NetocracyVsAcademia

ThoughtStorms Wiki

Bard and Soderqvist are scathing about academia and describe an opposition of temperaments between it and NetoCracy :

For the netocracy, speed and overview are the primary requirements, whereas traditional research prioritizes thoroughness and depth, which explains the persistent studies of a stability that is purely fictional: purely theoretical constructions with little or no connection to reality, which dominated social science during the 1900s ... There will not be so much of an encounter as a brutal culture clash between these two participants, a clash that can only end badly for academics, whose obsessively neurotic attachment to scientific scrupulousness, references, footnotes etc. makes them incapable of obtaining the speed and overview that appeal to the netocracy.

An examples of netocracy's conflict with traditional academia can be seen in DavidWeinberger's rant against academic professionals in

where http://www.hyperorg.com/backissues/joho-feb26-01.html#professionals where he dismisses comments from a (presumably) academic philosopher

for unhelpful criticisms. Weinberger reads the academic as being more concerned to shut him (as a non-professional) out of the conversation than help further the ideas. But finishes with the impassioned :

our trans-cultural culture now is bursting with amateurs with ideas of every sort, most of whom only know that Hegel rhymes with bagel. These ideas, good and bad, are tossed into the wind without asking anyone's permission. Most are blown to desert regions, but some cause our noses to twitch and we pay attention. And a thousand more voices jump in and say amen, or extend the idea, or get it wrong, or do all of the above and then take it as their own. The ideas take root and bear fruit. Are they right? We'll argue about that forever. The real question is: are these ideas clarifying? edifying? beautiful? funny? terrifying? transforming?

(In response I wrote an email to David about the relation between LinkingVsCiting.)

In fact, despite this antipathy, it's possible that enlightened academia and netocracy may, for now, find themselves in a truce through identifying a worse common enemy : the academic publishers. AcademiaVsNewMedia

I wonder if this "opposition of temperaments" is dependant on the field. You don't seem to see the naked vitriol in engineering (for example) between academics and non-academics. – AdrianHoward

SunirShah's NetworkAcademics suggests that some academics are evolving into netocrats. Particularly in PostModernism.