Lewis Carroll, Funnier than Historians
In an attempt to not get too bogged down by the end of the semester, I'm reading Carroll's Alice in Wonderland for the first time. It's hilarious, and great fun if you need some escapist literature. Especially good for me was his skewering of historians's pedantic prose:
They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank - the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, all ripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable. The first question of course was, how to get dry again.
* * *
At last the mouse, who seemed to be a person of some authority among them, called out "Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I'll soon make you dry enough!" . . . "Ahem!" said the Mouse with an important air. "Are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all around if you please! 'William the Conqueror, whose cause was favored by the Pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria . . .'"
And if you think that sort of historical writing is just for the mid 19th century, try reading Bill Freehling's tome, "The Road to Disunion." It's an insightful book about the causes of the Civil War, but full of pedantic, turgid prose like this, from a page chosen at random:
An outsider who wished to share Southerners' sense of the world was wise to savor that moment. He was experiencing a master metaphor of the southern mind. The flow of slavery downward seemed as irreversible to a late antebellum slaveholder as sand in the hourglass. Eventually, it was widely feared in some quarters (and hoped in others), time would run out on slavery and plantations north of the Lower South.
Ugh. "As sand through the hourglass, so go the Days of Our Lives." If I ever write stuff like that I hope someone slaps me upside the head. Maybe I'll keep Louis Caroll nearby to keep me straight.
"I've never been the answer to an argument before," alternate title, "F**k You, Jonathan Chait"
Jonathan Chait may well be a nice, thoughtful guy, but his LA Times editorial claiming that there is no bias against conservatives in academia is offensive bullsh*t on a stilts, and I prove it - not I can prove it - I prove it. Mr. Chait claims that the dearth of conservatives in academia is primarily due to two reasons:
First, Republicans don't particularly want to be professors. To go into
academia - a highly competitive field that does not offer great riches - you
have to believe that living the life of the mind is more valuable than making a
Wall Street salary. * * *Second, professors don't particularly want to be
Republicans. In recent years, and especially under George W. Bush, Republicans
have cultivated anti-intellectualism.
Mr. Chait, I'm a conservative, and former member of the Bush Administration. I've also left the the prestige of a White House job, the security of a career government job, and the financial opportunities of the private sector to suffer through the poverty and drudgery of years of graduate school for the chance to get an academic job. And anyone who says my claim of drudgery proves I don't value the life of the mind has never been in a PhD program. There are plenty of great moments, but there is plenty of drudgery too. Drudgery at $12,000 a year. And anyone who doesn't mind working 60 hours a week for $12,000 a year hasn't done it. I have made major sacrifices for the CHANCE to get an academic job, and I am made aware every day that my conservative views, well within the mainstream in normal society, are on the far right fringes of academia and are likely unacceptable to many of the people who will determine the path of my career. As an example, I'd guess about half of my classmates, who will one day fill academic positions, equate conservative views with evil views, and every class discussion of politics I've ever heard assumes that as a starting point. When was the last time Mr. Chait has been on a campus? And just as importantly, when was the last time he talked with a conservative? His argument is so full of unreasonable generalizations and so disconnected from the reality of campus life as it is, and conservatives as they are that it's just plain ignorant. So, for insulting the sacrifices I have made for the opportunity to "live the life of the mind" as a conservative, for minimizing the dozens of times I've had to bite my tongue at outlandish leftist insults of a President I respect, of dedicated and hardworking friends in government, and even of my own religious faith, and indeed, for now making those insults yourself, here is my message to you, Mr. Chait: F**k you. And the horse you rode in on.
Professor Bainbridge, once again proving he belongs on our Blogroll, brought this item to my attention, and has some choice, and rather more balanced, words of his own.
My Favorite Christmas Lights
Not complicated, or expensive, but full of truth. Last night I saw a 4 x 6 piece of plywood with Christmas lights stapled to it. The lights spelled out, "I love college."
Breakthrough
No, not, unfortunately, on the research paper due Friday that I'm trying to salvage from a semester of neglect. Or on the essay summary due today for the essay I've yet to write, or even outline. Or on the review I'm trying to write for Friday based on the incoherent question (more on that later, for sure - lots of ranty goodness as Big Arm Woman would say). Instead, and more importantly, I've become a "regular" at my local diner.
I sat down yesterday, and the waitress, without asking, brought me a hot cup of coffee and called me "Hon.'" Nothing makes you feel welcome like a waitress that arrives with a cup of poor quality hot coffee and calls you "Hon" or "Sug" or any other sweetener abbreviation. It's awesome.
I've arrived.
A Lawyer in Iraq
I've just put Cigars in the Sand onto our blogroll, and you should take the time to check it out immediately. It's written by a lawyer friend of mine who left the safe, if not exactly comfy, confines of the White House Homeland Security Council to help support the effort in Iraq, where he's advising the Iraqis about border security. Ryan is a straight shooter, and if his blog is anywhere near as interesting as the emails he's been sending out for a while, you'll want to make visits daily. At the very least you should check out the photo attached to this caption:
Terrorists often fire mortars into the Green Zone. Luckily the Green Zone is
large enough that most fall harmlessly in unpopulated areas. Unfortunately
they occasionally cause massive damage. This photo is the aftermath of the
mortar attack on Thanksgiving Day that killed 4 Gurkha guards and wounded
about 12 others.
That's Ryan in the foreground.
"If you loathe political debate, join the faculty of an American university"
I think everyone whose been to college has noted that the great majority of political comments made by professors assume that everyone understands Republicans are at least foolish and very likely hateful and devious. Professors teaching about the civil rights here in Collegeville have been known to assert in class that denying gays the right to marry is just like preventing interracial marriage, or to flippantly refer to the President's ignorance. That seems to be acceptable behavior in this community. But, I feel sure most academics would find a conservative take on the gay marriage issue, for example, unacceptable. At least I would cringe for fear if a teaching assistant said in class something like, "As we've discussed today, Martin Luther King's religious beliefs were central to his involvement in and the success of the stuggle for civil rights in the 1960s. This evening, you may want to take some time to consider what this means for the debate over gay marriage. I certainly think it shows that adherence traditional Christian religous principles is of crucial importance."
What I don't know is whether I think that political comments like that are all inappropriate. My eventual PhD will show that I'm an expert in history, not in current political debates, and I'll get my job and my paycheck (hopefully) for talking about that stuff. On the other hand, it may well be that being a good teacher is about more than passing on technical knowledge, and showing the relevance of the past to the present, and demonstrating the pitfalls of using the past in present arguments, fits squarely within that role. For now, I lean towards the "check your politics at the door" approach, but that's evolving. What's clearly not appropriate, though, is different rules for conservaties and liberals, and there clearly are different rules.
I'm starting to think, however, that help may be on the way. The Economist has just written the latest in what appears to me to be an increasing drumbeat to address the scarcity of conservative voices in academia. It points out the lastest study showing a massive disparity in the political views of academics, and argues that the "the current situation makes a mockery of the very legal opinion [and rationale] that underpins the diversity fad." It also points out that the lack of conservaties hurts academia's ablity to influence popular culture, and that it's really hard to fix.
As a conservative, at least in many ways, in academia, I certainly hope that this drumbeat from the press and politicians will open up job and scholarship opportunities that are currently not closed to me, but are not as open as they otherwise would be. I'm not at all sure how that should happen - statutorily enforced affirmative action by voter registration seems like a very bad idea. But I'm hopefull that I'll be in the entering wedge of a new generation of conservative academics.