I had no idea methotrexate was originally chemotheraphy. Or in short supply. I suppose doses used are much lower and the preservatives don't matter in adults without cancer.
I probably come by being Debbie Downer genetically, as it turns out the reason my mother joined facebook was not to reconnect with old family and friends but to have an account under which she can obnoxiously argue anti-abortion stuff in the comments to newspaper articles. I hate my life.
Methotrexate is also an abortifacient, to keep the theme going.
It completely cracks me up that Romney's possibly going to lose to Santorum. (Although I don't believe it -- doesn't the frontrunner always come back and win?)
As a practical matter, I don't care. In practice, one's going to be as bad as the other.
I'm mostly just happy to see Santorum proving the point that Huckabee could have won if he hadn't decided he'd rather have a TV show where he can play music with guests than be president.
Nobody named "Huckabee" can be president.
Santorum's name issue is minor in comparison.
4.1.(): Romney has lost badly when he didn't massively outspend his opponents. Isn't that going to be hard to do on Super Tuesday, with a large number in play?
I kind of want Santorum to win, to see if this makes the centrists aware of what the Republican party really is, as they would be completely comfortable with Romney. More likely, they would just readjust their personal Overton Windows*.
*I'm trying to drive Halford off the blog in tears.
Nate Silver uses a bunch of numbers to make the same point HBGB makes in the OP. If R-Money is the candidate, an campaign based on economic populism will work for Obama. But if Santorum is the candidate, things aren't so clear.
Also amusing, Romney's perceived ideology is indistinguishable from "Generic Republican."
Isn't that going to be hard to do on Super Tuesday, with a large number in play?
Isn't Romney mega-rich?
Speaking of politics, am I missing something or is the new "compromise" over payroll tax unmitigated awesome?
11: Yes? The more relevant question is "Do his PACs have enough money to spend at something close to Florida levels in more than twenty states?". And to answer this would take research, so I'm out.
I'd like a Santorum win because it would push culture war issues to the fore. I would very much like to see the culture warriors of the right get a firm slap in the face, ideally one that wounds them as badly as the Scopes trial did.
I would want that if I thought it would do any good.
"Despair" sounds sadder than I actually feel, emotionally, when I think about politics. But it's sort of where I am. I've kind of run out of things to hope for, other than radical change in the political landscape that makes everything different somehow. Nothing that I can visualize actually happening seems as though it would make people better off.
To the OP: One of the first words Lee taught Mara was "buzzkill" in reference to me. Maybe I do need to search my soul (if I had one) more deeply about my true nature.
The Scope trial wounded creationism so badly that it's only got another 70 or so years left as a political force.
16: My wife kept saying "It isn't a holiday until you've talked about death" until her father stopped talking about death at every holiday dinner. Maybe Lee could try that.
14: I really think the class war is more important than the culture war right now.
I suppose this makes me a bad feminist. But economic leveling seems like it will bring more benefit in both the long and the short run.
No, I agree. Class inequality hasn't been taken seriously in my entire lifetime.
We were all waiting for you to say it was O.K.
I also think we're winning the culture war on the ground (well, in some regards. Not as fast as I'd like, but I think we're winning), and electoral politics are less important than they might be. While any specific issue I'd have to think through on a case-by-case basis, I'd would also like more focus on class and less on social issues.
21: For a moment I thought the thread wasn't about me. I'm glad that passed.
Isn't that going to be hard to do on Super Tuesday, with a large number in play?
When lots of votes are at stake all at once, the money advantage is more, not less, important. Santorum and Gingrich are going to be spread pretty thin on Super Tuesday.
Santorum and Gingrich are going to be spread
Tee-hee.
16: At the risk of violating a core Unfogged principle -- Thorn, you're awesome!
26: Great, peep, now you're going to have to go away again. And Mara didn't actually start saying "buzzkill" because it doesn't mean enough to her to be widely applicable, unlike "you kill me!" which has now morphed into "you kill for me!" which I basically adore even though it's awful. And I think I'm plenty of fun, and it's only my opinion (oops, or maybe it's heebie's) that matters.
To the older people, was there actually a time when class issues were taken seriously or is it just that now I can go back and read June Jordan and everybody and it seems like there was actual progress being made and then something something Reagan? I have no idea since I wasn't alive then, but there are so many horrible things being done to the poor and struggling and not only does no one seem to care but probably lots of people would approve.
