The point in your post I think lies in the fact that unless you are accredited "something", no one will pay too much attention to what you say.
Whereas if you do have a PhD for example, you can say just about anything and be considered the greatest mind of today's generation despite the fact you reached a conclusion/theory on something based on personal observations and deductions (nothing that anyone else with a background in the subject matter - depending on what the subject is - wouldn't be able to accomplish).
At the very least, those kinds of people's voices are acknowledged most of the time, which is sad because you have a ton of people without university degrees that would reach the same (if not a better) conclusion.
Well, speaking as someone who
has a PhD, I have to say: what you've written here does not accord with my own experience.
In fact, in my experience, the exact opposite is true. Anti-intellectualism in our society is both deep and pervasive. Far from considering me one of the greatest minds of today's generation, I find that people regularly disparage my credentials, and dismiss my accomplishments as something trivial. Your post is a mild example of this.
If you really think that 'anyone else' could do what I do, then in my considered opinion, you're kidding yourself. If anyone could do what I do, they'd be doing it: the salary, benefits, and working conditions are all terrific. You'd have to be nuts to turn down a job as a university professor.
I for one
don't kid myself that I can do the things that other people do. In fact, I would probably fail miserably at most other careers. My younger brother, for example, is a cop: I don't even have the physical fitness to do his job, let alone the toughness and practical judgment. And when it comes to questions of law enforcement I always try to give his opinion the weight it deserves--that is to say, far more weight than my own.
What is more: far from just accepting anything I say about anything, I have found that people are more than willing to contradict me, even on topics that lie within my field of expertise; even when it's clear that they have no special knowledge in this field; and even when they're plainly wrong.
I could provide numerous examples of this tendency from this very website. Just recently, I tried to explain some very basic ethical theory to another poster--something you could get out of any first-year textbook on the subject. His response? "That's just sophistry."
I once explained a famous and widely-debated philosophical argument to another poster, who simply waved his hand and dismissed it as "gibberish and horseshit."
And don't get me started on people's willingness to sneer at my expertise in my primary field, which is history. I once suggested that the Carter administration has been unfairly blamed for "hollowing-out" the USA's military. My opponent accused me of just parroting some talking points I had heard on AM radio.
I haven't listened to AM radio for decades, and I was so affronted by this that I marched down the hall to the library, checked out the best books I could find on the subject, and wrote a lengthy, detailed rebuttal, with notes and sources. My opponent did not even deign to reply.
As a consequence, I really have to wonder how you formed the opinions you presented in your post. They don't sound very well-informed to me.
