You may have noticed a recurring theme on Do the Math that involves prisons. Inspired by Ishmael, I compare modernity to a prison whose bars few inmates can even detect: prison life is all they’ve ever known. The brain creates a prison that for many becomes more real than the universe itself. The last post cast Richard Feynman as a prisoner of modernity. If challenged about the hypocrisy of eviscerating modernity while enjoying a house, car, grocery store, and internet I tend to point out that a prisoner can offer perhaps the most legitimate complaints about prison or even the entire penal concept. Moreover, if I tried to live an authentic ecological life in my location, I would soon end up in an actual prison after violating any number of property rights and other laws that function to keep people in the modernity pen. Likewise, we know what happens to people who take direct action to disable infrastructures and institutions of modernity, right?
I did, at least, manage to break free from one major harness of modernity. I left my academic job at age 53. In doing so, I took a 75% paycut and effectively said no-thank-you to perhaps millions of dollars of cumulative income. Granted, this is different from a 100% paycut. But I hope it can be appreciated as a substantial step away from the treadmill, imposing a much simpler and lower-impact lifestyle. I don’t pretend to be living in right relationship to the Community of Life, but neither do I feel that I, personally, must accomplish the full journey if I can use my time to help many others start the journey themselves. It will take generations—facilitated by the inevitable dynamic duo of death and replacement. Rome wasn’t destroyed in a day.
Academia is its own sort of prison, which is what we’ll examine here. You’ve no doubt heard much ballyhoo about academic freedom, which sounds great. But maybe that’s akin to a prisoner being allowed unsupervised time in the prison library on account of good behavior. The ostensible freedom has both soft and hard limits.
Tenure
Most people who work in jobs do so under the awareness that they could be fired for not performing up to the bosses’ expectations. From this perspective, the concept of tenure gets naively translated into “they can’t fire you, so you can do anything you want!” Anyone who has actually experienced the academic tenure scheme knows it doesn’t work this way, in practice.
Foremost, tenure is bestowed on individuals who show relentless drive in achieving scholarly/research impact. Such people are extremely unlikely to shape-shift into couch potatoes once granted tenure. In fact, service (committee) responsibilities usually step up, teaching load often increases, and research commitment generally only becomes more intense. The process aims to select exactly the sort of folks who will keep the pedal to the metal. It’s hard to fake for years on end in the pursuit of tenure.
Now, a tenured professor could, in principle, shift research focus in any direction with complete freedom. It almost never happens. Firstly, academic positions are situated within departments (physics, philosophy, history, economics, etc.). Would it surprise you to learn that members of a department tend to regard their field as superior in some way? If an International Relations professor started dabbling in chemistry, their colleagues would think they’ve gone mad. Perhaps more relevant is that in matters of evaluation, the department members would not be equipped to assess the credibility of research in chemistry, and the “actual” chemists would likely dismiss such an amateur’s overtures. “Stay in your lane” is the strong message. Adjacent lanes are better tolerated: a physicist applying their techniques in biology or a historian pursuing political science won’t raise as many eyebrows.
But let’s say a professor persisted in their leap to an unrelated field, and managed to gain credible acceptance within that community. Life in the original department would become fraught. Teaching assignments would necessarily satisfy department needs in the “old” subject matter. Promotions would face serious challenges if the department (and dean, even) has no basis for appreciating the alien work. Relationships are strained. Graduate students and postdocs would be hard to attract (why would a chemistry student risk teaming up with an International Relations prof?). It is sometimes possible to shift appointments to a different department, but that tends to be an uphill battle. Academic positions are highly coveted rarities. They present an opportunity to expand the departmental portfolio, bring in new talent, and try to attract the best in the world. Why would a department “waste” a prized slot on someone who is already at the university, unlikely to be top-tier internationally—especially as a novice in the cross-over field—and following this most-unconventional path? It’s a huge risk for little “new” gain.
Tenure is more of a cage than is generally appreciated.
Two Lanes at Most, Please
Not only is it difficult to change lanes in a significant way, it is very difficult to straddle multiple lanes at once. For all the praise of “interdisciplinary” research, 99% of the time it’s sitting in a natural intersection of two related fields. For instance, physics mixes well with chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, engineering, etc. but not so much disciplines within the arts, humanities, or professional schools.