When lots of votes are at stake all at once, the money advantage is more, not less, important. Santorum and Gingrich are going to be spread pretty thin on Super Tuesday.
That's not how it's panned out so far. IANNS, but the argument goes that Romney wins when he can focus vast amounts of ads and ground work on a single state over a period of weeks, but loses when he has to spread the cash over multiple states or doesn't have much time. Obviously other candidates are spread out too, but (the argument goes, and seems to hold up so far), Romney needs to overwhelm his opponents with money to win, whereas they don't.
Speaking of politics, am I missing something or is the new "compromise" over payroll tax unmitigated awesome?
While I was looking for the post which is updated by that post, I read this which I find plausible but also sad.
I do think the transition from college to work is often difficult -- I've said before that, personally, the year after graduating was one of the worst in my life because I had no idea what to do next, was exhausted from having worked really hard my senior year and because I generally just don't do well with change. But, you know what, reading that article makes me think that I'm glad that I spent a year or two fumbling around and hating life rather than ending up going straight into the cocoon of corporate America. Perhaps I'm just feeling maudlin today.
As long as maudlin consents and you've had two dates where you just held hands.
27: I think the standard story is that class politics mattered up until FDR died. Then in the 50s and early 60s a combination of factors made it drop of the radar including overall prosperity, fairly egalitarian distribution, technocratic centrists running both parties, and McCarthyite politics.
Then when struggle flared up again in the 60s, it was focused on race, gender and war and not class. Class struggle dropped off the radar of the left a good decade before Reagan took office and really started sticking it to labor.
In short, I blame the hippies.
31: How does the War on Poverty fit in to that narrative?
29: That story is basically how I ended up in law school.
27: Arguably, the last three nationally powerful figures who took class issues, and in particular income inequality, seriously were Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. Within a few months in the first half of 1968, one announced his retirement and the other two were assassinated. No one really picked up on their concerns. In this area, assassination was an effective means of changing the national poliitcal agenda for generations.
If I were someone else, I would draw a more pointed inference.
To the older people, was there actually a time when class issues were taken seriously
Not really in America in my lifetime, as I define class war
and it seems like there was actual progress being made and then something something Reagan?
But yes, absolutely there was amazing progress made 1965-1975. The "War on Poverty" and expansion of gov't spending and gov't jobs on all levels really worked, especially to lift minorities and women (and their children), mostly from lower working class to lower middle class. Who got the OSHA and EPA jobs? People like Perlstein overrate the mid-60s and underrate the radical congresses of the early 70s, and the momentum that probably lasted until the mid-80s on the more local level.
And in this recession, as gov't cuts spending, it is indeed women and minorities that are disproportionately hurt.
And yes, tail end of the boom and Great Compression.
But Old Left versus New Left, etc, the War, social issues, there was not much of a class war left by the mid-sixties, working class versus capital kinda thing. It played out that way in practice, with tons of strikes, and arguments against corporate profits, but the theory was all bourgeois welfare capitalism.
Remember the actual poor are more a tool to be used in various ways by the capitalists than part of the Revolution.
I think the standard story is that class politics mattered up until FDR died.
I think this is wrong and that it's closer to the truth to say that class remained an important framing device in American politics until the so-called Reagan revolution. When and if class actually mattered in American culture more broadly is another story. But for my part, I would say that it still does; it's just mostly dropped out of the rhetoric surrounding high politics, though that seems to be changing at the moment.
I'd like class issues to be taken seriously, but most Americans' class consciousness is sufficiently weak that I'm not confident those won't get swamped by unemployment rates and gas prices. If the election can magically be transformed into a referendum on birth control, it will be a slaughter. If it ends up being about gay rights and abortion, well, that's dicier. I believe the election will, as usual, turn on likeability, and Santorum's relatively decent polling on that front comes (I think) mostly from 1) people being less familiar with him than Romney or Gingrich. The more they get exposed to his priggish finger-wagging, his appeal will wither.
The question is whether Santorum can take southern primaries or Gingrich still gets enough to split the anti-Romney vote. I'm pulling for Santorum myself, but mostly I just want the primary process to be as brutal and fratricidal as humanly possible.
34: not true. Teddy Kennedy used class politics to drive various campaigns throughout his career. The same was true for Howard Metzenbaum and Paul Wellstone. The same is true for Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders (among others), though perhaps they're more marginal figures because of that rhetoric and a shifting cultural context. Brown, though, isn't going to stay marginal, I don't think.
