Many of those who embark on a PhD are [people who have been trained to experience themselves as] the smartest in their class and will have been the [“]best[“] at everything they have done [because from infancy on, they have been taught to view the results of the odds that have been so heavily stacked in their favor as the fruits of their own individual efforts.] [Many others actually haven’t, and happen to decide to enter graduate school for wild reasons, such as, for example their interest in social transformation, or their desire to learn to do research, and to have an increased measure of autonomy over their creative time, but who cares about those people anyway?] They will have amassed awards and prizes. As this year’s new crop of graduate students bounce into their research, few will be willing to accept that the system they are entering could be designed for the benefit of others [well, except for those for whom working “for the benefit of others” has been a fact of life. But of course, we want to pretend that those who go to grad school have long enjoyed a the kind of naïveté that is nothing other than the effect of accumulated privilege. You know, those people who might be shocked to learn things that are obvious to most people, such as the fact] that even hard work and brilliance may well not be enough to succeed, and that they would be better off doing something else. [Because clearly, systemic dynamics should determine individual decisions, and because and the promise of economic success should, be used to measure what is an is not a reasonable life choice.] They might use their research skills to look harder at the lot of the disposable academic. Someone should write a thesis about that. [And if they don’t think such work exists, some so-called journalists should also learn to do a google search.]

Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic | The Economist (via literarypiano)

Sometimes you need to place the toxicity of dominant forms of rationality on blast.  Or in brackets.

(via literarypiano)

Notes

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