Academic objectification tolerates abuse as long as the mind functions

Evidence

This meant that whether academics were drug addicts, alcoholics, batterers, or sexual abusers, the only important aspect of our identity was whether or not our minds functioned, whether we were able to do our jobs in the classroom. The self was presumably emptied out the moment the threshold was crossed, leaving in place only an objective mind—free of experiences and biases. … Not surprisingly, professors who are not concerned with inner well being are the most threatened by the demand on the part of students for liberatory education, for pedagogical processes that will aid them in their own struggle for self-actualization. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 45

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: the academy’s implicit license of dysfunction as proof of intellectual seriousness, and the threat posed by ‘healthy’ professors.
• XREF: connects to: Professors can espouse liberatory theory while practicing domination in class; Objectifying thought commits the mental violence that later becomes physical violence — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 153; Violence defends male subjectivity against being objectified by others — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 836 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Objectifying thought commits the mental violence that later becomes physical violence #complicates (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 153
• Euphemistic reframing of abuse as atypical can enable institutional inaction. #exemplifies (0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 498
• Extensive abuse can persist openly despite collective awareness #corroborates (0.80)
• Violence defends male subjectivity against being objectified by others #complicates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 836
• Psychoanalysis claims objectivity while psychodynamically dismissing those who raise institutional racism #qualifies (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1258
• Suppressing the affective origins of thought yields intellectual sterility #expands (0.70)