We Who Wrestle with Referees

(This title follows that of the new book by Jordan B. Peterson, We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine. I have not yet read this book but probably will do so soon.)

While revising a paper, I was struck by the following question: We know that a writer should always have the audience in mind, but who is the audience for our papers?

Here are some candidates:

1.       The referees: Arguably the most important audience of the paper.

2.       The editors: It is crucial that they understand and like the paper.

3.       Peers: They will read and cite the paper, though probably only after it’s published (or at least good enough to be published).

4.       The public: Those who seek knowledge and understanding will read.

Who is the audience? One answer is: All of them, roughly in this order of importance. But, really? Is there a deeper answer to this question?

What if we imagine that the audience is God, someone we wrestle with?

To see where this thought comes from, here is a summary of the Bible story on “wrestling with God”:

Jacob, on his way to reconcile with his brother Esau, spends the night alone by the Jabbok River. During the night, a mysterious man appears and wrestles with Jacob until daybreak. As they struggle, the man touches Jacob's hip, dislocating it, but Jacob refuses to let go until he receives a blessing. The man reveals himself to be God and blesses Jacob, giving him the new name “Israel,” which means “he struggles with God.” This encounter signifies Jacob's transformation and his perseverance in seeking God’s blessing.

To be clear, I do not mean that referees are God or are like God. What I am suggesting is that it might be liberating to think that the publication process is like wrestling with God. Then, we can transform some of our most negative thoughts into positive ones. For example:

Negative thoughts	Positive thoughts
1. Referees’ comments are unreasonable, unfair, or incorrect.	1. The referees’ job is not to be reasonable, fair, or even correct. The name “referee” does not really describe what they do. They are more like “opponents” with whom we wrestle. To win the wrestle, our paper must not just be good, but perfect in a very specific way.
2. Referees can reject any paper, even the perfect ones. They look for reasons to reject and sometimes cheat (by making up or distorting things). There is no point in doing research in this environment.	2. In any competitive games, people come up with all sorts of strategies to win. Wrestling is a difficult game because there are many devastating moves your opponent can make. Studying, anticipating, and countering these moves is the only solution. This is, basically, all there is to the game of wrestling.
3. What is the point of research if referees seem to not care about truth as much as their own interest?	3. We do research not because anyone else cares about truth but because we care about truth. Only if we win, we get to replace some of the bad referees. Then the field becomes better over time. If they were already perfect, there would have been no room for improvement or for us.
4. Academia is extremely demanding, so much so that many have sacrificed personal well-being and developed mental problems. Is it a good profession?	4. Jacob was left with a limp due to his injured hip after wrestling with God, and he also changed his name. Then he was blessed. We won’t be the same after wrestling. We will lose part of our old selves. That, however, is part of the blessing deal.

If we are writing for an agent who is loving but also designed to train us out of our arrogant, stupid, lazy, narcissistic selves so that we will become of better service to others when we eventually assume important responsibilities, this agent probably would do just the same as what the referees are doing to us now—beating us with neglect, contempt, disrespect, and sometimes lies, among other things. In this process, we can also learn the importance of avoid repeating such evil to others.

Why is this injustice acceptable (for this particular profession)? Well, consider life in this cruel natural world—it does not care about you, anyone, or anything really. In this corner of the social construct, academia, researchers are dealing with the harsh nature, something that can wipe out our entire existence in an instant. We do not complain about nature being unfair, do we? Then why do we complain about the referees? They are like the cruel nature that we simply have to overcome, just like the floods and diseases that some of them once helped humanity overcome.

(To be clear, I do not mean that all referees are like this, but some are.)