Class struggle dropped off the radar of the left a good decade
Like I said, but I do think it is important to remember the strength of labor in the 60s and 70s. Hell, we got wages and benefits hard-indexed to inflation for masses of Americans.
Because remember the War on Poverty, the strength of labour, and all the equality successes should show us, in retrospect, what does not and cannot work in the long run.
as humanly possible
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Like I said, but I do think it is important to remember the strength of labor in the 60s and 70s.
Winner Take All Politics made that point pretty clearly. That was one of the things in the book which I was glad to be reminded of, I had forgotten.
39: I was thinking about Teddy Kennedy. At the point in his life when he got serious about legislating, he had other priorities. Good priorities, but not inequality.
I agree about Wellstone (another early death) and Metzenbaum, and there are a few others, but don't count them as powerful or effective.
39:Define class politics. JFK was the first mothering traitor, lowering the top marginal rate from 90% to 70%
Did those guys want to push it back up there?
"Class politics" is simple.
Take their money and power
I think this is about the only law. I also am a little indifferent to "social programs" and the welfare state, imagining that redistribution into jobs and wages will work better than social security and medicare and poverty programs.
2% unemployment, top tax rate of 90% and minimum wage of $20+ an hour and watch what happens to your society.
I read this which I find plausible but also sad.
Plausible and sad, yes, but I think that Ezra's take on what colleges ought to be doing, and what the specific failures are, is ass-backwards.
Ezra's take on what colleges ought to be doing, and what the specific failures are, is ass-backwards.
Agreed. Also, as I've said before, I fear that years from now we'll be cursing Ezra Klein as 2030's David Broder.
I think that Ezra's take on what colleges ought to be doing, and what the specific failures are, is ass-backwards.
I hadn't even noticed a recommendation when I read the article, but re-reading I do see this:
My hunch is that we have underemphasized the need to learn skills, rather than simply learn, while in college.
If you read that as saying that colleges should be more vocational then, yes, I agree, it's completely backwards.
If anything I think important skill is the ability to live with uncertainty and anxiety but (a) I'm never going to be able to sell anybody on that plan and (b) I'm not even sure that it is a plan.
What we really need is an economy and culture in which there's less reason to fear that one or two missteps on a career path will permanently harm one's employment prospects*, and I have no idea how to get back to that.
* I overheard somebody on the bus, a couple months ago, talking about OWS and various protests and saying, essentially, "I don't know if kids should be doing that. They're on the right side, but don't they know that once you have an arrest record they're never going to get a decent job?"
Hmm, a professional historian and bob mcmanus disagree with me. I may have to rethink this.
Who can doubt that if only Harvard taught their students Excel they wouldn't be tempted to accept incredibly high paying jobs on Wall Street.
Further to 47:
I think occasionally about the difference between my parents lives and mine. Setting aside than the fact that, when they were my age, they had two children ages 13 and 7 (which is scary to consider), I feel like I've probably had more income (inflation-adjusted) to date in my life than either of them did, but they were able to move in their mid-twenties to a smallish town in the PNW without jobs and buy a house and support themselves with both of them essentially self-employed* seems like a completely different world.
(my mother ended up getting a job with the city, years after they moved here, but for quite a while their sources of income included things like teaching continuing-ed classes through the community college (with nothing higher than a bachelors degree) and such. )
There's something weird about American hiring culture. It may just be a reflection of the weakness of the labor market, so employers have all the bargaining power. But it feels stranger than that -- that 'getting hired' is a serious skill, involving a lot of weaseling and abjectness if you don't have a personal connection, but with very little relationship to your capacity to do a job. The difficulty of getting your foot in the door is a serious obstacle to people who aren't inclined to the sorts of salesman skills that books like "What Color Is Your Parachute" advise. (I'm sure it's good advice, but if I could do that sort of thing I'd be a completely different person).
I don't have anything like a solution, or even a real diagnosis, but that sort of thing, as Ezra says, does push bright people into jobs that make getting hired easy. (like Biglaw!)
I'm rooting for Santorum in the primary, because I think he's hilariously entertaining and I think he would have a much smaller chance of actually winning the general than Romney. As for how they would do at governing, both would be a disaster; trying to decide which would be worse seems impossible to determine to me. The more important thing, then, is that neither of them get elected, and Santorum seems much easier to run against or simply much more his own worst enemy than Romney.
