Why I Gave Academia a Miss

One decision that has, in a few ways, defined my last five years was the decision not to go back to grad school right away. I opted to not do an MA in history but instead embark upon an adventure in Asia.

Kids, don't stay in school.

I don't mean that higher learning doesn't have real value, because it does. Without it I'd never have made it over here and wouldn't now be doing an MA in Linguistics/ESL (a degree that is actually applicable to the real world). I certainly don't regret my decision to go to university or study history, but at the end of the day, academia is a joke. As far as I can tell it's 200 extreme specialists arguing with each other about stuff that no one else knows or cares about, and that's just how they plan on keeping it.

This does not pertain to sciences as it does to arts and law. There may only be 50 people on this planet who understand how AIDS is treated (and now possibly cured?) but millions benefit from it. I may not know HOW Voyager is still transmitting back to NASA, but damned if it isn't cool. In contrast the arts have largely become irrelevant, or perhaps it's academics who have made them so, but it seems like we are at a point where huge amounts of tax dollars are going to fund angry people's hobbies. Between technology and elitism I can't honest identify what academics actually do anymore, and it seems like most are not really in to what they study anyway, and don't actually contribute anything to their fields of study.

Why do we need fields like cultural or social anthropology? 150 years ago these people went out in to places that various Europeans had conquered and studied locals. We actually owe these people a debt for what they brought to the west. Today? Let's say I want to know what a group in Indonesia does. I'll google it or add a friend on facebook from Sumatra and ask them. Or hell, my neighbour is Indonesian, I'll ask him. I want to learn about Korea, well the University of BC has a great Korean studies program..... of course being that I live here I think I'll give it a miss, though I'm sure some 19 year old who studies there would delight in telling me how what I've learned here doesn't match up to what was in his textbook (cause that's how I was taught to think). Or you want to study inner city poverty and how to alleviate it. Hmmm, well that's been studied with no real success since the first Roman census around 300 BC, but I'm sure the next study will figure it all out. I'm not saying that there aren't real answers, but they won't be found in an ivory tower. You want to talk to people who have had success bringing prosperity to inner city kids? Ask the NBA.... I'm serious. Their outreach programs do more than any study ever has because many NBA athletes came from that background and succeeded and so know what to do. I'm a middle class white guy, I have no idea what these kids need, but give me $70,000 a year and tenure and I'll come up with something. If you want to learn about what it's like in space, you ask an astronaut, not some guy who studies space. If you want to know about how government works (or doesn't) ask a civil servant or a politician, not a political scientist. Heck if I want to know how to play baseball I'll take tips from Derek Jeter, not some guy who's read books about baseball.

I should say now I love history and watch documentaries regularly and people who contribute to them are amazing, but what percentage of academics are doing this? For this I'll stick to history, which I do have first hand experience in. I can't tell you how many pissed off, perennially angry TA's I had at SFU. These were grad students who had gone from High School to BA to MA. They seemed genuinely unhappy. Well ask the person who is their "mentor" (seriously) and I get it. That person did a PhD as well and is now a professor in Irish history and has no idea why they did it. It wasn't passion, they just did the BA and figured they were stuck now. I can't tell you how many classes I took where all we did was study what was coined "historiography" or the study of the study of history (seriously). I did a class on Irish history where all we did was discuss classical interpretations of Irish history, revisionist interpretations of Irish history and neo-revisionist interpretations of Irish history (seriously). Still have no idea what actually happened in Ireland, other than the English probably did it, but also maybe not (seriously). You are taught to tear down another person's work, but not in a real way, but in a trivial way. Every idea has gaps in logic, those gaps need to be filled in, that does not invalidate the entire argument or idea. If you disagree with someone I'm all for a discussion, but there's discussion and trivial bickering. I'll cite two examples from my own life to illustrate the difference. My friend Kurt and I routinely discuss gun control. He and I simply do not see eye-to-eye on this. It is a fairly major issue and I really enjoy our discussions on the topic, even though we rarely agree. However the debate is always substance, not trivial bs. I can respect his ideas even though the idea of arming everyone is ridiculous to me. In contrast I met a guy a while ago (I'll omit names here) who seemed to delight in arguing with everything I (or anyone else) said. He was the local expert on everything. At one point I made an off hand comment about Buddhism as the oldest religion in the world (except Judaism) and he started in with "well do you mean as a philosophy or an organized religion, cause the structure of Buddhism ............". What I meant was that I made an offhand comment and have no interest in a debate so stop arguing with everything I say. Plus, Buddhism is like 500 years older than Christianity, why are you arguing this? For the sake of arguing seems the only answer to me. I feel most of academia and most academics are guy two and not Kurt.

