up as a school teacher, which I'm not really enjoying either. What do you dislike about the university system? Good luck with the building! I'm fairly useless at anything practical, which I find really annoying.

phil
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by phil »

Welcome Sarah. I have a Ph.D. in philosophy myself and can relate to the feeling of academic philosophy not really being "working". I have since moved on to something else and never regretted, although on the other hand I am glad to have had the experience.

PhilosopherSarah
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by PhilosopherSarah »

Daylen -- I am working through Wittgenstein right now. He actually lived a "renaissance man" sort of life. He left academia and worked as a carpenter, then was drawn back in by the Vienna Circle. He published almost nothing in his lifetime. I like his emphasis on "showing not telling".

Hutchol -- What grade/subject do you teach? I really like teaching children (I volunteer tutor kids), but I would not want to teach someone else's curriculum, nor would I want to administer standardized tests, which I hate. My plan is to write some children's philosophy books and develop an after school philosophy program, since I think kids are actually in a better place to learn philosophy than college students. !!

Phil -- What are you doing now? Do you keep a foot in academic philosophy in any way?

As for the higher ed system, it is a mess. I have all the common grievances. The most worrisome trend, though, is just how passive the faculty have become.

I abhor the entire notion of grades and forced learning, so I suppose formal education is not a good field for me. Moreover, lately I have been feeling extremely guilty. I have students who are homeless, students in insane amounts of debt and students who have no interest in learning what I have to teach, because they are there to fulfill a "requirement". I genuinely like my students, but our system of higher ed makes zero sense. I was fortunate to do my degrees before tuitions skyrocketed, so I did not rack up student debt. I just do not want to be part of a system that puts young people in massive debt, before they have even started working. What is more -- very few faculty are activists anymore.

It is amazing how complacent and passive the faculty are. What sort of example does that set for students? The only way academics know how to solve problems is through endless lawsuits. They abhor their institutions yet continue taking a paycheck from them. I find it really hypocritical. They are supposed to be the leaders, not the followers -- otherwise, what is the good of all that education?

Moreover, whenever I publish something the publisher takes all the money! I just published a translation and philosophical commentary of an ancient text (one that has almost no English translations), and for all the expertise and "work" I get NOTHING. Academia looks a little like slave labor to me, so it is no wonder that so many of the students are also extremely passive and accepting of unreasonable conditions.

Lastly, academic journal articles are now the primary vehicle by which academic philosophers write philosophy (not books). The style and form is very constraining, and it is difficult to communicate anything of philosophic worth in 15 pages of extremely technical and rigid writing. What works for the sciences does not work for philosophy, and yet philosophy is aping the sciences. Philosophy should not be as specialized as it is! It is insanely specialized. But any good philosopher has broad knowledge, not narrow knowledge. I just think philosophy is getting battered by the restrictions of the academy and academic publishing.

And this is really only the tip of the iceberg. I also do not regret a minute I spent getting those degrees. But I am also sad about leaving something I spent so much time building. I may still teach a course here and there, which is what I am doing right now. After losing my tenure-track job at an elite private school (I challenged the Dean!), I started working part-time at a large, state university. Because I only have one prep and two small sections, I feel like I am able to teach really quality classes -- and I am able to personally get to know all my students. I guess I am still on the fence about whether I should make a complete break or not. I also still like going to conferences here and there.

Sometimes we need a complete break in life in order to take the next step, though. What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks for saying "hello"!

Sarah

daylen
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by daylen »

As society grows and its sub-systems become more coupled, it makes perfect sense that the objectives of the educational system would converge onto the production of specialized cogs that insure the order of the system as opposed to academic integrity.

It is not in the best interest of the plutocracy to pursue truth that diminishes their power. As the differentiation between 'what is' and 'what is taught' widens, the trust in the system will diminish.

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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by jacob »

You might like this: https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0310368.pdf (This was later turned into a book. He wrote a second one later.)

Also, http://earlyretirementextreme.com/break ... areer.html

PS: It's also common in academic physics to refer to jobs outside the university as "real jobs".

PhilosopherSarah
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by PhilosopherSarah »

Yes, there are many forces causing the disintegration of academic science, philosophy, etc. My former institution was quite small, so I got to know a number of "scientists", and their work seemed to me to just state the obvious. That piece by Corredoira pretty much sums up my (limited) observations of scientists. Some of these totally unoriginal scientists even got popular press and giant grants (for pointless "research"). There are so many costs to this, including all the nonhuman animals who are tortured in labs to feed pointless, redundant research that only serves to pad the pockets of career academics.

