When people use the term, it is obviously not a reference to just "knowing things" but rather 1) the distinct socialization one gets in academia that leaves one rather divorced from the real world (and I say that as an academic), and 2) hyperspecialization to the point one loses the big picture, a problem in education today.

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InsideOutSanta 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I knew one or two profs like that when I was studying, but the vast majority of people in academia are just regular people with families and interests outside of academia. It's kinda disheartening to see the anti-intellectual bent this discussion has taken.

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hunterpayne an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I've worked and known many, many academics in my life. I'm sorry, but if you think this is anti-intellectual, then there are some basic things you don't understand about people.

Academics really are naive and out of touch people. In a weird sort of way, being an academic means sacrificing your personal growth for either a) a deep love of their area of research or b) love of teaching. This means that the wider life skills one gains as an adult, they never get. They get to avoid consequences for being wrong but at quite a price. One of the worst things I have seen are what happens to academics who leave for the private sector later in their career. When they can't make it in the private sector, it is pretty crushing to many of them.

That being said, one of the prices of being an academics is being very "out of touch" with the rest of society. And that will take away your ability to read political situations or govern things well. Academics injecting themselves into such situations will almost always be disastrous as a result. Its just a consequence of how academia works. It doesn't have to be that way, but unless academia changes profoundly, it will be.

	▲	TFNA an hour ago \| parent [-]
		As an OP here, I'd like to mention that I don't agree with this characterization at all. When I said academics are divorced from the real world, I was speaking of them largely conforming to particular demographics that make them a bit blind to broader trends in electoral politics and culture. Academics do just fine picking up "adult life skills". Only a small minority of academics find academic employment from their mid-thirties or so on, so everyone moves to other sectors for the rest of their lives. It is not as if they are just hapless misfits or on the dole for the rest of their lives.

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BoingBoomTschak an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> but the vast majority of people in academia are just regular people with families and interests outside of academia

If most people realized that, we would have much less problems: academics are often shrouded in an aura of virtue and wisdom they don't deserve in the least. Like what you see in this thread, that their narrow (or worse, illusory) knowledge will somehow help them being good rulers/leaders.

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watwut 8 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> distinct socialization one gets in academia that leaves one rather divorced from the real world

It is absurd claim. Academia is part of real world. It is not an isolated island cut off from everything else.

It is no more divorced from real world then any other group of people. No more divorced then rural farmer are divorced from it, businessmen are divorced from it, sports fans are divorced from it. They are all having limits of understanding other groups.

Tech workers as likely more divorced from average person even.