William James and the PhD OCTOPUS!

William James, brother of the author Henry, wrote scathingly of the American academic fixation on alphabet soup behind your name.  Have things changed at all?  The cynical self suggests he opposite: they have grown worse.  Our PhDs have grown more isolated in their ivory towers and more people of the common yoke are experiencing a growing distaste for what they see as academic snobbery and unrealistic silliness in the academic world.  Perhaps the race goes to the bureaucrats.  But this ought not to staunch the outrage at this silliness which has been occurring for so many years.  Here is James' article; the PhD Octopus.

https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/octopus.html