What to believe?
February 1st
I am under no illusions about rampant censorship in publishing and academia — be it institutionalized or self-enforced. Recently I read several books by David Graeber (“Debt: The First 5,000 Years” and “Bullshit Jobs: A Theory”) with another waiting for its turn soon — “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity”. Just on a spur of a moment I read his bio on Wikipedia and was shocked — despite having stellar academical credentials, he was let go from a professorship at Yale, denied tenure, and then backlisted by other American universities. All that because he dared to criticize a status quo between modern democratic politics and violent and unchecked capitalism and governmental bureaucracy. He dared to write about disfranchised people and actually participate in actions to make the voices of the 99%ers — our voices heard. I guess there was no place in academic circles for someone who doesn’t just observe the working class as an anthropologist, or a detached scientist but also cares enough to work with people who were his subject, to better their lot and call those in power on their bullshit.
And I wonder how many others met the same fate. David Graeber was lucky to continue his career in Europe and his books sold well enough that he could keep writing more. But I do wonder about what is being suppressed from general knowledge. Of course, I mean this in reference to soft science — anthropology, sociology, history. In the case of hard science — medicine, physics, astronomy any new theories that can be peer-reviewed will be accepted. What we actually don’t know because it doesn’t fit the current academic dogma? I am sure that there is a lot of breaking research that will never see the light of day. And I am sure that a lot of researchers will self-censor themselves and their work just to toe the line and not be ostracized by universities and their colleagues. I mean — being a tenured professor is very prestigious. So we are left with only the officially accepted research and knowledge without access to any data or facts that are outside the safety of commonly accepted ideas.
