Comment by vector_spaces
11 hours ago
Mathematicians aren't homogeneous. There are mathematicians valuing pedagogy, collaboration, bridge-building, theory building, along with those that chase the 'difficult theorems', to name a few, and there are lots of flavors within each class, with lots of blending and blurring. You infer that mathematicians prefer the status quo simply because it is the status quo -- with a little thought, you'll recognize that this is a fairly silly notion.
There are myriad circumstances where the values of most practitioners differ from the status quo, which is nevertheless well-entrenched. This can arise from inertia, or from outside forces, such as broader cultural milieu, integration with larger institutions, or contending with economic realities. If you think that these do not and haven't historically played a role in determining the job economy and that math is a pure field where mathematicians could comfortably shape it according solely to their own ideals then you are naive
And, in addition, many mathematicians are graduate students or postdocs hoping to line up a permanent job soon.
For example, if you look at Terry Tao's blog, he has a tremendous amount of first-class expository writing. So, too (to some extent) do junior mathematicians -- but, unfortunately, this tends to not be highly valued by the job market. Grad students and postdocs have learned that to succeed they need to play by the existing rules of the game.
Well, the board has just been yanked from underneath them. People like me can afford the sort of idealism and soul-searching that the parent comment describes, but junior mathematicians face a very unenviable set of circumstances.