/lit/ - Literature

>>18330384
yeah a fuckton of modern academics are clowns who write about garbage like queering drones.

>>18330398
Transgender drones?

>>18330384
But these academics get a degree and are thus more often than not more likely to land a Job at a profession they want.

Also, if your own "happiness" was depended on you knowing more than everybody else, then you would live a pretty sad life, because there is always some random autist who is better at the thing you really like doing. Just try living your own good life and be happy with it.

>>18330422
I don't know man, it seems like academics spend most of their time hyperfocused on a single issue, even if they're sometimes free from such duties as teaching, grading, course-planning, etc. Like, for example, think of someone who just finished writing their PhD dissertation on the method of division in Plato. This person spent like years taking courses and writing papers. You'd expect them to able to say something about, say, Bruno or Comte, right? Well, no, this is not usually the case. I've met with only a few instances of where this was the case, and those guys were typically double majors.

>>18330467
Academics understand how ignorant they are on almost every topic, whereas regular people just read the wiki page on Nietzsche and come up with 10 theories on the spot. Academics know plenty of things outside their specialization, but are trained to not make baseless speculations. Except for Chomsky, who pretends to be a genius political thinker despite just being a linguist.

>>18330467
I think you are projecting your intellect onto other people.

Maybe this is gonna be hard for you Anon, but have you ever considered that you are way smarter than anyone else around you?

My best friend is some 160+ IQ Genius who sometimes doesn't get, that "normal" people aren't able to think the way he does, and therefore he sometimes thinks they are "evil" or "lazy". The Academics you are talking about might just be your average normie and the autodidacts like you are in another league. Maybe they are smarter and dislike academia and therefore the academics are just a little smarter normies.

t. self aware brainlet

>>18330384
>are producing novel philosophy.
The amount of cope is incredible

>>18330384
It’s a mixed bag. Yes but this can also veer into heavy pseud territory

>>18330384
> meanwhile autodidacts are reading the widest variety of primary texts and are producing novel philosophy.
They’re not. You just have a severe case of Dunning-Kruger.

>>18330384
I've never met a self-described autodidact who wasn't a dilettante

>>18330384
>meanwhile autodidacts are reading the widest variety of primary texts and are producing novel philosophy

Yes, and academics do this as well, which is why they eventually move on to secondary sources and enter the discussion as it is currently happening. Once you truly engage with a particular primary source, you will realize just how hard it is to become competent at any one of them. Most academics will have a handful of thinkers they are competent in, a few "areas of interest", and thats it. Thats as much as 99% of people can handle within the scope of one human life. That is called intellectual humility from constantly interacting with "multiple nerds out there who know just as much, if not more than them." Tell me OP, what was the last "novel" philosophy that any autodidact contributed that was worth anything?

>>18330398
This is also true, sadly.

>>18330531
Good post.

>>18330531
True, but I think this is also harmful in a way. If you say something stupid on the interner, there will be plenty of people who will correct you and, if you're lucky, give further guidance on the topic you're discussing.

>>18330572
Idk, maybe they're more varied in their personal lives and I'm missing something.

>>18330631
>Idk, maybe they're more varied in their personal lives and I'm missing something.
I dont think you are. Just stop giving a fuck that other people are dumber than you and dont be prick about being smart and everything should be fine.

Everybody hates that one person, who know they are really smart, but acts super smug about it....

They have no idea that they are not what they think they are. 99% of modern academics are total midwits with their heads inserted so far up their asses that they can sniff their own farts through their mouths.
Academia is dead

>>18330582
>>18330597
I'll give you three examples: Antonio Wolf, Elephant Philosophy and Sympoiesis are all fun to read and they're all varied in their work

>>18330666
unless ur a communist.

>>18330628
>Most academics will have a handful of thinkers they are competent in, a few "areas of interest", and thats it
Yes, and that's the problem. Look at what they're all saying on twitter. They're dissatistified with the Descartes-Hume-Kant carousel, and wish to do something else. And as for your point regarding the accessibility of work done by autodidacts, I think it's sufficient to say that due to their not being published in major journals (for various reason, which I will not get into), they are harder to find. Sure, they're not the new Aristotle, but neither is Billy Bob Jones publishing in a generic philosophy journal.

>>18330689
Selection bias at work. You're drawing your sample from Twitter. Thats like saying all water on earth contains urine after drawing a sample from nothing but bar urinals. Twitter is a cesspool.

>due to their not being published in major journals
But why? Most journals screen their papers anonymously. You, as an autodidact, could submit your work and if its sufficiently rigorous it will be considered with nobody any the wiser. There isn't some conspiracy to keep non-academics out of philosophical publishing, the fact is that most armchair philosophers just aren't very good at it. Not all, but the overwhelming majority.

>for various reason, which I will not get into
Oh come on, don't be coy now. The thread is young, we have time, speak your mind.

