RR

Researcher!

[RR @TheSociologist_]

And the coldest of nights lead to the brightest of the mornings. To let go of past baggage and begin anew as the autumn sets the tone to cool breezes and warm colors. Winter here I come.

[RR @TheSociologist_]

@nalarilogistics My shipment frm Shillong to Goa is missing. I’ve made all payments & hve receipts, but it’s been weeks with no booking ID or update. My calls/texts are being ignored, and I’m distresed. Pls respond imediately before I’m forced to take legal action. Isha Bihari

[National Students for Justice in Palestine @NationalSJP]

📍New York

A graduate of the Columbia University School of Social Work rips up their diploma on stage in protest of Columbia University’s complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Last week, the administration announced its decision to move the ceremony off of the main campus.

[Swatiprava Rath @says_swati]

I got my research paper selected to be presented at University of Konstanz, Germany before joining SSB lectureship. I urgently  require your permission letter to attend the conference, as my flight is on Monday(8th of April). Kindly help me @DHE_Odisha @CMO_Odisha

[César A. Hidalgo @cesifoti]

There is an ongoing discussion involving Harvard and MIT, two institutions where I spent plenty of time during the past 20 years. I first came to Harvard as a visiting PhD student in 2005, then joined the Kennedy School as a postdoc in 2008, and in 2010 I joined the MIT faculty, where I was until 2019. Personally, I don’t have much to add to the current discussion (eg about DEI, plagiarism, etc.) except some notes on the social context of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Because like all drama, what we are seeing today is unfolding on a social backdrop that may be difficult to understand. After all, I know for a fact that most Americans do not know how society works in and around these institutions. For most, even people from the north and south shores of Massachusetts, Harvard and MIT are mythical places that we hear mentioned in sitcoms and movies. And while the reality is different, it is still interesting. They are a reflection of a segment of society, not only of the United States but of the world, as these institutions are effective at attracting global elites.

I will first start with a few positive notes from the 2000s. I remember vividly being thrown head-first into a tough-love environment. If you brought a half-baked idea to a professor or colleague they would destroy it, and kick you while you are down. You had to learn to change your mind, defend yourself, or go home crying. At that time I hated it, but in hindsight, I’ve come to appreciate it. That’s how I learned to think and write, and also, came to understand that the best you can get as a junior scholar from a senior scholar is unvarnished feedback because the other option is for them to simply ignore you.

You need to keep in mind that academia is a game of social acceptance since all hiring, funding, and publication decisions come from secret peer recommendations. In many institutions, what that leads to is not excellence, but clubbiness. People form implicit support groups with others with whom they agree to approve each other’s work. These challenge-free environments lead to a lot of half-baked work that is usually ignored by the larger academic community. That was not how these institutions were in the mid-2000s. They were tough pressure cookers that did not care about you or your feelings. They cared about whether you really had something important to say, and could figure out how to say it and show it. It was tough, but the focus was on the quality of the work. And that is why their prestige is well deserved. There is a lot of great work and great people in them. Brilliant people pushing themselves and their teams to the limit, and in the process, generating new knowledge, technologies, and scientific leaders.

But there is also an underbelly to this society. A society that is not immune to prestige and its addiction. People always went to these institutions looking for prestige. But over the last few decades, the prestige machine was supercharged with social media, displacing in part the culture of excellence. And this brings me to some of the saddest stories.

I remember a colleague and friend who joined the MIT faculty in the mid-2010s. He came from abroad with his wife who had to quit her job to move there. And he was killing it in academic terms. But still, he was not happy. During a Saturday lunch, he explained to me why. He told me that when they socialized people would turn around and start talking to someone else as soon as his wife told them that she was in between jobs. That behavior was wearing them out. People in Cambridge were not there to make friends. I know this is a cliché, but I remember being told those same exact words by a senior colleague who made a habit of walking past me without acknowledging me every morning after I said hello, even though his office was a few doors away. My friend eventually left Cambridge as well.

I also remember one of the most bizarre parties I’ve ever attended. I don’t know how else to call it other than a well-organized “braggathon.” About 200 people were invited to the house of a person who had made a fortune in finance. After everyone arrived, we were brought to a large library where one of the hosts got the party going. He started calling people, who would respond with their prepared pitches. “Hey Jennifer, I know you are revolutionizing the cancer industry..” and Jennifer would deliver her pitch. “And that reminds me of Brandon, who is doing amazing work on aerospace,” and Brandon would jump into action. That went on for about 2 hours. It is a strange prestige-driven society that is hard to fathom from the outside.

