The term " ivory tower " refers to a metaphoric state in which people live without sentience of the facts and practicality of the real world .
For illustration , the great unwashed of high societal condition – from academician and artist to politicians andcelebrities – are often accused of “ living in an ivory tower ” when they lose touch sensation with the realities faced by the public and futilely focus inwards on their own concern .
Origin of the term “ivory tower”
Like many conversational idiom , it has a fascinating , weaving backstory . The soonest - known function of the terminus “ ivory tower ” can be find in scriptural source . TheSong of Songs , also have sex as the Song of Solomon , features the idiomatic expression “ Thy neck opening is as a towboat of ivory ; thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon ” .
In this Biblical context , the term had little to do with how it is typically used in modern time . However , it appears that the concept of pearl was still associated with delusion and a universe beyond everyday reality .
“ Ivory seems classically to have been connect with the impression of fantasy , deception , if not delusion – anyway , something closely link up to the estimation of the imaginatively unreal – where classicists say that the Greek intelligence for ivory ( elephas ) wreak upon the Holy Writ meaning to cheat or deceive ( elephairo ) . The artist deceives you , engage you out from the tangible , but that was not necessarily regard a unfit thing , ” Steven Shapin , a historian of science at Havard University , explain in apaperon the phrase ’s lineage .
Shapin trust the scriptural usage of the watchword get along to root on the forward-looking phrase “ ivory tower ” , which unfeignedly bring off in the former 19thcentury when it set about to be used by several French amorous thinkers .
In 1837 , for example , Charles Augustin Sainte - Beuve wrote a poem that bemock another Gallic poet , Alfred de Vigny , for becoming too aloof and withdraw to his grand the three estates in Angoulême where he wrote ego - reflective poems , totally divorced from the remote world . The verse form read : “ And Vigny , more discreet , As if in his off-white tower , strike out before noon . ”
The “ivory tower” of academia
As the 19thcentury churned onwards , the phrase became increasingly more coarse in the Gallic and English - speaking world , where it was most commonly used to describe self - obsessed poet and artists who had become Laputan dreamer .
By the second one-half of the 20thcentury , the terminus “ ivory tower ” became more and more associated with the worlds of academia , universities , and scientists . The phrase was essentially an insult throw at academic to describe how they had become disengaged from the public , too concerned about lofty possibility that have picayune relation to the everyday lives of hoi polloi .
It is an charge still thrown at scientist and academics today , but one that many areworking hard to fight back against .
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