Dear Ms. Davidson: Your essay, 'In the Aftermath of a Social Disaster', epitomizes a big part of what is wrong with today’s academia. It is wordy, boring and unfocussed. I tried valiantly to read it, only to realize I could have written a shorter, punchier and far more engaging essay saying the same thing in half or possibly a third as many words. Your thinking, as displayed in this piece, is murky, meandering and self-serving. In case you hadn’t noticed, the esteem in which Americans hold academics is plummeting. Your inability to express yourself clearly, succinctly and interestingly is one of the factors contributing to the slide. Your best hope of clarifying and sharpening both your logic and writing skills would be to engage in more serious, respectful debate with those who hold views different from your own. Much of academia today is more interested in curtailing opposing views than in engaging them in an open, honest way. So long as that remains the case, academics’ thinking will remain muddy, immature and dull.
Sincerely
Mike Nifong brought these false charges in order to pander to the prejudices of people like this Duke professor, and thus sway their vote to him. And it worked. Now that the game is up, these people are using old demagogic excuses to basically say, of course we believed him, just look at the world we live in. So much for professors working in an institution of reason and applying critical thinking to an actual real world event rather than a philosophical construct. This condition is generally called having your head up your ass.
Well stated. After earning my living in broadcasting, I returned to grad school. For nearly 20 years I have taught as an adjunct because the faculty committee meeting is the most insufferable, useless and excruciating activity on earth. Dung beatles and tse tse flies have more redeeming social value.
Question for the prof: Did you and your enlightened cohorts vote for Nifong?
Ditto!
(trying for brevity;0)
btt ...Nailed it.