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Light in October

The next two weeks might be rough on the blog.  Just letting you know.  Next week, I am consumed with Official Committee Business on three different committees, two of which will account for a marathon four-day meeting.  Some guys have all the luck!  This week, I am frenetically scouring the Internets (and even some “print” material), finishing up all the footnotes to the book whose working title is now What’s So Liberal About the Liberal Arts? And you know what?  Footnotin’ is hard, hard work!  It’s hard!  It turns out that in one kind of footnote, you not only have to find out what actually happened, but you have to provide a “source” for your “information” as well.  And in another kind of footnote, you not only have to find out what somebody said or wrote, you have to find out “when” and “where,” too.  It’s a lot like bloggin’ and literary alludin’, only harder!

And yes, I know I was finishing this book last fall and then again last spring.  But this time I’m really finishing it.  Just you wait and see.  This is gonna be the most finished book I’ve ever finished.

Of course, it would have been easier to write books the Jonah Goldberg way*:

WANTED: HERBERT SPENCER EXPERT [Jonah Goldberg] I’m working on a chapter of the book which requires me to read a lot about and by Herbert Spencer. There’s simply no way I can read all of it, nor do I really need to. But if there are any real experts on Spencer out there—regardless of ideological affiliation—I’d love to ask you a few questions in case I’m missing something.

But I just couldn’t go that route, dear friends.  As you know, I have dedicated much of my life over the past two years to solving the mystery of why there aren’t more conservatives on college faculties.  And I think I may, at long last, have discovered an important clue.

I’ll check in when I’m takin’ a footnotin’ break here and there.  In the meantime, all hail the mighty White-Stockings of Chicago.  And the redoubtable Albert Pujols, too.

* edited with the help of Vance Maverick, in comments

Posted by on 10/18 at 10:46 AM

  1. Didn’t Talcott Parsons have a chapter entitled, “Who still reads Spencer”?  Maybe you can use this as a hook.

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  12:01 PM

  2. Hey, thanks for the tip, Chris!  I’m so glad you told me before you told Jonah.

    But wait.  Who’s Talcott Parsons?  Damn.

    WANTED:  TALCOTT PARSONS EXPERT.  [Michael Bérubé] One of my commenters mentioned this guy.  There’s simply no way I can find out who he was or what “Durkheimian functionalism” or “symbolic interactionism” is, nor do I really need to.  But if there are any real experts on Parsons out there—regardless of ideological affiliation—please don’t hesitate to offer to do my reading for me.

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  12:21 PM

  3. Very unfair, Michael, suggesting that some conservative worldviews may not be amenable to intellectual rigor.  Lest we forget, GWB has singlehandedly revolutionized the study of sociology, psychology, and political science with his brilliant and wonderfully complex “they hate our freedom” unifying theory.

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  12:41 PM

  4. And yes, I know I was finishing this book last fall and then again last spring.  But this time I’m really finishing it.  Just you wait and see.  This is gonna be the most finished book I’ve ever finished.

    Wow, this sounds eerily like how I talk about my thesis.  Which should be finished umm… any month now…

    These things do get done eventually, right?

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  01:26 PM

  5. Wolcott commented on this, too. How’d he get hold of that working title?

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  01:57 PM

  6. Marita, that’s a good question.  I’m sorry to say that the answer is no.  See, e.g., “Xeno’s Paradox and Thesis Completion,” Journal of Nearly Finished Essays Except for Maybe Just One or Two Last Footnotes 18.4 (1993):  345-???

    Posted by Michael  on  10/18  at  02:02 PM

  7. I don’t think Michael wrote this post.  “The most finished book” has a Gibletsian flavor to it.

    Posted by Linkmeister  on  10/18  at  02:21 PM

  8. Parsons is a poor example. His writing was so awful, you’d have to pay someone to wade through that crap. Unfortunately, his greatest legacy is the “unreadable” quality of so much mid-century (and later) sociology.

