It is my firm belief that all of us are jerks at least some of the
time but that we are jerks in our own specific ways, determined by such
factors as the manner of our upbringing, inherited traits, avocation, and choice of
occupation. Academics, or those with training in academe, are no
exception, and depending on the discipline in which we train, we can be
jerks in largely discipline-specific ways. I write this
post as an introduction to a series of posts about how people in certain
disciplines can be jerks to those they argue or enter conversations
with.
So far, I plan to write three posts. The first two will be about
disciplines to which I am an outsider: economics and philosophy. The
third will be about one to which I am an insider: history. By writing
these posts, I'm not suggesting that any of those three disciplines is
"wrong" or "bad" or better or worse than others. I'm also not too keen
on making the argument that these jerky foibles are so peculiar to any
discipline that there is absolutely no overlap with practitioners of
other disciplines or even practitioners of non-disciplines. (The thing I
shall criticize philosophers for in my next post, for example, is
something I'm often guilty of even though I'm no philosopher.) In fact, I'm not basing these posts as critiques of those disciplines at all.
What
I mean to do, rather, is to gently point out the
pitfalls to which their practitioners seem disposed and to gently remind
them that if thew want to be listened to and not to be, well, jerks,
then they might want to take different approaches to talking with others
who do not share their disciplinary assumptions. I also meant these posts as a guide for how to read others' arguments more charitably than is often the case.
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