I hate academics for being fanatic ideologues, careerists, and bad at their jobs, they don't think, they only regurgitate, but they're still more reliable than some autodidact if you have set your mental filter correctly, and tolerate and (on your end) amend their incoherencies. Of course, there are few that match the unknown autodidact autist doing it for himself. But that's the difference between an individual's high standards and the lies, concessions, varied motives, and thoughtless dogma of bigger things, institutions and culture.

>>18330572
Normal people readily concede that they don't know or care though. Academics are often actively harmful and also power-hungry. Also, their offspring, the university student, actively drags any and all intellectual topics through the mud on the internet too. God, I hate how they write. They want the aesthetic so much they will destroy everything.

>>18330384
OP, you sound like an arrogant undergraduate. There is dishonest and low-quality work in any field, but even the people who produce academic garbage are miles ahead of you or me. It takes years of constant study focusing on a few narrow issues to produce anything worth another person's time. You must also consider the constraints of the framework within which we live, i.e. unless you have tenure and are willing to deal with a great deal of bullying and harassment, it is not a good idea to produce work that goes against the zeitgeist. The closest you can get to it is stuff like Just Hierarchy, in which the authors have to add qualifiers on almost every single page to avoid angering others, only to argue that it is possible for there to be hierarchies that are just.
Basically, whatever internet nerds you enjoy reading are only good as a way to get excited about a specific topic and introduce you to authors who the gatekeepers of these professions may never have told you about. You should move on from them as soon as possible and spend your time searching out substantive work. Even reading through and taking detailed notes on collections like the Cambridge Histories or Oxford Handbooks would be more productive, more enlightening, and more humbling than spending all your time reading sophomoric internet wankery.

>>18330384
They cope by giving bad marks to students who remind them of this fact, or by hitting their kids/pets, or giving angry reviews on amazon.

>>18330866
>It takes years of constant study focusing on a few narrow issues to produce anything worth another person's time
Not true. It takes years to get the right position to be taken seriously. Your work doesn't matter. There is loads of good work to be done academically but academia will never do because they have locked in what you need to do to be successful.

>>18330384
Nerds are the new form of anti-intellectual. They are medieval peasants picked up, dusted off, and given laptops to play with. Better to ask how academics cope with apes screaming over bananas.

>>18330884
I'm sorry, dude, but you must be like eighteen. You will understand what I mean once you've written your undergraduate thesis.

>>18330756
>Selection bias at work. You're drawing your sample from Twitter.
Maybe it's because it hosts one of the biggest pools of academics who are online? They're likely to know even those who don't use email, e.g. some stanford professor who uses twitter might personally know Donald Knuth. If you could give present me with a sata source that's bigger and less costly to manage and operate, please forward me to it.

>You, as an autodidact, could submit your work and if its sufficiently rigorous it will be considered with nobody any the wiser. There isn't some conspiracy to keep non-academics out of philosophical publishing, the fact is that most armchair philosophers just aren't very good at it.
Because even those with degrees have trouble publishing it. Philosophy is infamous for having absurdly low rates of acceptance. You'd think that because there is no lab equipment or the like involved that there will be more work coming from independent scholars. Pic related shows this is not the case. It's very difficult to get published by the big journals, even by those whose submission process is completely anonymous like Mind. I think the number of submissions + the number of willing autodidacts makes this dataset statistically insignificant due to its meagreness.

>come on, don't be coy now.
I don't know the details of the submission process for many journals, but you can find them on their official webpage

>>18330906
>Maybe it's because it hosts one of the biggest pools of academics who are online? They're likely to know even those who don't use email, e.g. some stanford professor who uses twitter might personally know Donald Knuth. If you could give present me with a sata source that's bigger and less costly to manage and operate, please forward me to it.
Not him, but you should read their actual work. Very few of the professors I have met so far use Twitter.
>Because even those with degrees have trouble publishing it.
Yes, but that is partly because even those with degrees do not always produce good work. It is hard to produce good work.
>I don't know the details of the submission process for many journals, but you can find them on their official webpage
Once you've actually tried getting something published, you can come back and talk to us about it.

>>18330866
>even the people who produce academic garbage are miles ahead of you or me
I don't know what this means. In terms of what? Is this impossible to attain without a brick and mortar institution (and I am not talking about a library)?

>It takes years of constant study focusing on a few narrow issues to produce anything worth another person's time.
This might ring true for cellular biology, but not ethics or metaphysics.

>Even reading through and taking detailed notes on collections like the Cambridge Histories or Oxford Handbooks would be more productive, more enlightening, and more humbling than spending all your time reading sophomoric internet wankery.
I think reading such works is good if you're a newbie to the subject, but I don't find much valuable in another paper arguing Aristotle thought sense-perception was only partly physical.

>>18330864
Thinking that you are smart when you are actually not must be inherent to academics, because if you didn't at least pretend to know something, your degrees would drastically decrease in value.

