It was a truth universally acknowledged at my alma mater that Econ majors were dicks, but they were at least intelligent in certain ways, but Business majors were dicks who were stupid. I don't find it to be true among my current students, though. A lot of Business majors at my college are immigrants who believe in The Dream and are go-getters, usually pretty intelligent too. It's the Accounting majors who are dumb and lazy.
I have this conversation every semester:
Me: Why are you an Accounting major?
Accounting Major: I dunno.
Me: Do you like... math? Or um, bookkeeping? Or...?
Accounting Major: I dunno.
Me: Do you like anything?
Accounting Major: Not really. I guess not.
In support of 1, my friend the ESL teacher reports that a significant proportion of Accounting students at his institution are wealthy immigrants who believe their fathers can buy them the dream and are therefore signed up for Accountancy degrees simply to justify their presence in the country. Different country, different dream, but apparently same Accountancy students.
Huh. My stereotype of accountants (not all of them, but a chunk) is bright but really badly educated upwardly mobile people, often immigrants but also first-generation college. Someone who can't write a paragraph straight because they didn't get a decent high school education, but got themselves caught up enough on math to be employable as an accountant.
To be honest, I have the same conversation with half of the Education majors in my classes. Do you like children? Not really. Do you enjoy public speaking? Definitely not. Do you care about improving people's lives? Eh.
Huh. I've never interacted with accountants, so I haven't formed any firsthand impressions of them. I always figured they must be smart and diligent, because they are doing the kind of bookkeeppiinng I really hate and never bother with.
I don't really see this as a problem. If you want to get a college education to get a good job but don't really care about school, why not be a business major.
How is this a good idea?:
You can go pretty far in business without knowing calculus.
--bonus scott adams sockpuppetry at link--
And I think we all know what horrors lie at the intersection of majoring in English and going on to study Business.
I'm actually kind of concerned about this. Those people will be running companies on which the US economy depends. If they are lazy and stupid we're all fucked. I don't much care for most of the people who go into business (it's not hostility, it's just that they tend to bore me) but I really want them to be good at their jobs. I've seen too many people thrown out of work because management was a collection of morons.
My accountant is totally adorable. She's extremely nerdy, awkward and sweet, and seems very, very into accounting.
Those people will be running companies on which the US economy depends.
Does majoring in Business really correlate particularly well with running companies afterwards?
Also, all of the accountants (CPAs, specifically) I know well are both bright and well rounded.
And they have good steady jobs! It seems like a pretty good line of work, if you can stand it.
I have cognitive dissonance about accountants because virtually every accounting student I met in college was a moron, but all or almost all of actual professional accountants I know are, as rfts says in 12, bright and well-rounded.
I suppose it's possible that a high percentage of accounting majors don't make it as professional accountants, at least not for more than a few years.
But then what are they doing instead??
Accounting, like actuarying or whatever the discipline is called, but unlike businessing or economizing, requires a series of exams to progress in one's career. People who major in it know that, so in my experience they're realistic and hard-working people.
I once went on an internet date with a grad student at the MIT School of Management. I didn't have high hopes for the romantic prospects, but hey, I had never talked to a management grad student before. (Online dating is at least good for meeting people in lots of different professions, which you don't encounter much as a grad student in lit.) I asked the guy what sorts of things he studied. He looked at me like I was an idiot. "Management." Yes, but what does that mean? What kinds of methodologies do you use? What kinds of things do you learn about in that field of study? "Management." The dude both couldn't believe that I was so daft as not to know what management is, and couldn't say anything further about it himself.
I think a lot of them end up in the accounting departments inside companies, which might be full of significantly more stupid people than your typical CPA firm.
I liked the second comment of the Foxes, Henhouse thread, too.
Those people will be are running companies on which the US economy depends. If They are lazy and stupid and we're all fucked.
Econolicious found the "like" button!
19: The people I'm thinking of (reasonably bright, but badly educated, and sort of first-generation-in-an-office-job types) are the lower echelons of the state tax department, and I've met the same type in small private accounting firms as well. I usually like them -- they tend to be pleasant and hardworking.
Yeah, I imagine that accounting is a profession that is self-weeding at the point of employment. Teaching works that way in some degree, too. I know there are some teachers who don't give a shit, but I've also heard of people I know being told in their first jobs that they clearly have no desire to teach since they obviously dislike children and don't like speaking in front of people. I have just wondered, as a college instructor, how these people choose a major when, if asked about any aspect of their future work life, it sounds awful to them.
Those people will be running companies on which the US economy depends.
Not to be complacent about it, but I'm not sure that's necessarily true:
At the same time, Babson requires an ambitious practicum experience. In groups of 30, first-year students plan and create small businesses, with real money at stake. Last spring's businesses sold flip-flops, speakers, and chocolates.
I guess flip-flops and speakers can be important to the US economy, but it seems at least plausible that many Business students wind up in relatively small-potatoes companies. On the other hand,
"For some students, they confront all sorts of things about their interactions with others and about themselves. They learn things that shape the way they attack the world when they get out of here."
It's "the way they [learn to] attack the world" that gives a person pause. I'm thinking now of the number of US citizens who endorse the idea that government should be run like a business; and isn't there at least one, maybe two, new US Congressmen whose qualification for holding office is that they ran a successful pizza company? NTTAWWT, but really, how narrow or broad are their management visions?
This is all an unfinished series of thoughts, though.
But then what are they doing instead??
Realtors? Mortgage lenders? Recruiters?
I'm just guessing.
whose qualification for holding office is that they ran a successful pizza company
To bring together business with AWB's points about people trying to get into education: My graduate department received an application for the Coordinator of Language Instruction position from someone whose chief qualification was having run a pizza company in Hamburg.
I always figured they must be smart and diligent
Yep, that's us!
