Yes, all parents can rationally think that their children are above average, and everyone could, in principle, reasonably regard themselves as better-than-average drivers. We can reasonably disagree about values. If we then act according to those divergent values, we can reasonably conclude we're better than average. If you think skillful driving involves X instead of Y and then drive in a more X-like manner, you can justifiably conclude you're more skillful than those dopey Y drivers.
Suppose you're a philosophy grad student. You could choose to focus on area X, Y, or Z. You decide that area X is the most interesting and important, and you come to that conclusion not unreasonably. Other students, equally reasonably, judge that Y is the most interesting and important, or Z is. These differences in opinion might, for example, arise from differences in what you're exposed to, or the enthusiasm levels of people you trust. Consequently, you focus your research on X. Your disagreeing peers equally reasonably focus on Y or Z.
Committing to area X leads you, understandably, to even more deeply appreciate the value of X. It's such a rich topic! You hear the names and read the articles of senior scholars A, B, and C in area X. Your impression of the field understandably reinforces your sense of the interest and importance of X. Senior scholars A, B, and C become ever bigger names in your mind. You publish a few articles. You are now in conversation with leading senior scholars on one of the most important topics in the field.
Your peer in area Y of course similarly comes to more deeply appreciate the value of Y and the contributions of senior philosophers D, E, and F. If you and your peer both publish what might, from a third perspective (that of another peer focusing on topic Z), seem to be equally important topics, you might -- wholly rationally -- nonetheless see your own article as more important than your peer's, and vice versa.
Similarly for quality judgments: You and your peers might reasonably disagree about the relative importance of, say, formal rigor, clear prose, creative examples, and accurate grounding in historical texts. If you regard the first two as more central to philosophical quality and your peer regards the second two as more important, it is then reasonable that you each work harder to make your work better in those particular respects. Your work ends up more formally rigorous and more clearly written; theirs ends up more creative and historically grounded. Each of you will then, quite reasonably, regard your work as better than your peer's, each better adhering to the different quality standards that you reasonably endorse.
Similarly for other features of academia: Philosophers reasonably think philosophy is especially valuable. This starts as a selection effect: Those who relatively undervalue philosophy will tend not to seek a degree in it. As scholars dig deeper into their field, its value will become increasingly salient. Likewise, chemists will reasonably think chemistry is especially valuable, historians will think history is especially valuable, etc.
Scholars who think research articles are especially valuable will tend to produce disproportionately more of those. Scholars who think books are especially valuable will produce more of those. Scholars who find editing valuable will edit more. Scholars who value supervising students will supervise more. Scholars who value classroom teaching will put more energy into doing that well. Scholars who value administrative work will do more of that. And of course there's room for reasonable disagreement here. Whatever part of academia you tend to value, you will tend to invest in, with the result that you reasonably think that what you are doing is especially important.
The entirely predictable consequence is that you will feel relatively underappreciated. You are working on one of the most important topics, doing some of the highest quality work, and focusing on the most important parts of the scholarly life. Most of your peers are focused on less important topics, doing work that doesn't quite rise to your standards, and are distracted with less important matters. If you're awarded with raises and promotions, you'll probably feel that they are overdue. If you're not awarded with raises and promotions, you'll probably feel that others doing less important work are unfairly getting raises and promotions instead.
And this is how it should be. If you devote yourself to the areas of academic life that you reasonably but disputably regard as the most important, and if the system is fair and you aren't excessively modest, you should feel relatively underappreciated. It's a sign that you're adhering to your distinctive values.
9 comments:
Two of those scholars are women? I only count one.
Excellent point!
This dynamic actually applies to more than just scholarly fields. No one values IT as much as the IT workers, construction as much as construction engineers and workers, finance as much as financial analysts, etc. A lot of this is learning to accept that there are other viewpoints, imagining how things look and feel from their perspective, and using that in our dealings with other people. It's an important life skill that even brilliant people sometimes struggle to learn.
Garret: Yep! Strange -- hence the note on algorithmic bias.
SelfAware: Yes, I agree.
Can't there be a common bond in what we are... I have been chatting with google gemini pushing LLMs limitations toward core truths and truths' origins, stopping when the information exchanged by them and me is before us, as conjecture...are conject subject object the field for our energies transformations...
And I just remembered, I was in high school in the 1950s-1960s, sat scores were the very big thing then and it seemed all my friends were getting the highest scores in the world, I was to young to appreciate this, but in the mornings at school, waiting together for school to start, we would, when one us was yawning, try to quickly put a finger in and out the mouth of the yawner...equality abounds...
Thanks for the impressions for what it is to be in front of myself...
Only one non-white also, right?
I’m going to agree that this is how things are, and somewhat for the best. But notice that there’s also a delusion here in the sense that people tend to believe their work to be more important than it actually is. So this divergence from reality should also have some negative repercussions as well. In a world which is dominated by political interests, observe that this should help fortify the status quo against those who believe there to be a need for change. For example I’m sure that Sabine Hossenfelder would agree that people tend to believe that their work is more important than it actually is. I think she’d consider this to be a problem however since she seeks change in her field. Here’s an extra personal video that she just did on the matter.
Though physics seems to be having a predictable “diminishing marginal utility” problem given how advance it’s become, also consider fields that haven’t even reached a level of “Issac Newton”. What if people in fields like psychology believe that there’s some sort of “natural softness” associated with their fields instead of systemic failure? Given that I do consider the softness of such fields to stem from systemic failure, I’m far less enthused about people in these fields believing that they’re doing a great job. This should make it more difficult for effective changes to finally be made.
So this is one of those common issues that I talk to my medical students about - namely that their valuing of the patient's health often radically diverges from the patient's valuing of their own health (hence why if you want people to use sun cream then you tell them about wrinkles because they fear those much more than cancer). Of course doctors value (others) health highly - they devote their lives to learning about it - and it is hard to see past that to the patient reasonably valuing something else as more important to them.
And then there are cases where a scholar actually is undervalued. For instance, the average graduate student at the University of Western Ontario is currently guaranteed only about $23,000/yr in funding. This includes the wages earned as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, and there is no tuition waver. So what students actually take home is closer to $15,000/yr. Now, consider that by Western's own affordability calculator, the cost of living in the city of London, Ontario is somewhere around $41,000/yr. and you can begin to see why many students need to work second jobs just in order to make ends meet. This takes away from their ability to focus on their research, which then has a negative effect on their chances of getting a job in an already hyper-competitive job market. This is part of the reason we here at Western have gone on strike. In fact, this is happening at all major Canadian universities - the administrations radically undervalue graduate students, especially in the Arts and Humanities. All this to say, while I agree that all or most scholars will tend to feel undervalued, in some cases, this is not just a feeling. (Come to think of it, this is probably something that needs to be addressed in that part of this blog which has to do with helping prospective PhD students choose schools.)
Yes, Charles -- definitely not always just a feeling!
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