The other month, I heard a tenured academic say something very strange, which has puzzled me ever since.
In a setting among junior and senior scholars, while the group was talking about the academic job market, the man likened academic teaching to military service: “you go where they tell you to go.” So, first of all, however much I cringed at this hawkish analogy, I think I understand where he was coming from. He must have meant that, early in one’s career, one doesn’t get to be selective about where one lives—you go where the job is. So, again, I get it. As a former grad student, I’ve heard that insight a few dozen times; it’s true that, when on the academic job market, most people would be lucky to have one option, let alone two, so you take what you can get. But it’s precisely this fact that his comment also seemed to misunderstand, in that his military comparison presumed that people have the option to serve in the profession at all. As though the problem is that recent PhDs are too arrogant to take the lousy offers they do receive, as though most recent PhDs are receiving any offers at all. He comes, presumably, from an era in which people completed their degree and said, “I’m ready for my job now!,” and he views our era, I can only assume, as one in ruins thanks to spoiled millennials. Of course, the “I’m ready for my job now!” situation actually does still pan out for some people these days, a select few people, in most cases because they are exceptionally talented and experienced. But that’s not what’s really happening for the majority of applicants.
To even discuss this on my blog, whose readership you might recall I have basically zero understanding of, feels a little bit trite. Honestly, I’m bored by this entire situation, and by the fact that I’m writing about it. I can hardly bring myself to press “Publish.” Maybe this is why I have meandered away from teaching, and also why I’ve resolved, as of this very minute, to save my interesting ideas for an audience that identifies as such.