There is a trend now in philosophy toward government grants, which will move philosophy more toward the "mafia" model. Until quite recently it was easy for an academic philosopher to do his or her own writing on her own time; now that philosophers are also jumping through hoops for grants, the situation could just get worse. The only silver lining of the grants system is that now philosophers are forced to team up with researchers from other fields (like physics!) to get grants. It could counteract specialization. ?? But I have real qualms about the humanities being dependent on government grants for research; it could just kill the humanities.

And Corredoira is right -- academic philosophy suffers from a lot of the same problems. The word "prostitution" seems to be coming up a lot, and it is exactly how I started to view some of my peers. They prostitute brain power -- brain power that could be used for real creativity. The mafia comparison is very apt, because you are encouraged to compromise everything just to keep your job. I thought this was special to academia, but I am learning it is common in so many careers. Which is probably why I do not want a "career" anymore. A "job" will do just fine.

Corredoira raises a provocative question about how scientists (who require expensive equipment) can do original work away from the "mafia". Any ideas?

Jason

Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by Jason »

PhilosopherSarah wrote:
Thu Feb 22, 2018 8:57 pm
They prostitute brain power --
People really need to learn to stop letting others fuck with their minds.

jacob
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by jacob »

PhilosopherSarah wrote:
Thu Feb 22, 2018 8:57 pm
Corredoira raises a provocative question about how scientists (who require expensive equipment) can do original work away from the "mafia". Any ideas?
Currently, scientists spend a lot of time writing grant proposals. These are then shopped around with small changes until some foundation bites. A person who is good at writing grants is called a grantsman... and there's a thing called grantsmanship. In theory, grantsmanship should correlate with research skill, but in practice this is not always so.

Different fields have different levels of risk-tolerance. I've heard that chemists practically have to have done 90% of their research [so they know it's going to work] before they can "propose" to do the research [that they already did]. In astrophysics, the number was more like 50-70%.

A solution might be that instead of looking towards "what paper will you present next quarter?" + "you must present 8 papers on average every two years or we'll fire (not rehire) you" is to introduce something like the tenure-system, but for everybody and especially those who do the research. In physics, you're unlikely to get tenure until age 35-40 or so. This means playing the system safe during the time when you have the most ideas/most originality.

If nothing else, reserve 10% for the "crazy idea" department. This would also require a different recruitment procedure, because right now the selection is for paper-grinding and grantsmanship; that is, safe and predictable incremental research.

Campitor
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by Campitor »

PhilosopherSarah wrote:
Thu Feb 22, 2018 8:57 pm
Corredoira raises a provocative question about how scientists (who require expensive equipment) can do original work away from the "mafia". Any ideas?
Entrepreneurship. Independent wealth seems the only means of doing this or you're forever chained to someone else's imposed boundaries. My experience with people with alphabet soup titles has left me disappointed. I naively thought as a young man that the older and more educated you became, the more dynamic and opened minded you grew. I now see this combination has no correlation with an advanced education.

I was tasked with training an organization of researchers and their grant administrators on a new procurement system. The newer system was an enterprise level application and many orders of magnitude better than the command line application they were used to working with. My first training session was in an auditorium filled with 70+ researchers. They started yelling and heckling me as I tried walking them through the new system's functionality. Many were guffawing intermittently or yelling out criticisms as I walked through the tutorial. Eventually this reached a crescendo where it wasn't possible for me to continue. They demanded to have their old system back and wanted to know who was the idiot that decided to implement this new procurement software (gui based). I calmly told them that the idiot was their VP, the other VPs of the organization, and the CEO of our medical/research organization. And then I professionally gave them an ultimatum. They could either waste the next 60 minutes lamenting the death of their old system or let me train them on the new software that wasn't going anywhere. Many of them walked out of the room in disgust. Later I had to train those that walked out individually and they did nothing but complain the entire time I was training them. This forever broke any illusions I had about the sophistication of those with advance degrees.

Having advanced degrees doesn't make someone a self righteous curmudgeon but it does seem to propagate an air of infallibility; they are cloaked in smugness and self assurance like the emperor's new clothes. I've worked with doctors, researchers, chemists, and entrepreneurs; all with multiple degrees in different disciplines. The entrepreneurs were the most flexible and open minded and the researchers the most rigid. The doctors and chemists seem to aggregate towards the extremes - they were either very congenial and flexible or extremely rigid and aloof. I now think the nuclear grade a-holes I encountered were probably made so by working in a stifling system as described by you and Jacob.

