An important, vastly under appreciated aspect of graduate education is finding one’s voice; learning how to critique arguments as an essential part of a knowledge production process. We absolutely need much more of this emphasis in graduate programs to produce discerning scholars

We take for granted that some of us have difficulty finding our voice and, instead, focus more on developing the ability to simply describe/recap arguments. This disposition leads to underdeveloped scholars who earn PhDs, but are not well positioned to contribute to knowledge.

One way to remedy this deficit is by reading work to which you are hostile. For instance, Orlando Patterson (2000), a noted proponent of cultural explanations for social problems, wrote a piece “Taking Culture Seriously” in which he critiques opponents of cultural explanations.

Part of his argument is that is that opponents of cultural explanations of social problems express concern that such explanations invariably lead to blaming the victim. He dismisses this critique as an unwillingness to understand/accept the influence of cultural adaptation.

One issue with his impulse towards cultural adaptation as an explanatory variable lies in his inability to understand how such thinking does, in fact, shift blame onto a victim while minimizing the power of the past in shaping the culture he observes as deviant.

Still more, ignoring a structural context reduces his notion of a deviant culture to this inherent set of beliefs and values that have been developed by people, themselves, who would rather subscribe to problematic attitudes thereby being complicit in their own social problems.

I could go on. The point is that one cannot be a serious and discerning scholar in absence of being able to find their voice through reading and thinking. One way to accomplish this aim is by reading things with which you disagree so as to develop a critical posture. End.