I'll even argue that for many of them, arguing has replaced real social interaction, but that's just an unkind opinion and one not limited to academics either.

So let's debate WHY Hitler took control of Germany. It is a valuable lesson. Well Germany was impoverished and angry from WWI. This led to a dictator. Okay, but explain all the countries that have had major depressions but haven't resorted to fascism, war and genocide. I think that's a valuable discussion. Too bad the guy who studied German history as his specialty didn't study British history as well. Let's have a conference. Too bad 75% of them will spend the whole time tearing each other's bibliographies apart (seriously) and argue trivia rather than have a discussion. Again, a gap in logic does NOT invalidate an idea. As to points of debate. If the British government had sent redcoats to America instead of India in 1778 imagine how much different the world would be today. Great debate. Interesting discussion. Should I collect a paycheque to discuss it? Probably not. It's all academic (now you know why that expression is what it is). Can I get a paycheque to discuss whether Jeter or Ichiro (both 38 this year) are going to have a better season? Of course not, it's just a fun discussion. I can't tell you the number of times I was handed a paper or an essay and essentially told to "tear this apart". I took classes on Latin American history, US history, Irish history and Canadian history where I never did learn what actually happened, but I learned that most people who study it are idiots (a dual lesson there that the prof didn't intend I'm sure).


This is not to say that I didn't have a few great professors in university. Paul Crowe taught Asian studies and I use what he taught me here daily. But he lived it. He lived in Taiwan for a while, he translates texts from ancient Chinese to English. In short what he does is useful, interesting and, well, cool. He is also involved in the Chinese Canadian community in a real way, not in a "I'll ask you questions and write a report" way but in a "I'll practice Daoism and chat with monks" way. My High School history teacher Kevin Benoy who taught me history as questions. WHY did xyz happen, not how can I tear apart someone else's theory about why it happened. David Delafanetre who followed that theme in a more academic way and encouraged us to ask why and consider big picture implications and who actually taught us what happened. There were a few others as well but many were clearly more interested in their research than in us, though I can't help but admire their dedication, but I'm sure one of the 75% who make up the rest will tear it all down for them.


So I guess to make it personal again, academia let me study the real world from an ivory tower. Going out in the real world allowed me to go out in to the real world. I studied Japan in history class but nothing compared to being there. I wrote a paper on the division of Korea in first year. Academically it was okay I guess as it got a 94. Not sure how much of it stacks up to what I learned here. I am NOT saying that a classroom has no value, but unless you get out there and do it your education is worthless. I also think that if I ever did go back for an academic MA I would use my experience to do a better job than any 24 year old could, not that he CAN'T but he is 24. I remember reading an MA dissertation by a 24 year old who's whole argument was that Churchill was not a great man. He had some decent points but here's the thing. Who cares? What are you actually trying to prove? He is a hero to millions, he did keep Britain in the war in 1940 and without him the allies may never have defeated Hitler. He destroyed the Nazi's, what have you done? Sure he made a few mistakes and had attitudes on empire that were outdated even in his time, but he lived in the real world, and outside of the ivory tower mistakes are made and it's how you deal with them that separates great men from mediocre ones.

I guess at the end of the day academia is for people who want to study the real world, the real world is for people who want to live in it. Trust me, the real world is awesome if you do it right, and far more educational too.