A professor complains about ivorytowerism:
In the epistemology of academia, no knowledge truly is knowledge if it is not vetted and approved through the channels it has established over time. Those channels are esoteric, made up of the “few, though worthy” who are the elect in the kingdom of knowledge. The epistemology of academia proceeds on the basis that the public has nothing to do with real knowledge. It doesn’t make any sense intellectually, of course, but it makes perfect sense if the primary goal is not really the development of knowledge but the preservation of a well-designed, internally self-confirming authority economy.
Some professors go further than this: The public shouldn’t know about academic research. Several years ago, a colleague of mine in the Berkeley psychology department was approached by a journalist. He was writing an article for The Atlantic about her area of research. She wouldn’t talk to him. She felt his article would somehow be wrong or unseemly.
Open access is changing this, of course. I’m a big beneficiary. Because my long self-experimentation paper was open access, it could be read by people outside of psychology. As a friend put it, “It cost Steve Levitt nothing to say he liked your paper.” Whereas inside psychology departments, you’d pay a price.
Could be re-written as follows:
“In the epistemology of the high priesthood, no knowledge truly is knowledge if it is not vetted and approved through the channels it has established over time. Those channels are esoteric, made up of the “few, though worthy” who are the elect in the priesthood of knowledge. The epistemology of high priesthood proceeds on the basis that the public has nothing to do with real knowledge. It doesn’t make any sense intellectually, of course, but it makes perfect sense if the primary goal is not really the development of knowledge but the preservation of a well-designed, internally self-confirming authority priesthood.”
Without regard to the general point, I’m not sure distrusting journalists is the same as believing that the public shouldn’t know anything about academic research — and neither one is the same as worrying that you might face intramural punishment if you misspeak or are misquoted. (Of course, you know the professor in question better than I do.)
As a lucky academician, I take great delight in these kinds of discussions. I’m in a don’t-have-to-publish-or-perish position, and my life is a (ridiculously) open book which IS my research. See my blog for the exhibitionist academic at work.