Marc J. Stern

A Review of Jeff Schmidt's Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul‐Battering System That Shapes Their Lives

From 1975 to 1977 I lived in a graduate student group house that included two physicists. Both were hard working and loved their chosen craft. One, the more theoretical, idiosyncratic, and, I believe, the smarter and more creative of the two, washed out of his program after two years with a terminal master’s. He just did not fit in. He took his rejection hard, but the last I heard, he was a computer professional and manager. He could not even stand to read physics studies, however, as this material just brought up too many painful memories. The other, better connected in the labs and more sociable, finished his Ph.D. working on laser technology. He was committed to the peaceful uses of lasers. He swore he’d never do military work. He went on to build and test lasers for the military. He is a professional scientist. In Disciplined Minds, Jeff Schmidt, a graduate physicist (Ph.D., UC-Irvine) and an editor at Physics Today, attacks in scathing and confrontational language what he believes to be the mindand soul-crushing world of professional work and training. He gives no quarter in this polemical screed. He denounces the indoctrination of apprentices in the “mysteries” of the professions (broadly defined to include almost all employed brain workers whose work demands