19
I really think the class war is more important than the culture war right now.
I agree. However, I'm more interested in culture war ascendancy because that's the one I'm more confident in. Obama-vs.-Romney is not FDR-vs.-Hoover, it's Clinton-vs.-Hoover. (Leaving aside for a minute which is the incumbent, not trying to make an exact analogy, etc.) Obama isn't strongly left-wing by any reasonable measure, and even if he was, retaking the House seems unlikely. Over the past four years or so we've been moving in the right direction on class consciousness overall, but a contest between a Rockefeller Republican and a Norquister would feel like a glacial rate of progress.
A paradigm shift in a leftward direction doesn't seem to be on the table, so as a consolation prize I'm just looking forward to an entertaining and non-stressful election season and slightly bigger coattails for Democrats in Congress.
There's something weird about American hiring culture.
Connecting the two sub-threads I'll note this previous comment about the Reagan White House.
But it feels stranger than that -- that 'getting hired' is a serious skill, involving a lot of weaseling and abjectness if you don't have a personal connection, but with very little relationship to your capacity to do a job. The difficulty of getting your foot in the door is a serious obstacle to people who aren't inclined to the sorts of salesman skills that books like "What Color Is Your Parachute" advise. (I'm sure it's good advice, but if I could do that sort of thing I'd be a completely different person).
This. I'm a terrible interviewer. Terrible. But, I've done very well in every job I've managed to obtain (which mostly haven't involved anything like real interviews, except for one, where my interview was a significant liability (and I was told as much) but my resume was enough to make up for it). And I'm stressed enough about it that I can't sleep, and I hate myself.
I don't see a paradigm shift to the left, but I expect that the Democrats will take the House and hold the Senate and whitehouse, all with very narrow margins, They will be able to pass legislation as long as they abolish the filibuster. Which they probably won't do.
I will link back to this comment in a year if it turns out to be right. If it doesn't, I'll link back to some other post of mine where I predict the opposite.
The other good thing about the rise of Santorum, is that it means there's less of a chance of Newt becoming president which is a deeply deeply scary prospect.
Right. And it's not just being a terrible interviewer: I'm actually fine in interviews. But finding jobs to apply for can be strangely hard.
When I worked at Time Inc. as a temp, it had a reputation as a great place to work. But good luck finding out if they were hiring for anything if you didn't already know somehow: being in the building already for some reason was a ridiculously huge advantage for getting hired.
urple, sorry you're still in interview hell. I was hoping I'd just missed a job update.
Thanks to all who answered my question, too. I know class still matters in certain events. I guess I'm more curious how the War on Poverty became the War on the Poor and everyone just rolled with it, but I know the answers are Reagon and that that's not exactly what happened anyhow. I find all of this, and the Republican primaries and election speculation, not quite depressing but definitely apathy-inducing because I'm so bothered that I just sort of want to sit around and flail, not talk or do anything. Ugh.
the rise of Santorum
Gross.*
* Dan Savage has changed the world. The internet is all powerful! Space and time have been annihilated! Who cares about class?!!?
That totally blows, urple. Have you ever considered saying to a hiring committee, "Look, I'd very much like this job. And if I'm offered it and a fair salary, I'm going to take it. And if that happens, I'm going to exceed your expectations, because that's what I always do once I'm hired. But the thing is, I'm really very bad at this part of the process. I hope you'll give me a chance anyway."? It's probably too cute to work, but I'd be very tempted if I were in your (uncomfortable) shoes. Fortunately, I never will be, because I'm exceedingly handsome, cool under pressure, and quick to land upon just the right answer -- which is always funny but not-too-funny, if you know what I mean -- when asked tough questions, and also perfectly on point throughout any and all interviews. Which is why I'm an academic.
I'm also tall, never break anything when fighting with my wife (I mean, we never fight), and almost impossibly good and generous in bed. I do have problems, though: when you make as much money as I do but refuse to park your assets offshore -- too ethically shaky for a man of principle like me -- taxes can become quite burdensome. Still, share and share alike is what I say! With a smile on my face and gleam in my eye, I pay more than my fair share to the IRS.
Urple should ask for the Mineshaft's advice on what to say in interviews.
"Look, I'd very much like this job. And if I'm offered it and a fair salary, I'm going to take it. And if that happens, I'm going to exceed your expectations, because that's what I always do once I'm hired. But the thing is, I'm really very bad at this part of the process. I hope you'll give me a chance anyway."
