The first draft of the post was more along the lines of "Who the hell smokes anymore??" But then I thought, "I'll bet the apostropher smokes, let's not offend him." Still, you've got a kid, cut that shit out.
Yes, he looks all fresh-faced and cherubic, making the habit somewhat incongruous. In my case, on the other hand, well, you look funny standing in the alley in your raincoat if you aren't holding a cigarette.
It is my experience that philosophers are disproportionatly smokers. The exception would seem to be the group of us who are a tad health-obsessed. I take a rather sartrean view of the smokers.
This is a revelation. MY's philosphical tastes (reductive naturalism) suggest hard core analyticity. So I had him pegged as on the dilligent, nerdy side. But the smoking screams "continental poser." Also, I have to add that being a smoker at Harvard is a big-time poser indicator. No one except the self-consciously cool, smokes there. [[All bets are off, of course, if he started smoking in high-school. Then he's just a victim]]
You guys are so completely misguided. Smoking makes you cool. Do I have to read the magazine ads out loud to you all? Sheesh. What am I doing hanging out with all you fresh-breathed, energetic, I-can-run-up-a-flight-of-stairs losers?
Supposedly hackers (not the malicious kind) smoke a lot, too; I remember seeing mention on Slashdot that Jolt cola and Marlboro Lights were essential materials of the trade.
I'd never take candy from bloggers, a'pher, but I'll be in your movie if you ask nicely.
When I started graduate school, the unhealthy, up-all-night, smoking types all seemed to be into philosophy of language, Dummett, logic; the healthy, let's work out and then write papers group was in ancient and epistemology. Over time, most of the smokers quit or finished, so it got to be a clean-living crew. Except, you know, for the alcohol abuse.
I don't smoke. I never started, and I'm thankful for that.
A few years ago I went to a Twin's game and sat near first base. I could see the tunnel from the Twin's dugout to the locker room. Between innings many of the players went up there to grap a smoke. That was shocking. Imagine football players grabbing a smoke between plays?
I know about apostropher, but was surprised about Matt.
That's funny, Tripp. If not for Vlade Divac's well-known smoking, I'd say nasty things about baseball.
I spent my philosophy time with the continentals, and if I had to guess, I'd say it was the Foucauldians who did the bulk of the smoking. And though I kinda like Foucault, there aren't many Foucauldians who aren't posers.
I've never smoked, and let me finally get this deep dark secret off my chest down here in the comments: I've never smoked weed either.
When did smoking become evil, not just a poor lifestyle choice? The transformation hit me over the head when I saw the first Charlie's Angel's movie, (yeah, it was dumb, but it was a fun kind of dumb) wherein the villians, once revealed, began to chain smoke.
Why did we have to get on line twice when "Puritanical Moralism" was being handed out, but were apparently AWOL when "Healthy Hedonism" was on offer?
Disclaimer - I really don't care if other people smoke, and I've been known to smoke the odd cigar. One of the things I enjoyed about a recent trip to Germany was being able to smoke a cigar in a bar. I'm still astounded that we've actually managed to ban smoking in bars in many places.
Michael, I think demonizing of smokers predated proof that smoking hurt others. I suspect more basic moralism, rather than reponse to the harm principle. (on the previous comment: nice!)
To return to the the anthropological question of which types of philosophy students smoke, I'd want to separate graduate school (where smoking is more common), from undergraduate students, where I do think the continental/analytic divide has teeth (not least because it maps onto a philosophy/literature divide).
Between innings many of the players went up there to grap a smoke.
I can top the crap out of that story. When I was a boy, I saw the Braves play my beloved Astros at the Dome. In the Braves dugout during BP, arm dangling over the rail with a lit cig, sat Henry freaking Aaron.
This was 1973, and he was at circa 712 HRs.
Of course, everyone knows the story about John Kruk smoking. A lady comes up to him and says, like, "You're supposed to be an athlete, fine example you're setting."
Kruk's immortal reply was, "Lady, I'm not an athlete, I"m a baseball player."
I don't not smoke, but I've never really made a habit of it. I occasionally buy a pack, and I end up smoking fewer than half of them through people "borrowing" them. I don't mind.
At least one of my co-bloggers quit smoking, and another likes to smoke a pipe -- because he's a continental poseur.
My dad occasionally smokes one of something like 15 pipes, and he would detest anyone he thought was a poseur of any kind (but probably especially a continental poseur).
