Why I’m on Medium

I’m an intellectual, not an academic; let me explain

(Photo by author of artwork on a building demolished in 2016.)

I have a friend who teaches languages. She is very, very good at it; so good that the government contracts her to teach some of their people. She could have a job at any number of prestigious universities. Instead, she teaches at a community college because, she says, she wants to help underprivileged students.

My friend is a saint and I admire her greatly. She is doing far more good in the world teaching immigrants and the children of immigrants than being a chair of a snooty Ivy League school. She is using her talents more constructively.

It’s about Values

I am no saint, but I have values similar to those of my friend. I trained to be a professional philosopher. I spent the nine years of effort required to earn my BA, MA, and PhD. What I was then “supposed” to do with that PhD was make the rounds of obeyances at philosophy departments around the world, find a hamster wheel someone will allow me to get on, and tug my forelock for years until I glad-handed my way into a tenure-track position and be admitted into the ol’ boys’ club.

Uh, no, thank you. One day, as I was filling out yet another application for a spot on a university’s hamster wheel, I realized I didn’t want this — a true epiphany. No offense to…