The author goes on record at this time as saying that the majority of those in the academic establishment are decent, earnest, and intelligent people. This article, however, refers to those who are not, and is itended merely to point up some of the difficulties faced by the literally independent scholar - that is, the researcher who has no tenured scholastic connection.

"Professionals" are too often defined, by the unperceptive, by whether or not they earn their livelihood in their field, without overmuch regard - by themselves and again by unperceptive others - for the quality of what they do. With "MD" after one's name, what's usually assured is one's future, not necessarily the welfare of those he or she will treat or the quality of care the patients receive.

The product of academe is sometimes not an educated person per se but a "degreed" individual. The quality of what some of these people do, even in their own chosen fields, is sometimes questionable, and thus seems to contradict the value of that all-important sheepskin. We'd feel more comfortable with the plumber who knows his craft and who cares about what he does than with the doctor who doesn't, and we (should) have more respect for the earnest janitor than for the shifty lawyer.

It seems to escape the attention of many that one's yearly salary is by definition a measure of one's income, not an indication of the quality of one's professionalism. In the film, "Viva Zapata," the protagonist, played by Marlon Brando, is told by a young lady he should consider improving his appearance, and she adds, "A man well-dressed is a man well thought of." Brando's reply is a high-water mark of clear and lucid logic that might have pleased Pythagoras: "A monkey in silk is still a monkey." By extension, and political correctness notwithstanding, a fool with a title and more degrees than a thermometer is still a fool. Alas, such people exist.

Some independent historians and authors don't have an academic pedigree bestowal or strings of degrees after their names, but the quality, acknowledgement and acceptance of their finest work speak best. Some of them have had the temerity to find some success, without university "connections" or tenure, through their own literally independent efforts. This insults the academics by inference, if not by outright implication altogether. There's an unmistakable correlation between the academics' animosity and the success, great or small, of the independent. It may be difficult to define but it's very easy to recognize. The hostility is based as much on the independents' success in publication and exposure as it is on their findings with which the academics take issue.

The tenured "scholars" don't have a lock on progress and the independents proceed successfully without them. The academics are those without whose help or approval the independents' work is still written and their writings still published. What many academics don't seem to realize - or, worse, altogether refuse to acknowledge - is that it's entirely possible to make a positive and even significant contribution to a field without being "the world's foremost authority" in it. That the independent may earn his or her living in an unrelated area while still making important findings or presentations in avocational but chosen territory proves the point. Still, academics trivialize his work because he's not associated with a university. What further evidence is needed to see they appear to have an elitist axe to grind?

There are those who enjoy their own emotionally bad health and who habitually fill their own minds with the poisons of suspicion, jealousy and hatred. As a rule they take umbrage at those who refuse to follow such an example, and they find a perverted relief in trying to denigrate them. What makes this pitiful is their self-deception, in that they're revealing themselves but little about their targets. This kind of animus extends even to the non-academic workplace: the traditional business office. The author can speak only for himself, not for others, but it's reasonable to presume that some of his own experiences would sound loudly familiar to others who have found themselves in similar circumstances. One can easily guess at the underlying reasons for - and actually foresee - the covert resentment and snide, whispered remarks by envious and mean-spirited co-workers (there are exceptions, of course) when they learn that one of their number has had the nerve to find some of the luck they're famous for having wished him. Ever notice how some people wish you good luck and then resent you when you find it? The author acknowledges that unfortunately he may have met too many such questionable people. Then again, perhaps it's an accurate reflection of how many such people actually exist.

As for so-called "experts," inquiries of ten different authorities can, paradoxically, net twelve different opinions. Soon after their discovery and examination, the Dead Sea scrolls were pronounced worthless by a number of antiquities "scholars" (who, not surprisingly, were soon widely censured). We don't remember those "authorities." We remember Eleazar Sukenik, who realized the writings' significance and thereby incurred the wrath certainly not of God but of those who pretended to His wisdom.

