Thread by @kamilkazani

A great comment that sums up what is wrong with modern academia. Apparently Professor Radchenko lives in a social bubble where "Brat" movies were viewed just as ironically as the "Pulp Fiction". I am afraid he cannot comprehend that most of the audience watched them unironically

https://twitter.com/DrRadchenko/status/1535638302639931392

Hard to swallow pill:

A (seemingly) unsophisticated criminal saga could become and indeed has become an integral part of the Russian state mythos. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 for example was widely viewed in the context of Brat-2 movie and described with its language

A hypothesis

Much of the poverty of the modern academia when it comes to studying other sentient and intelligent beings largely derives from:

1) personal arrogance and social prejudices of so many scholars
2) flawed system of incentives within academia itself

The major flaw of the modern academia is a bias towards studying everything "sophisticated" (and relatable). Unfortunately, much of what is impactful and popular among the masses doesn't necessarily seem sophisticated or even relatable enough to be read and studied unironically

So what are you gonna do? The very common approach is:

1. Take a popular phenomenon (Galkovsky or Goblin/Puchkov in case of Russia)
2. Identify a "sophisticated" and relatable part. Usually it could be language, stylistics or other literary aspects
3. Ignore the rest

Bias towards studying everything "sophisticated" and "relatable" is not bad for your academic career, due to the flawed system of incentives in modern academia. However, it has an absolutely disastrous effect on a discipline as a whole (in this case - on the area studies)

Due to the personal social prejudices and due to the flawed system of incentives in academia, researchers systematically understudy and underrepresent the mass culture. And "culture" should be understood way broader than simply "arts". Academia ignores what the masses think

Mass culture which is way wider than "arts" is largely ignored by the academia. As a result the mass sentiments are ignored, too. Consider this video with a popular psychologist Veronika Stepanova who has 2,2 million subscribers on YouTube. I recommend to watch it through

Let me clarify that the problem I described is systemic. It's not about personal biases, arrogance and prejudice, it's about the less judgemental approaches to what to study being disincentivized. As a result the whole picture is absolutely distorted thanks to the lie by omission

Regarding the Distinguished Professor Radchenko, next time I see the Pulp Fiction quotes and images being widely used in the political propaganda, on pair with the official state symbolics, I might take his opinion or his research seriously. End of 🧵