Beyond Academic Writing. Part 3

After digging into the sterility of academic writing, it is time to ask: is there a way back? Or perhaps forward — to a place where structure and chaos, science and sleeplessness merge into one double perspective?

Academicism as a prison — yes. But not only that. It is also a tool. 🔨 And a trap. And a ladder. And a labyrinth. Everything depends on how you read it — as a map or as a sentence.

🅰 CBT AND ITS LIMITS 🅰

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the most scientifically supported psychotherapeutic methods. Yes, it gives a clear structure. Yes, it allows us to work effectively with concrete tasks. But let's be honest: where is transformation here? (Transformation ≠ correction.)

Of course the method works. But inside it there is neither a core nor an axiom. It is not psychology in the literal sense, not even a gripping mythologem or a personal position. There is neither existential choice nor the spirit of an era. It is not psychology — it is behavioral engineering. An algorithm. Convenient, polished, scientifically verified. But without a soul. Without inner heat, without pain, without risk. It is like living by an instruction manual: safe, predictable, and absolutely meaningless.

Of course, no fruit grows from dead algorithms, from those strange operations that relieve us of creativity. Ours is an age of spiritual surgery. Beneath the knives of invented rules, we try so hard to express everything according to a template. We give birth to neither ideas nor meanings.

🎶 Here the oil cartel is OPEC,
and the banking cartel is the Fed,
and with CBT it's the same — we live by the rules,
but because of that...

Here's a riddle: she has a dck between her legs although she is cisgender. Who is she? What therapy is this? 🚬*

🅰 DEAD WORDS, EMPTY SOUNDS 🅰

Words die in academic environments. Not always. But often. They become signs. They turn into form without content.

That is why 140-BPM battles can feel more relevant today than some monographs. Because there is motion in them, passion, fire. Because there is a living person there.

🧑‍🏫 The creakiness in a scholar's voice is the consequence of the dryness of their texts. Their voice creaks like vocal cords nobody has moistened. That is why rap can sometimes be more honest than a peer review.

🅰 PHILOSOPHY AS AN UNDERGROUND EXIT 🅰

Pierre Bourdieu caught it precisely: teaching research is a double message. You are told that you must follow the rules. Yet you know there is a lie inside that instruction, because real thinking always goes beyond the frame.

I must regard educational problems with particular distrust — it is rather foolish that one has to say this in an educational institution — but this is the antinomy present in teaching research, especially in the social sciences. It is true that teaching scientific research should be something like a permanent double bind: “I am telling you what I am telling you, but you know that it is a lie; you know that it may be a lie.”

This is not merely a “double bind,” but a critique of the very order of education and scientific standards. Scholars, like philosophers, search for truth, yet the truthfulness of these systems is always open to doubt. Academic writing often serves less to excavate new truths than to preserve the status quo. Many studies walk the same memorized routes without stepping outside formalized discourses.

Still, the scientific approach and academic writing provide useful tools: the ability to justify one's position, question accepted ideas, and seek evidence. It is a valuable skill, though its limits in new contexts are equally obvious.

There are people who have an interest in disinterestedness: a scholar is someone interested in being disinterested.

Academia teaches, but also constrains. It gives you a language, but can take away your voice. We stand at a threshold, and every step goes either toward life or toward simulation.

🅰 CONCLUSION 🅰

Real transformation is not merely movement. It is the destruction of previous frames. It is stepping beyond discipline, curriculum, and reporting. It is the possibility to breathe. To be. To make mistakes.

But perhaps we are being too categorical? What if structure can also be an instrument of freedom? What if the next door opens not through chaos, but through a new rhythm? This is where my exploration of the “other side” of academic writing ends. In simpler terms, by the other side I meant what is usually called negative. Yet it is not quite so simple: in dialectics, the negative is part of the positive, and the positive is part of the negative. It is the reverse side of the medal — the side one does not enjoy noticing — and I described it as I see it, as I experienced it. Next I will turn to what is usually called the positive aspect, or the more pleasant side, of any process.

🔄 Share your thoughts in the comments. In the next post we will ask directly: can a soul be returned to structure — and should it be...?!

Sources 📚

1. Bourdieu P. On the State. Moscow: Delo, 2022.
2. Excerpts from Oxxxymiron* tracks (marked 🎶).

* Designated a “foreign agent” in Russia.