Apparently the lowest place on the food chain in Accountancy is hotel night accountant. Basically, this amounts to balancing all the books from the previous day's trade, after the bar has closed and before breakfast. So this is a pile of bookkeeping to be done between 12:00 and 6:00 a.m. Shitty job du jour.
My informant tells me that night accountants are divided between bright kids with next to not qualifications but a good line in bs, who do it for a few months before going off to a beach somewhere, and total idle losers with bad accountancy qualifications who are dying by degrees in the job which they keep because they're related to somebody.
11,25: I don't think mediocre business majors end up running fortune 500 companies, but they do end up making decisions that affect the day to day running of businesses. A large cadre of low level idiots can do as much damage as one highly placed idiot.
You don't need to crater many small and medium sized companies to have considerable knock-on effects, nor do you need much parasitic incompetence in middle management at a large company in order to render it non-competitive.
Also Blume's experience matches mine when it comes to people trained in management. They simply can't explain what they do. The sole exception in my experience was a woman who proudly compared herself to "the Bobs" from Office Space. She was smart and a lot of fun but her cocaine habit had me a little concerned. Also the fact that she was in love with and carrying on an affair with a married man and made it clear that she was just looking for an interim boyfriend while she convinced him to dump his wife. So yes, internet dating. You do meet some interesting people.
27: We also have the semi-debacle of Michael Bloomberg having hired whoever-she-was businesswoman to run the NYC Dept. of Education -- she was relieved of duty after 3 months, no? I forget what her resume showed, but no experience in education, oops.
The dude both couldn't believe that I was so daft as not to know what management is, and couldn't say anything further about it himself.
I liked this article for confirming my theory that there is no actual content in the field of Management.
I asked my film producer comment what she does in her work, and she said "I find something I want; I send an email and a fax, then I call to follow up twice." I understood precisely what she does. It is a very good job for someone from my family, since we love logistics almost as passionately as we love redundancy.
a profession that is self-weeding at the point of employment.
I believe, with the exception of academia, this is true of 100% of professions.
30.1, 30.2: I know.
Of the business/management types I've known, all had M.B.A.s (or M.P.P.s -- Master of Public Policy) from what I can only describe as reputable schools, and were articulate, thoughtful, good managers. But I have very little experience with the corporate world.
The link at 32 is wonderful, and reminds me of part of the content of a "Soft Systems" module I took in a CS Masters. In that context, these methods were likewise held up to, well, scrutiny.
It was a truth universally acknowledged at my alma mater that Econ majors were dicks.
Yeah, UNG was an econ major.
To be honest, I have the same conversation with half of the Education majors in my classes. Do you like children? Not really. Do you enjoy public speaking? Definitely not. Do you care about improving people's lives? Eh.
IME, there are two types of Ed majors: those you just described, and those who hate, hate, hate Ed school with a passion because it is mostly filled with the people you describe.
90+% of undergrad business majors will never be professional accountants nor come within shouting distance of any position of significant authority in any large organization. These kids are for the most part future prey not predators.
Also, all of the accountants (CPAs, specifically) I know well are both bright and well rounded.
But are they perfect spheres?
38 gets it right. I am also tempted (stay down, asshole side!) to make a comment along the lines of "Oh, isn't it cute that college teachers think that what they do matters" but of course to some extent it does matter.
"Oh, isn't it cute that college teachers think that what they do matters"
Dude.
to make a comment along the lines of "Oh, isn't it cute that college teachers think that what they do matters" but of course to some extent it does matter.
The thing is, we barely have any time with a student. I think of myself as a (CHEEZEBALL) "life-time learner", and there's only so much you learn in any four year stretch. Not to mention they are just so dazzled to be out of the house, and not to mention working part-time or full-time jobs. I'm just not sure that college can accomplish that much. But they do seem to get more competent.
From the link in 32:
I don't have an M.B.A. I have a doctoral degree in philosophy
He's a Holbo consultant?
While talking about accountants is always fun, 38 et seq. is probably right. I don't think the article is more than a conventional "God, kids these days are dumb," piece -- I doubt it says much about business majors that hasn't always been true.
Huh. I'd loaded the first page of the linked thing in 32 and read a couple of paragraphs of it before I realized that yes, I read that when it first came out. There's a lot of first-person reportage from the management front just like that out there.
42: there's only so much you learn in any four year stretch. Not to mention they are just so dazzled to be out of the house, and not to mention working part-time or full-time jobs. I'm just not sure that college can accomplish that much.
Well, you can learn a hell of a lot in four years, but not if you're also working a part-time, much less full-time job, no, not as much. College is, or should be, a full-time job in itself, and I don't mean spending hours a day on a sports team.
(/curmudgeon)
I mean, I can think of at least 4 college professors (two in each of my majors) who made a significant difference to my learning and life trajectory. Hell, if it weren't for the head of the German department, Rory wouldn't even exist!*
By which I obviously mean that if Herr Professor hadn't persuaded me to turn all my German coursework into a major, and then persuaded me to apply for a teaching fellowship following graduation, I never would have ventured into the Dreilaendereck, and if I had never ventured thence I would have never met UNG, and if I had never met UNG life might be glorious in countless ways but it would be sans-Rory which would have been a void I surely would have always sensed without knowing why. College teachers don't matter? Rory owes her very life to one!
and I don't mean spending hours a day on a sports team.
The tentative boyfriend and I were having this discussion the other day, in particular the traditional wisdom that you get your jobs, clients, future-life-success via working your connections. Which suggests that spending hours a day on a sports team or rushing a frat/sorority or otherwise engaging in assorted shenanigans may be a more productive use of your college experience. Depending, obviously, on what you hope to get out of it.
45: The article is also a reflection on the extent to which (some) colleges are essentially diploma mills, in which something like a business degree is the expected outcome of the tuition investment paid in, whether or not the students actually learned anything valuable; and the extent to which (some) colleges apparently feel themselves forced for financial reasons to accommodate that conception of their role.
