"Academia" is not shorthand for "Humanities Academia." Maybe this author's argument is true for the humanities, but I know some academic researchers in science and engineering can move into industry. That is, their skills are valued by people outside of their academic circle.
In fact, in the life sciences, the back and forth is getting more common, and will increasingly get so as the models for research, esp in large scale biology change. On the CS side there are any number of examples as well.
As a grad student in neuroscience I think there's some validity to the argument, though. Academic research in my field can be tightly circumscribed by 5 year grant cycles, competition for tenure track positions, etc. I wrote about numerology of this here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470181
I believe this numerology may be a source of generalized conservatism and incrementalism in academic science. And academic science has a different set of objectives than industry, and perhaps also a larger long-term payoff, when done well.
1/73 of the newly minted Ph.D.s should reasonably go on to start a lab of their own (from your linked comment)
Playing devil's advocate:
Isn't this winnowing process necessary to identify those capable of starting a successful lab?
Research worth doing is, after all, extremely difficult - perhaps the only way to identify such individuals is to train them up to the cutting edge, then let them attempt to do independent research (get a PhD) and see who fails (does a useless PhD).
(My own view is somewhere in the middle, but I'm interested in your opinion on this).
Isn't this winnowing process necessary to identify those capable of starting a successful lab?
Sure, some winnowing is necessary -- but do you (or the devil you're advocating for) think only one out of every 73 newly minted Ph.D.s is capable of starting a successful lab?
On the other side, who is the 1 out of 73 who gets the tenure-track job in research? It seems quite often departments make decisions based on number of papers the candidate has, and the brand of journals those papers appear in. Optimizing for these parameters can, I think, be very different from optimizing for deep and/or transformative science. The best postdocs can optimize for all parameters at once, but this is a very difficult row to hoe, and usually requires a bunch of luck to succeed.
I'm not saying that the system is broken. Good science is getting done, by good people. I'm saying that from my (admittedly limited) vantage point, the system is unnecessarily adverse to certain kinds of science, to the possible detriment of human knowledge and the public good.
(Whew! That was a fun soapbox to get on, thanks for the invitation...)
Do you think only one out of every 73 is capable...?
Less, actually. The evidence being that of those who make it, many barely make a single useful contribution over a lifetime of research. The question is really about whether more than 1 in 73 deserve to be able to try - and my opinion is that, really, no. But there shouldn't be 73 in the pool to start with.
PhD training should start earlier (maybe after Sophomore year of college), and should be much shorter and more intensive. I think that peer-reviewed articles (and not a dissertation) should be the standard by which a PhD is judged (this is the case in many European countries).
But I agree with you that the quality v. quantity balance seems a bit skewed.
We need fewer PhD students, and their studentships should be redirected toward paying more to the good ones and their supervisors, toward more funding for their projects (I believe this was your point in the linked comment). We need fewer journal articles (maybe), but deeper contributions.
Yet: so far, it's what we've got. It works pretty well. Yeah, it sucks to be a PhD going through the grind, watching the 4th-years in the lab slowly deflate as they realize they're going to have to get real jobs. But perhaps we were all crazy to believe we could really make a career out of trying out crazy ideas and telling other people about them.
This is my point, actually. I'm not expert enough in the issue to believe strongly that I'm right -- but this is my intuition. I don't really care if the extra funding goes toward projects, etc. I just want to see people have to optimize less to get up the next level in the pyramid, so that they can push their work in better alignment with 'pure science' rather than maximizing chances of publication within 2-3 years (especially strong pressure on the postdocs). Something like a 5:1 ratio, rather than 73:1 (or whatever the real number is), seems better to me.
Yet: so far, it's what we've got. It works pretty well.
Agreed. I just don't like miscellaneous calls for 'increased science funding'. That just expands the pyramid, fat base and all. I would like the pyramid to be shaped more like an imperial battle cruiser [1].
In any fucked up system, one should look first to the incentives, right? Which takes us to the journal system itself. To me it seems hopelessly outdated, at least in some areas. So here's a thought experiment:
Science (especially now) seems to be largely about gathering data, doing a simulation, or inventing a method (to either gather or analyze data). The data-gathering papers would be more useful as commits to a giant database in the sky, the simulation papers to a giant VCS, and the methods to a giant wiki. Indeed, within the labs I've seen, something like this is in place internally.