Louis Pasteur was a chemist, not a physician. This explains - but doesn't justify - the animosity toward him by doctors for his having had the audacity to tread on their exclusive terra firma and to have made important discoveries. Again, we don't remember them. We remember Pasteur.

Another man, a musician who never attended college and who even late in his life freely acknowledged in writing, when asked to fill out a biographical form, "Happily impossible, I would have to paint nothing but zeros and dashes in these columns. I have had no real experiences I could communicate. I have attended no institutions for musical culture. I have embarked on no travels for purposes of study. I have received no instruction from eminent masters, and I am the incumbent of no public offices. Well, then, what am I to write here?" Still, he effectively invented himself and pulled himself out of early poverty, in his maturity had an absolutely towering musical intellect, ultimately graced the world with his work and inevitably became a musical and cultural icon even during his own lifetime. Modest by nature and a master of understatement, when traveling he'd register on his arrival as "Itinerant musician." We've forgotten those who may have then denigrated his work, but we've all heard of Johannes Brahms. "No-one ever erected a statue to a critic." - Jean Sibelius.

Divergent findings challenge academic dogma and threaten the comfort and even the feeling of security of the scholastic conservative. Is it any wonder an independent's book can prompt such vehement opposition from the academic establishment? When we've been successful without them, and in spite of their scorn and antagonism, what would we expect them to do? Congratulate us? They may try to trivialize or altogether invalidate our work, but we must recognize that their behavior speaks for itself, and again it's the intensity of their objections and refutations that can reveal more about them than about us.

One aim of the independent historian and writer is to share his or her findings while telling the story engagingly, rather than academically and dryly. Anyone can report facts, and many people can string words together coherently. The independents are those who try to go beyond simple documentation (history is not composed solely of official decisions and documents), to pierce the armor and enter the sanctum of personality and character. It's the independent historian who gives us the insight that those who made and shaped history were as alive then as we are today, and that some of them may have accomplished more in a single year than most of us now do in our individual lifetimes.

The independents are those who have the integrity to form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions. They also write primarily for those who have this kind of integrity and principle, and who are ultimately their best and most discerning readers. It may come as an unpleasant surprise to the academics that some of their students may ultimately see through the collegiate curtain, make their own decisions, and choose their own routes. The advice Robert Schumann offered his students has a particular application here: "You reward your teacher badly when you remain always his pupil."

In different spheres are the personal fulfillment the independents have in seeing their work gauged and stand on its own merits, and the prestige the academics gain among their peers by theses written and read only by them and published in arcane academic journals. This may be loosely analagous, respectively, to the core differences between the Delicious and Crab apple varieties.

This is of course the author's own viewpoint, but it's not his exclusively. Many share it. The independent tries to analyze and view something for what it is. The academics, some of whom are hard of reading, have a marked tendency to take the easy way by focusing on what it is not. Many even seek opinions and advice from their colleagues (e.g., "refereed" journals; the very adjective suggests conflict), without whose input, it would appear, the academic is hard pressed to come to a conclusion of his own. If not by technical definition, this is by common usage known as a cop-out.

The author thoroughly researched and then wrote an article which was both an overview of a museum's special collection and a profile of its curator, who before the piece's ultimate publication had read and approved the typescript. The article was offered by the author to a journal published by a well-known, prestigious university. The publication's editor commented that he had to secure the curator's permission to print the article "because of the official references you make to the collection" The logic of that remark eluded the author then and it eludes him now, and he's still trying to figure out how a piece can be written about a museum's collection without making references to it. Someone is going to have to explain this to the author - and that someone is going to have to explain it to him very, very carefully.

It's relevant to note that the other "objections" about the author's article voiced by the editor - a professor at that university - made it clear that he was intent upon preventing the piece's publication, and for whatever his reasons may have been - all of them transparent. This is a common experience for the independent historian when he's dealing with those in academe.