A big barrier is journals. To make it academically (in most departments), one needs a steady publication record—which requires reputable, impactful journals in which to publish. This sets up a bandwagon limitation: if too few people are working in a particular intersection to have formed a new journal to support that community, then the barrier is formidably high. Little academic incentive exists to pursue unusual combinations that lack supporting infrastructure. The “pure” journals won’t often touch a paper that has significant content from an alien field, so such work is effectively unpublishable.
As such, journals remain narrowly focused: not offering a place for sweeping analyses spanning dozens of domains. This “silo” effect stifles big-picture perspectives. Peer review also becomes exceedingly difficult if a work spans too many fields of study. It becomes nearly impossible to identify an expert who can validate the coherence and credibility of the whole work. Even a team of experts from relevant fields could not easily judge validity of the synthesis.
How do interdisciplinary journals ever get started? The tides of academia move plenty of people into adjacent lanes often enough that communities spontaneously form as new techniques open new possibilities. But again, it’s usually an intersection of a small number of closely-related fields.
Limits to Freedom
My sense is that academia is hostile to anti-modernity positions. Universities are in some ways the pinnacle of modernity: the ivory tower acting as the focal point for knowledge, technology, and innovation via basic research. The two primary roles of universities are knowledge creation and knowledge transmission to new generations of modernity’s movers and shakers. It’s part of why I felt I had to get out. I was part of the process to crank out more modernity.
Aside from the limits to freedom mentioned above in the context of field changes and narrow journal outlets, some ideas are simply anathema to the enterprise. We must remember that academia is brimming with disciples of modernity: completely invested and rewarded within that context.
As a hypothetical, let’s say that a professor named Mot Turphy tries to synthesize thermodynamics, evolutionary biology, ecology, molecular biology, psychology, economics, history, anthropology, religion (animism), literature, neuroscience, and metaphysical philosophy, coming to the fully defensible (reasonably rigorous and certainly not falsifiable) conclusions that:
- Brains are no match for ecology in terms of a full expression of complexity.
- Ecology is the ultimate “decider” of viability, not human constructs.
- Agriculture is far too brief to have proven ecological viability, and in fact shows numerous signs of being a tragic misstep.
- All academic traditions that do not strive to listen intently to what the actual universe says are fabricating flimsy “knowledge” so that most of the literature is of highly dubious value.
- Everything generated in the fallout of agriculture—written language, religions, money, economic systems, political structures, legal frameworks—is highly suspect as cognitively (not ecologically) generated accomplices to ecocide: inseparably connected to and facilitating a sixth mass extinction.
- The surest way forward for the planet and humanity is to begin shedding the modernity suit and seeking to re-establish authentic ecological living in small bands adapted in myriad ways to myriad environments.
How do you think this would fly? How would a department, its chair, the dean, or the campus committee responsible for assessing impact view such analysis—especially if no journal will publish such work? Would they dig in and follow the many unfamiliar threads spanning fields they have no experience assessing? Or would they proffer a categorical rejection based on the uncomfortable starkness and unconventional nature of conclusions? Would a cheerleader for modernity likely consider such threatening work as having great academic value?
Syntheses of this sort are in some sense too broad to qualify as academically valid. Maybe it’s the province of some books, but not journals. Academics are thus constrained to keep it narrow. How lame is that?
It would be going too far to say that not a single individual survives in an academic environment holding such views. I also cannot claim that this message (or something very similar) is entirely absent from academic literature (which journal should I be checking?). Although I have not done an exhaustive search, I would be pleasantly surprised if academic works seriously questioning the value of cognition and written language exist. Such material likely would have found me already, by people pointing out that my message is very similar to such-and-such academic work. So far, that hasn’t happened, although I would be absolutely delighted to learn that I am wrong, here. I relish company in this lonely place: especially when others offer new insights that propel me further.
In short, if the conclusion of such analysis cuts off the academic enterprise at the ankles by questioning written language (eeek!) and thought itself (madness!), I would not expect much sympathy from a body whose stocks-in-trade are exactly these implements.
Thus, for all the hype over academic freedom, in practice academic work tends to be narrow in scope and seldom challenges the human-supremacist premise that humans can think our way into novel modes of long-term success (lacking any shred of evidence, notably). Academics are not terribly receptive to hearing that our entire 10,000-year project is brief, bankrupt and would be better abandoned. I think maybe we found the bars.
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I think what you're looking for you might find in the philosophy department. Wittgenstein questioned the utility of language for accurately describing the world in the 1930s. Ian McGilchrist has a wonderful series of books on a similar series of topics (that we have been unable to see the world as it really is because of modernity). I'm sure there are others but I can't think of them off the top of my head.