It would free up the journals to publish articles about the interpretation of analysis results, and reviews of larger bodies evidence to compile them into deeper theories - which rightly belong in journals. Peer-review would be done by upvoting (!) So what would PhDs be optimizing for? Commits x Votes.
Yep, I just suggested that academia should be redone in the image of HN (I'm probably not the first).
The "winnowing process" is all about limiting participation (and competition).
Dr. Menand is effectively arguing that Ph.D. candidates are not putting up a huge investement to learn more (that happens in the first 3 years) or to contribute more (a single good research paper takes about a year), but simply wasting time on a larger dissertation. (If he thought that Ph.D. students were learning lots, and making a useful contribution, then he wouldn't have written the article).
This huge investement is there to protect the cushy status of academics. To fortify the ivory tower against the contributions of dilettantes. Menand seems to think this is a good thing, but that it has been taken too far - being more selective of Ph.D. students would be more effective than making the Ph.D. a real grind.
I don't see how the article applies only to the humanities. It seems to be about supply-and-demand and self-regulating professional bodies.
I think a lot of the considerations of the article apply to, for example, mathematics.
Science and Engineering is the area with the most immediate application but even here, there's quite divide between theoretical CS and what's practiced in the field.
You bring up an interesting possibility, but it is not intuitively obvious. In mathematics it is relatively easy to break into the field with the backing of an institution (I mean easy relative to doing the same thing in say English or History, not in an absolute sense). In fact, there is a long tradition of amateurs making some significant contributions, with Fermat being the crown (if now somewhat dated example.)
Also, one of his major complaints is how long it takes to get the PHD. At least at UNLV (where I am currently seeking a master's in Math) most of my peers that are seeking their PHD expect to get it within 6 years after starting their graduate studies. While this is still longer than a usual JD or MD program, it is at the very low end of the 6-9 year spectrum that was discussed in the article.
And while there is certainly a divide between theoretical mathematicians and their applied counterparts (or scientists who us mathematics) it is almost solely in choice of topic, not about disagreement over real facts, which you can see in some topics in the humanities between the professors and the general public.
It also works in the reverse order as my professors who fill in for those who take sabbaticals are those that work at the national labs near here as well as the engineering companies. Though these professors are a bit harder to reach than full-time professors.
But maybe humanities academia has the benefit of giving you more freedom as your research is not evaluated as objectively as in science and engineering?
Maybe. That makes it less interesting to me, but I wasn't trying to make a value judgment.
Although the rest of the article is worth reading. I don't think the author confuses humanities academia with science or engineering academia - I think the submitter did. I think the assumption with his essay is that what he says applies to the humanities, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Focuses very much on a Ph.D. in English, which is in some ways the worst rather than the average case.
However, the argument that getting a Ph.D. is getting harder while its (financial) value is decreasing seems correct to me. That might not actually be a bad thing, and is very much to be expected - the market value of doing cool and interesting things goes down as the value of tedious or dangerous jobs goes up. I think we will see even more of that in the future.
We keep complaining about people maximizing their profits rather than happiness. But then, when some choose to pursue their interests and get PhD's in areas that aren't so hot in the industry, we criticize them for bad career decisions. Maybe everything's OK with the system, after all.
Thank you! IMO, the smartest thing to do in life is to pursue the options that maximize happiness. Money has a weak causal relationship with happiness[1]. Consequently, those getting a Ph.D. in English, for example, should do so if that's what makes them happy, but they should know there will be little returns from it.
It's the same reason why many of us on HN pursue independent employment: there's been plenty of articles here indicating entrepreneurialism means lower incomes than employment, and it most certainly has higher risk. But the real satisfaction comes from being independent!
The article briefly touched on something I find more dangerous: systemic conformity in academia. If you want to be influential, your best bet is to become allied to academia. As the article notes, "independent" researchers are viewed with suspicion, if viewed at all. Since there are incentives to conform (albeit loosely) to some norms while perusing a PH.D. there is a lot of hill climbing and not a lot of long jumps.
What appears to be a long jump to a non-expert on first glance, on deeper inspection will usually turn out to have involved multiple small incremental steps culminating a final discovery. Since we have to acknowledge somebody we usually pick the guy/gal who finished the job. I'm not saying that all work is equal, but imho planning for long jumps is impossible (it's not like researchers don't want to make big leaps in understanding).
