The deeper I get into academics the more like navel-gazing it seems to be.  The rhetoric is around things that the average person couldn’t care less about, and in many cases would be infuriated to hear.  (Anyone who thinks academics don’t sound like patronizingly elitest snobs isn’t reading enough academic writing.)

I’ve always prided myself on being a very down-to-earth person; focusing on what works and doesn’t work as opposed to how things should be.

Studying a social science seems to involve a lot of time reading and citing people who focus on perceived injustices and  how things should be rather than how they are.

*light bulb*
My dissertation idea is very much a “what we can learn from how things actually are” rather than a “how they should be” kind of question.  My adviser also pointed out that it wasn’t likely to get me more than a paper or two in the long run.  So it would appear that that style of writing (or even problem identification) isn’t very academic….

Meh.  Another sign I’m not cut out to be an academic?