okay, but then we are talking about professionals, not academics whose bread and butter is supposed to be research (which is, incidentally, what the author identifies himself as in the first sentence). Better to compare them with doctors and lawyers, than academics... why wouldn't nanotechnologists, for instance, be driven to insularity? there's no such thing as professional nanotechnology right now either? And yet all the nanotechnologists I know in university describe themselves as engineers... but they are researchers first, and what counts in terms of salary, prestige, etc. is in fact related to their insularity, not their putative ability to communicate what they are doing, which I must say, none of the ones I know can do with any success.
ck On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 07:11:17AM -0700, Rishab Ghosh wrote: > On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 09:00:50AM -0500, Christopher M. Kelty wrote: > > first and academics second... so I guess it depends on how you > > draw the lines around the "academic" world vs. the professional > > world-- what would "professional" humanities designate? If there were > > such a thing, perhaps the comparison would be fair. > > it seems that was the point the author was making - that since there is _not_ > such a thing as "professional" humanities (well, there may be exceptions), > the humanities are driven towards greater academic insularity than engineers. > not because academics' salaries depend on being able to communicate with > non-academics, but because professionals' salaries depend on being able to > communicate with non-professionals (at least in the case of engineers). > > -rishab > >
