What do we mean by "asking important questions?"
Let's read this piece by Prof. Robert Jensen and continue our discussion.
"In the social sciences, researchers can easily advance careers not by asking important questions about how systems of power work, but by constructing complex models and methodologies that are, again, so allegedly sophisticated that they have to be important. Students also find most of this kind of work annoying, especially when faculty members have a hard time explaining why the articles being assigned are worth plodding through."
"Instead of investing time in your building status in academic cliques—where you spend a lot of energy reminding each other how smart you are—wade out into the world and let your work be guided by a simple question: How are we humans going to save ourselves and save the planet from ruin? We live in an unsustainable system that was created by systems that concentrate wealth and power. Do we care?"
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