Auguste Comte, the French philosopher who, amongst other things, coined the term “sociology”, had a large mirror above his writing desk, so he could pause to admire himself as he wrote. There is perhaps no better symbolic image of academic vanity than Comte’s mirror.
When I discovered this and shared it on Twitter, I received a response from @AviGoldberg, who wrote wryly: “Today, he’d check Twitter?”
Avi put his finger on something. In the digital age, has Twitter become a new medium for academic vanity – the digital equivalent of Comte’s mirror?
Read the full article over at Times Higher Education.