>>18330919
>Not him, but you should read their actual work. Very few of the professors I have met so far use Twitter.
I addressed this point in the quoted greentext.
>Yes, but that is partly because even those with degrees do not always produce good work. It is hard to produce good work.
Then that means you can come out as an incompetent graduate student, which means that one can do good independent work.

>Once you've actually tried getting something published, you can come back and talk to us about it.
Why?

>>18330934
>I don't know what this means. In terms of what? Is this impossible to attain without a brick and mortar institution (and I am not talking about a library)?
Yes, because you would not have access to expertise, knowledge, and resources.
>This might ring true for cellular biology, but not ethics or metaphysics.
It really does. You should read more.
>I think reading such works is good if you're a newbie to the subject, but I don't find much valuable in another paper arguing Aristotle thought sense-perception was only partly physical.
You clearly have no idea what is contained in such collections. Go read them.
>>18330961
My dude, you really sound like a freshman. Just chill, go to class, talk to your professors, and read. You'll get it at some point.

>>18331007
>Yes, because you would not have access to expertise, knowledge, and resources.
Expertise? Professors are usually very happy to answer emails from inquiring persons. Knowledge? Dude, we live in an age of scihub and libgen. Resources? Notebooks are dirt-cheap, bibliographies and syllabi can be easily found on .edu websites, and you have bunch of internet groups dedicated to discussing the fine points of every subject 24/7.
>It really does. You should read more.
Appreciate the unsolicited advice
>You clearly have no idea what is contained in such collections. Go read them.
I can read English just fine.

>>18330384
This thread shows why one should not interact with autodidact pseuds.

>>18330384
ah yes, the autodidacts of 4chan

>>18330384
>meanwhile autodidacts are reading the widest variety of primary texts and are producing novel philosophy.
Such as?

>>18330384
academia isn't about seeking knowledge it's about collecting diplomas and stages to add to your CV

>>18330384
>autodidacts are reading the widest variety....

are you talking about youtubers?

>>18331090
You sound like you have never done any sort of research.
>Professors are usually very happy to answer emails from inquiring persons.
They are not. Lots of professors barely answer queries from their own graduate students, and their expertise really only makes itself felt when you interact closely with them and they recommend you books.
>Knowledge? Dude, we live in an age of scihub and libgen.
This does not matter.
>Resources? Notebooks are dirt-cheap, bibliographies and syllabi can be easily found on .edu websites, and you have bunch of internet groups dedicated to discussing the fine points of every subject 24/7.
1. Syllabi are generally not available to the public.
2. Bibliographies, secondary, and primary sources are not actually widely available. Even if you have access through your institution, you will find that many useful texts are only available at other institutions and must be borrowed from them, or are only available in archives in the country in question.
3. You have no idea what kind of resources are available to students, perhaps because you have never bothered to look. If I felt the need to spend a year learning Polish, my institution would hand me enough money for airfare, housing, food, internet, transportation, and whatever else I need, connect me with whatever institution in the country I like, and send me off without batting an eye. How many autodidacts are capable of this? If I need to learn how to read a specific kind of calligraphy in a language, there are experts in house who I can go learn with. If I were to suddenly acquire an interest in political philosophy, I could walk over to the department of political science, register for a class, and read books and discuss them with graduate students and professors who have devoted their lives to the field. How many autodidacts have access to these resources?
I am not kidding when I say that access to a university is a prerequisite for doing serious intellectual work. Without it, you are crippled and lost. You need to humble yourself, get over whatever chip you have on your shoulder, and go learn at the feet of the "academics" you despise so much. Remember also that even Machiavelli and Hobbes, for all their opposition to monarchy and Christianity, had to bow before throne and altar in order to secure their livelihood and accomplish their aims.

>>18331187
why are you projecting so hard about chips on shoulders, my man? it seems like your narcissistic little nerd ego took a hard hit.

>>18331112
t. salty dropout

>>18331187
>their expertise really only makes itself felt when you interact closely with them and they recommend you books.
I can easily get book recommendations outside of a brick-and-mortar institution. I'm sure you have heard of guides and bibliographies.
>This does not matter.
Says who and for what reason?
>Syllabi are generally not available to the public.
It doesn't matter for my claim if not every university course publishes their syllabi to outsiders. What matters is that I can find some of them for my desired subject.
>Bibliographies, secondary, and primary sources are not actually widely available.
It depends on what you're looking for.
>You have no idea what kind of resources are available to students, perhaps because you have never bothered to look
The last two resources you mentioned are not exclusive to univerisity students. Tutors can accept or refuse to teach you, regardless if you're enrolled or not. The costs of the first example can easily be covered by a more well-off person.
>go learn at the feet of the "academics" you despise so much.
I don't despise any of these people. Just disappointed at what they're putting out.