I can't speak for urple but one part of my difficulty with interviews is that, while I can confidently say that I've performed above expectations in my previous jobs, I find it hard to muster certainty that I will perform above expectations in some hypothetical new job. I know myself well enough to know that there are various scenarios which would lead to my not performing well (and I could list them for you . . . but the most likely one would be ending up in an office with a lot of inter-personal conflict). So I don't know if I could deliver that line with conviction.
Other than that I'd be really tempted to try it.
My main problem is that I'm a terrible liar.* I always have been.
* Oddly, I have no problem negotiating aggressively on behalf of clients. That doesn't feel like dishonesty, even when it borders on it.
Still, share and share alike is what I say!
So, Von Wafer, if you had two titanium road bikes, and I nosflow didn't have any, does that mean you'd give him one of them? (ref)
"Look, I'd very much like this job. And if I'm offered it and a fair salary, I'm going to take it. And if that happens, I'm going to exceed your expectations, because that's what I always do once I'm hired. But the thing is, I'm really very bad at this part of the process. I hope you'll give me a chance anyway."
I came close to this in a recent interview, but I worried it might take a terrible turn. ("What exactly is it about this part of the process that you're bad at? Interpersonal communication? Performing under pressure?" And, see 66: I'm not sure "No, I can do all those things well. I'm just uncomfortable lying to you" would be a good answer.)
67: I have no titanium road bikes at the moment, so the point is moot.
My main problem is that I'm a terrible liar
Well, at least you have a good answer for "What's your greatest weakness?"
I thought I had a good, genuine answer for that: remembering people's names. I'm terrible at it, it's very important, I work to get better but still struggle. But that answer's been rejected a few times now.
Urple should ask for the Mineshaft's advice on what to say in interviews.
"What else?"
Jesus. This makes me never want to interview for a job again.
"Incontinence and a tendency to work to hard. But mostly incontinence."
Urple should ask for the Mineshaft's advice on what to say in interviews.
If he gets a second interview he should definitely hold hands.
"What exactly is it about this part of the process that you're bad at? Interpersonal communication? Performing under pressure?"
What's wrong with just, "talking about myself to strangers. I have not trouble talking about my work, but I come from a reticent people."
67: I have no titanium road bikes at the moment, so the point is moot.
Since you backed me up on the value of a ti MTB as a commuter bike, I think it's best to leave it at that, then.
"In addition to your biggest weakness, please list all your other weaknesses, in order of plausibility as reasons for not hiring you."
74: I love that conversation. Especially when Dagger Aleph says "Cock."
I think there has been tremendous progress in the War on Poverty in the narrow case of the cost of food.
Food prices are at an all time low, and this has allowed many of the poor to avoid starvation.
To be more precise--prices of shitty food are at an all time low, allowing many of the poor to substitute type-II diabetes for outright starvation.
That may sound snarky, but I recognize this is a step forward. I have really mixed feelings about the government's decision to essentially create the industrial agriculture/big food complex. Many who were pursing these policies had noble goals, and many of those noble goals have been achieved. At the same time, a whole lot of the public health and environmental problems we face these days are side effects of these decisions.
8, 11: didn't I predict / promise drinking games on March 6th ?
I have really mixed feelings about the government's decision to essentially create the industrial agriculture/big food complex. Many who were pursing these policies had noble goals, and many of those noble goals have been achieved. At the same time, a whole lot of the public health and environmental problems we face these days are side effects of these decisions.
Incidentally, I heard Michael Pollan say almost exactly the same thing.
Now that I think about it, Pollan was slightly more positive, saying that the decisions to support industrial agriculture were good policies at the time -- but he may have been saying that for rhetorical effect.
I've heard a lot of agricultural activists take that line. There's a divide between those kind of people and people like Vandana Shiva, for whom the whole thing is a hundred plus year old conspiracy to suck the life out of the glorious peasants of the world.
I'm not at all sure where I stand.
Urple should ask for the Mineshaft's advice on what to say in interviews.
Yes, especially Apo's.
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I can finally stay in my apartment for the first time in over two months. But the apparently shiny new cable hookup isn't delivering internet or television. Whatever will I do?
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Essear is commenting by mind-power alone.
Whatever will I do?
Share either sage advice or funny stories from your job interview experiences.