And eventually, you get used to it. Because prestige is a powerful drug, a master of puppets that can take over your life. When you are affiliated to those institutions you get treated like royalty around the world. Saying you are a professor there provides a strong 'in' with the elites of the world. Many people don’t know how to evaluate ideas, so they rely on where these ideas come from. Prestige shapes the world. But there is another side to that coin. The crudest example of prestige addiction is the blighted and chronically addicted, those who at MIT are called lifers. These are people who joined the institute as an undergraduate, and 30 years later, continue doing odd jobs for a big professor because they understand that being low in the ranks of the castle is better than trying to survive outside its walls. They are in some ways, the most loyal members of the institutions, knowing that there is a parade of visitors that will give them for ten minutes the respect they otherwise never get inside.

The north bank of the river Charles is a peculiar place. A place with many stories, that because of this prestige addiction, will never see the light of day. Today I can talk because I have been sober for a few years, after not being granted tenure at MIT (link to this story below). I uprooted my life and moved to Europe during covid, where I have been playing a different game: helping build research institutions instead of climbing them. And I do appreciate my time in Cambridge. It helped me become a better thinker, writer, and scientist. It also opened my eyes to the world. But I know many colleagues who will never share their stories as long as they keep a weak link to these institutions. Quitting the prestige drug is difficult. Still, slowly but surely, the drama will keep on trickling as the cracks in the levy continue to spread. There is certainly a Morning Show-type drama series or movie waiting to be made about Cambridge MA, if only screenwriters were not so focused on New York and California.

https://t.co/pFKlqa5u9S

[Hugh Kearns @ithinkwellHugh]

When people ask you what you will do with your PhD thesis/dissertation.
The uses are endless. What do you use yours for?
#PhDchat #ECRchat #postdoc #gradschool

[National Law University Meghalaya @nlumegofficial]

🌟Join us on Nov 29, 7:30-8:00 pm for an Instagram Live with Isha Bihari, Faculty, and Aphibakordor Kharkongor,
BA LL.B (Policy Administration) student at NLU Meg! e + Dive into the world of campus life at NLU Meg, Law and policy studies, and student perspectives.

[RR @TheSociologist_]

Eff the job. Ugh.

[RR @TheSociologist_]

Last but not yet final: PhD why oh why!

[RR @TheSociologist_]

Anxiety hitting like a brick to the chest.

[Laura Becker🐦‍🔥 @LauraBeckerReal]

Sexism: women do the dishes.

Feminism: anyone can do the dishes.

Trans woo: whoever does the dishes is the woman.

Non-binary woo: I’m not a man or a woman because I don’t want to do the dishes. #nonbinary

[RR @TheSociologist_]

Chapter 3, done. 3 over, 2 more to go!

[RR @TheSociologist_]

28th June 2023: Pre-Synopsis ✅
#PhD #phdlife #phdchat

[Not Jerome Powell @alifarhat79]

JP Morgan: We mistakenly deleted 47 million records

The Pentagon: We mistakenly sent $6.2 billion to Ukraine

The Fed: We mistakenly printed $32 trillion dollars

Where does it stop?

[Sport in Society @SportInSocietyJ]

Esports has grown into a worldwide phenomenon but India’s Esports industry is still underdeveloped. Isha Bihari & Debashis Pattanaik’s research tells us why 👇🏽

https://t.co/mkzp4aBX0q

@BoriaMajumdar @SouvikNaha @CaissaPublisher @AlejndraBlack @TheSociologist_

[RR @TheSociologist_]

Published! State of Affairs of Esports in India!! @SportInSocietyJ @BoriaMajumdar @SouvikNaha https://t.co/5kH3CJrMzE

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

Man: no definition needed.
Non-man (formerly known as woman):
a being definable only by reference to the male. An absence, a vacuum where there's no man-ness.

[RR @TheSociologist_]

7th June 2023.

[MrMenno 🇳🇱🏳️‍🌈🎶 @MrMennoTweets]

1 / “I don’t think a transwoman is a woman, I’m sorry I just don’t think that’s true.” - Kathleen Stock

Plain and simple.

Never think it is the ‘unsayable’; it is the very thing that needs to be said to stop the toxic climate of fear & intimidation spun by the gender brigade.

[RR @TheSociologist_]

The constant unblinking pestering anxiety of being left behind is killing me. PhD could be the eventual death of me. 💀

[RR @TheSociologist_]

To write a gaming thesis on a gaming laptop-reflective analysis much?😂