Well, but just to double down on the curmudgeonliness, stories like 47 arise because college is a time in life when people are going to make trajectory-affecting decisions; the same kind of decisions get made by young people who aren't in college at all and are influenced by whatever mentors/gatekeepers happen to be around. I wouldn't dispute that, e.g., being flunked out of an aspirational major by a professor and going back to live at home with one's parents could well have a significant impact on your life.
The actual content of any given college course, not so much, at least not for most people, stories that will arise from the incredibly biased sample of folks on this blog notwithstanding.
I'm going to hit you with my Care Bear Stare!
Professors can provide useful examples-- someone who knows a subject well, loves it, makes a living from it, contributes to human welfare.
College really does expand horizons for many people. And the connections that will be useful later in life are more likely to be the other kids paying attention rather than the ones just killing time on campus. Doesn't exclude jocks, frat boys, or whoever, only the ones who aren't doing anything else.
The actual content of any given college course, not so much, at least not for most people, stories that will arise from the incredibly biased sample of folks on this blog notwithstanding
Well, I can hardly argue with you as far as course content what with the fact that one might question whether I really went to college given how thin my recall of course content is. But just because kids who don't go to college are also influenced by mentors and gatekeepers doesn't diminish the influence of the gatekeepers/mentors in college.
Wow, tough crowd. Strawberry Shortcake?
Well, you can learn a hell of a lot in four years, but not if you're also working a part-time, much less full-time job, no, not as much. College is, or should be, a full-time job in itself
I'm sure you just didn't think before you wrote this, parsimon. Or maybe you actually meant this as a comment on the rising costs of college, and the inadequacy of the financial aid system. Because surely you don't mean that all those students working their way through college should just quit their jobs? Or maybe you're just hiding behind the curmudgeon role, and you actually think that people who can't afford to study exclusively, full-time, shouldn't be studying at all?
I worked between 15 and 25 hours a week throughout college. I think I still managed to get quite a bit out of my four years.
50: The actual content of any given college course, not so much, at least not for most people, stories that will arise from the incredibly biased sample of folks on this blog notwithstanding.
I really don't know what you're doing with this, Halford. Anything people on this blog might have to say about their intellectually transformative college experiences is by definition biased? Would you prefer a nation-wide survey asking people just what college did for them, intellectually, if anything? I suppose that would provide data.
But honestly, the question, I thought, was whether college can be a significant learning environment. Attestations that it indeed has been are surely relevant.
If I can answer any questions from the perspective of somebody who blew off college for a decade or so, please let me know.
56: Or maybe you actually meant this as a comment on the rising costs of college, and the inadequacy of the financial aid system.
Correct.
I worked between 15 and 25 hours a week throughout college.
I did too, and thought it was a valuable experience in learning how to budget my time.* And while I've seen jobs adversely affect my own students as a TA and lecturer, I've seen plenty of cases where again, the job was more valuable than not.
*Though really, I had SO much time in college; I worked hard, but there was a lot of time left over. I think it must have been because I didn't have much of a social life, but I was in clubs, student government, and worked for various professor's labs and the like. Then again, the internet hadn't yet captured me....
60: how does that tie in to your point about sports and other extra-curricular activities?
Though really, I had SO much time in college
Yeah, this. The jobs mentioned above, plus academic work, plus clubs, and still so much time left over for smoking pot and seeing every Bergman movie!
Yeah, this. The jobs mentioned above, plus academic work, plus clubs, and still so much time left over for smoking pot and seeing every Bergman movie!
I don't know how you people do it. I wasn't in college, didn't have any academic work, clubs, or a job, and didn't even try to watch Bergman movies, and yet I still barely had time to smoke all the pot I wanted to.
It's not widely known that in the last decade or so the field of accounting has become a hotbed of poststructural theory. I am not making this up.
61: It doesn't particularly tie in. There might be two reasons (at least) that students can't or don't give time to their studies. One would be that they have to work a full-time job, say. Another would be what the student in the OP's linked article said:
This is not senioritis, he says: This is the way all four years have been. In a typical day, "I just play sports, maybe go to the gym. Eat. Probably drink a little bit. Just kind of goof around all day."
I'm not intending to be a hardcore, nose-to-the-grindstone proponent, but it seems uncontroversial that hours a day spent in extracurricular activities -- which expand one's networking horizons! -- is going to replace any hours one might spend in actually being inclined to study.
Of course the student quoted there doesn't sound like his extracurriculars are interfering with studying. He sounds like he just doesn't really need to study.
still so much time left over for smoking pot and seeing every Bergman movie!
That must be the part I missed out on; I hibernated in my room and read and read, instead.
I think some of it must have been the experience of mostly living on campus - not having to clean or cook really does free up a fair amount of time.
Steve Lacy-the-alive-accountant-rather-than-the-dead-saxophonist seems to be pretty neat.
A girl I knew in college went on to become an actuary, which seems like a pretty nice kind of job if you like math.
My senior year I lucked into a hard-to-get job as an A/V operator at the student union. It was hard-to-get because it was incredibly boring: set up a bunch of mics and overhead projectors and then sit around for several hours. Since I had hours worth of reading to get through, I was only too happy to get paid to sit around doing it.
I got a ton of work done at that job compared to working at a sandwich shop the year before. On the other hand: far fewer free sandwiches.
It doesn't particularly tie in.
By mentioning them so closely together, however, the condemnation of the one seems to bleed over into the other as well.
Hmm. Possibly this is because i didn't have to/didn't know how to study all that much, but it seems like spending hours a day studying would have just been a waste of college. (And I say this as someone who didn't exactly rock and roll all night or party every day.)
