Alienation & Academia

I finished a (short) paper today. It's nothing brilliant or anything; but, since it's about militarism and the university, I figured I ought to share. It doesn't gives a full account of what's going on (not even close) but it offers -- what I hope -- is one useful way of looking at it.

Since World War Two, American academia has had a close relationship with the military, in what has been termed the “Military-Industrial-Academic-Complex” (Leslie, 1993). In a report on the influence of military funding on science the Stanford Workshop on Political and Social Issues found that a number of professors defended their relationship with the military by “[...] declin[ing] to make any connection between their work and the DDC statements of military relevance” (Shapley, 1972). This paper will explicate Marx’s theory of alienation and then apply it to academia in order to illuminate how scientists are distanced from the ethical implications of their work.

[Read the rest of the paper.]