Examples which have changed my mind about this: Andrew Wiles' Fermat proof, evolution of RISC, quantum theories. I am pretty sure that if I dig into it, I'll find that relativity and evolution also built upon previous work.
The parent's poster's point on conformity is well taken. Still, "independent" researchers are viewed with suspicion because research is hard. As psranga points out, to make a long jump a researcher has to stay on top of the incremental steps. Unfortunately, for 99.9% of people, to do this they must be fluent with the literature and much more importantly talk with other researchers. No one works in a vacuum (and don't bother bringing up counter examples like einstein or newton).
Conformity is a big problem. It might arise when too many PhDs are hustling for a small pie. I'm not sure.
I don't necessarily disagree. Instead, I would modify what I said originally. There are structural factors that make taking large risks less profitable to the researcher than taking small incremental ones. The small incremental steps are important, but the large risks are also important. I think that the portfolio of research that results from "professional academia" tends to underweight risky projects. I am not claiming that it shift towards a total random search; I only claim that we need more risky investment compared to what we have now.
Which independent researchers did you have in mind? One example I can think of is in politically sensitive areas, where think-tanks bypass the peer-review process and try to get their "research" straight into media, through good connections. I think that is rightfully viewed with suspicion.
If your point was that researchers unaffiliated with universities have a harder time to get through the peer-review process - I don't think that's true at all. Often I do not even remember if a paper I read in the past came from a university or an industry lab. For example, in computer graphics, one of the most prolific institutions when it comes to publishing papers is Microsoft Research Asia.
I think you are right that this is the real story. The article itself doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If the reason you are getting a Ph.D. is because you want to teach college kids or get a 'BGN' job, you are doing it for the wrong reasons. The only reason to get a Ph.D. is because you want to publish academic research. And if you show up without already knowing what you want to be researching, you're probably not ready to get a Ph.D. yet.
That's not to say that academia isn't horribly broken, it is, but in some places it really seems like the author is going off in the wrong direction.
P.S. Can someone with sufficient Karma post a poll asking level of education completed. Or maybe level of education desired would be more interesting. I'm curious about HN's academic demographics.
This is a conversation dominated by science majors.
I'm an art major. As in studio. Classic humanity major.
If I said "You should worry about what Adorno thinks about cultural production when you make a web object, since it means potnetially you end up with a more passive than active population: When you build an object on the web, how do you plan on activating the population, because of his critique?"
Most people here would go huh? by the sound of this conversation. In Practice, what humanities students say, especially when they sit down with engineers, is important. It is a pity that there is no practical humanities anymore. It is really useful to learn to think critically in that way about the world.
This is just what professional disciplines tend to be like, as the author notes. You might just as well say that "the main product of structural engineering is not the production of bridges but the reproduction of structural engineering." It's probably true in the same sense that it's true of academia, but so what?
There's a principle associated with some famous sociologist that says "The purpose of any institution is first to perpetuate itself, and only secondarily to pursue its specified goal." I wish I could remember who said this. It's an idea with explanatory power.
I remember a never ending discussion when I was in college about why the premeds tended to get better average grades in organic chemistry than the chemistry majors, even though the chemistry majors seemed to have a much better grasp of the material.
I would call that the pathological case rather than the average one. Maximizing grades against learning as little as possible is the lowest hurdle you can cross while still technically being successful as a student.
It's also worth remembering that "student" does not always mean "child currently undergoing mandatory education". I would think that adults who return to complete their diplomas/degrees or add a graduate-level program on top of the undergraduate one are comparatively more likely to choose to maximize knowledge rather than just grades. It's mostly commonly expressed as "now that I'm personally paying for it, I want to get my money's worth".
This was not my experience as an undergrad. I needed a B average to keep my scholarship, so I made sure that was never at risk. Beyond that, I focused on learning and on learning what I was interested in. I spent vast amounts of time on math and computer classes and read as much as time permitted beyond the required materials. On the other hand, I only did the minimum to get the B when I had to fulfill requirements in humanities.
In the worst case, structural engineers don't produce bridges. I'm sure you could find some poor soul who spent a career drawing up proposals for bridges that were never built.
