reply on: Memoir: Finding freedom in apparent failure \ stacker news ~the_stacker

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30 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby 14h \ on: Memoir: Finding freedom in apparent failure the_stacker_muse

pressure to publish just for the sake of publishing

This feels to me like the game in academia. For a while I edited dissertations for people who were in PhD and masters programs for shitty online universities (inevitably in some form of social studies, psychology, or anthropology). These were basically pay to play affairs where people bought a degree. But they had to publish a dissertation. And so they came up with some tired thing that wasn't any good and it all felt so bleh. Probably because they weren't writing for anyone, really; they were just writing to publish.

I saw this from Orson Scott Card today:

There is no "going to be a writer." There's only writing. While you write, you ARE a writer. If audiences respond well, you're a GOOD writer. There's no other standard. No meaningful credentials. No college degree that makes it official. If you dream of being a writer (which I never did) then you're a dreamer. But if you write, regardless of your attitude or training, you're a writer.

I'd hazard the same is true of most things: it's the doing of them that's important, and who they affect -- the trappings of elite or not, official or not, recognized or not -- don't matter.

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker OP 11h

I like that. I heard similar advice about guitar: "If you play guitar, you're a guitarist. You don't have to be a certain level."

dissertations for people who were in PhD and masters programs for shitty online universities (inevitably in some form of social studies, psychology, or anthropology)

I'd argue that even for non-shitty in-person universities, a lot of the degrees being churned out are pretty worthless.