For that matter, Plato had questioned the value of writing 2500 years ago. A recurring problem with Murphy is, that while the critique of amateurism can be used to stifle freedom and innovation, unfortunately there is more than a grain of truth to it, and his forays into philosophy and metaphysics are tremendously naive. I tried to tell him a couple of times, but to no avail up to this point.
Where would an amateur such as myself begin?
Perhaps we've become too smart for our own good: https://nautil.us/the-virtue-of-being-simple-1283320
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked
It is difficult to get a tenured professor to understand another field of study, when her salary depends on her not understanding it.
Can you expand on #4 – how would an academic “strive to listen intently to what the actual universe says”?
What I mean by this is letting the universe be the arbiter of truth and taking cues from the living world about proven ways to live. Compare physics to philosophy, for instance. Physicists don't decide how the universe works: they "ask" it and test it, letting it tell us. Philosophers muse and offer unfalsifiable opinions out of brains. An economist might assert that X is the right way to structure human life, but that's just notional. Hunter-gatherers might defer more to plants and animals for lessons in how to live. It's about putting less stock in cognitive notions and greater weight on what the more-than-human world has worked out over deep time.
Spoken like a good scientist! The 14,000 generations of H. Sapiens has been lived in a vast world which challenged us to carve a place for ourselves. The cerebellum came late, and allowed us to derive principles and project a long term future – which, alas, too few of us pay more to than lip service. We've grown far faster than our evolutionary progession can equip us for. We've created a world which is over-full of us, and in which we are unfit to be stewards. Can we escape the race to the bottom of the brain stem that seems to doom us, in time?
If you are looking for authors whom have previously explored this topic in depth, then I recommend: “Industrial Society and Its Future” by T. Kaczynski, “published” circa 1995. I read it , and believe me … it’s a **blast**!
Sorry! But hey … you lobbed this softball up there..
Hopefully you got at least a chuckle from this? 😅
Your efforts and dedication and lifestyle change in the face of the knowledge you have obtained are truly admirable to me,… so thank you for sharing all you have learned with the public!
Has Tom commented on Kaczynski's writting in any of his pieces?
I'll take that one. I have not, for the simple reason that I have not read anything of his, aside from whatever exposure I've picked up in reading other pieces that reference his work. My impression is that I would not disagree with many of his critiques of modernity. On the other hand, I'm not sure what is to be gained by investment into his writings. Given his cultural toxicity, citing "Uncle Ted" is a very efficient technique for turning off the audience you're trying to reach—whether fair or not. It's possible I've arrived at some similar conclusions (but not all, obviously). That's fine: I can communicate those without any more stigma than my message already generates.
But our president has apparently read and profited from "Mein Kampf".
What could possibly go wrong?
I came to CMU in 1970 and completed my Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1973. For the following fifty years I was a post-doc (with more lofty titles) earning less than 50 k. My wife. also a Ph.D. in Chemistry earned even less. No regrets, We always had money for things we wanted. In return, I enjoyed the highest freedom. In the library I spent more time in non-chemietry section than in academic journals. I used to boast to our son, "Of thousands of Indians who came to the US in the 1970s to pursue Ph.D. in science, I may be the only one who read – among many others – Silent Spring and The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred game (by Paul Shepard).
I was a bench Chemist and worked with my hands in making compounds for various research projects. Good for my brain. If I find an interesting problem, I will direct my effort in that direction. In 2015, for celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of meeting my future wife in the Introductory Chemistry class, my wife and I did a project (from planning, actual experiments, washing dishes, and final preparation of the manuscript) and dedicated the paper to the memory of our teacher who taught the course (how nerdy!).
Since I spent all my time in the lab or library (no meetings, no travel, no boredom) I enjoyed the company of young students discussing the time limit of industrial civilization.
Thanks for the chance to look back.
Fo the topic you raised, check CITY = CAFO
https://adrianlambert.substack.com/p/cities-are-intensive-livestock-systems
I haven't finished reading yet, but this link features a brilliant and clear text on urbanity. Thanks!
Hey! I got my M.S. in Zoology behind those bars! Just up the road about 15 miles.
Thanks for another great article, Tom.
Tom,
Interesting, again. You sort of touched on it briefly, but what would the university of life look like? How would you structure it, and what would the various branches of study be? Could you think of a few courses? Might be worth a post if you've run out of ideas!
