Oxford, academia and the problem of #mainstreaming

One thing I keep noticing around Oxford is how much academic culture is about building consensus on how to name things, rather than actually talking about the things themselves. Events become status games: establishing who has authority, who gets referenced, who belongs in the #mainstreaming hierarchy around whatever subject is being discussed. There is plenty of time spent establishing credibility, positioning and agreeing on language, but remarkably little time spent getting to grips with the actual mess we increasing face. Of course, referencing and academic rigour have their uses. We cannot all discover everything from scratch, and taking some things on good authority is necessary. But there is a balance, at some point we need to get beyond repeating what other people have said and ask, what is your contribution? What are you actually doing with this knowledge? This isn’t an attack on academia or academics, it’s about recognizing the limits of a culture that can become more…