I don’t think academics have a natural tendency towards progressivism necessarily, but that shift has happened in some sections of academia. I don’t have a problem with that per se, I’m not an academic but I do dislike the sort of emergent hierarchy on the value of particular types of knowledge. I studied X therefore I know more about X than you tends to close down any thoughts about A through Z. They can be dismissed as irrelevant because they don’t fit an academic model of knowledge.
As it happens, my job (aside from writing) is advocacy. That is taking the side of the disempowered person, against a system, first it was children, now it is people with mental health issues. Those people are often stuck in rigid structures that lack both questioning and creativity - the solution to a problem is not usually the one mandated by the person who has read the most. They are part of the puzzle but they are no more important than other people. It took a long time for social work managers to understand that often the solution to the problem was in the head of the eight year old at the meeting, they just weren’t making that space available for the child to speak.
With regards emotion, I worked in child protection for ten years. That’s a double edged sword. On the one hand it means I genuinely give less of a shit than most people because of my wider frame of reference. I do not deviate much from an emotional baseline because nothing much will move me from that baseline - certainly not things written on medium. Sure I get frustrated from time to time, particularly when I’m not being understood - but those emotions are fleeting and don’t last long. Life is too short.
The double edged sword of child protection, aside from making me quite immune to the everyday rough and tumble of interpersonal nonsense has still left me with a lot to unpack. And I mean that sincerely. I do not think Medium is the right place for this, though others are welcome to use it as collective therapy that’s not me. Perhaps one day I will write those stories, but perhaps not. I like the lightness, the humour, the centre ground and the people who both read and applaud or read and dissent.
It is fun. It should be. Read more Alan Watts. :o)
