Manufacturing Content by Chomsky. I don't know why Americans are so enamored with French philosophers while they have decent ones at home
Because we’re talking about the academy of the humanities. This is an institution built on obscuring and gatekeeping ideas rather than sharing them. Why do they do this when their mandate is to create and share knowledge? These scholars are in a constant struggle to remain relevant, both individually and as departments in their schools.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) these scholars collectively decide what is and isn’t relevant. This process takes the form of fashion trends, because there are no objective measures of validity the way there are in math and science. Fashion itself is a never-ending ladder climb.
The collateral damage in this is the domain of actual philosophy, which is a very important intellectual domain.
It is now done by scientists, politicians, economists, who have insights that can really help the field, but they are dismissed as intruders by this academic field.
I'm hearing an echo of Francis Schaeffer here. He said (circa 1980) that we didn't really have philosophy anymore, we only had antiphilosophy. We had existentialism, which dealt with the big questions but was an antiphilosophy because it did so in an irrational way. And we had linguistic philosophy, which was rational but was an antiphilosophy because it didn't deal with the big questions.
In effect, Schaeffer said, our chairs of philosophy (at universities) are largely vacant. The real philosophy is being done by people outside of academic settings.
I should add that not all scholars of the humanities operate this way but that these individuals are becoming increasingly rare. The problem is ultimately economic and external.
For a long time, the academy used tenure as a means of shielding scholars from external economic pressure. Now, as the education arms race accelerates, more and more people are attempting to crowd their way into the academy. The epithet of “publish or perish” has become a mantra among the aspirants. Obscurantism is only one of many tools for separating the grain from the chaff.
Because we’re talking about the academy of the humanities. This is an institution built on obscuring and gatekeeping ideas rather than sharing them. Why do they do this when their mandate is to create and share knowledge? These scholars are in a constant struggle to remain relevant, both individually and as departments in their schools.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) these scholars collectively decide what is and isn’t relevant. This process takes the form of fashion trends, because there are no objective measures of validity the way there are in math and science. Fashion itself is a never-ending ladder climb.