• TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    I spent so much time in academia. A lot of us are trained to make objective and impersonal analysis (such as avoiding the use of personal pronouns “I”, “we”, “us” etc.), which I did not realise before sounds dispassionate and cold to laymen. Someone asked me if I’m a bot because apparently I sounded like an anime character. A couple of times, I get into arguments because normal folks would accuse me of “yOu aRe mAkInG ExCuSeS tO TyRaNtS!!” for making a realpolitik analysis of a situation (/r/geopolitics in Reddit is heavily derided for this by average Redditors).

    Academically trained folks are ingrained to be conscious of bias and rather encouraged to be more descriptive with the analysis, and less with prescriptive. Otherwise we’d get accused of bias. But when academics do voice out their opinions based on evidence and careful study, they’d be accused of bias. I probably don’t need to elaborate how often educational institutions are accused of being left or liberal. News flash: academics do not come in with inherent bias towards left/liberal thinking, it’s just that their study led them to be more left leaning. Wait until I tell people I am an advocate for a world government by giving UN more power. I might be accused as a globalist bot.

    • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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      2 hours ago

      i dislike, but accept, academic style. my argument against it is that the total reliance on passive voice makes research FAR less accessible to people for whom english is a second languange and neurodivergent people. older academics tell me i’m being anti-intellectual. younger academics tell me they don’t know what passive voice is and don’t believe it exists.

      i don’t really… know what to make of that divide, if i’m being honest