Put Your $$$ Where Your Mouth Is?

Do you think it's hypocritical to criticize or question something without carrying out what you criticize or question? Up until today I thought that the general consensus was that in order to live fulfilling lives we need to "be the change we want," or live our lives the way we would like others to be, and therefore analysts, consultants, pundits, professors, and whomever else who jabbers about something without following through is a little hypocritical, if not at least a bit problematic.

Quick clarification--I'm not saying all professors, pundits, consultants, analysts, etc. are hypocrites or problematic. Far from it. Just when people, anyone really, start calling for one thing to happen and never take part in what they want to see, then a problem starts to arise.

To an extent, my whole final project which I need to complete before graduation is based on that premise. In discussing my project with my advisor today, he seemed to throw that all up in the air. It went something like this, "So if we take a slice of intellectual leaders and theorists from the past century, we find that a lot of them came from good money and high places in society and simply wrote about a problem without being involved in it."

"Yes?"

"Then based on what you're saying, almost nine out of ten of the authors who wrote great works about schools of thoughts and social movements were hypocrites!" He looked stunned, flabbergasted, as emphatically perplexed as can be. Yet to me it seemed so simple and obvious.

"Yes," I muttered like a student who's afraid to disagree with a teacher but takes that bold move, knowing the teacher might mark him down for being "wrong" or at least use their superior position and knowledge to discredit him. My advisor was shocked, so I explained in the simplest way that if you say something and your actions are to the contrary, then there's a problem.

He put words in my mouth, though. I didn't say they were hypocrites, but I did say that there was a bit of a problem with their position or idea or something.

It boils down to this, if my project puts me in the position of observing society and writing about it as I see it, what good would it do if I only write about things that the university will approve of? I do not plan on being rude, vulgar, or inflammatory, so why do I need to filter out my truth just to please others? Change is not going to happen if we keep being PC and students keep punching out cookie-cutter thesis projects that are obscure and esoteric enough not to strike a nerve with anyone.

Whoever decided that academia at its best and knowledge in its purest form comes in the form of an overly dry, unpleasantly formal, typed-out thesis with an obvious argument in the first page and then dozens of pages that repetitiously repeat the point made a statement. But it's a statement that doesn't work for me, as I've often enjoyed and learned the most about life and myself from the stories of other people.

Therefore I made the decision that my final project won't be a thesis, but a collection of creative nonfiction stories that somehow capture unique stories and moments that characterize the struggles of living in a crazy world at a crazy time. Besides, the world is too rich and insane to narrow down to one thesis.

And when I do, as part of this project, write about the university system (because it's so prominent an institution in today's society) in all its glory and all its gory... and if I do end up questioning some things about university culture, life, academics... would it not be just a little bit hypocritical (or at least introduce a little point of contention) if I did it all completely on the university's terms, in the way the university wants to see it presented (i.e. in a predictable thesis)?

I know comments are hard to come by in most blogs, but I'd love to hear you sound off. Do we need to be (or at least try to be) the change we preach? How about my situation? Does my advisor have a point, or should I be sticking to my own?