better than other people

Holier than thou. This is how academics see themselves and their profession.

Indeed I am generalizing, but not all generalizations are invalid. This particular one is not formed out of prejudice. This is a statement based on years of empirical evidence, gained from years of insider observation. There are some academics for whom this doesn't hold, or doesn't hold entirely, but these folks are the exceptions. And being such an exception tends to result in much head scratching (all around) if not outright discomfort. I'm not thinking so much of me here, my reaction and people's reactions to me are not so subtle. I'm thinking more of the people I've known who were driven out or nearly out of academia despite being what could be considered "successful". People like the professor from my former department who, a semester after getting tenure, ran away to Europe on "sabbatical" to never return. She just left. No notice, just gone. It might have had something to do with one of our esteemed tenured full professors having called her a nazi...

Because holier than thou academics live under the strong (and unexamined) belief that they and "people like them" are somehow not subject to the same very human traits the rest of the general population exhibit, when workplace issues like incivility, discrimination, and sexual harassment come up, community responses reflect this attitude. Whether the individual response supports or negates the attitude, the "it can't happen here" air is part of a context which is an inseparable aspect of the response.

I came back to this post to add a little something here. I'm not talking about the casual ego-centrist behavior which is sort of common across any walk of life, nor am I saying any given academic IS like this (or that any given non academic isn't). There may be other fields where this sort of behavior and attitude is as pervasive as it is in academia too.

For a nice, fresh personal example of this attitude in action, consider the following. Academics in social and life sciences often collect research using data from human subjects. Their careers and reputations depend on them publishing (you know "publish or perish") and those publications are often dependent on if not the quality then the amount of data they can collect in a given period of time. Needless to say, such pressures as well as a few notable, notorious research examples mean such data collection is overseen by review boards. These boards like all things institutional, are far from perfect in implementation. However, they serve a good purpose.

And yet there is though a disturbing trend in some departments for faculty and grad students (monkey see, monkey do) to repeatedly, publicly, and apparently unashamedly mock and deride not just the board but it's purpose. It's a petulant and deeply disturbing backlash, seemingly in response to what is seen (by the researchers) as meddling and a threat to academic freedom.

Academic freedom is certainly a legitimate concern, however there are MUCH better, more appropriate domains to fight for it in. Rather than (or possibly in addition to) taking up the legitimate threats to academic freedom, or even addressing the elements of the review board behaviors which may in fact go "too far" and have nothing to do with protecting the rights of research participants, the elements of academic culture I've seen promote an increasingly malicious attitude towards the research participants. "Ah hahah! This one girl was like crying during our experiment!" a student recently boasted to a table full of grad students. "Oh my god, are you serious?" I asked him, clearly concerned. "Well no, but she was pretty upset," he said, brushing it off. This is the same person who earlier this year claimed he was going to "make" all the students in his class participate in his experiments. (I later found out from a faculty member that he was "just joking" to get at a female grad student who had been hoping his class would be part of a larger participant pool. I was horrified and told the faculty member that her students had a fucked up sense of humor. She genuinely didn't seem to understand my reaction).

So this is a group of people where I've seen some pretty shitty behavior. It's not isolated to my department. Sexist comments, lewd unprofessional remarks in a professional setting, abusive behavior, exploitative treatment of minority grad students, preferential behavior based on personal relationships, racist slurs, and deeds and stated beliefs which skirt the line of ethical - I've seen several examples of each of these. But stop and question one of the perpetrators of such a thing (which I have) and they will find your questioning preposterous. I remember the faculty member who was shocked that I told him his behavior in a seminar was sexist. Why? Because, as he said "I've always considered myself a feminist!" Plus, everyone knows liberal faculty members can't be sexist. They can say these things and act this way with impunity because apparently those social codes, institutional rules, and laws apply to someone else.

For some disturbing reading and insight into the sort of thing I'm talking about, go here. It's the Chronicle of Higher Education forum, a thread started by an untenured junior faculty member asking for advice on how to respond to the inappropriate and unprofessional behavior a senior faculty member has directed at her. Some of the assertions made by folks who seem to be more than a little ignorant about sexual harassment law and specific institutional policies are perhaps shocking if you don't know academics - i.e., if you don't know that they are so smart and know so much they can reason out what is and isn't true, what is an isn't valid, and what is and isn't a policy even without ever having read up on it. The information and knowledge about any topic simply seeps into them by their choosing to focus their massive intellect on the issue from the comfort of various armchairs and loungers.

My god, do I sound bitter?
Jaded?
Jaundiced?

How about informed, aware, and disgusted? My preference is for that last description because it more accurately avoids the connotation that I have no valid claim to this set of thoughts and feelings on the matter. I've done my research. I've made my conclusions. I am open to adjusting them should new evidence come to light - and I very much want new evidence to come to light because at heart I am a polly-anna and want to believe that people will be as excellent as they can be. In the meantime, I watch, listen, and read.