My younger sis was an accounting major at the behest of my dad, who wanted her to "have an employable skill" after graduation. Below the parental radar she took enough English courses to graduate with a double major.
She worked after undergrad as a baby accountant at a national accounting firm while applying for English grad school. A year in, I visited her and she asked me (an engineer) "What exactly is a debit?" Gulp.
Needless to say, she dropped accounting, got her Ph.D. in English, and has lived happily (more or less) ever after, teaching in a small college.
I've long assumed the accounting profession was exactly as it's portrayed in that seminal hit Look Who's Talking.
Though really, I had SO much time in college;
You people are crazy.
But, on the other hand, I don't completely disagree.
One of the things that I've learned, as I've gotten older, is that my intellectual productivity is constrained more by available focus than by time.
On an average day I have, say 2 hours of really productive time (with another 2-3 hours necessary to enable that productivity -- time spent looking at the problem, thinking about how to approach it, etc . . .).
The problem, for me, is that if I stretch that out to 3 hours of tightly focused work I'm (on average) not good for just about anything for the rest of the day -- Bergaman would definitely be too much work at that point.
I think I spent too much effort in college spending 4 hours to get an extra 30 minutes of real productivity. Had I known then what I know now I would have stopped earlier and tried to do something fun.
Live and learn.
"What exactly is a debit?"
According to my Accounting for Lawyers professor, anything that goes on the right side of the ledger.
I did too, and thought it was a valuable experience in learning how to budget my time.*
Well, I did too, and at the time I thought that too, but it's bullshit. Or, no, not bullshit, exactly--it's right that it's a good way to learn how to budget your time--but that's ignoring the opportunity costs involved. There are a lot of other ways to learn to budget your time that take better advantage of the unique opportunities college offers--you could just as easily pick up a few more extracurricular activities, or even unpaid (but vastly more academically valuable) internships or research projects, etc., or hell even just by overloading on extra classes, inside or outside of your major. Or just spending time building those valuable pre-professional relationships with your college peers. The truth is that those people (which is a hell of a lot of people) who have to do significant work to support themselves through college are being disadvantaged, academically. Pretending that non-academic paid work is somehow especially useful for learning time-management is just a dodge that helps excuse our shitty financial aid system.
73: it seems like spending hours a day studying would have just been a waste of college.
I'm pretty sure I would have gotten shitty grades, and not understood much of what was being said, if I hadn't studied (read) for hours a day. I spent plenty of time with the smoking pot and the equivalent of Bergman films anyway, but that didn't tend to consume entire days at a stretch. I wasn't doing my own cooking and cleaning, though. But did have the 15 hours/wk job.
Bergaman would definitely be too much work at that point.
I am largely at that point now. Persona? Nah, let's watch another episode of The Simpsons. But back in college I had an 18-year backlog of desperately wanting to know about STUFF.
Rewatching a few of those films when I worked as a grader for a Scandinavian cinema class last year, it was nice to see they hold up, even though I'm no longer a naïvely-culture-gulping 18-year-old.
worked as a grader for a Scandinavian cinema class
Best euphemism ever for porn watching.
If I'd had to work less in college I might have some idea who Bergman is (was).
Best euphemism ever for porn watching.
I'm trying to think what the most sexually explicity movie we watched was. Maybe Faithless, though that's not a particularly sexy movie. We didn't even see either of the I am Curious films!
I like my porn stereotypes like I like my quaaludes: From the 70s.
I'm trying to think what the most sexually explicity movie we watched was.
Doc Films screened a "History of Erotica in Film" series the last quarter I was at Chicago:
The Subject is Sex
The Good Old Naughty Days
I Am Curious Yellow
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Deep Throat
Last Tango in Paris
In the Realm of the Senses
The Virgin Machine
Baise-Moi
Raspberry Reich
83: Let The Right One In had nudity after a fashion!
Or just spending time building those valuable pre-professional relationships with your college peers.
I tried, man, I tried. But even at your geekier schools physics majors have a hard time getting laid.
87: "Oh, hadron collider. I misread."
The only one of the movies in 85 I've seen is Last Tango in Paris. Any of the others worth seeing?
The only two I've seen are Last Tango and The Good Old Naughty Days, which is not that interesting.
I've heard, though, that In the Realm of the Senses makes Last Tango in Paris look innocent.
I bet bob's seen it.
I took a class on banned films in community college. Turns out people banned a lot of really anodyne shit over the years. The Postman Always Rings Twice? Not so scandalous.
-you could just as easily pick up a few more extracurricular activities, or even unpaid (but vastly more academically valuable) internships or research projects, etc., or hell even just by overloading on extra classes, inside or outside of your major.
I did all of those things and more, and worked. But I wasn't trying to say that students should have to work, just that it is not necessarily detrimental.
When you say this, The truth is that those people (which is a hell of a lot of people) who have to do significant work to support themselves through college are being disadvantaged, academically you're putting words into my mouth; I'd never argue against this.* I worked for spending money, as I was on near full scholarship, and because I was bored. And some of my jobs were academically useful - ta'ing a bio lab, for instance.
*Especially since, as I tried to indicate above, I've seen exactly what happens when students are forced to take on a too demanding work schedule to support themselves first hand.
I've seen
I Am Curious Yellow
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Deep Throat
Last Tango in Paris
In the Realm of the Senses
In the Realm of the Senses cracked me up. It takes itself very seriously.
93.1 sounds weirdly arrogant which is not how I meant it. And really, I probably should have been trying harder at making those "preprofessional contacts," though fuck I've always hated the idea that mingling and being a sorority girl* is what gets you a job.
*There weren't a lot of options at my college.
Deep Throat for some definition of 'have seen' anyway. For a party I helped organize, we rented it to be one of the things playing on a giant stack of televisions, alongside slasher flicks, old silent films, instructional videos, etc. I remember thinking only that it was very 70s.
being a sorority girl* is what gets you a job.