On the food thread of the discussion, after looking at the very sad state of my pantry-food/leftover options, I decided to make spam-chili. It's not terrible.
Did you brown the SPAM first? I bet that would help.
It's like moving into a new apartment that just happens to be very much like my old one, only dustier and with mysteriously broken things here and there.
I had no idea methotrexate was originally chemotheraphy.
Yay, I guess.
Does anyone know how cable actually works in places with multiple providers? Is it possible that even though I pay RCN, when they rewired everything in my apartment I ended up with only Comcast actually being hooked up to the outlets (or whatever the word is for the cable things on the walls)?
whatever the word is for the cable things on the walls
"F connector gang box and wall plate". No idea what it's like to live in a place with more than one cable-internet provider, because monopolies are still apparently legal in this area.
Monopolies are legal everywhere, but mostly just for certain types of regulated utilities. Cable generally falls into this category, and I'm actually kind of surprised to hear that there's any place with more than one cable provider.
I do sort of assume that internet will just end up as another utility you sign up for with the city/county/whatever when you move in. And I assume this is a discussion that planners have already had about a thousand times already.
I do sort of assume that internet will just end up as another utility you sign up for with the city/county/whatever when you move in. And I assume this is a discussion that planners have already had about a thousand times already.
I assume it will too, but as far as I know there hasn't actually been much discussion of the issue in planning circles. Planners tend to be a much more (small-c) conservative and change-averse group than you might expect, although this may be changing with the younger generation.
Certainly if you look at the history of the other services we currently take for granted as utilities the trajectory tends to look pretty similar to what's happened with internet service so far.
29 et seq: I really think Ezra hit the nail on the head in his diagnosis (though I agree that his prescription is ass-backwards); people just don't know what to do next. And then occasionally they end up in grad school, fail to write a dissertation, and find themselves in precisely the same situation, but now 31 years old and with neither degree nor employment history.
What I meant to say, besides "feel sorry for me," is that the same mechanism ("I have no idea what I would do in the outside world") not only leads people into the highly structured worlds of consulting & law school, but also contributes to the failing-at-academia-but-unable-to-get-out situation we've discussed to death.
I'm coming around to the view that the current problem with humanities grad school is a symptom of the fact that we're not encouraging enough kids to go into science. Hell, I loved 11th-grade physics, in particular quantum mechanics. And yet I wandered off to the lands of Poli Sci.
I'm coming around to the view that the current problem with humanities grad school is a symptom of the fact that we're not encouraging enough kids to go into science.
I've had the same thought at times, but my understanding is that most scientists don't really agree.
I think the main problem is capitalism & the alienation of labour, but that's mostly just my reflexes talking.
Having now finally read the Ezra column that all this discussion was in response to, I basically agree with everyone that he gets the diagnosis right but the prescription wrong. I also see what VW means about his creeping Broderization, which I was admittedly skeptical about when he first proposed it.
The hivemind really lets you down when you need late Friday night cable tech support.
My phone initially autocorrected "lets" to "let's". Really, phone?
I shudder at the thought that anyone is relying on our advice for... anything, really.
Poli sci is not in the humanities. I've only read the past five comments so I don't even know what exactly is being discussed here, but I think a big reason a lot of people don't think they have anywhere to turn for their particular humanities interests except for grad school is the intellectual impoverishment of a lot of public culture.
I think a big reason a lot of people don't think they have anywhere to turn for their particular humanities interests except for grad school is the intellectual impoverishment of a lot of public culture.
I think you're right!
I don't know why people turn to grad school in political science, though. The intellectual impoverishment of CNN?
Poli sci is not in the humanities
Because it's a social science? I'm confused.
Really I think the issue is not that there aren't jobs out there that are intellectually stimulating to people interested in humanistic subjects. It's more that there isn't a well-developed pipeline connecting most of those jobs to the people graduating from college with humanities degrees, so they end up either going into one of the other fields that does have such a pipeline (like finance) or going to grad school.
I'm not so sure it's entirely about the jobs themselves. It's that if you have a job that's not humanities work, you have few places to go where you can satisfy your need to do some kind of humanities-style work. It's not like there are a lot of places for serious reflection, writing, and discussion of along the lines of what gets done in the humanities that are located outside of academic institutions.
