A fellow Hispanist has started a Liberation Front whose goal is the following:
Here are the sentences against which I am in open rebellion:
1. Writing is an onerous, and also meaningless exercise you must undertake for form’s sake.
2. Publishing is almost impossible.
3. Teaching is dangerous since doing it responsibly can cost you your job.
4. Any service or administrative experience proves you have no intellect.In this liberation front we say instead that writing is fun, publishing is easy, teaching is a pleasant social and artistic experience, and administration is creative. It is an antidote.
The moment I read this post, I became enamored of the entire idea. I am also exhausted by the endless whining that pervades the academic world, so I want to join this liberation front.
Let’s liberate ourselves from the erroneous idea that a good academic is a perennial miserable, overworked, suffering creature!
Clarissa's Blog 
“Let’s liberate ourselves from the erroneous idea that a good academic is a perennial miserable, overworked, suffering creature!”
Well, you can’t as long as sites like College Misery (is it still up?) dedicate themselves to creating the masturbatory clique of the miserable genius, getting off on how incredibly moronic young people in general and their students in particular are. As that site shows, there are plenty of people who are in the profession not for the love of teaching or any real intellectual enterprise, but because it’s a job that pays most of the bills. These unhappy, unfulfilled people are also the ones neck-deep in smugness and superiority, and their only source of satisfaction seems to be portraying themselves as the victims/martyrs of other people’s tyranny or stupidity. So taking the image of the long-suffering academic away would result in an identity crisis for these folks. And there’d be full-on war 🙂
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I like this comment so much I could kiss it. 🙂
College Misery is still up and very popular. A short while ago, the guy who started it came to my blog to make fun of my “little blog”. (The guy seems very obsessed with size.)
What he didn’t seem to realize is that they have dozens of authors writing for them. Here, it’s just me (and my great commenters) and still, CM only has 3 times more visits than I do.
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Well, they are popular with the smug, unhappy crowd who desperately seek validation. Is that the readership that makes you green with envy? No? Then College Misery and the pissing contests its authors seem to delight in ceases to matter in your blogging universe.
I genuinely thought it would be a fun place, when it first started. Academics who care, discussing the foibles of their students and how these could be addressed. I even posted a few enthusiastic comments. And then they became a permanent whingy, mudslinging bitchfest. Utterly repulsive, especially in people in charge of the intellectual development of young people.
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The sad fact is, however, that if we admit to the truth of having a wonderful, rewarding experience at our jobs, it will give more power to the lunatic fringe who call us underworked and overpaid and try to convince state legislatures of this.
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I’m afraid the lunatic fringe will do whatever it wants to do anyways. 😦
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Sod the lunatic fringe. I don’t understand why they’re given so much weight in policymaking. I strongly suspect, in fact, that policymakers welcome and encourage them, to justify reducing benefits and better resources.
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Sod the lunatic fringe. I don’t understand why they’re given so much weight in policymaking. I strongly suspect, in fact, that policymakers welcome and encourage them, to justify reducing benefits and better resources.
That is absolutely correct, Rimi, but they are still dangerous.
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Of course, you’re right, David. I’m just in a snappy mood today, what with all the “Ooh look 9/11 anniversary!” posts I see all around me.
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@David, on that issue, I have this: http://profacero.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/still-mo-woikin/
You can make those points to legislature and still enjoy some parts of job.
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And, Clarissa, I’m glad you liked those posts. They kind of pissed a few other people off.
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What’s the point of saying a truth that pisses nobody off? 🙂
You are an inspiration for a variety of reasons.
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Inspiring?! Well then I’ll try to inspire myself too. 🙂
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