Academic assholes: formation or filtering?

Academic assholes:
formation or filtering?

If one stays in academia, is it an inevitable professional deformation that one will turn into a ruthless egoist or another version of an asshole? Far from an intellectual exercise, this is quite practical. Is it possible to basically be at least an OK person and an academic? Asking for a friend.

The amount of unpleasant people in academia appears higher than in the general population. Are they there because the environments twists them into… unpleasant individuals (formation)? Or does the environment selectively attracts assholes (i.e. filtering)? As with many dichotomies, the trick is seeing past the binary. Academic jobs provide opportunities to largely determine the environment that shapes us through actions, values, and people.

I have met a share of unpleasant people in universities. Supervisors who refused to supervise. Exploitative management. Liars. But I have also connected with kind mentor figures. What the positive examples from my journey have shared has been they cultivate their environment, often working with students or in an engaged ways with organisations, or being in collegial scholarly networks. A culture of generosity and kindness in a given bubble can override the otherwise ruthless academic climate. Does that fix academia? No, but that is not the goal. The goal is to practice the research craft while having a positive impact on the immediate surrounding.

So, does academia filter for assholes or forms them? As with any environment, it forms people. But what environment we have is largely our own doing. Contrary to appearances, we do not have to compete on every major prestige point.