accounting partners and academics - who'd a thunk it

they actually share more than you think. they both tend to gravitate towards the assumption of a moral high ground - their role is to uphold standards, be they fiscal or intellectual. They both conflate who they are and what they do (academics think the ideas they create - their intellectual production - is indicative of the value they produce as people - their output and their selves are undifferentiated. accountants think the same thing. what is worse than a cheating bookkeeper? weak intellects, and weak accountants, are boh shameful failures as people, according to the institutions that develop and foster them.
accounting partnerships are like universities - once upon a time you got tenure (partnership) and it was almost impossible to ever get let go. and both forms of tenure are changing now, with less stability. both are bastions of arcane trivia. both accounting and academia grapple with the constant conflict between codified rules/tenets/ontologies on the one hand, and interpretive license/critical inquiry/"readings" on the other.