> showing a total lack of practical skill is a status signal.
In some circles, maybe. Perhaps it commands respect in academia. But a lot of high-status occupations demand practicality and experience - expertise. Law, accounting, soldiering, finance - these are high-status occupations that require expertise; you can't fake them on the basis of second-hand knowledge and abstractions.
Apart from politics, dynastic rule and being a professor, I can't think of a high-status occupation that doesn't require practical expertise. And many professors actually have practical expertise. Not all professors are abstract.
It's a mark of people who avoid difficult things, who lack curiosity, and make a habit of evading volunteering and are unable to fathom noblesse oblige.
In some circles, maybe. Perhaps it commands respect in academia. But a lot of high-status occupations demand practicality and experience - expertise. Law, accounting, soldiering, finance - these are high-status occupations that require expertise; you can't fake them on the basis of second-hand knowledge and abstractions.
Apart from politics, dynastic rule and being a professor, I can't think of a high-status occupation that doesn't require practical expertise. And many professors actually have practical expertise. Not all professors are abstract.