Why academia, well, sucks.

It was a secret hidden well from me. My parents did it on purpose, the faculty of Thomas More saw it as something to be avoided at all costs. The secret I speak of is typical academia's attitude toward their students. Quite simply, they assume that you are rock stupid and unable to comprehend anything so well as they. Prodigies are acceptable only in grade school, perhaps high school. Beyond that, the professor knows all and you can only hope to achieve a measure of his greatness.
I was so blissfully ignorant going into my Master's program. I assumed that, along with being able to address your professors by first name came a certain amount of respect, if for no other reason than that you survived the undergraduate days and decided that pushing forward was a good idea. This idea was quickly knocked out of me after I left 504, "Librarian Boot Camp." I expected Drill Sergeants for profs and I got nice people. This, I was told, was the norm. I could expect earnest people who sought to impart wisdom. I should have known better than to expect the Boomer generation to think anyone could touch them, let alone learn.

Now before you say "But your profs at TMC were boomers!" they really aren't. Dr. Sampo is the "Greatest Generation," Drs. Fahey, Nelson, and Blum are too young to be in the Boomer generation. I think they fall between Gen X and Boomers, which I count as a good thing. I suppose that Dr. Mumbach qualifies, but she always stuck me as ageless, so I'll let it slide. So you see, I escaped there. Now I find myself faced with them, full on. There's something about the Boomer generation I just don't understand. Perhaps it's because they, in many ways, had it the best of all the generations we're dealing with now. They got the 50's ideal, they were the first generation that could really afford superfluous things like nice cars or vacations. And I think it went to their heads.

There are also a lot of them. They run just about everything, because the baby boom was so large. If I had even a dime for every time I endured a snide remark because of my youth (and thus, my perceived stupidity), I would be able to retire now a wealthy woman. This attitude of superiority is only worsened with the title "Professor." A PhD seems to confer a false sense of superiority that enables it's bearer to look down their nose at everyone younger than them, regardless of actual ability, intelligence, or qualities. As part of this, it is apparently necessary to assign readings that insult the basic intelligence of any person with the ability to use their brain. If you disagree with the article, clearly you are in the wrong because several of the author's colleagues reviewed the article and it was published! Have you been published? Therefore you are in no position to judge good research from bad!

The fact of the matter is that, despite my 22 years, I AM in a position to judge. I have read a large chunk of Western Canon. I have done an in depth study of a legal system which is nothing if not complex, and if you think that doesn't involve research you underestimate the project. I have performed analysis on political philosophies, literary interpretations, and plain old fashioned philosophy for four years. I have written, presented, and defended my study of common law and was complimented on my work by no less than a "Who's who" of Notre Dame Alumni, a man who holds two Master's degrees from Oxford, and an incredibly accomplished and published literary critic. And they were the least scary of the 100 person panel to whom I presented and defended my thesis. I did a semester long study of one man's political theory, a man who designed the American Executive and the Electoral College, as well as the man who took 20 resolutions and formed them into a document that would become the US Constitution. Hardly an easy study to do, and I did it, and did it well. Age is not a factor, accomplishment is. Even without a PhD, I can find an article insultingly simple and wrong.

A few highlights:

• Making "Hegemony" equivalent with political myth, sociology, and "acceptance."
• The 'pluralist paradigm'-- the idea that all groups within a given social science can have a paradigm, that each of these paradigms is in fact a paradigm, that each is equally valuable, and that this lack of consensus is in fact a STRENGTH
• That having no dominant group within a society can constitute an hegemony
• That the values of America are applicable to an international field as its base (btw? Fact chance that anyone else will agree with you on that)
• That the world can be "falsely imagined as a realm of facts independent of the knower." Moreover, they think that this means the same thing as not taking research out of context. If you're going to follow Hume, follow Hume and say you don't know the sun is gonna rise tomorrow. Don't do this weird side step watoosie that doesn't actually say anything.
• That the best way to understand research in library science is a Hegelian-Marxist-Neitzchan idea.
• Non canonical theory-- if it's in a book, it's canon. If it's canon, it had a maker. If it had a maker, it is automatically ideological in the worst sense and should be ignored, repudiated, and destroyed.
• Political economy and sociology? Totally the same thing.

I've still got 10 or so more pages, but I just can't make it. I cannot read through more of this. I cannot sit there and pretend that any of this is true or good or relevant. That's the kicker. This class is about RESEARCH, and apparently this means that we have to find what's wrong with everything according to our only socially constructed ideological bent. I guess I don't mind the ideology so much; it's the fact that the article claims it's uncovering it that bothers me. It's almost worse when you consider that they made a sort of shepherd's pie out of the major modern and and postmodern ideologies and called it fresh and new.

In the words of lolcats? UR DOING IT WRONG