Nicholas Kristof’s Sunday column in the New York Times, “Professors We Need You,” provided a good summary of the state of Academia, tenure/promotion practices, the demise of public intellectuals and writing for the masses.
His column also quoted Jill Lepore’s column from last September in the Chronicle of Higher Education, The New Economy of Letters,” which includes a number of helpful insights, but my favorite by far was her critique of academic writing and publishing: “This set of arrangements has produced a great, heaping mountain of exquisite knowledge surrounded by a vast moat of dreadful prose.” Ms. Lepore also explains–at least in part–why that is.