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  02:32 PM

  9. I don’t know--I have a sneaking bit of sympathy for Jonah.  I have more than once said, OK, this person is referred to a lot, he’s obviously influential, but he wrote 50 books, I’ve already read the 5 most referenced, and It’s Not Making Much Sense--am I missing something here, or did he really think X?  And have gone hunting for an expert--any expert--who could tell me whether I’d actually understood what I read correctly.

    First time I remember feeling this way was with Marx and the labor theory of value--it just seemed absurd to me, and I wanted to be sure that I actually had understood it and its importance to the rest of the analysis correctly.

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  02:56 PM

  10. Michael,

    You may have seen it already, but just in case:

    http://evolutionblog.blogspot.com/

    Seems there are others out there just as perplexed about the dearth of conservatives on college faculties.

    Enjoy.

    MK

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  03:22 PM

  11. Marita, that’s a good question.  I’m sorry to say that the answer is no.  See, e.g., “Xeno’s Paradox and Thesis Completion,” Journal of Nearly Finished Essays Except for Maybe Just One or Two Last Footnotes 18.4 (1993):  345-???

    Ah yes.  Thank you for the reference.  Now that I’ve paid someone to read the article and explain it to me, I see the problem.  It is really a shame, since I definitely go halfway to somewhere all the time (as I’m reminded every time I cross the Harvard Bridge).  Perhaps I should rely on the final gap to be bridged by what my post-doctoral friends refer to as the “Thesis Miracle”.  I just wonder what form that miracle might take…

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  03:34 PM

  12. WANTED: LOTTERY PICK EXPERT.

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  03:51 PM

  13. WANTED: FINANCIAL ADVISOR SPECIALIZING IN PONIES.
    http://www.thepoorman.net/2005/10/19/experts-warn-of-peak-pony/

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  05:45 PM

  14. Sam Chevre:  I think it’s the dreaded “do my homework for me” formulation that is the problem with Jonah (well, one of the problems).  There are ways to ask for help (even just as much help) that aren’t so mirth inducing.  Like “I’m having trouble reconciling aspect A and aspect B.  Does anyone have thoughts on that or a good critique they’d recommend?”

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  05:54 PM

  15. Whoa! Emma Anne, you’re saying that Herbert Spencer has an aspect A and an aspect B?  Thanks!  That really helps.

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  05:59 PM

  16. Michael:  Is this for NYU Press?

    Lance:  How unfair of you to slander GWB so!  Didn’t you see the brilliant documentary about the genius behind his rhetorical flourishes? 

    Yes, I work hard to put food on my family, and our water bill shows the results.

    Posted by Sherman Dorn  on  10/18  at  11:24 PM

  17. For what it’s worth, the Goldberg/Spencer item is still online.  The ID seems to have been updated—perhaps he edited it, but he hasn’t hidden it.

    Posted by  on  10/18  at  11:57 PM

  18. O crap! Note to myself: Actually read the post before replying. Or should I go with this story: Fooled I was because I would never expect a self-respecting scholar [Jonah Goldberg] to go on line looking for intellectual shortcuts. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

    Posted by  on  10/19  at  11:21 AM

  19. "And you know what?  Footnotin’ is hard, hard work!  It’s hard!  It’s a lot like bloggin’ and literary alludin’, only harder!”

    I don’t really know why, but i find this really funny.  I was laughing and guffawing and later was reduced to giggles.  The Xeno’s paradox got caught up with Lottery numbers and Powerballing fell into Rube Goldbergism.  And then i realized that Arianna was so correct--"there is a genius behind the stupidity.” But of course i have to wait to read the footnotes, when ever they are finally done.

    Posted by  on  10/19  at  05:12 PM

  20. I’m working on a chapter of the book which requires me to read a lot about and by Herbert Spencer. There’s simply no way I can read all of it, nor do I really need to.

    Eh? A sentence earlier, he was required to read a lot about and by Spencer, and now he doesn’t need to?

    Somebody ‘splain somethin’ to me!

    Posted by The One True Blogger  on  10/20  at  07:02 PM

  21. Pujols. Ha.

    Go ‘Stros.

    Posted by  on  10/21  at  01:32 AM

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