I knew an architect whose job was designing buildings that never got built.
He worked for a company that would buy residential land, he'd design a commercial building for that land, the company would take the plans to the local city council and get it rezoned, then the company would flip the newly rezoned land at a significant profit.
Academics also advance humanity's knowledge in their field through research and writing, so that others may stand on their shoulders and see further. Perhaps you don't believe that things like critical literary analysis are providing us any actual benefit, but I disagree and I'm sure that any humanities professor would disagree too.
Why would it need any defense? Are you seriously suggesting that no-one should be reading literature and analyzing it? It's been an important part of Western culture for a few thousand years. Seems like it would be a bit rash to give it up now.
Despite the literal intepretation, you might be mistaken in assuming that "critical literary analysis" is the same as "reading literature and analyzing it".
Instead, I think the phrase is being used here as a term of the art, referring to something closer to "postmodern critical theory".
There are definitely those who wonder if this is useful. I too would be interested in hearing a defense.
Most of the people who whine about postmodern critical theory haven't even read any, so I'm not sure how to give a defense of work which people haven't read. I expect that most of it is rather low in quality, but most of the work done in every discipline is rather low in quality. And in any case, not all literary criticism in the academy is "postmodern" in the invidious sense.
>Instead, I think the phrase ["critical literary analysis"] is being used here as a term of the art,
There is no such term of art, as a quick google scholar search would tell you, so I see no reason not to interpret the OP literally.
Well, luckily even a casual adherence to postmodernism gives you that right! But in my old fashioned manner, I still think intentionality counts for something, and I don't think the author intended to say that we should give up on reading. :)
Most of the people who whine about postmodern critical theory haven't even read any
I actually have read a fair bit, and periodically urge it on others, likely in the same way that some people turn their friends onto LSD. Much of it is junk, but some of it is gold. For example, Michel Foucault's "History of Sexuality Volume 1" and "Discipline and Punish" permanently changed the way I see the world around me.
So when I said I'd like to see a defense, I meant only that -- that I'd enjoy it. And, of course, that John F. Kennedy was not a homosexual: http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html
>and I don't think the author intended to say that we should give up on reading. :)
He did, however, seem to be saying that we should give up on literary criticism, which is a different thing -- you shouldn't even need a google search to tell you the difference between reading and analyzing :) It was s a stupid thing of him to say, but then I've heard quite a few scientists say it, and I'm quite willing to believe that he meant it.
>Much of it is junk, but some of it is gold.
So, why are you asking for a defense of it? Isn't the fact that some of it "changed the way you see the world around you" enough of a defense?
I believe he was asking for the defense of literary criticism's value to society. If people want to analyze literature they have every right to. The question is, have they added anything of value to society?
Personally, I find it a question I have no answer to. I clearly see the value of medical doctor's, physicists, engineers. They all contribute to society in obvious ways. Liberary criticism may very well be of great value to society, but it is not in any way that is obvious to me and I sincerely would be interested if someone could provide an explanation for how it is of value to society.
> I believe he was asking for the defense of literary criticism's value to society.
It's valuable because people are, and have always been, interested in discussing and analyzing literature in order to gain a better understanding of it. I'm not sure why you think that it has to "contribute" some definite thing to society in order to be valuable. Music and art don't obviously contribute anything either, but presumably you don't think these are without value.
>The question is, have they added anything of value to society?
Yes, they have added a greater knowledge of literature and how it works. I don't think it's necessary (or possible, really) to argue that knowledge is valuable to society. But I think the way you pose the question is a bit odd. Why does literary criticism have to "add" something distinct from itself to society in order to be valuable? Some things are valuable in and of themselves.
It's valuable because people are, and have always been, interested in discussing and analyzing literature in order to gain a better understanding of it. ... Music and art don't obviously contribute anything either, but presumably you don't think these are without value.
But people can discus and analyze literature without there being a formal discipline for it. In fact arguable your average person could do it better without the formal discipline because they would not have be concerned about if they were doing it "right"
The analogy to music and art appears false, they do contribute things other than themselves. They contribute first entertainment, second the ties that bind culture together, and third (at least in some cases) they provide an introspection on society. Art and music add all of those things, but at least as I understand it now, literary criticism as an academic discipline provides none of them. As I have very limited knowledge of literary criticism please let me know if I am missing something.