I look forward to your posts and having a philosopher chime in on the various discussions on this forum. I truly believe your knowledge of philosophy will greatly add to the discourse within this forum.

Jason

Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by Jason »

PhilosopherSarah wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:56 pm
Plato is my absolute favorite. I was a Plato scholar. I am really glad the ERE book uses the allegory of the cave! It made perfect sense to me. In fact, when I went through all of this questioning, the only thing that kept me totally sane was Plato. :-) (Well, mostly sane!)
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

Alfred North Whitehead

PhilosopherSarah
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by PhilosopherSarah »

Wow, there is a lot to think about here!

I guess in some ways humanities "researchers" (I hate using the word "research" for "doing philosophy") are in a good position; we can continue to do our work without any funding whatsoever. All I really need is a library card at a major university. Here in Arizona, such library cards are free to all residents. However, it is insane to me that when my work is accepted into a journal, not only do I not get paid, but I am required to pay the journal thousands of dollars for the rights to my own work. Moreover, these same journals expect us to do referee work for free.

Many of the academics I meet grew up in academic families; they had parents who were also professors. I wonder whether this is a factor in why they do not question the system more?

So yes, Jason -- perhaps some of the rage you encountered had to do with the conditions of academia. In any case, that behavior is terrible. I am sorry that this happened to you, but it sounds like you handled it well. My current and former institutions have course software that almost everybody uses. I do not use the software. Why? Because then the university owns my course; and indeed, universities have stollen courses from professors. Moreover, the software is really bad and requires constant improvements and constant trainings. This may be another reason why academics hate new software and new trainings.

Jacob -- The problem really is that academia has become risk-averse. I have also noticed that by the time you are actually "free" to do innovative work your creative years are over. If I hadn't been fired, I would have received tenure at 35, which is not so bad. Still, getting tenure requires one to make so many compromises (both intellectual and ethical) that by the time you get it, I am unsure that you will be in a position to break free. I have noticed that senior, tenured faculty just find other carrots to go after -- grants, more course releases from their institution, awards, etc. They are unwilling to rock the boat, lest they be denied a promotion. There are many levels of promotion that come post-tenure. Sometimes I think doing away with tenure is the way to go. My friend is a philosopher in the UK, and he really enjoys the tenure-free system. The only "downside" is that he and his colleagues are actually expected to also run the university; they have a ton of administrative work. I am not sure this is a bad thing, though. Part of my problem with working at these institutions is that I have no real role in governance. The administration pretty much ignores faculty input. And as the gap between my own agenda and the agenda of the institution widens, I find myself not wanting to work for the institution.

Back to Plato -- The reason why we keep coming back to Plato is not because of his positive philosophy but rather because he knew which questions to ask. He set down the questions that would preoccupy philosophers and thinkers for the next 2,500 years. The dialogues also show a real interest in methods. Different philosophical methods grew out of Plato's dialogues.

One thing I am not sure people appreciate is that Plato was a Pythagorean. He was influenced by a group of people (men and women philosophers) who renounced materialism and lived a simple life that was, during that time, also radically egalitarian! Even in pre-modern times materialism and inequality was a preoccupation for people. What is so interesting to me about the Pythagoreans is that they came from the wealthiest class. They gave up their stuff and tried to achieve harmony and balance in nature. So, Plato was not just influenced by Socrates and the Presocratic philosophers (as the story often goes), but also by the Pythagoreans, who were in turn influenced by Egyptian philosophy. This is also interesting to me because there has been a lot of attacks on "western philosophy" of late (for example, the Reed students protesting an ancient Greek philosophy course). However, the story of "western" philosophy is much richer. There were prominent women philosophers, and ideas from the east traveled to the west, greatly influencing western philosophers. In any case, another thing I find really worrying is the "climate" on campuses.