A blow job?
65: It's not widely known that in the last decade or so the field of accounting has become a hotbed of poststructural theory.
Didja ever look at a dollar bill, man? There's some spooky shit goin' on there. And it's green too.
Totally relevant:The application of Platonic and Hegelian ethics to business.
College was crazy, right? It's like it had some kind of magical time-dilating powers. I worked and did coursework and played video games and explored the city and stayed up all night playing board games and doing random goofy things and drinking and....
These days I work, stare at the internet for a while, and sleep. Where did all those hours go?
89, 90: You haven't seen Faster, Pussycat?! It's Russ Meyer's best film! With Tura Satana! Kitten With A Whip is funnier, though.
99 is me. Also might not be safe for work if someone is shoulder-surfing.
it was very 70s.
Like, enjoyably so?
I have this two-pronged theory that a) pron used to be more interesting and that b) I'm probably totally wrong about a).
Actually renting some of this stuff would answer my question, but I've always been more of a theorist ...
It's an on-the-one-hand and on-the-other-hand situation. I'm sure you know how one can simply feel torn in such circumstances.
103: More interesting in that it was less self-conscious. But a lot less diverse too (not just in content, but formally). Certainly, there was a lot more interplay between art films and pronogarphy in the 70s. The Other Hollywood is a pretty decent overview of how it all got started. I was reminded of it a lot when recently I read Patti Smith's Just Kids. Things were really malleable back then, in a way that kind of presaged their ossification.
Like, enjoyably so?
Eh. Some of what you'd expect - pubic hair, real boobs - but I also remember watching one scene during which I marveled at how very 70s the car was. I don't remember what kind it was.
There is a lot of really good porn nowadays. Some of the old stuff did not have sufficient lighting.
Things were really malleable back then, in a way that kind of presaged their ossification.
duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude
108 is right, if for "lighting" AWB means "d20s and painted miniatures".
Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! sucks.
I briefly entertained the theory in 103 a, until I went to see a 3D porn movie from the '70s at a midnight showing. It sucked, and had lots of gratuitous violence against women.
93: sorry. I was putting words in your mouth. I just try always and everywhere to push hard against the "working shitty jobs in college is good for you" school of thought (because it teaches time management or discipline or "about the real world" or because you'd otherwise just be wasting your time smoking pot or whatever), which I thought you were endorsing in 60 and which I think is a pernicious lie, not that I think you're lying, of course, but pernicious because that argument gets trotted out immediately whenever statistics of the disturbing (to me) number of students who are doing very significant amounts of work during school, and lie because it's just not true. (If the person doing the trotting in question happens also to be trying to justify cuts in higher education grants, as they often seem to be, my blood really boils.) And obviously I don't begrudge the students; I did the same thing. But I very much begrudge people who act like this isn't hurting the students at all, or is even helping them. It's not. It's hurting them. That doesn't mean anyone who works through college is destined for failure, or that any particular person who works through college isn't destined for great success, but there are absolutely 1,000 better ways to be spending your time during college than selling clothes in the mall or whatever.
110: Oh Bobby Star is on that show! She's great. But I don't think they fuck at all; they just play D&D iirc.
109: Would you like me to elaborate?
It sucked, and had lots of gratuitous violence against women.
I'm so glad porn isn't like that today.
better ways to be spending your time during college than selling clothes miniature reproductions of famous statues and everything imaginable with Sunflowers and Water Lilies in the mall or whatever
Why yes, I did work at The Museum Store.
112: Right right; we really are in complete agreement, I was just pushing against the equally weird to me notion that students shouldn't work at all...
115 - Today's porn features violence against women only when it's necessary to the plot.
In The Legend of Ron Jeremy the subject of the documentary laments the decline of storytelling in porn. I don't know enough to have an opinion, but based on the clips shown I can't say it's a big loss.
109: Would you like me to elaborate?
Oh, I suspect I understood you, but I wonder whether it isn't always the case that, when something is first malleable and then ossified, one could say that the early malleability presaged the ossification.
"And did you have any clue that this sort of ossification was going on?"
"Oh no, no. He was always so malleable!"
I live this story at work. The bubble in higher ed* has inflated largest in business. And it's a painful thing when schools chase those dollars, and ratings, and rankings. I guess we've all learned that these bubble markets stay afloat much longer than you'd initially expect but then deflate with shocking speed.
*why has this meme been so much more popular on the right than the left?
Oh, and I know a reasonable number of accounting academics and I think it's huge stretch to say the field is a hotbed of postructural theory, unless postructural refers to regressing accounting practices on stock price.
"Oh no, no. He was always so malleable!"
Lucus a non lucendo, Tweety. Learn it. Know it. Live it.
According to my Accounting for Lawyers professor, anything that goes on the right side of the ledger.
Truly post-structuralist.
Re:Realm of the Senses
I bet bob's seen it.
Yup
In the Realm of the Senses cracked me up. It takes itself very seriously.
Yup. Oshima didn't make a lot of slapstick comedies. Night and Fog in Japan is pretty much 90 minutes of Stalinists arguing with Trotskyists, set to a Mahler symphony. OTOH, sex and politics (and religion) do blend.
70s pron vs current pron = sitcoms vs reality shows?
...but based on the clips shown I can't say it's a big loss.
I know quite a bit, or have seen a lot. Shrugs. You tell me the difference between assuming an identity, even if only another name or a shallow role, and playing yourself. In many cases the plot was just enough for the actors to pretend romance or friendship or guilt, but they often were just one step removed from themselves on camera.
MS actors put great store in this, that I am not watching Kate Winslet or Evan Rachel Wood take their clothes off, or John Malkovich killing a family, but a character in fiction. Their bodies are objectified to themselves.
