The life of an academic is often a tough one. The lack of money, the constant internal conflict of ‘Should I rather not take a job as a PA so my parents can at least brag that I went to University and now I have a good job in corporate?’ The constant questions of ‘so what are you doing?’ and the immediate frown and questioning look when you tell people that you are doing your masters in Anthropology. ‘Yes, I’m 25 and still a student deal with it!’ Is what I want to scream at them, but I plaster a smile on my face and explain for the hundredth time what anthropology is.
In the past academics and scholars were revered and respected. Their thoughts and ideas are remembered for centenaries and made the world what it is today. Whether it is a good or bad thing is debatable, but the point is that their work was worth it. From what I see, ‘The academic’ has become a figure of the past, being pushed into the libraries with other artifacts such as paper. I asked myself, ‘Is all this really worth it?’
Surfing the internet I found that anyone from any country in the world can now argue about social issues, religion or politics. They have come to replace the academic in society. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that it is a bad thing; it is good that people are starting to get involved in the world. The problem is how they do it. They give their opinion without justifying their arguments and sometimes even say things that have no basis in reality. It took me 7 years to master the art of the argument, and my Supervisor would probably say that I’m still not there. Yet, here are people going about there very well paying jobs, saying things that have the potential to leave a mark on the world. But the problem is that, their mark is not always positive. Some people know that not everything on the internet is true; others don’t.
These opinions have actually caused conflict, and full blown fights can be found on some people’s blogs or Facebook statuses. All it really does is creates more segregation and prejudices. What in essence was a way for people to come together, and learn from each other, has become a screaming match of who knows more about what; the housewife or the accountant? All of which were not trained to express themselves appropriately. Can you imagine what it would be like if an Anthropologist gave their opinion on accounting practices? I seriously think that people from all disciplines (even housewives) need to do some social science to teach them how to argue. They need to learn it’s a skill not a competition. Before one mad mans opinion is taken as fact, and a mark is left on the world that is catastrophic.
Let’s take the academic out of the library and put them in front of a computer. It just maybe the way we can leave our mark on the world.
Tasnim Alli
Masters Student
Univeristy of Johannesburg
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I find that people on the blogosphere are all too ready to share their opinions on subjects that they know very little about.
ReplyDeleteThere are even some academics in completely different faculties for eg. Accounting, who think that their 4-year stint at University qualifies them to argue over intricate and complex issues with professionals in Sociology, when they clearly have no knowledge of the subject at hand.
To make matters worse, I find that alot of people conveniently choose to disregard certain pieces of information that are integral to the argument, which takes the entire matter out of context.
I think that people should do their homework and get their facts straight before offering any opinions on matters that they have no real knowledge of.
I am so with you on this one…I have a degree is social science. And it is so strange how people take a statement like your facebook status out of context, then accuse you of being racist or something like that. They don’t understand the concept of understanding something in a context!
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