An independent scholar is anyone who works outside of traditional academia in the pursuit of
truth and knowledge.
New ideas often encounter resistance. Oftentimes, when independent scholars publish their work in non-traditional venues after rejection for traditional publication, traditional academics will attack the new ideas as not being peer-reviewed. Independent scholars claim that it is unfair to attack them for not being inside academia, when they allegedly were not allowed in in the first place.
An independent scholar must often become a memetic engineer or propagandist in order to advance his or her contribution to the history of ideas. Some are better at this than others and good ideas can go unrecognised. However some fail because they are kooks or cranks.
The independent scholar is often an amateur rather than a professional although this is not always a matter of choice.
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