A friend of mine was really into this art student who lived on her floor of the dorm, and so was trying to spend a lot of time with him. He was working on a project that analyzed the use of color in In the Realm of the Senses, and so was watching that movie over and over. So she watched it with him. And now they're married.
And now they're married.
But did they find 5 dollars?
Oh finally, and if you think US pron was and is violent toward women, let me introduce you to the rape culture on film that is (some of) Japan.
5 Deutschmarks, I think it was at the time.
Eastern European porn tends to feature the this-lady-is-NOT-enjoying-this facial expression that I hate.
Certainly, there was a lot more interplay between art films and pronogarphy in the 70s.
This sounds sort of promising---until I remember how utterly bored I was by Fellini's Satyricon
IME, sex in most art films tends to be sort of hypnotized-looking and unpleasant.
I haven't seen any of the films listed above, but of the 70s films I've seen, I've found them boring more often than not. For a while I was surprised by this, but then I got used to it.
That does sound awful. Are there nicely bouncy and jolly pornos?
100: College was crazy, right? It's like it had some kind of magical time-dilating powers. I worked and did coursework and played video games and explored the city and stayed up all night playing board games and doing random goofy things and drinking and....
These days I work, stare at the internet for a while, and sleep. Where did all those hours go?
Boy, this gets it right. It's bizarre in retrospect. All I can think is: I didn't watch TV at all (though I don't often now, either), and definitely didn't spend time fooling around on the internet, or keeping up with current affairs much. Though I didn't play video games in college either. Still, all that exploring and hanging out and sexxoring and stuff, plus a theater-related extracurricular at least once a year. Where did that time come from?
It is true that (food) shopping and cooking and cleaning take some time; having your meals served to you, if you were a room-and-board college student, had to be worth a fair amount.
I saw the 1976 "Alice in Wonderland" as a midnight movie in college, and I can tell you that it was the best X-rated musical featuring a naked Humpty Dumpty I've ever seen.
|| Via Brad DeLong, who is possibly too forgiving, behold what may be the stupidest paragraph written in the entire history of literary criticism: "I am currently teaching a course that includes several works of literature including Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Right from the start I must admit that I was not trained in an English department so I am hampered to the extent that I'm rather inept at reading great works of literature for their sublimated eroticism, their homo-erotic subtexts, and covert commentaries on sexual, racial, and economic oppression. It is, then, with apologies to those who know better that I read literature as a naïve lover of a good story, good writing, and commentary on the unchanging human condition."
Yes, who among us can stretch our brains so far as to believe that the works of Jane Austen contain sublimated eroticism? My first reaction upon reading this was to wonder if the author was surprised every time to discover that the monster was lovable furry ol' Grover. |>
70s pron vs current pron
And between those poles, in the mid-90s, was the German ET porn.
137 would be more useful with a list.
These days I work, stare at the internet for a while, and sleep. Where did all those hours go?
Boy, this gets it right. It's bizarre in retrospect.
For myself I know that I have semi-consciously retrained my brain to be better suited to the work I am doing.
I don't want to overstate the difference, but I've definitely cultivated different intellectual habits.
I feel like in college I was way better at responding to novelty; better at absorbing and cataloging new information, and better at experimenting with different intellectual models.
Now I'm better at catching errors, way better at being able to filter out less important questions (which also filters out some of that novelty) and better at doing steady work on a project over an extended period of time.
Overall I'd say that the skills I was good at in college were more fun but . . .
The 2005 documentary, Inside Deep Throat is pretty good and worth a watch for one perspective on '70s porn. Narrated by Dennis Hopper (Lovelace died in a 2002 traffic accident, the thing is a banned masturbation trap) with a lot of good 2005 and archival interviews. Writer and director Gerard Damiano (died in 2008) may be the most interesting.
"I was just a nice guy, which is why I think I did pretty well," he told The News-Press of Fort Myers in 2005. "I mean, I'd meet an actress and have to say, 'Sit down, take your clothes off -- I'm going to ask you to do some nasty things.' You have to be pretty nice."Erica Jong: It was based on the idea that all a man had to do was put his penis down a woman's throat and thrust and the woman was as satisfied as the man. Well, guess what?
I haven't seen Realm for a while, and I really wasn't paying attention. Masumura, and to a lesser degree, Imamura might be more interesting on gender relations.
I can think of few directors apart from Masumura and Oshima who've made sexier movies that are also frank about their political concerns. In a society where individuality can often be expressed only in a sexual realm, eroticism becomes an exploration of political freedom. If one wants to understand why Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses is a profoundly political (and antiwar) film, Masumura's oeuvre and all it implies points one in the proper direction.
Gender relations and family were profoundly political in Japan, and since political art was somewhat censored, softly or not (movies about commies? Fine. Criticize the LDP? Try finding a theatre), I think most serious films by Japanese directors left of centre are about power relations, both as depicted and as metaphor. And they are, after centuries of practice, very good at it.
Oh, heavens. Apo, I had managed to forget that.
All this talk of malleable without "I'd hit that?"
Ossification and not one boner joke?
It's like I don't know you people anymore.
How do I watch that on a mac? Do I need to get VLC again or something? Because that old thread seems to indicate it would be worth it.
148: Download Perian -- worth it for many reasons.
147: We're aging even as we speak.
A friend just stopped by to, as it eventually became clear, get high. Well, no, my housemate said, dinner is in the works: chopping of onions and garlic and so on, so no, not now, but please stay for dinner! The friend appeared to be annoyed and eventually jumped in his car and sped off in irritation (he's kind of like that).
Seriously, though. We're not in college any more.
It's a .wmv, so Windows Media Player should open it if you have that languishing in your applications folder. Otherwise, Flip4Mac will let it play right in your browser window through the Quicktime plugin: http://www.telestream.net/flip4mac-wmv/overview.htm
I did not realize that was no longer a free product.