A few notes about the new culture on college campuses:

In a strange way they are becoming really authoritarian places. I have been told as a faculty member to keep a low profile and not say anything publicly, lest students harass faculty. My colleagues have been asked to be judges in trials involving sexual misconduct. I cannot believe that ANYBODY would agree to doing such a job. I have a PhD in philosophy, not law. I have not business hearing a rape case and deciding whether or not the alleged rapist is guilty. There just seems to be a weird tightening of control over all aspects of student life. At my current institution, an army of advisors actually pick courses for students! We are expected to tell the advisors how a student is doing in her courses, which seems like a violation of FERPA to me.

daylen
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by daylen »

PhilosopherSarah wrote:
Sun Feb 25, 2018 11:51 am
However, it is insane to me that when my work is accepted into a journal, not only do I not get paid, but I am required to pay the journal thousands of dollars for the rights to my own work. Moreover, these same journals expect us to do referee work for free.
Have you considered writing books?

hutchol
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by hutchol »

@PhilosopherSarah

I teach German, ages 11-16 (in the UK- not sure what grades that equates to). That sounds like an excellent idea. Dealing with kids in that kind of situation is great. Dealing with groups of 25-30 whose interest/ aptitude varies enormously and whose lives revolve mainly around X-box/ Snapchat etc. is not much fun. I'm of a fairly liberal disposition but I've found unless you're able to exert complete control then it swiftly descends into chaos. I think it probably doesn't help that to be really good at it, you have to give your life to it, and I'm just not up for that.

With regards to the passivity of faculty, I would say the uncertainty of the academic job market is probably what drives it. If you've got ERE level expenses, it's not such an issue. If you've got to fund your massive mortgage/ car loan/ holidays to wherever/ recreational shopping, then you better keep your mouth shut and make sure you get tenure. I can't imagine how miserable I'd be if I spent all my income and had no savings, with 40 years of teaching stretching out in front of me!

PhilosopherSarah
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by PhilosopherSarah »

Daylen -- Yes, I am putting my mind to writing books right now. I self-published a first, short book (through IngramSpark and Amazon Kindle), and it sells regularly enough to make me think I should try my hand at writing something better and longer. Of course, I have tons of insecurities about the entire thing, but I do not have much to lose at this point. I think my academic career is pretty much over; my heart is not in it.

Hutchoi -- That is rad! I wanted to take German in high school, but we did not have it. I ended up learning French, Latin and Attic Greek instead. I would love to teach the Greek someday. It is not that I do not like teaching; I just do not like teaching to people who are compelled to be there. In addition to philosophy, I also teach Logic. I figured maybe this financial independence thing could free me up to teach community classes or after school programs in logic, Greek and/or philosophy -- teaching situations where the students are there just to learn (not to get a degree or credit or whatever). I do not like to exert any control or discipline at all, which is why I find formal education a real challenge. Anyone who learns under force quickly forgets what they learn; so, what is the point? The point might just be the control and discipline itself, which I have zero interest in.

Yes, there is a definite connection between fear of losing one's salary and the passivity of the faculty. I was really shocked at how my fellow academics reacted to my job loss. They all just assumed that I was desperate for another position. I got offered all kinds of "low hanging fruit" jobs. They really count on exploiting that labor force -- the "desperate" ones. But man, I worked my way through college with a zillion other jobs. I do not just have this one skill. I think lack of any other skill is another factor in why academics are so passive. Also, the obsession with status in academia makes it impossible for most of them to even imagine working a minimum wage job. I have crunched the numbers, and I could easily survive on 2-3/week at a minimum wage job. I have enough savings and investments (at 33) to make that work. I do not think most academics would consider a job that does not offer them an equal or higher amount of status than their academic position. One thing I hate about academia is the obsession with rank and status. I am not able to say any of this to their faces, of course. I just think about it all of the time, and it bothers me.

hutchol
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Re: "Hi" from Arizona

Post by hutchol »

@PhilosopherSarah yeah I've got some classes that prove the point about learning/ not learning under compulsion. They've been doing German for five years, mostly taught by people rightly considered competent (until they got me that is :D). 'Du bist', 'ich moechte' and 'ich bin gefahren' have all drawn blanks ('You are', 'I would like' and 'I went' respectively). There's a ridiculous discrepancy between the stress teachers are under and the kids' actual level of knowledge even when they take the exam, let alone a week afterwards when they've dutifully forgotten what little they did know. Yes, I think it is discipline for discipline's sake. The current obsession in English education is with targets (particularly each individual kid's 'target grade') and ensuring that everyone knows their 'next steps' for meeting those targets. It is very similar to corporate style performance reviews, which I don't think can be a coincidence. It's basically training for life in the cubicle. There's a further irony in UK schools and universities (I guess in the US as well), which is that it takes quite a while working in both systems before you make more than minimum wage, when you take unpaid hours into account. Do you know Matthew Crawford's stuff? He did a PhD in philosophy and then worked as a motorcycle mechanic, because it gave him more scope for creativity. If I were less cack-handed, I'd like to do something similar.

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