Academic elitism

Academic institutions often face the charge of academic elitism, sometimes called the Ivory Tower. It is often used in parallel with Ivy League institutions.

Description

Academic elitism suggests that in highly competitive academic environments only those individuals who have engaged in scholarship are deemed to have anything worthwhile to say, or do. It suggests that individuals who have not engaged in such scholarship are cranks. It is possible, though, to value serious scholarship without being an academic elitist, of course. A lesser and broader form of this, intellectual elitism, exists in non-academic circles, so academic elitism might also be viewed as a further extreme of intellectual elitism, depending upon one's perspective.

The tendency towards academic elitism is most pronounced in highly competitive and highly regarded environments. The peer review of academia process is occasionally cited as suppressing dissent against “mainstream” theories (part of an overall system of suppression of intellectual dissent). Some sociologists of science argue that peer review makes the ability to publish susceptible to control by elites and to personal jealousy. Reviewers tend to be especially critical of conclusions that contradict their own views, and lenient towards those that accord with them. At the same time, elite scientists are more likely than less established ones to be sought out as referees, particularly by high-prestige journals or publishers. As a result, it has been argued, ideas that harmonize with the elite's are more likely to see print and to appear in premier journals than are iconoclastic or revolutionary ones, which accords with Thomas Kuhn's well-known observations regarding scientific revolutions.

The tendency towards academic elitism is noticeable in some education systems (particularly in developed countries). More attention and resources are afforded to students who are deemed most intelligent at an early age. This inequality tends to further separate the elite from the remainder of society. Streaming systems include branded institutions, gifted classes, and other elite student groups. Countries with extensive private school systems also exemplify this trend.

Arguments against

• It is a closed, inherently exclusionary process
• It encourages waste through the development of a winner-takes-all mentality
• Selection processes are unfairly biased towards certain ethnic or cultural groups
• Rising tuition, fees, and expenses effectively discriminate against those of limited means
• It alienates those who are not of the elite and discourages them from participating in decision-making
• The higher education system is income-oriented, and thus subject to political and corporate contamination
• Academic institutions are unreasonably shielded from economic competition by government funding programs
• There is no logical or causal connection (but at most a circumstantial correlation) between academic credentials, truth, knowledge, and intelligence
• The higher education system is a strict bureaucracy which tends to enforce conceptual and ideological orthodoxy, thus hampering the advancement of human knowledge by ignoring and/or suppressing potentially valid ideas
• Although academia casts itself as the benevolent source, guardian, and judge of human intellectual progress, such claims are in obvious conflict with its organizational self-interest. The advancement of human knowledge is too important to be left to any professional guild whose members are primarily concerned with advancing their own careers.

Arguments for

Summary

• Elitism is an illusion which masks an inherent human tendency to group by abilities and interests.
• Human societies are best advanced by those who are most willing and able to participate in academic study.
• Human societies require a vetting process that leads people to roles that will yield the most efficient management of societal resources.

Expanded

• There are far more cranks and idiots in society than academics and the disparity may merely give off the illusion of elitism and intellectual suppression to the uninformed observer.
• Broad-based debate not carried out by dedicated academics is notoriously rife with over simplification, blatant and chronically unmitigated misconceptions, and outright fantasy. Academia, while not immune to error, is a system designed to screen bad ideas as rigorously as possible, and as such is logically the ideal state in which to locate important resources and deliberative institutions.
• Discrimination is important and right, especially in matters which affect all of society, but due to Political Correctness it is often conflated with prejudice. Casual intellectuals may be free to discuss issues at length with whatever degree of familiarity they possess, but serious intellectuals must understand and submit to the need for academic tradition and qualification. Nobody would claim a Surgeon was as qualified to perform surgery as somebody with a general interest in anatomy, and so it would be folly to allow underqualified individuals, whether unvetted intellectuals or laymen, to operate on the metaphorical body of society.

General

• Imperfect quality control is better than no quality control.

See also

• Anti-intellectualism
• Expert
• Pseudointellectual
• Ivy League
• Elitism
• Elite media
• I Not Stupid
• Ivory Tower
• Neolibertarianism
• suppression of intellectual dissent
• Little Ivies
• Liberalism

External articles and references

• The Authority On Ivory Towers and Elitism
• Leah Sprain, "Sending Signals from the Ivory Tower: Barriers to Connecting Academic Research to the Public". (PDF)
• Lionel Lewis, "The Academic Elite Goes to Washington, and to War; Critics of the academy have lambasted faculty doves. History shows that academia has roosted a flock of hawks". American Association of University Professors.
• Tom Bramble, "Class and power in the ivory tower". Australian Universities Review (unpublished), University of Queensland.
• Jordan L. Hylden and John H. Jernigan, "Leaning Ivory Tower; The most troubling bias among academics is not political but religious". Havard Political Review, 6/8/03.
• Jeffrey H. Bair and Myron Boor, "The Academic Elite in Law: Linkages Among Top-Ranked Law Schools". Psychological Reports 68: 891-94, 1991.
• Jeffrey H. Bair, "The Hiring practices in finance education: linkages among top-ranked graduate programs - The University". American Journal of Economics and Sociology, April, 2003.
• Xi Lin, "The academic elite; Cynicism and disillusionment are protocol for UW elites". The Daily of the University of Washington, 1998.
• Annalee Newitz, "Ivory Tower| Out of academia". Salon.com, 2000.
• Gerard A. Best, "Breaking down the Ivory tower". Caribbean Beat, Issue No. 76, November/December 2005.
• Ellen W. Schrecker, "No Ivory Tower : McCarthyism and the Universities". 1986. ISBN 0-19-503557-7
• Mike S. Adams, "Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel: Confessions of a Conservative College Professor". Harbor House, 2004, ISBN 1-891799-17-7