* Some things are valuable in and of themselves.*
An interesting possibility, but it is not obvious that it is true. (I am not claiming it is false, merely that it demands justification). At least one argument is that things are valuable precisely in proportion to their utility to mankind. Excluding those people who make their living at it directly, I am unclear as to what value literary criticism provides to anyone else.
>But people can discus and analyze literature without there being a formal discipline for it.
People can do anything without there being a formal discipline for it. I'm not sure what your point is here. As with most other subjects (e.g. physics, chemistry, history) extensive training in a professional environment is one moderately effective means of getting people to produce high quality work.
> In fact arguable your average person could do it better without the formal discipline because they would not have be concerned about if they were doing it "right"
No, this is not arguable. Average people suck at literary criticism in more or less the same way that average people suck at theoretical physics. Given that you admit to knowing nothing about literary criticism, so I'm curious to know how you can be so sure of what you say here.
> They contribute first entertainment, second the ties that bind culture together, and third (at least in some cases) they provide an introspection on society.
At the very least, literary criticism provides introspection on society. The first two things you mention are a little more vague (and in any case, don't apply to most work in the sciences).
>An interesting possibility, but it is not obvious that it is true.
It is obviously true in the sense that if nothing has value in itself, then you get an infinite regress. It can't be that everything is valuable only in terms of some other thing. (Of course, an infinite regress is mathematically conceivable, it just doesn't seem plausible in this particular case.)
>At least one argument is that things are valuable precisely in proportion to their utility to mankind
If you think this then you clearly agree with me that there is something that is valuable in and of itself (i.e. utility to mankind). But valuing utility above everything else is clearly wrong. For example, beauty, love and compassion would be valuable whether or not they had utility.
>Excluding those people who make their living at it directly, I am unclear as to what value literary criticism provides to anyone else.
It provides value to people who value literary criticism. And there are certainly some such people who are not literary critics. (You yourself are clearly not one of these people, but you are not the only person in the world...)
Average people suck at literary criticism in more or less the same way that average people suck at theoretical physics. Given that you admit to knowing nothing about literary criticism, so I'm curious to know how you can be so sure of what you say here.
In theoretical physics there is an absolute authority by which to judge what is good and bad, namely the degree to which it conforms to reality. Appealing to this authority may be challenging and may not ever be practical, but it exists and it therefore means something specific to say something is wrong in theoretical physics. Also, when that theoretical physics is later applied being wrong about it can be have real negative consequences.
It is not clear to me that saying something is wrong in literary criticism even has a meaning, and even less clear that it would ever matter if something was wrong.
If you think this then you clearly agree with me that there is something that is valuable in and of itself (i.e. utility to mankind). But valuing utility above everything else is clearly wrong. For example, beauty, love and compassion would be valuable whether or not they had utility.
I actually do agree with you that some things (including beauty, truth, and love) have intrinsic value. But I take that belief starting from a Christian view point. If one were to examine it a priori or from an athiestic viewpoint it is not at all obvious or clear that anything has a value outside of its practical utility to mankind.
>In theoretical physics there is an absolute authority by which to judge what is good and bad, namely the degree to which it conforms to reality.
There might be an absolute authority of this sort if we could just ask God whether or not a given theory conformed to reality, but in practice there is no absolute authority for judging work in science -- and you certainly find plenty of disagreement between scientists once you go beyond textbook material. Personally, I'm not a complete subjectivist about aesthetic and critical judgments, so I think that an "absolute standard" exists in principle for a lot of work in the humanities. For example, I think it is a fact that Jane Austen wrote good novels. However, I'm a little uneasy about your reliance on the correspondence theory of truth (the idea that a true theory is one which is some obscure sense "conforms" or "corresponds" to reality). Although I am not a skeptic or subjectivist about truth, there are well known problems with conceiving truth in this way.
> Also, when that theoretical physics is later applied being wrong about it can be have real negative consequences.
Being wrong about the kinds of subjects that the humanities touches on (e.g. relations between human beings) can also have real negative consequences, if you are not a robot.
>It is not clear to me that saying something is wrong in literary criticism even has a meaning, and even less clear that it would ever matter if something was wrong.
