why I majored in English but didn't pursue an English PhD

Pseudonymous "Thomas H. Benton" sums it up.

The problem is you can't get to where I am now without going through a decade or more of immersion in a highly politicized and anti-literary academic culture. You have to spend so many years conforming that, by the time freedom presents itself, you don't know why you became an English major in the first place. You might even have contempt for your seemingly naïve students, who represent the self that you had to repress in order to be a professional.

It is not that I want to privilege some form of literary dilettantism as a substitute for professionalism. I simply want to demonstrate that the reasons most people get into English are different from the motives that will make them successful in graduate school and in professional life beyond that. They must, ultimately, purge themselves of the romantic motives that drew them to English in the first place — or pretend to do so.

An influential teacher in my high school experience, Dr. Jeffrey Dunn, shared the laborious, politicized process of attaining a graduate diploma in English. Though it would take me another year to decide to major in English, and another four to finish my B.A., as I neared graduation, Dr. Dunn's words echoed in my memory, and I knew right then I couldn't continue studying English.

At that point, it was lawyering or teaching. I figured teaching would best satisfy my intellect without bruising my conscience. Turned out to be the right choice.