{"id":2145,"date":"2014-02-15T17:47:26","date_gmt":"2014-02-15T22:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/?p=2145"},"modified":"2014-02-15T20:40:10","modified_gmt":"2014-02-16T01:40:10","slug":"professors-we-need-you-to-come-out-of-your-cloistered-monasteries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/2014\/02\/15\/professors-we-need-you-to-come-out-of-your-cloistered-monasteries\/","title":{"rendered":"“Professors, We Need You!” [ . . . To Come Out Of Your Cloistered Monasteries]"},"content":{"rendered":"

In tomorrow’s\u00a0New York Times,\u00a0<\/em>Nicholas Kristof’s column<\/a>\u00a0takes academics to the woodshed for failing to communicate with the general public. He refuses to accept the common ivory tower rationalization that the great unwashed masses are just too stupid to grasp our “arcane” and “turgid” prose in peer-reviewed publications. Kristof suggests an alternative explanation: Much of our writing is “gobbledygook.”<\/p>\n

“SOME of the smartest thinkers on problems at home and around the world are university professors, but most of them just don\u2019t matter in today\u2019s great debates.<\/em><\/p>\n

“The most stinging dismissal of a point is to say: ‘That\u2019s academic.’ In other words, to be a scholar is, often, to be irrelevant.<\/em><\/p>\n

“One reason is the anti-intellectualism in American life, the kind that led\u00a0Rick Santorum to scold President Obama<\/a>\u00a0as \u201ca snob\u201d for wanting more kids to go to college, or that led congressional Republicans to denounce spending\u00a0on social science research<\/a>. Yet it\u2019s not just that America has marginalized some of its sharpest minds. They have also marginalized themselves. . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

I write this in sorrow, for I considered an academic career and deeply admire the wisdom found on university campuses. So, professors, don\u2019t cloister yourselves like medieval monks \u2014 we need you!”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In tomorrow’s\u00a0New York Times,\u00a0Nicholas Kristof’s column\u00a0takes academics to the woodshed for failing to communicate with the general public. He refuses to accept the common ivory tower rationalization that the great unwashed masses are just too stupid to grasp our “arcane” and “turgid” prose in peer-reviewed publications. Kristof suggests an alternative explanation: Much of our writing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2145"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2150,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145\/revisions\/2150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}