METAPHORS FOR ACADEMIC SCIENCE PART II: THE CARGO CULT

​​During WW2, several Pacific Islands suddenly gained great strategic value to both the Allies and Japan. These forces quickly attempted to establish island military bases. The communities that inhabited these islands suddenly experienced technology hundreds or even thousands of years more advanced than their own. Cargo planes and airdropped crates brought hundreds of tons of manufactured clothes, tinned food, tents, medicine, guns, tobacco, soap etc. These goods were intended to help the war effort, but they quickly found their way to the local communities, who often assisted troops by acting as hosts or guides. It must have been an inconceivable bonanza.

Then, the war ended. The troops left and took almost everything with them. As quickly as the local people had lurched forward millennia, they lurched back again, but this time they knew what they were missing. In an attempt to summon more of the beloved goods, the communities re-created the conditions and peculiar rituals which led to the arrival of the bountiful cargo. They cut landing strips through the forest. They built planes and radar towers out of hay, and re-enacted military drills and marches. Generations later, improvised air-traffic controllers wearing coconut headphones still diligently signalled which runways were clear for landing.

​No planes came, and the well-meaning efforts were in vain. The older generation had accidentally bumbled into unimaginable progress and prosperity. Through no fault of their own, the younger generations never had any hopes of equality, and their attempts at replicating the good fortunes of their fathers and grandfathers were hopelessly misguided and doomed to failure.

This is how it feels to be an unestablished academic today, and to hear the stories of those who secured lectureships in decades gone by.
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