More Acadecadence

As if catering directly to my anti-academic sentiments, I found a great article critiquing the uselessness of humanities "academia" and research specialization therein:

We have become so obsessed with specialization, so entranced by advanced degrees and who wrote what when, that we [I guess by "we" he means the mutual admiration society which is the intellectual elite; I certainly don't feel this way] feel that the only way that someone has anything worth saying is if they have jumped through the appropriate academic hoops.

...

the technocracy at the heart of the humanities, the pressure to produce papers that essentially say nothing, the ultimate subservience to the utilitarian interests of society, and so forth. Studying the treasures of human wisdom cannot mimic the specialization that astronomer, engineers, and medical doctors are expected to have, and doing so can only distort the subject that one seeks to study.

...

On the one hand, I share the sentiments of my hard sciences doctorate-holding wife who thinks that the humanities at the university are a total waste of time. Really, what are you paying for, and could those resources be better deployed? But more importantly, the question has to be asked concerning what benefit does it serve human wisdom to have a cadre of specialists who are under pressure to produce written material and live off of the profits gained from it? Socrates wrote nothing, and had to live a life just like everyone else. St. Paul was the greatest theologian ever, and he was a tent maker. Even the great lights of the Church were either pastors of souls, preachers, or lived in monasteries where they no doubt had other duties. None of these people were by any means professionals in our sense of the word.

...

Yes, you don’t have the time or the resources to study what you want. Yes, you don’t have the benefit of publications (which nobody reads) or peer-review (from peers you barely respect). But I do it all because I have questions that I want answered. I just don’t see the contemporary academic world as the holder of all of these secrets.

I almost wish there were a revolution going on so we could all go out and hang some of these professional nerds. They've ruined University, ruined the Church, ruin everything they touch. I've said before: far from requiring bishops to hold doctorates, we shouldn't let anyone with a doctorate anywhere near the episcopacy. Theologians have not made good leaders in the Church.