I'm sorry that these things aren't clear to you, but the notion that critical and aesthetic judgments are "meaningless" is one that's been thoroughly discredited over the past 50 years. Logical positivism has been dead for quite some time now.
>If one were to examine it a priori or from an athiestic viewpoint it is not at all obvious or clear that anything has a value outside of its practical utility to mankind.
Again, if you believe that, then you believe that there is something which has intrinsic value -- utility. In any case, it's not clear to me why someone looking at things from an atheistic viewpoint would choose utility as his yardstick for value. I'm an atheist and I value a whole bunch of different things. I do value things for being useful, but I don't give utility any privileged place, or see any reason to do so.
There might be an absolute authority of this sort if we could just ask God whether or not a given theory conformed to reality, but in practice there is no absolute authority for judging work in science -- and you certainly find plenty of disagreement between scientists once you go beyond textbook material.
Yes, you certainly do, even in the text book material. In fact, we have much better theories than Newton's Three Laws of Motion, but they are still taught because they are close enough for almost all practical applications and much simpler than appeals to relatively. But, even if reality does not always yield its secrets easily we know it has them. It is not at all clear to me that there is an objective to literary criticism.
Being wrong about the kinds of subjects that the humanities touches on (e.g. relations between human beings) can also have real negative consequences, if you are not a robot.
We have been talking about literary criticism. Some areas of the traditional humanities are clearly of great practical value at least in some cases. I did considerable research into certain areas of history as military intelligence analyst at one time and it was of tremendous value. Similarly, the study of languages is of obvious utility, and I have already provided an overview of why I see utility in art. I do not see how a knowledge of literary criticism would help someone relate to human beings in general though and I do not yet understand any value to it other than to those who make their living at it.
I know you said that it has value to those who value it. And there is certainly some truth to that, but that is circular and does not explain why.
* but the notion that critical and aesthetic judgments are "meaningless" is one that's been thoroughly discredited over the past 50 years.*
Could you provide a reference or explanation? I am not at all trying to argue that they are meaningless, but that is far from obviously true.
gain, if you believe that, then you believe that there is something which has intrinsic value -- utility.
Actually I am saying that things which have utility have value because of that utility. That is not precisely the same thing, though I will admit at that point I am splitting hairs. I do take it as obvious (and you do not seem to disagree) that something which has utility clearly has value, but I do not see any intrinsic reason why anything without utility must have value.
Again, I personally believe from a Christian standpoint that there are such things, but it is not obvious to me.
In any case, it's not clear to me why someone looking at things from an atheistic viewpoint would choose utility as his yardstick for value.
I'm certainly not trying to say that they would. What I am saying is that there is no obvious reason that they would value other things, while it is obvious they would value utility.
> Perhaps you don't believe that things like critical literary analysis are providing us any actual benefit, but I disagree and I'm sure that any humanities professor would disagree too.
What they'll profess in public and what they'll admit "off the record" aren't always the same thing.
Well... The absolute worst case here is a structural engineer producing something that looks like a bridge for some time, then becomes a very dynamic and contorted structure of concrete, metal, automobiles and mostly dead primates.
You could make the corresponding argument for structural engineering, but it would be harder.
The corresponding statement for academia would be: "the main product of academia is not the production of ___ but..."
But what do we fill in the blank with? With structural engineering, the answer is obvious. With academia, particularly humanities academia, not so much.
It's true that research in the humanities tends to have less definite "results" than research in the sciences, but it's daft to use that as a criticism. _Of course_ literary analysis produces less definite results than chemistry. But that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
Academia in the humanities field is particularly calcified and corrupt because it's so hard to measure the quality of the output (or even if anyone wants it at all).
At least with things like maths or computer science research can be verified and has utility to the broader world.
On the other hand, the claim that the humanities are not "practical" has become virtually a tautology, because "practical" has become almost a synonym for "scientific". Nowadays, people don't seem to think that work on love or ethics or aesthetics has practical value. I am not sure why, since actual human lives are intimately concerned with these topics.
The academy is really no different from mega-corporations like Wal-mart, both revolve around money and power. Both are government subsidized. The republicans fund their pet industries (military complex, healthcare, corporate interests) until democrats seize power, yank their government subsidies, and routes all that money into the academy, unions, etc (and doing a pretty damn good job of catching up to republicans in terms of being corporate shills).
