It seems to me that we should be wary of any notion of a clear distinction
between the 'ivory tower' and the 'everyday world'. Academic campuses are
not alien space-ships incongruously plopped down in the midst of an
otherwise 'normal' (read unreflective) world. They (we) are a part of the
internally incongruous everyday world, and our specific job is to reflect
on it systematically, as well as to help students do so. Luckily for the
critically-minded among us, our institutional situation makes it far easier
than it is for most people to infuse our mundane duties with critical
direction. It seems to me that we constantly struggle with a certain
temptation to feel guilty about the relative ease of critical work in the
academy, but we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that because it
seems easier, it is somehow disqualified as critical work. These are not
new points, I realize, but they bear repeating...
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