The editor's comment about "official references" to the collection begs the question: why would "approval" be needed for an experienced and legitimate researcher - and widely published author - to write an article for publication about any museum, since almost by definition a museum is operatively a public entity, in the sense of being a location whose exhibits exist for viewing, examination, comparison, study, and enjoyment by the public. The editor's various comments were an orgy of academic absurdity in microcosm and corresponded to what a young stage actor actually said to the author (and this may be hard to believe): that he can't abide people attending his rehearsals because their presence made him nervous. The author is now convinced that everyone has the right to be foolish.

New York's Guggenheim Museum was constructed by countless people working as a team, but it was created - conceived and designed - by one man. Orchestral forces are needed to perform the Symphonie Fantastique, but if Hector Berlioz hadn't lived and left specific instructions for musicians - the notes he wrote on his manuscript paper - the piece wouldn't exist. True creativity is not a collective effort. In the entire history of the world, the most important ideas have been the product of the individual human mind.

The disagreement from the academics is in many cases evidence of the quality, and proof of the impact, of some of the independents' work. Marcel Proust, Harper Lee and J.D.Salinger excepted, most authors wish to be acknowledged, not ignored, and disagreement means acknowledgement. Nowadays even unpleasant, negative media publicity actually seems to foster a subject's fame, career or wealth, or certainly exposure. The academics' denunciations can actually be something of a blessing in disguise. Before the birth of his book, "Beethoven's Piano," the author underwent a very difficult "pregnancy" with some "scholars" (one of whom was a high school English teacher masquerading as a music critic). To bring the book into the world the author fought perhaps as hard as the Alamo defenders, and figuratively he experienced Churchillian blood, sweat, toil and tears. He also won.

Walter Lord, author of "A Night To Remember" and "A Time To Stand," wrote about Bill Groneman's book, "Alamo Defenders," that it is "...an indispensable tool for anyone working on the Alamo... I wish I had had it when I was doing my research." This should and probably does mean more to Mr. Groneman - an independent historian - than anything, bad or good, the academics might say.

Money is fine, and prestige is dandy. The "job" is what pays the bills. The real work - our research, our findings, and our writing and ultimate publication - is what brings us infinitely more personal satisfaction than money or prestige can. With money comes comfort, with hard work comes a personal fulfillment few other endeavors can bring. "Res Severa Verum Gaudium" was literally written in stone above the portals of the old Leipzig Conservatory, founded by Felix Mendelssohn, its first director. It means, effectively, There Is True Joy In Serious Matters. Authoring and publishing is one of our reasons for living, not necessarily our means of earning a living, and we are professionals if not in our salaries surely in our conduct and activities. Money is paid for our published work, but God and authors know that that in itself isn't the motive. Simply put, we wish to make a tangible contribution to the sum of human knowledge, and many of us succeed. The academics have to do what they do largely because it's expected of them: They have their reputations to consider ("Publish or perish"). The independent wants to do it, and he does it for an unfashionable reason: He has a passion for it.

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Author's Biography

Jeffrey Dane is an independent historian, researcher and author whose work is widely published, in print and online publications, in the USA and in several languages abroad. Initially trained in musicology, most of what he writes for publication has a musical focus, but as a pleasant, relaxing and fulfilling diversion from the norm of routine he researches and writes on other subjects as well - any subjects that interest him - ranging from antiques to the Alamo, from Goethe to George Washington. His article, "James Bowie: A Historical Perspective" was published in the Spring, 2000 issue, Vol.39, Nr.2, of the Journal of the West (a print publication brought out by the Dept. of History, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas). His book, "Beethoven's Piano," was published by New York's Museum of the American Piano, and he has contributed to several other volumes, including "The Alamo Story: From Early History to Current Conflicts" by Western historian J.R. Edmondson (Republic of Texas Press, Plano, Texas, February 2000), for which Dane was asked to write the Foreword, and "On The Crockett Trail" by artist and author Rod Timanus (Pioneer Press, Union City, Tennessee, November 1999). He's been called by some a real idealist and by others an ideal realist. Both views have merit.

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