(He has one in which the bowl is a skull (hole in the top) and part of the actual pipe-part forms a hand supporting the skull, the rest being meerschaum, I think. V. cool.)
I'm trying desperatly to be a continental poseur. I need tips! First of all, do I spell it poser or poseur> I'll go with the latter, because using english spellings in America seems to me to be more poseuriffic. Second, is smoking just generically poseurish, or will smoking from pipes enhance my poseur status? Following this logique, would it be better to smoke from the biggest pipe I can find? Thirdly, as a continental poseur, do I actually need to read Foucault, or can I just walk around with a book or two under my arm? How about if I buy it in the original german? (or was Foucault Italian? It's so hard for me to remember!) I also think it would be very poseur of me to buy a pea coat and beret, and I'll grow a goatee as soon as I am able. I will become One with the Form of the Prime Poseur that is In My Mind!
First we find out he's over six feet tall, and now we know he smokes. Any other totally unexpected revelations about our young Matt that folks would like to share?
I've smoked for 18 years. But I'm from North Carolina so I get a free pass on it.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 9:55 AM
The first draft of the post was more along the lines of "Who the hell smokes anymore??" But then I thought, "I'll bet the apostropher smokes, let's not offend him." Still, you've got a kid, cut that shit out.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 9:57 AM
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm a bad man. I'm scheduled to quit before the next one arrives in mid-January.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 10:04 AM
I only smoke outdoors, for what it's worth...
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 10:09 AM
We chide only because we love you.
I'm pretty surprised by MY's habit, I have to confess.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 10:45 AM
Yes, he looks all fresh-faced and cherubic, making the habit somewhat incongruous. In my case, on the other hand, well, you look funny standing in the alley in your raincoat if you aren't holding a cigarette.
Want some candy, FL?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 10:59 AM
It is my experience that philosophers are disproportionatly smokers. The exception would seem to be the group of us who are a tad health-obsessed. I take a rather sartrean view of the smokers.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 11:05 AM
Do you really wear raincoats in NC? We don't down here, which is too bad.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 11:07 AM
This is a revelation. MY's philosphical tastes (reductive naturalism) suggest hard core analyticity. So I had him pegged as on the dilligent, nerdy side. But the smoking screams "continental poser." Also, I have to add that being a smoker at Harvard is a big-time poser indicator. No one except the self-consciously cool, smokes there. [[All bets are off, of course, if he started smoking in high-school. Then he's just a victim]]
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 11:49 AM
You guys are so completely misguided. Smoking makes you cool. Do I have to read the magazine ads out loud to you all? Sheesh. What am I doing hanging out with all you fresh-breathed, energetic, I-can-run-up-a-flight-of-stairs losers?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 12:08 PM
But the smoking screams "continental poser."
dude, sometimes a cigarette is just a cigarette.
Supposedly hackers (not the malicious kind) smoke a lot, too; I remember seeing mention on Slashdot that Jolt cola and Marlboro Lights were essential materials of the trade.
Posted by son volt | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 1:00 PM
Out of my ears sometimes.
Back in my ill-spent youth I smoked a fair amount of Another Substance, but mostly not in recent decades.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 1:06 PM
Ham?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 1:07 PM
I never have, and haven't even been tempted to try.
Smokers seem to be relatively rare among biologists -- most of us have seen lungs.
Posted by PZ Myers | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 1:12 PM
I'd never take candy from bloggers, a'pher, but I'll be in your movie if you ask nicely.
When I started graduate school, the unhealthy, up-all-night, smoking types all seemed to be into philosophy of language, Dummett, logic; the healthy, let's work out and then write papers group was in ancient and epistemology. Over time, most of the smokers quit or finished, so it got to be a clean-living crew. Except, you know, for the alcohol abuse.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 1:34 PM
I don't smoke. I never started, and I'm thankful for that.
A few years ago I went to a Twin's game and sat near first base. I could see the tunnel from the Twin's dugout to the locker room. Between innings many of the players went up there to grap a smoke. That was shocking. Imagine football players grabbing a smoke between plays?
I know about apostropher, but was surprised about Matt.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 1:34 PM
baa,
well, if everyone at Harvard smokes, I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Matthew does.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 1:45 PM
That's funny, Tripp. If not for Vlade Divac's well-known smoking, I'd say nasty things about baseball.
I spent my philosophy time with the continentals, and if I had to guess, I'd say it was the Foucauldians who did the bulk of the smoking. And though I kinda like Foucault, there aren't many Foucauldians who aren't posers.
