

Academia as a Meritocracy  - agconway
http://www.themonkeycage.org/2011/01/academia_as_a_meritocracy_a_re.html

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bartonfink
"Like it or not, academia is a meritocracy. It may be a highly flawed
meritocracy susceptible to overvaluing labels or fads of the day, but
ultimately tenure is bestowed on those who earn the respect of their peers..."

I wonder whether these flaws are in fact fatal to this guy's thesis. My
understanding of academia (based solely on an M.S. and indirect observation of
friends in the Ph. D process) is that academia is every bit as political as
industry. It's not enough to have and publish good ideas, as one would expect
in a true meritocracy. It's about having the right sort of ideas - ideas which
are unusual enough to attract attention but not so unusual they get dismissed
without real consideration. Branding and marketing are words I hear my
academic friends throw out far too often to make me comfortable with the
assertion that academia is, in fact, a meritocracy and not just a highly
esoteric rat-race. A true meritocracy is either objective or as isolated from
subjectivity as possible (e.g. a round-robin sports schedule where every team
plays every other team in the conference). A system that requires the
subjective approval of others for success (publication, employment, tenure)
isn't much of a meritocracy at all.

tl; dr - This guy's admission that tenure is based on the "respect of peers"
is a pretty big hole in his argument.

