JOSEPH M. KEEGIN

The ideological posturing, moral nitpicking, and clique formation that occur in places such as academic Twitter have more to do with crafting a scene than building a movement. And scholars, of all people, should be able to recognize these dynamics, call them into question, and make more reasonable decisions about how to engage with their colleagues, whether in agreement or debate.

For academics like Stanley, shackled to the media machine, the past is not of interest either for its own sake or as a means of illuminating the complexity of the present. It is, rather, little more than a wellspring of justifications for liking and disliking things in the world today.

People inundating us with spurious claims of knowledge feel free to condemn to perdition those who doubt their authority.

Academe is increasingly populated by people who, having neither an inclination nor an aptitude for scholarship, have no business being there.

Too few of today’s academics have time for earnest questions and various attempts at answering them. The scholar is now proudly an “expert,” dealing in certitudes and performances of epistemic mastery. This is especially true among the extremely online academic set, where leaning on one’s status or credentials for epistemic authority — prefacing an opinion with “as a scholar of” or “as an expert in,” perhaps putting “Dr.” or “Ph.D.” in one’s Twitter display name — is de rigueur.

Too few of today’s academics have time for earnest questions and various attempts at answering them. The scholar is now proudly an “expert,” dealing in certitudes and performances of epistemic mastery. This is especially true among the extremely online academic set, where leaning on one’s status or credentials for epistemic authority — prefacing an opinion with “as a scholar of” or “as an expert in,” perhaps putting “Dr.” or “Ph.D.” in one’s Twitter display name — is de rigueur.

The ideological posturing, moral nitpicking, and clique formation that occur in places such as academic Twitter have more to do with crafting a scene than building a movement. And scholars, of all people, should be able to recognize these dynamics, call them into question, and make more reasonable decisions about how to engage with their colleagues, whether in agreement or debate.

People inundating us with spurious claims of knowledge feel free to condemn to perdition those who doubt their authority.

Academe is increasingly populated by people who, having neither an inclination nor an aptitude for scholarship, have no business being there.

For academics like Stanley, shackled to the media machine, the past is not of interest either for its own sake or as a means of illuminating the complexity of the present. It is, rather, little more than a wellspring of justifications for liking and disliking things in the world today.