“If the devotion scholars feel toward their work is intense and sometimes irrational, it’s because this is one of the last spaces of unalienated labor”
Speaking as a former academic, I don’t really agree with this — I think academia can make you believe wrongly that it’s a kind of “unalienated labor,” but actually the alienation runs deep, all the deeper when it’s invisible at first glance.
Yes, you don’t have to make something that is sold to customers or that fits in a JIRA ticket. But when you stop and think about it, you’re going to be doing research based on topics and paradigms that other people have largely defined (advisors, peers); you have to publish in journals that are often for profit and pay you zero; when you teach you usually don’t get paid all the tuition that your students are paying per course (the institution takes a big cut); you end up doing a lot of silly things to have a solid institutional position… TLDR, it has great moments of course, but it isn’t unalienated.
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