The PhD Paradox
American anti-intellectualism and how family and friends seesaw between praise and derision.
Several things about the PhD experience are fairly normal, if not universal. You’re probably poor all or most of the time. Your physical and mental health more than likely deteriorates. There’s self-doubt, social isolation, gut-wrenching fear about what you’ll do after graduation, a constant sense that you’re actually doing a terrible job. The choice to get a PhD is not one which people make rashly.
Being the first person in your family or larger social circle adds another layer to this process. Right off the bat, you lack that familial knowledge of how it works. You can’t call your parents or grandparents for advice because they have none to give. Your friends can’t commiserate because they’re been working for the last 4–6 years and can’t relate. You’re left adrift, forced to hope that the university or department has resources and people designed to help you succeed.
Perhaps one of the most common experiences for those with or getting a PhD — first in your family or otherwise — is one that you are hardly prepared for. In fact, it’s one of the last things you would ever expect. Going into the process, we’re led to believe that we are establishing our academic and intellectual bona fides, legitimizing ourselves as people of expertise and authority. Graduate education is the steady accumulation of knowledge and experience, the degree serving as the key to a prestigious club.
Within your field, this is largely how it goes. Study. Get degree. Join club. In the larger world, though, the reaction is far less harmonious. Many scholars far more articulate and skilled than I have written about anti-intellectualism in America. While I lack the expertise to explore that literature in detail, I can speak aloud what a lot of us discovered at various points in this process; a PhD does nothing for your credibility to the majority of people in your life.
Each of us has experienced this. No matter our field of study, there is some application for it in popular culture, current events, etc. All of my scientist colleagues are all too familiar with the Curse of the Internet (“I read a thing on the internet that said the opposite of what you said so you must be wrong.”) and the frustration that brings.
As a historian, I, too, am keenly aware of this phenomenon. The importance of history has been made more and more apparent in the Trump world. Half-truths, alternative facts, and ignorance about basic aspects of reality have gone from silent thoughts to legitimate opinions and ideas within the zeitgeist. It’s hardly possible to have a conversation without someone immediately questioning “the so-called experts.”
We all have our examples. Back in November, my parents were on vacation with my mom’s sibling, their spouses, and my grandma (before you get all “but COVID!” on me, this was right before my grandma started chemo and no one know if she would ever have a chance to do this again. She’s currently cancer-free, btw). I’m very politically active and aware (back in November, I was live tweeting the election because that’s who I am).
When it was clear that the outcome was not going to be known until later that week, my parents called me. One of my uncles had been told by my cousin that “he had heard on the news” that Mike Pence could cancel the election and declare Trump the winner (bear in mind both of these people are Trump supporters, so this was hopeful, not fearful, thinking).
US electoral politics are not my specific area of study, but like any Americanist, I can talk about that shit in my sleep. After a brief but thorough explanation of the Electoral College, vote calculation, different voting policies by state, and the limits of executive power, my parents (lifelong Dems) were convinced but my uncle remained unsure. After all, his son had heard it on the news (we all know which network it was) so how could it be false? He questioned my perspective, to which I said (through my parents) “You’re right; what do I know?”
Here’s another one. I have a group of old friends from my youth. I’ve known them forever and we still keep in touch today. Once, when I we are all back in Canton (I think it was a holiday) we were chatting about the tax policies of Elizabeth Warren. Two of my friends, a hedge fund analyst and a consultant-turned-lawyer, adamantly disagreed with her policies, saying that her plans would destroy the economy. I pointed out that there was actually a long precedent for her policies — if not policies even more progressive — and that there was no evidence for their fears. Of course, I was chastised for my opinion, told I was out of my league since I, unlike they, did not come from an economics background.
Perhaps I was being naïve. Maybe even a bit arrogant. I truly thought that I would not have this experience with my close family and friends.
Being the first person in your family or friend group to get a PhD means that everyone is super proud of you, but then they also constantly dismiss you and your expertise “because the real world isn’t like school.” They basically think you are getting a PhD in game show trivia, and that the information you have is useless and esoteric, unlike their “practical” life experiences.
In a curious reversal of expectations, the people whose respect I thought I would have to labor to get — other academics — came quickly and easily, whereas the people I thought would be quickest to trust me — my loved ones — proved to be the most intractable in their disagreement with nearly everything I said.
I know that this is not unique to me. Beyond the long list of studies on the American dislike of experts, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence, too. A recent tweet of mine (which inspired this piece) went relatively viral for someone with a small account like myself, getting thousands of likes, retweets, and comments, all of which were people like me expressing some variant of the same frustration and experience. The people who were the first to congratulate us were the first ones to dismiss us.
Perhaps it’s more than simple anti-intellectualism or a disdain for expertise, such as we have. Maybe there’s another component. In my personal experience, I often get the impression that family and friends alike are dismissive in this way not because they hate the degree but because they hate that it’s attached to my name; they do not want to acknowledge my growth or change or that I have, in some way, achieved something they have not.
A recent conversation with another cousin (I have a lot of them) suggested that maybe this is the case. I made a point about the 1619 Project being a valuable and important reconceptualization of American History. This cousin, who is decidedly not in favor of it, asked how could I think that? I mentioned “Well, that is what my PhD is in.” The response? “Yea well how much money is that PhD making you?” That’s a broken value system or a comment designed intentionally to hurt.
I don’t have a solution to this, although I do have thoughts and suggestions. Recent years have seen the widening divide between experts, whatever their field, and the public. Who doesn’t have a relative or friend that thought/still thinks COVID is “basically just the flu” despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary? Pinpointing the cause of this distrust is almost as fruitless as trying to pinpoint a single remedy to fix it. All I know is that there is a lot of void screaming these days and it does not seem likely to change anytime soon.
