eugyppius

... connecting their ideas to the empty theoretical apparatus of Saidian Orientalism or whatever. One night after we both had a lot of scotch, he confided that he only ever had a few semesters of the language he supposedly worked in and still "struggled" with it.

He was hired by my Uni *because of his expertise in this field*, which at the level of language did not exceed that of many second- or third-year undergraduates.

There are many entirely fake historical events based on smooth-brained misreadings of straightforward statements. For 30 years people in my field have been writing about the supposed exile of this figure - we will call him a theologian - which never happened.

You have to read all about the supposed political significance of his exile & what it means for this or that, on and on. In fact, the only source for this 'exile' are a few of his own remarks in a prologue to one of his tracts.

The passage, in the edition everyone uses, is poorly punctuated at this key moment and everyone has just misunderstood what he is saying.

Likewise, real events are surely suppressed or ignored, down to equally astounding stupidity. Early in my career I came upon the work of some august wahmen, whose well-received thesis was flatly contradicted by a key historical document.

What did she & her students do? They decided this document was an old forgery. No arguments or anything. Just: "It's fake." She says it, her students say it, now everyone says it.

They got colleagues responsible for standard reference works in the field (indices & registers that track things like papyri and give them numbers) to agree that it was a forgery so now this is established opinion.

A whole source, which is surely authentic, that nobody can use, because of the vanity of some wahman and her students.

The reason you can get away with being a total idiot in that world, is that academia functions like a cartel, or a cabal. It is a closed community of unremarkable dim people who cultivate a false facade of knowledge by promoating each other's work.

If you are well networked and take part in the favour-trading economy, everything you do will be praised, regardless of how shite it is. I know of people who are so incapable, they have had to stoop to open plagiarism, and still they are protected.

In this world of incapable people, all research must happens within the confines of an all-protecting consensus. You don't want to disagree with anyone else. So the only arguments that get made are limp, empty assertions that ultimately mean nothing.

Also, everyone polices the boundaries of their stupid little postage-stamp subfields. They don't want to contend with others who might have rival interpretations. This explains a powerful drive of many involved, to keep everything as uninteresting as possible.

Almost all publications that happen in the Anglophone world are done to secure the PhD, an academic appointment or (in America) tenure. The vast majority of books and articles are thus uninspired pro forma exercises done for overtly career purposes.

Real scholars, the people who write real books and publish real articles about things they have genuinely discovered or are truly interested in – the people who actually have something to say – are maybe 5% of my field in the US, maybe less.