I never thought social justice should have a place in academe. That is not its purpose and the trend towards academic politicization is what has destroyed our universities. The politics of professors may be liberal or far left, but that should be pursued in one's spare time. The university is for the pursuit of truth, to teach students how to be rigorous scholars who know how to evaluate and judge evidence. That was what I was seeking when I was pursuing my Ph.D. 30 years ago. I wanted to be locked in a library for the rest of my life studying the minutiae of my subject in blissful obscurity. I didn't want money. I wanted the life of the mind. And I certainly had no interest in political activism. In the end, after an M.Phil. at Oxford, a Fulbright award in Europe, and three years at an Ivy League Ph.D. program, I realized that my field was not going to allow me to dedicate my life to learning what interests me. So I dropped out A.B.D. I am so glad that I did not go into what our universities have become.
I never thought social justice should have a place in academe. That is not its purpose and the trend towards academic politicization is what has destroyed our universities. The politics of professors may be liberal or far left, but that should be pursued in one's spare time. The university is for the pursuit of truth, to teach students how to be rigorous scholars who know how to evaluate and judge evidence. That was what I was seeking when I was pursuing my Ph.D. 30 years ago. I wanted to be locked in a library for the rest of my life studying the minutiae of my subject in blissful obscurity. I didn't want money. I wanted the life of the mind. And I certainly had no interest in political activism. In the end, after an M.Phil. at Oxford, a Fulbright award in Europe, and three years at an Ivy League Ph.D. program, I realized that my field was not going to allow me to dedicate my life to learning what interests me. So I dropped out A.B.D. I am so glad that I did not go into what our universities have become.