Cross-over Scholars

       I dislike scholars who presume to merit attention when they propound upon topics clearly outside the purview of their field, shooting from the hip, as it were, or speaking from their feelings and opinions on the new subject, foreign to their field of study. This tendency seems to have become increasingly common in just the past few decades, precisely because it has been tolerated, even encouraged, within academia.  

       That said, I do like scholars who get a second Ph.D. and/or then develop extensive familiarity with the literature of a differing field from their initial Ph.D.  

       The man who drew me into graduate studies in business (from my heavy humanities background) taught me just one course (the sole course I had ever had in business or social science, an undergraduate level introduction to organizational behavior.  He had a Ph.D. in OB, built upon a previous Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Buffalo, NY.  He said OB was best taught through stories, and he told many of them, mesmerizing, captivating, stories which quickly planted the thought of my foray into business studies at the graduate level ... and then before the end of his course, galvanized my pivotal segue into the field of business studies.  

       C.S. Lewis became a world-class theologian from his background in philology.  The interesting thing about him was his humility, never fully accepting the mantel of theologian.  Ironically, acquiring genuine fundamental knowledge of the broad range of issues in a second field usually inculcates a more humble sense of one's own meager contributions and position in the field.  How much more is this in striking contrast with the inflation of grades and the pass many scholars get on their Ph.D.s when they take short-cuts in citations and honing a searing devotion attitude to carving out and expressing cogently their own ideas, making sure that these ideas, however small and narrow, are indeed unique and not some possible rehash of previous work.   

In the United States we are living in an age of increasing lack of respect for order, rule of law, and authority.  Googling the sentence, "Is it wrong to refuse to listen to your parents?", we get an interesting collection of sites, heavily tilted to radical independence for a man from his parents' influence. This blends into the devaluing of authority, and the encouragement of individual autonomy, with every man a law unto himself, with "Each man does what is right in his own eyes." as the theme of the book of Judges in the Bible.