Or, at least, one little piece of that puzzle:
What I think I share with Bitch and Oso, even granting our obvious differences, is a strong sense that the traditional rules just don't work anymore. Unfortunately, the folks at the top of the pecking order are the ones most vested in those traditional rules, and therefore most blind to their failures. The “opinion leaders” are far behind reality.
My words of wisdom, such as they are: go ahead and break the rules. There isn't much payoff in playing by them anymore, and they certainly don't make sense intrinsically. Cross disciplinary boundaries; blog; select topics that are interesting to you; have a kid; have a life; move into and out of administration; contradict or ignore your advisor when he's wrong. The old rules about what you're supposed to do were developed in a world that doesn't exist anymore, and that isn't coming back.
I've heard this a lot in the last several years, and not just about academia.
1) It might be a function of globalization.
2) People are saying something like this all the time.
3) Neither of the first two mean that it's not true. In fact, I think it's pretty true - systems change constantly over time.
In the case of Dean Dad's take, I can only heartily agree with his advice on what to do. It's what I'd do even if the system was static.
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