I value academia a lot, but I have a difficult relationship with it. Here’s why Academics are specialists, and specialists often lose sight of where they stand relative to the rest of society Imagine you’re a specialist that has reached Level 50 in a specialist topic, while the average person is sitting somewhere around Level 0-10 Imagine now there is a person who tries to help those who are on Level 0-10 to get to Level 20-30 When an academic encounters such a person, they often say stuff like, ‘well, on Level 40 we showed that actually there’s more nuance to the issue. Haven’t you read X, Y and Z?!’ It’s at this point I want to shake them and say 'do you have any interest in getting someone from Level 0 to Level 20, because pushing Level 40 at them is a sure way to make them back away, and retreat to Level -10