I've never smoked, and let me finally get this deep dark secret off my chest down here in the comments: I've never smoked weed either.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 1:48 PM
When did smoking become evil, not just a poor lifestyle choice? The transformation hit me over the head when I saw the first Charlie's Angel's movie, (yeah, it was dumb, but it was a fun kind of dumb) wherein the villians, once revealed, began to chain smoke.
Why did we have to get on line twice when "Puritanical Moralism" was being handed out, but were apparently AWOL when "Healthy Hedonism" was on offer?
Disclaimer - I really don't care if other people smoke, and I've been known to smoke the odd cigar. One of the things I enjoyed about a recent trip to Germany was being able to smoke a cigar in a bar. I'm still astounded that we've actually managed to ban smoking in bars in many places.
Posted by LarryB | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 2:06 PM
about the time second hand smoke and its ill effects became to be well known.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 2:27 PM
Michael, I think demonizing of smokers predated proof that smoking hurt others. I suspect more basic moralism, rather than reponse to the harm principle. (on the previous comment: nice!)
To return to the the anthropological question of which types of philosophy students smoke, I'd want to separate graduate school (where smoking is more common), from undergraduate students, where I do think the continental/analytic divide has teeth (not least because it maps onto a philosophy/literature divide).
Ogged, you're not alone, my square brother!
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 4:01 PM
Between innings many of the players went up there to grap a smoke.
I can top the crap out of that story. When I was a boy, I saw the Braves play my beloved Astros at the Dome. In the Braves dugout during BP, arm dangling over the rail with a lit cig, sat Henry freaking Aaron.
This was 1973, and he was at circa 712 HRs.
Of course, everyone knows the story about John Kruk smoking. A lady comes up to him and says, like, "You're supposed to be an athlete, fine example you're setting."
Kruk's immortal reply was, "Lady, I'm not an athlete, I"m a baseball player."
Posted by son volt | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 5:22 PM
I don't not smoke, but I've never really made a habit of it. I occasionally buy a pack, and I end up smoking fewer than half of them through people "borrowing" them. I don't mind.
At least one of my co-bloggers quit smoking, and another likes to smoke a pipe -- because he's a continental poseur.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 7:33 PM
My dad occasionally smokes one of something like 15 pipes, and he would detest anyone he thought was a poseur of any kind (but probably especially a continental poseur).
(He has one in which the bowl is a skull (hole in the top) and part of the actual pipe-part forms a hand supporting the skull, the rest being meerschaum, I think. V. cool.)
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 7:43 PM
I'm trying desperatly to be a continental poseur. I need tips! First of all, do I spell it poser or poseur> I'll go with the latter, because using english spellings in America seems to me to be more poseuriffic. Second, is smoking just generically poseurish, or will smoking from pipes enhance my poseur status? Following this logique, would it be better to smoke from the biggest pipe I can find? Thirdly, as a continental poseur, do I actually need to read Foucault, or can I just walk around with a book or two under my arm? How about if I buy it in the original german? (or was Foucault Italian? It's so hard for me to remember!) I also think it would be very poseur of me to buy a pea coat and beret, and I'll grow a goatee as soon as I am able. I will become One with the Form of the Prime Poseur that is In My Mind!
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 8:39 PM
Michael - Poseur and Poser are not the same thing. Dentists on Harleys are posers. Wanna-be sophisticates are poseurs.
By the way, the goatee wears the poseur, whereas the sophisticate wears the (very optional) goatee.
And for maximum poseur status, smoke cloves.
Posted by LarryB | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 9:43 PM
I don't smoke. John doesn't either. He's a clean-living type, and I have asthma. I have personally seem MY smoking...
Posted by belle waring | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 9:53 PM
using english spellings in America seems to me to be more poseuriff
Um, French, actually. Which is much more poseuriffic than English.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 10:14 PM
First we find out he's over six feet tall, and now we know he smokes. Any other totally unexpected revelations about our young Matt that folks would like to share?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 1-04 11:29 PM
Used to, don't smoke anymore.
Posted by Hasan | Link to this comment | 09- 2-04 12:27 PM
Larry, I have bought some McCormick's Premium Crushed Cloves. Will be putting them in my largest pipe at the next opportunity.
Apos: yes, I of course knew that.
Ogged: I have it on good inside authority that Matt's blog is ghost-written by Ben Shapiro.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09- 2-04 1:28 PM