My hazy future as an academic

I spent a week with my grandparents this summer, in a small Missouri town with a population of less than 500. There is one gas station, one café, and one bar, which has a dirt floor, no windows, and the nomenclature of “Bucks and Does.” After a week of Lion Club breakfasts, afternoon tea, and small talk with people who have a median age of 80, I gave up trying to explain what I do for a living and realized that I will always be a school teacher to the denizens of this town (And a rather stupid one at that – otherwise, why would I still be in school myself?). Therefore, I was thrilled when I learned that my uncle would be in town during the last two days of my visit.

For reasons that are not abundantly clear, I have always looked up to my uncle. He is a nuclear technician who is permanently out of work due to a brouhaha with the government that ended in a two-year prison sentence over refusal to pay taxes. The male side of my family is highly paranoid and rather crazy when it comes to the government. We reminisced while my grandparents watched a Walker: Texas Ranger marathon, and of course my uncle asked what I did professionally. I proudly discussed my area of study, and how in the future I will be both a teacher and an academic, who will surely produce many books and papers of surprising depth and wonderment. My uncle was rather glassy-eyed at this time, perhaps an effect of boredom and gin, and he proceeded to shake off his lethargy by telling me that I was contributing nothing to society, especially if I planned to write with the goal of getting a job, getting tenure, and retiring in ease and splendor.

My uncle’s attack was unexpected, as everyone else I know accepts what I do because they love me or because they themselves are embroiled in the same sort of pursuit themselves, but that does not mean that I am not aware of the paradoxes inherent in academia. I do want a good job and tenure, but I don’t write so I can get them; I want them so I can write. I did not choose my specialties because they are profitable or trendy (I still have no idea of how marketable my interests will be), but because I enjoy them. That said, I worry constantly about getting published so I can someday have a job, and I would not flinch at putting a project close to my heart on the back burner to write an article or prepare a presentation that has a chance of being accepted. To my uncle (who, by the way, is 55 and living in a trailer in his parent’s backyard, and so perhaps should not be questioning others’ contribution to society), such writing is a waste of time. I do see his point, as academic writing is a bit solipsistic, but this is a slippery slope that can lead to the banishment of all art – the next thing you know we’ll all have four-wall vid screens and compulsory TV programs. To me, academic writing is a lot like the space program. Once it was established that there were no Martians to date or Cylons to fear, I lost all interest. Yet I continue to support space exploration because I don’t have to understand or even be interested in something for it to have value; it is important to both the morale and image of our country, and exploration for the sake of exploration is a noble, if unprofitable, goal.