Never completed his PhD
— Zac X (@XerxestheMagian) June 25, 2019
I was rifling through the obit of an Oxbridge Historian. What jumped out at me:
With a good degree in the subject, he embarked on a PhD on the Austro-Hungarian army before 1914, though never completed it, and gained a reputation for brilliance sufficient, along with his linguistic abilities, to obtain a research fellowship at Caius in 1965, and two years later an assistant lectureship in Russian history, moving to Jesus College in 1971 as director of studies in history.
I was shocked at reading this because a PhD is a pre-requisite to any academic research path. I mentioned this to Vidhi and she glibly replied back that when it was all white men, there wasn’t really a need for rule enforcement.
It articulated something that I had felt but not been able to voice heretofore. The role of white people constantly acting as gatekeepers and rule-enforcers in my interactions in Britain.
The sanctimoniousness with which I’ve been lectured, always subtle never overt, is something that I’ve internalised over the years.
The identity crisis in the West is marked by the fact that the older generation is one race while the younger generation is mixed with another (and the generation after that is even more tilted). The reflexive reaction of the Establishment is now to make sure that those who take on the mantle must know the law if they will not imbibe in the customs in their Oriental homes.
This article was at an opportune moment
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/25/britains-top-jobs-still-in-hands-of-private-school-elite-study-finds
in the 20th-cent advanced degrees were less required. eg freeman dyson never got one.
It was not really a requirement for the older generation. Plenty of older economists with glittering reputations don’t have a Phd. It is the modern focus on credentialism which is rather mad.