Jackson Crawford on Not Being Called "Dr. Crawford."

It's clear from the length and rambling nature of this that he's uncomfortable talking about why he's abandoning use of the title "Dr.", but the basic facts are honorable. 

1) He never thought that a title like this would make him 'better than my grandfather, which is absurd,' but now that it seems people do think so he doesn't want any part of that.

2) He detests academic pretense -- as he puts it, 'even grad students' often look down on him because he's 'not the right kind.' He's done the work, and merits the title, but he doesn't want to be part of their world any more than they want him there. 

3) He doesn't want to detract from the honor due to medical professionals, who deserve special respect in his view, by claiming an equivalent title. 

Now, in fairness I appreciated his early use of the title on his YouTube channel just because it signaled that this guy might actually know what he was talking about. It's a subject that interests me, as it interested Tolkien and others, and yet it's also an area where a lot of people are making stuff up. It was nice to know that you'd get some grounded information if you listened to this guy. Sometimes he's not willing to go as far as even I am in making deductive leaps; but I know that what he does say is going to be solidly grounded.

Also, as I've mentioned here before, the medical professionals are the ones glomming on to the title; its medieval usage was far closer to what he's doing than what they're doing. It's interesting that he doesn't mention the source of the debate we were having that motivated him to make this decision, i.e., Dr. Jill Biden. He's clearly not siding with her, and backing off of his own better claim (as a Ph.D., who were more or less the original 'doctors,' rather than the far-less-rigorous and ancient Ed.D.) to avoid the pretentiousness of which she is accused. 

In any case, I think the general point holds: this is a courtesy title, and thus you should use it for someone who has merited it if it is important to you to pay them a courtesy. Since Jackson Crawford, Ph.D., no longer wishes this courtesy to be paid to him, it would be polite not to use it for him. Yet he has a better claim to it than he admits, perhaps even to himself.