Larssen wrote:
Considering the idea started through a presentation at a think tank and it's often referenced in actual academic papers I'd say calling the assumption stupid is a bit of a stretch.
I still don't see how I'm wrong in not reading the 300 page book to glean knowledge of a subject. Wouldn't you agree it may also be more directly productive to dive into the academic discussion on the topic rather than the in depth proofs and arguments of a single author? In the time it takes you to consume the book you could read another 5 or 6 extensive reactions to it including the preceding or deduced paper.
i didn't disagree it can be more productive. it really depends on the point, doesn't it? for undergraduates trying to get up to scratch on a subject very quickly, or playing catch-up for a seminar, sure, read some journal papers or a few topical reviews. isn't that basically what all undergraduates cramming for a term paper assignment do?
i said that journal articles clearly have a place in the academic ecosystem. just they have a place next to books, and many other things. academics do write, read, and produce an awful number of journal articles, after all. i proofread and edit journal articles for a large portion of my work ffs. they clearly have a very big use!
you were the one making unsupportable proclamations about anything over >50 pages, academic book-length research gradually starting to disappear because of lowered print book sales, yada yada. i said it was a ludicrous thing to say, and it has been self-evidently thus for the last two pages of your bloviating. the thrust of your argument was essentially this:
'i have thought and pondered why i don't read many books. and i have concluded that books, in fact, are bad'.
and it is a stupid assumption. almost all ideas that take wind and become 'pop' cultural phenomena or 'surprise bestsellers' started out in an academic petri dish somewhere. so fucking what? the book market for polemics and non-fiction has always had a symbiotic relationship with academia and research. academics are just as capable of writing tendentious, controversial, opinion-inflated things as anyone else. but it isn't their academic output. it wouldn't get passed by peer-review or accepted at an academic press. if you're going to attack something, stop muddling and confounding your arguments. citing 'the clash of the civilizations' to bulwark your argument about academic monographs is very stupid.
and,
o n c e a g a i n, nobody harassed you for not reading 300pp+ academic monographs. the number of people who do so, outside of academia, for enjoyment, is fractionally small. i found it incredible that you read ~3 books a year, period. again, when did you last go to a fucking book store? they don't even sell monographs! there is a whole world of reading you are declining.
larssen, you're the kind of guy who will talk seriously about a bottle of wine or a pasta dish or a visit to a restaurant 'broadening your experience', but then want to drag all of academia through a bush in some torturous exercise of self-expiation over your habits of not-reading, or claim that people who buy physical books are 'just pretending' and posing for 'decoration'. just face yourself already, pleb.
Last edited by uziq (2020-07-03 06:10:21)