Wait is the pr0n conversation over? I feel like I had something to say. I think it was just that gay porn lived through a joyless hour known as the 90s where through some complicated set of reactions to AIDS (visibility, internalized homophobia, blah blah blee) the performers had to look like they'd rather be doing their taxes, and like they hated each other. Happily, that era is largely over, and I think even in the gay porn that purports to be about straight guys tricked or bribed into man lovin', there's a bit of a wink and a nudge which is not a euphemism for a sexual act, no. Like nobody but the saddest queens really believe in a particularly robust category of "straight guys who will, ok, get fisted just this once."
158 lastish:
So what do you think that's that about? Is it about ladding fantasy support to the straight boy crush cause maybe he'll come around, or is it a point of identification for the self hating (I'm not really queer, I just like watching men accidentally have sex with eachother)?
34 certainly isn't true in IT.
Professions might be self-weeding, but most people aren't employed in professions.
On the original topic, I wonder how much the academic statistics correlate with later job performance. When a degree program is widely recognized as BS, but the employment prospects are still ok at the end of it, I don't see why it's not rational to just slide through and then put in real effort when it counts--on the job.
College was crazy, right? It's like it had some kind of magical time-dilating powers. I worked and did coursework and played video games and explored the city and stayed up all night playing board games and doing random goofy things and drinking and....
These days I work, stare at the internet for a while, and sleep. Where did all those hours go?
I was wondering this the other day; because in terms of hours worked I don't think I'm doing massively more than at university, and I seem to have so much less free time.
As well as cooking (which I did quite a bit of even in college) and cleaning (which I did some of but admittedly not very much), I think it's commuting. At uni I never had to walk more than 10 minutes to get anywhere - lectures, labs, library, socialising, sports, shops, all within 10 minutes' walk. I didn't even need a bike.
At uni I never had to walk more than 10 minutes to get anywhere - lectures, labs, library, socialising, sports, shops, all within 10 minutes' walk.
This is well observed. You probably saw most of your movies and music in the SU too. Getting around adds up.
Yes, now I think about it; or in cinemas or venues that were within 10 minutes' walk.
Now everything in my life is half an hour to 45 minutes away from everything else. I feel like George Clooney in "O Brother Where Art Thou" - "Well, ain't this place a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere!"
A friend of mine is a lawyer with an undergraduate degree in medieval studies, and her husband went to MIT's Sloan school for an MBA. I think he had a few years of wandering after college (a job at a server farm or something), and then post MIT he got into his management consulting gig. I don't know whether he studied econ or history, but he definitely has a bit of an intellectual streak.
re: 163
Yeah, commuting for me, definitely. Also, social and romantic relationships were different. I saw my friends daily, so didn't have to make time especially for it. I was in a long term relationship through most of my undergraduate period, but we only lived together part of that time. When you see someone in intense bursts rather than every day I think it's easier to also work in intense bursts when you aren't. I don't think my wife would put up with my undergraduate or even post-graduate working habits, where I'd laze about for days ('thinking') and then do a stint of 18-20 hour days when on a hot streak.
Plus, I need more sleep, and I'm much lazier. I've done 15 years of working my arse off -- studying full-time and often working full-time at the same time, doing mad hours all the time -- and can't be quite as motivated to fill every waking hour any more.
I worked some at paid employment in college, but it really would have been hard if I had to do more. I need about 8.5 hours of sleep a night. Trying to get in a bit of exercise, socialize some and drag myself around depressed--it would have been too much.
I don't consider myself a success in anyway, but listening to Blume descrribe her college career leaves me exhausted.
re: 168
I had some serious funding mix-ups during my doctorate, so while I 'won' all of the funding applications I put in for, I was only eligible for funding part of the time.* So I worked somewhere between half and full-time during much of my doctorate. Which sucked, as I wasn't able to do the sorts of CV enhancing activities I otherwise would have been doing. I managed, though, just about.
* the Scottish funding body amalgamated with the 'English' body part way through my period, and I was suddenly no longer eligible to apply for the funding I was counting on, as I was classed as already having received it.
I remember the first summer I worked 40 hour weeks, I was totally appalled how much time it occupied. I can't even have ONE weekday afternoon a week to goof off? What if I need to get something done?
159 I don't think I'm following the question entirely. I'm not sure what the "this" is.
Ostensibly or actually straight guys in gay porn.
the Scottish funding body amalgamated with the 'English' body part way through my period
ttaM is older than he seems.
171: I thought the question was, why has gay porn been so reluctant to show dudes who are openly gay and like each other and enjoy having sex on screen? Why the reluctant straight-boy fantasies? Is it self-loathing?
I'm inclined to believe it's related to the history of straight porn in which women are always tricked into sex, or depicted as too stupid or young to know what they're doing, or when they realize what's happening to them it's scary and unpleasant. It's about the expectation of misogyny in male viewers, but it's also about the concomitant self-loathing; of course any woman would hate having sex with me (or men) because I (or we) am (are) disgusting.
That is, while this kind of hatred of the faggy feminine gay guy or the sexually desirous woman is a way of externalizing self-loathing doesn't mean it's not still self-loathing.
That's not, of course, to say that actually-gay gay guys are "faggy"--obviously not--but that the fear is that one might oneself be perceived as faggy. One of the trends I have enjoyed seeing in gay porn is the rise in openly gay actors who seem to have personalities beyond their "types." It even makes the gay-for-pay guys seem less pernicious in the new context.
171: Yeah, neb and AWB have it. You were describing a conceit in gay porn (the earnestness of which you saw breaking down) of ostebsilibly straight characters reluctanctly agreeing to gay sex. I was trying to think if there was some reason for the popularity of this other than the one AWB identifies. Since most straight porn is made with an ideal type of het male porn consumer in mind, the points of identification are presumably more limited. Where would the gay porn viewer the industry imagines find themselves in the scenario of straight guy cajoled into sexing non-straight guy.
