An ivory tower is a metaphorical location used to describe a comfortable position in life, which often implies seclusion of a person from the practicalities, difficulties, and realities of the world in pursuit of his passion and desires. It is a term widely associated with academia, as they enjoy relatively many privileges in their line of work where they pursue higher knowledge and research. It has become a criticism towards academics — that they are out of touch with reality and only wallow in their comfort zones, working on projects that aren’t as relevant in society as they think. Partly, I agree with this sentiment; tenured professors enjoy more stability in their professions that other professionals likely do not experience. I also think people in academia have a lot of work to do in order to become more accessible and grounded in the realities of the world. But academia as a whole institution is designed for the overall pursuit of new knowledge, and the ivory tower is precisely suited for this pursuit.

Your professional career may not be as challenging on its own as balancing it with your responsibilities in life. Most professionals have families to feed, bills to pay, and other problems outside of their work to solve. This inevitably takes away a chunk of their attention from their work, for understandable reasons, which prevents them from fully maximizing their brainpower to question, correlate, and expand the world’s existing knowledge. If professionals in academia were to hypothetically live in an environment where all their basic needs — and maybe even wants — are provided for them, all that’s left for them to do is work and think. I see that as the primary benefit of tenure in academia; when a professor is given the liberty to pursue whatever they wish without much fear of losing their job, it unleashes more of their creativity and mental capacity to contribute to knowledge expansion. 

It is for this reason that academic professionals are justified to be in a slightly elevated, more comfortable position than an average industry worker. The industry rewards the labor of its people with stability through monthly pay and other benefits, while academia thrives in the stability of its people. It is the same stability that enables our knowledge breakthroughs and rapid advancement towards modernization. This is also why I don’t fully accept the notion that academics need to “touch some grass” and be more relevant to reality. This is an indirect dig on professionals working in fields that are not as widely deemed “relevant”, which is complete nonsense. While I acknowledge the importance of academics having to be more concerned with what’s happening around us, at the same time, academia is not here to please you and cater to what you want; it is rather designed to discover the unknown and leverage it for societal growth, however trivial that may be. Many breakthroughs achieved throughout history were a result of tiny discoveries that seemed trivial at the time. The freedom to creatively study just anything is, therefore, encouraged in academia, as it could be a helpful discovery later on. The shortsighted critics who take so much pride in their work concerning relevant issues must be reminded of what constitutes “relevance”, a fleeting concept that changes so quickly over time as society gains interest in new things. We study the things we feel need studying, regardless of how currently relevant it is.

Furthermore, as valid as the “touch some grass” narrative sounds, I can’t help but really decipher a hint of frustration — undeniably, life has its ups and downs, and seeing someone at a more stable position in life blurt out an opinion you don’t agree with could trigger that frustration. But as much as being on the field gives you a better grasp of the situation, being an observer allows you to see it from a different perspective; it’s the entire essence of trying to isolate academia as realistically as possible from phenomena or situations that they are meant to analyze. Putting yourself on a pedestal because you get your hands dirty while you condescendingly label academics as “armchair critics” does not necessarily do you any good; it could in fact show your neglect of the fact that the core of knowledge and practicality are essentially equal. Challenging the notions of what is “known” is a tough task, and the climb to perfect that skill — ladder from higher education to tenure — is immensely difficult, however privileged that opportunity may be. 

However uncomfortable or insulting the idea may be, we need to acknowledge that the stability of academia is meant to further its purpose. Being in the trenches and in the ivory tower both play their role in the growth of mankind, and if you feel so proud of having “touched some grass” that you completely insult academics in their profession, then instead of touching it maybe you should try smoking it until you knock some sense into yourself.