Shots in the Dark
Tuesday, 22 April
Why Professors Are Miserable
by Is academia the dreariest (white-collar) profession?
On the Atlantic.com, Megan McCardle proposes several explanations for why so many academics seem so unsatisfied with their lot.
They include (I'm paraphrasing):
—low pay relative to professions they might have gone into
— constant awareness of your place in the academic ecosystem
—low job mobility
—insufficient time for other, status-reassuring pursuits due to demands of career
I'd offer another: a nagging sense that the social status of professors, particularly those in the humanities, has declined substantially in recent decades.
It's an important debate for lots of reasons, not least that it may help to explain the Summers debacle. Already sensitive about their (sagging) place in the world, professors won't like taking marching orders from someone who's come from the world of politics to tell them what they're doing wrong.... What say you?
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