I'm just speculating here, but I think a lot of people would be happy to do some of that kind of "work" spread out occasionally on evenings and weekends while working regular jobs and not feel the need to get fully academic about it, if there were some way they could reach a satisfying level of seriousness (for lack of a better word). But there aren't a whole lot of models of humanities as hobby or recreation that amount to more than reading by yourself and hoping a few other people occasionally read the same things and then talk about them, or I guess book clubs and that sort of thing. Having places to go online might be changing this.
So for a lot of people the options end up looking like you have to be all in for the grad school or you'll end up all out.
This is probably tangential to the question of why people who predominantly come from privileged backgrounds and who go to elite colleges end up taking up employment in sectors where people with the exact same backgrounds spend a lot of time and money on recruiting them for positions in which their sense of being among the elite will be regularly reinforced and where there is money available for training them, unlike in other jobs where employers regularly try to dump the training function onto schools, especially professional schools, which while they do manage to teach a fair amount of skills also serve the purpose of maintaining status by teaching college-level material that nevertheless results in graduate degrees? The answer to that question is indeed mysterious and one of the great social issues of our time.
I'm not so sure it's entirely about the jobs themselves. It's that if you have a job that's not humanities work, you have few places to go where you can satisfy your need to do some kind of humanities-style work. It's not like there are a lot of places for serious reflection, writing, and discussion of along the lines of what gets done in the humanities that are located outside of academic institutions.
This is probably true for the Unfogged demographic, but I think for most people who end up in this sort of situation it probably really is mostly about the jobs themselves. Plenty of people would probably be perfectly satisfied intellectually with the jobs out there; they just don't know where those jobs are or how to get them.
I'm just speculating here, but I think a lot of people would be happy to do some of that kind of "work" spread out occasionally on evenings and weekends while working regular jobs and not feel the need to get fully academic about it, if there were some way they could reach a satisfying level of seriousness (for lack of a better word). But there aren't a whole lot of models of humanities as hobby or recreation that amount to more than reading by yourself and hoping a few other people occasionally read the same things and then talk about them, or I guess book clubs and that sort of thing. Having places to go online might be changing this.
This is certainly more or less what I've been trying to do, with some success so far. So, yeah. For the people who find this sort of idea appealing I think there's definitely a lot of potential.
Get me out of this post priduction facility! The whiskey does nothing ! B. Gve me the Master!!! Give me the Master ...
Now that that's out of the way. (And if that was really you Halford, details are required.)
83: didn't I predict / promise drinking games on March 6th ?
I recall that, and remember thinking, "What? Late Superbowl this year? Really into the NCAA selection show?" I get my Republican politics only in the moment this election cycle--via Twitter.
I'm not so sure it's entirely about the jobs themselves. It's that if you have a job that's not humanities work, you have few places to go where you can satisfy your need to do some kind of humanities-style work. It's not like there are a lot of places for serious reflection, writing, and discussion of along the lines of what gets done in the humanities that are located outside of academic institutions.
Indeed, this is one of the things I noted in a blog post I wrote ages ago when I was reflecting on my decision to go to grad school (this was before I entered). A built-in intellectual community! That's not nothing.
Things like "little magazines" or their blogular equivalents seem to provide some outlet for the same impulse, but, of course, it's a hustle to get to be able to write for something like that, and the whole point is that one would like to do more than read, on a monthly or quarterly basis, what those vile successors of N choose to pontificate about. (And that stuff really only treats a small subset of the humanities.)*
* that said I wondered recently, regarding the currency of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl as a cultural concept, about whether we aren't in some kind of heyday of popular intellectual ferment in some respects. (Part of the reason I wonder is that for all I know everyone who's been roughly my age has thought the same about the period when they were roughly my age, with reference to whatever was the then-current method of dissemination: little magazines! zines! whatever!) I mean, didn't that start at The Onion AV Club, of all places?
Apparently the cable company is going to charge me $50 because the people who worked on my apartment messed up the wiring.
126: Probably not if you squawk politely about it. I'm a proponent of squawking politely to a real human on customer service mishaps. It might take two or three tries, but you'll probably find a sympathetic human who agrees to waive the charge.
125: The xeroxed zine era was an exciting time intellectually to be about the age I was then and I think you are now! I think the fact that The Baffler is going to be published by MIT Press counts as evidence of this, even though the baffler was never xeroxed.
Also, I think we have to recognize The Onion AV Club as a real source of intellectual activity. If I still were in the business of writing journal articles, I'd make it a pet project to work a citation to them in.
