In the Amazon editorial review of the book I just wrote about (Hildreth & Kimble), I read the following last sentence: "This book is a resource for all people who work with CoPs - both in academia and in the real world".
Hmm, this is very funny. Does it mean that academics don't live in the real world? It could be true for some, who seem to live in their own closed world, but I think most look further than their own offices. Seems a bit short-sighted of the revier. Besides, what is the "real" world? Don't we all live in our perception of what happens around us? My world is different than anyone else. So, what is real?
Seems like a very arrogant description to me: Even if academics never got out of their offices, their world is very "real" to them! Taking a position of judging what is "real" and what not, thus objectifying things that cannot be objectified, shows a pretty narrow philosophical base of the authors. Anyway, the Beatles got it best: "Let me take you down/ cause I'm going to/ strawberry fields/ Nothing is real/ and nothing to get hung about/" ;-)
Also check out Wikipedia - Real Life (this came to my mind because I was editing the German Version of that page two weeks ago): "Real life is a phrase used to signify time spent on activities the speaker believes are more important than the addressed has indulged in." So using "Real life" does not really say anything about "Reality" but rather about how the speaker perceives it and judges the activity of others.
Posted by: Martin Roell | April 21, 2004 at 11:27 AM