After I finished my first doctorate I never got the fitted job I wanted. One I envisaged, strategized, and fought hard to make possible. Neither the next best one. Or next best.
I did my best in the jobs I got. I taught. I motivated. I helped students self motivate to levels they didn't think possible. Those who wanted to hear me and to work hard with themselves to make possible what I was showing them they can.
I researched. Without any funding. Without any support. I dug for data by myself. No lab. No databases purchased by the University. Austin had them but Brownsville couldn't use them. No money available for conference participation but a requirement that you participate as part of your position. No typing service available but a requirement that you publish.
We did well. We traveled. We interviewed. We wrote. We analyzed. We aggregated. We proposed improvements. Serious systematic improvements. Based on years of research by tens and tens of scholars from across several connected fields. We presented. We saw the work embraced at international scholarly conferences. We deepened the work. Applied the methodology in more suited fields. Perfected little by little the organizational structure-decision making optimality link. Making progress all on our own time and with our own resources. Meanwhile we expend tax payers' money inefficiently and ineffectively. Lots of them. Many people loose their lives. Most often needlessly. We praise them but we wouldn't stop it.
Then along came an election. We learned the organization--NATO--was all obsolete. That's it.
Then it wasn't obsolete anymore. But we learned tenants didn't pay rent from behind. So they have to pay back now or else. Just like that.
Those of us who know these things because we studied them, and then we studied them some more and better and better and deeper and deeper, will do what now?
I for one will keep teaching critical thinking and fighting hard to make more and more people understand how knowledge is produced and how and why it is often ignored.
Because one day we will all get it. And I want to live that day.
Adrian S. Petrescu, Ph.D., J.D.
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