I'm hoping that someone (Apo?) considers this for a future topic: "At this time the imprecision and uncertainty of the global telephonic cellular network is responsible for a significant amount of the disruption of our global functioning."
Seriously. I began my career in computer data communications, and I know how important accuracy, precision, and throughput are.
Or - Maybe this is so glaringly obvious that I am the last person in the world to realize this.
In layman's terms - cell phone suck and they are creating serious screwups!!!!
In layman's terms - cell phone suck and they are creating serious screwups!!!!
What? I mean, compared to what? I'm sure that connection from cell phone A to cell phone B is less reliable than connection from landline 1 to landline 2 was, but what matters isn't connecting devices, it's connecting people, and because people are now much more likely to be reachable through their devices, I feel like it's much easier to get in touch with someone at a moment's notice than it once was.
I mean, I wonder whether kids these days find "missed connection" plot devices, like those in Romeo and Juliet, bizarre and contrived, so much do we now expect to be able to reach anyone, anywhere, instantly.
The whole "guy has no trouble in getting secretly married to a thirteen year old" might also seem different.
R & J was hugely implausible at the time; & after all, the most implausible thing was the fact that it's obviously happening in front of an audience in a playhouse.
I think it depends very much more on genre conventions than anything to do with real world communications.
T. J. Hooker, being grounded in unstinting realism, will require more work to explain to the kids today.
Shakespeare was pretty clever to send that Fed Ex truck out to the trailer park.
I mean, I wonder whether kids these days find "missed connection" plot devices, like those in Romeo and Juliet, bizarre and contrived, so much do we now expect to be able to reach anyone, anywhere, instantly.
I bet even kids today are aware that current technology wasn't always available.
That depends. I've tried telling mine that video game controls used to have wires running to the console and he just looks at me funny.
Okay, yes, obviously kids are aware that technology changes, and imagination is a powerful thing. But I feel like the responses have involved uncharitable readings even by the Mineshaft's standards. My point was simply that it can be difficult to feel the emotional urgency of situations that are particularly far from our own experience--I mean, this is part of why contemporary and non-foreign fiction is always so much more popular than other sorts--and that certain genre tropes depend for their power on our own personal experiences.
And I think that the "missed connection" plot device is an interesting one in this respect, because (a) not being able to get in touch with someone used to be such a common experience; (b) partly because of this, and because of its narrative utility, it was used frequently as a plot device; and (c) it has, in a remarkably short time, moved from a typical, almost everyday occurrence, to something unusual, even remarkable. Now, what determines whether a reader experiences something as implausible or strained, as opposed to simply unlikely, is a complicated question. But I do wonder whether it will become increasingly difficult for readers who have grown up in an always-connected world to avoid seeing the "missed connection" plot device as a clumsy deus ex machina. And I don't think this is an absurd thing to speculate about.
But how do you mean not being able to get in touch with someone? I mean, sure, on a time scale of hours yes, but on a time scale greater than around 12 hours I do not think it has been very common for people living in the West to be unreachable* except in unusual circumstances for the past hundred years.
One of my major guides on this is, bizarrely, the Swallows and Amazons books. The Walker family manages close to day-to-day communication with each other, even allowing for the kids gallivating around the lake. The father is in China and still manages to take part in major parenting decisions.
I think can't-talk plots have always been unrealistic.
* I.e moving house, on holiday, in hospital, etc, many of which are repeated in cellphone terms.
My responses seem about as serious as ever. I will say that when studying the play back before cell phones, the first thing everyone said was about how contrived it seemed that they couldn't get a message to each other.
For instance, by 1818 the British courts are treating daily mails as an expected part of business. It is hard to think of a circumstance when a late Georgian or Victorian Briton living in a major centre would be more than a weeks return post from another Briton.
Speaking of uncharitable responses, as it were.
The obvious message is that Italians are fucked in the head. In Shakespeare's time, this wasn't too obvious to bother with.
Okay, fair enough. It was actually because I had a similar reaction to Moby's, 15 years ago, that I figured it must seem even more contrived now.
I do think horror movies have to actually gesture towards dealing with this better tho'. Like, used to that something just falls over the line or wevs, but that hardly works anymore.
Jesus that was an awful sentence & not that anyone's reading but for my own peace of mind:
It used to be that something just falls over the telephone line or wevs, but that hardly happens any more.