(From The College Fix):
Opinion: The Academic World Is a Cult
After pursuing a career in academia for nearly a decade, a young post-doc has decided to leave behind her dream of becoming a professor. Rebecca Schuman has published a kind of “farewell letter” in the Chronicle of Higher Education, in which she details the disappointment that lead her to abandon her career path, and in which she compares the academic world to “a cult.”
My tenured colleagues sometimes get offended when I compare academe to a cult—of course they would, they’re in the cult! Still, they must recognize the similarities. In literary studies, for example, we have our own lingo—French-theory jargon, which is nearly impossible for outsiders to parse. We have quasi-scriptures from worshiped nondeities—Derrida, Foucault, Merleau-Ponty—which we recite, from memory, to win arguments.
And we re-educate our ranks using the cult playbook. READ MORE HERE