I've never quite understood universities as a concept, but then I never went to one. They seem to lack humility. Abstractions of reality, I'd put them in the same category as things like money and taxes, in that their end goal should be the end to their own utility, but they seem to have been set up to do the opposite.
You took 75% paycut, so you are working right now? Could you share what you do? I have been struggling to find occupations that don't damage our so important ecology. Thanks for the piece.
I should have been more clear. I took advantage of the University of California's pension program (doomed to ultimately fail as a growth-based scheme, of course) and retired well before any financial advisor would have recommended. I don't work now, but draw on a modest flow as a retiree. Many aim to retire when retirement pay is roughly at parity with income, which would ultimately have happened for me by age 70 given the UC formula. I went considerably lower than that 100% target!
A few years back, I was working on a short novel (in Tamil). The main character has writen a book titled 'How to live comfortably within the US poverty line'. When I looked at my own life, I found only two things pushed it above the line. For our son's education, we lived in Brentwood (Tennessee) in a house three times larger than our needs. We regularly visit our families in India. Take away those two, we cook all the food from groceries bought in bulk. Our entertainment is in gym and local parks. Of course, if everybody lived like that the economy will crash.
I dropped out of a good safe job at 30 after reading the Limits to Growth, and joined a community aiming at self sufficiency. I learned so much more useful stuff than in my 4 years studying law. There may be holistic universities in some countries – it would be worth checking this out, cos the new generations have such poor guidance for what is to come.
💯 My field, Community Development, means I need to publish in CD journals, which means I need to do participatory, community-based, deeply interdisciplinary, often citizen science research… all four actually COUNT AGAINST research that is eligible for tenure.
I have generally come to similar academic conclusions on modernity. I've found some concurring voices in Political Ecology, critical Human Geography (eg Antipode), Native American studies, radical Psychology programs (Pacifica, Meridian, CIIS) and the progressive wings of Community Development, International Development, and Science and Technology Studies. But yeah, we are all pushed out. For every one that makes over the wall, hundreds if not thousands threw themselves at it.
Thanks for this valuable share from a much different corner of the "enterprise" than I encountered. And yes, definitely Indigenous voices have been highly critical of the foundations of modernity. More of that, please!
I worked for a few years under Willard Wells, who got his doctorate under Feynman in '59. In his later years Willard turned his attention to the matters you address. Willard Wells published a book deriving the probability of human extinction as a function of time, and the more likely collapse of modernity.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Apocalypse_When/DtOGvgEACAAJ?hl=en
I am mentioned in the preface to the second edition, since I helped with one of his derivations. In this edition there is greater emphasis on the likelihood of a near term collapse of modernity.
[Moderator note: trimmed to half-size for the sake of brevity]
I never considered academic life to just such depths, though I was journeying towards it. My path lead from architecture to town planning to a doctorate in computational design of all things. But then, unexpectedly, to literature. Specifically, to the kind that is good to read out aloud and can be pleasant to memorise.
My last scholarship for full time research paid little compared to life in Sydney. I contributed so much from my savings and other earnings that I had little regret, when, by the time I finished, I was ready to leave academia and never look back. I loved teaching and mentoring broad minded talent and still do. I also love interdisciplinary research. But the academia that I saw was mostly about something else. And that something else was mostly niche marketing. Like you weren't much appreciated for being curious and dedicated intent on imparting the joy of learning, but a contracting consultant intent on asking for others' watch to tell them the time.
Meanwhile, the quality of individual papers [in journals] and the information you can get from them is steadily diminishing.
And when I find some [academic papers of value], I look for ways where is it written up in some context but with cadence, so it is an be a pleasure to vocalise and I remember them for longer. When my father died, I interrupted my dissertation to write the drama in verse that I dedicated to his memory. Then, some of my past students volunteered to join the table read and we had a whale of a time editing together what ended up a fun play. That experience was a true gift of life to complete the circle from someone dear passing. Turns out, acting out together live a piece from many parts can have much to offer about different aspects and perspectives of other system of systems too. Good luck trying something similar supposedly 'unrelated' inside a strictly university level curriculum! Not that it hadn't been done before. I have found in my field that the bauhaus had genuine theater classes for would be architects and industrial designers. And the Grey's Inn of old had stage writing after matriculation for a degree in law.
I guess, in the end, I am for taking care of our rich inheritance of the spoken word. If in intense bursts, they may be coalescing toward dynamic wholes, but also be free to break away and reconstitute into different related wholes. With their reverberating rhythm and on interfering sound waves, words tend to lend themselves to growing into live networks of rivulets so much better.