Apr 8, 2022 07:11 PM
https://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/b...ut-it.html
INTRO (excerpts): Philosophy is gamified. We jump through hoops to try to get published in the "right" journals, and we do it willingly. We almost all do it, even those very lucky few of us who have earned tenure. Perhaps we do it because this is genuinely the work we wish to write. Perhaps we just want to show we're still in the game. As Maeve McKeown writes in a paper on gamification and political theory which just as well could apply to philosophy:
"Contemporary political theory is a game. Individuals compete to publish in ‘top’ journals, to amass greater numbers of publications than their peers; then journal-ranking is combined with number of publications generating scores. The aim is to get the most points. Whoever gets the most points wins: they get the best jobs and the most prestige. This Hunger Games–like contest has serious consequences for people’s lives, determining who can make a living from academia, who will be relegated to the academic precariat or forced out of the profession [...] these conditions are stifling intellectual creativity, diversity, and dissent in political theory/philosophy."
Now, gamification isn't necessarily bad. We gamify things that we might otherwise not see through, such as language-learning. Yet, gamification narrows a broad range of experiences into a predictable path...
[...] When an entire discipline gets gamified, we are in for trouble. Because, as McKeown observes, top generalist journals aren't truly general. A lot of marginalized approaches do not find a place there. But it's not only that. We discourage ourselves from being truly playful and creative. Play and creativity is a crucial aspect of philosophy. We all recognize it when we praise Zhuangzi, Nietzsche or Wittgenstein. But we can't allow ourselves to write like that. We can't, because of the way academia is set up. Academia doesn't reward out of the box thinking... (MORE - missing details)
INTRO (excerpts): Philosophy is gamified. We jump through hoops to try to get published in the "right" journals, and we do it willingly. We almost all do it, even those very lucky few of us who have earned tenure. Perhaps we do it because this is genuinely the work we wish to write. Perhaps we just want to show we're still in the game. As Maeve McKeown writes in a paper on gamification and political theory which just as well could apply to philosophy:
"Contemporary political theory is a game. Individuals compete to publish in ‘top’ journals, to amass greater numbers of publications than their peers; then journal-ranking is combined with number of publications generating scores. The aim is to get the most points. Whoever gets the most points wins: they get the best jobs and the most prestige. This Hunger Games–like contest has serious consequences for people’s lives, determining who can make a living from academia, who will be relegated to the academic precariat or forced out of the profession [...] these conditions are stifling intellectual creativity, diversity, and dissent in political theory/philosophy."
Now, gamification isn't necessarily bad. We gamify things that we might otherwise not see through, such as language-learning. Yet, gamification narrows a broad range of experiences into a predictable path...
[...] When an entire discipline gets gamified, we are in for trouble. Because, as McKeown observes, top generalist journals aren't truly general. A lot of marginalized approaches do not find a place there. But it's not only that. We discourage ourselves from being truly playful and creative. Play and creativity is a crucial aspect of philosophy. We all recognize it when we praise Zhuangzi, Nietzsche or Wittgenstein. But we can't allow ourselves to write like that. We can't, because of the way academia is set up. Academia doesn't reward out of the box thinking... (MORE - missing details)