I don't have much to add to 174 and 175.
Where would the gay porn viewer the industry imagines find themselves in the scenario of straight guy cajoled into sexing non-straight guy.
Well, it allows for a fantasy of wishing away one's gayness for a certain self-loathing* segment of the imagined audience. What's maybe slightly more interesting is that probably something like BaitBus** also contains a kind of retaliatory sadism that I find rather jolly since in truth, it's very doubtful anyone is actually hurt by it.
*or, ok, self-loathing is not an entirely fair category but I don't seem to have better terminology in mind right now
**extremely formulaic gay pr0n: guy in van tells guy on street "we want to interview you. Get in and we'll give you $50." He gets in, woman in van bares her tits, ostensible straight guy, hereafter OSG gets excited. Is offered blowjob with blindfold, for some reason doesn't ask questions about blindfold. Guy crawls out of back of van, begins the task at hand. OSG at some prompting removes blindfold, exclaims almost infallibly in these words though with varying degrees of veracity "WHAT THE FUCK DUDE" but then through offers of very large sums, does stuff anyway. There is some ribbing at the end of OSG about his OSness, and then he's shoved out of the bus, shouting curses like Ortrud in a regional house's production of Lohengrin.
One thing that I think has changed in straight porn is the increasing recognition that a lot of human beings, male and female, get off on getting their partner off. I think more straight porn recognizes that the traditional money shot--cum on a girl's tits--wants to be paired with female orgasm too, which has the added bonus of making het porn a lot friendlier to female audiences previously alienated by the misogynistic context.
Likewise, although there still are a lot of straight guys who do gay porn, the attitude of the performers seems to be, increasingly, that they are doing something fun and gratifying, and that they like the people they're performing with. There was a bit of a stink, I think last year, when a gay performer did a straight-for-pay scene with two chicks, and audiences saw it as a dangerous step in the wrong direction, but I dunno. It was kinda hot.
shouting curses like Ortrud in a regional house's production of Lohengrin
I love you.
I'm inclined to believe it's related to the history of straight porn in which women are always tricked into sex, or depicted as too stupid or young to know what they're doing, or when they realize what's happening to them it's scary and unpleasant.
Is this what vintage porn is like? I had it in my head that mostly the girls were depicted as goodtime gals who were merry about having sex.
Some of it, sure! I think the 80's and 90's were especially bad in that way, actually. I don't know exactly what the reason was, but there was a post-sexual-revolution clampdown on the expression of female desire.
Is this what vintage porn is like?
Vintage porn, like modern porn, is all over the map. It was just harder to find the out-of-the-ordinary stuff before the internet.
Is this what vintage porn is like? I had it in my head that mostly the girls were depicted as goodtime gals who were merry about having sex.
Much more correct than AWB, at least for 1975-85 pron. And even in the darker stuff, the women were not directed to play like Streep, most rape or coercion was very obviously shallow role-playing.
The Japanese stuff is useful as contrast, because the actresses usually do play it straighter, with struggling and crying and such.
Touch Me in the Morning or High School Memories
183: or High School Memories
Are you sure you spelled that right?
Vintage porn, like modern porn, is all over the map
Get it right. "Vintage" pornography is pre-1926, with air-cooled radiators and two-stroke engines. You're thinking about "Classic" pornography.
That's not, of course, to say that actually-gay gay guys are "faggy"--obviously not
Some of them are, you know. Surely the appeal of this apparently existing genre (thanks, internets!) is that it validates one's everyday fantasy life with respect to strangers on the bus, passing construction workers, cops, cowboys, Native Americans &c; rather in the way in which straight pornography validates a view of the world in which fairly implausibly unattractive men have a lot of uncomplicated sex.
"Vintage" pornography is pre-1926, with air-cooled radiators and two-stroke engines.
Presumably also aviator goggles and leather helmets.
You're thinking about "Classic" pornography.
Togas?
air-cooled radiators and two-stroke engines
Vintage fucksaws were loud, inefficient, and terribly unwieldy, but the fins!
184:Yes. Main plot is about two HS students who crush on each other without saying anything, meet at a 10th reunion after ten unsatisfied years, blah blah. With, umm, subplots. Annette Haven and a swinging dick I don't remember.
Touch Me stars Veronica Hart link to her longish autobiography
Haven was too beautiful but kinda placid or regal or something. Hart was enthusiastic, brilliant, and a ton of fun. Some films better than others, none of them art, but their 1975-85 work is a good place to start on Golden Age pron.
a swinging dick I don't remember
IMDB says Jamie Gillis, John Leslie, and Richard Pacheco.
I wonder if kinky hipsters buy hand-cranked vintage fucksaws.
Surely the hipster fucksaw would be in some way bicycle-powered.
||
Occasionally, after entering in the first few letters of unfogged into my browser, I will prematurely hit enter and end up at the United Nations or University of North Florida websites. Today, I managed to hit the International Monetary Fund.
|>
192: I'm not going to go looking for it while here at work, but I'll bet a google search on /Japanese dildo bicycle/ would get you to the video I have in mind in under ten seconds.
192: Offensive, NSFW and it is the "other way around" from a fucksaw, but I linked it anyway.
192, 194: not a bit safe for work.
That's actually not the one I was thinking of, though; there was one that lacked a seat entirely.
one's everyday fantasy life with respect to strangers on the bus, passing construction workers, cops, cowboys, Native Americans &c;
That's an interesting bus route you have there, dsquared. I thought you lived in Camden.
The 31 - it goes up Chalk Farm Road past the market.
(not checking out the NSFW since I am @W)
Like the old joke about the nuns and the bike with no saddle.
