Information AboutIvory Tower |
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Today, the term usually describes a metaphysical space of solitude and sanctity where most Writer s and Scientist s reside. The first reference to this meaning can be found in the texts by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve , a French Literature Critic and author approximately in the mid- 19th Century . He used the term ''"tour d'ivoire"'' to describe an attitude of an author towards what happens around him and in his texts. ''"Living in an ivory tower"'' usually depicts an intellectual who lives only for his work and doesn't care much about, or is ignorant of, or thought to have made insufficient efforts to understand the social and political consequences of it, concentrating his or her entire efforts on the quest for what they perceive to be scientific or artistic truths. The current usage is considered to come from the appearance of the '' Hawksmoor Towers'', twin creamy-white gothic towers at All Souls College, Oxford , the only pure research college at Oxford . [http://web.mit.edu/amrys/www/photo/oxford/oxford-Images/16.jpg Thus, there are two meanings mixed together: mockery of an absent-minded savant and admiration of someone who is able to devote his or her entire efforts to a noble cause (hence ''" Ivory "'', a noble material). The term has a rather negative flavor today, the implication being that specialists who are so deeply drawn into their scientific fields of study that they often can't find a Lingua Franca with "normal" people outside their ''"ivory towers"''. Moreover, this problem is often ignored and instead of actively searching for a solution, most scientists simply accept that even educated people can't understand them and live in literal Isolation . Academic Elitism , a tendency to seclude oneself in an ''"ivory tower"'', is often considered to be a problem among scientists. REFERENCES IN FICTION
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