Not everyone in academia thinks academic achievement is an unqualified good. Rick Gekoski (on page 167) manages to be both self-deprecating and maintain enough self esteem to not write himself off. But this is as salutary a paragraph as any I've come across that honestly looks at the cost and consequence of academic competitiveness in the University.
"I am told that one should feel proud of oneself and one's achievements, but I frequently value the wrong things for the wrong reasons. Pride resulting from, say, academic acheivement, is a kind of false pride based on false goals. Does high academic achievement make one happy, or good? Does it fill you with laughter and goodwill towards man? [sic] Look around the universities and despair. No. I rather prefer moderate, vigilant self-esteem, scepticism directed inwards, self-doubt: those qualities of mind that lead to humility, and to that irony which wryly registers the differences between the apparent and the real. And ironically enough, I still feel proud od my academic achievements, when I'm not mildly ashamed of them".
Amen
Posted by: Bruce Hamill | January 16, 2010 at 11:29 PM