Spot the fallacies...

" Decades ago, the sociologist Robert K. Merton worried that the rise of more rapidly changing forms of knowledge would exacerbate the costs of academic gerontocracy. It might have been more defensible in the past — the medieval university coming honestly by its premodern characteristics — but no longer. “Today everything is quickly acquired, even that experience in which formerly consisted the sole and genuine superiority of the old over the young,” Merton cited his forerunner in sociology, Robert Michels, as saying all the way back in 1911. Modernity meant that “age has lost much of its value and therefore has lost, in addition, the respect which it inspired and the influence which it exercised.”"

Anyway

 Anyway, there is a CHE article about gerontocracy in academia.  It states, outright, that younger professors are more innovative, and that we old folks just teach what we learned in Graduate School 40 years ago. This is so true... I only teach semiotics and structuralism.  The author has open contempt for values like wisdom and experience. Modernity means that we learn faster, and don't have to bother with accumulated traditions, like they did in medieval times.  

Look, I was smarter at 28 when I finished my dissertation, than I am now.  By smarter, I mean that I had a brilliant mind.  And yet, my work was (relatively) shallow at that point.  (But not as shallow as this guy's critique of us geezers in our tweed jackets with elbow patches!) What I might have lost in brilliance I have gained in depth. There is a balance there. You need both types of intelligence. 

Of course, when our generation of privileged white men finally retires, there won't be these privileged positions any more anyway. Academia will be destroyed anyway.   

French Revolution

"This generationally toxic combo means that younger academics today regard those elders much as serfs on the brink of the French Revolution saw the noble lords."

I think this writer is a bit confused about the French Revolution.  

Dream of JCO

 I was to share a room with a former student of mine, on some kind of field trip. I was nervous, even though we had two separate beds. I promised to myself that if she tried to come into my bed I would reject her. But really, dreaming of NOT wanting to sleep with someone is the same as dreaming you do want to. (The logic of dreams is reversed.) I said goodnight and asked her if she had gotten into the program I recommended her for, perhaps in nursing?  

In the morning we were to meet Joyce Carol Oates, though in the dream she somehow had the nickname "Connie," and was into occultism or tarot readings in a way I wouldn't associate with Oates at all. We didn't actually meet her, though.  

The dream morphed into preparations for a potluck. The person I was going with said she had bought and prepared the food, and even washed the dishes. This seemed unfair to me, because I had just spent more money than that on a huge present that I had to carry. There were two of us and we had to carry three heavy items to the car.  

There was a discussion of gifts: in a certain family each person got the same number of gifts, like 3 or 4, in the interests of fairness. It was pointed out that in one case two of the gifts for one person were bicycles. The obvious flaw in the system was that the gifts were not of equal value.  

My drummers

 I also like listening to drums as I am listening to jazz. In other words, I focus on the drums throughout rather than listening to the whole thing all at once. This is difficult, but it is necessary.  

The most admired drummers are those who are the busiest, who are constantly playing different ideas. I have dug those drummers too, but those who are more transparent, playing fewer ideas, might be preferable at times. Who hits that happy medium?  Perhaps it is Max Roach.  His solos are so well constructed, and his comping is so tasty.  

But, of course, the busy drummers are fantastic too, like Elvin, Tony, etc... 

Dream of Lorca monologue

 I was supposed to perform in a Lorca play, a short one (which on waking I realized did not really exist). I hadn't memorized it and was planning to use the script the whole time, though I had doubts about this. And was I supposed to do it in Spanish or English? We hadn't rehearsed at all, and the details about where and when it would take place were hazy.  The whole things was increasingly uncertain. A colleague from another university was supposed to come and do part of it with me, or have some panel discussion. The play would conclude with me doing a closing monologue. I realized I didn't have my script and also wasn't wearing my suit, which the part called for.  Did I have time to go home and get these things? 

The time had passed and the event did not occur as scheduled.  I was drinking limoncello with someone and when that was done he kept giving me shots of something else...  

3 strikes for Lovecraft

 I wondered about Lovecraft, having read very little and that very long ago.  From the perspective of today, it would seem he has three strikes, having read a few stories and short novel yesterday.  

The obvious racism behind a lot of it.  The racism isn't incidental, but hard-baked into his vision.  Sometimes it is merely implicit, but it comes out explicitly enough to be undeniable.  

The fact that it's genre fiction, not high brow stuff in the first place.  So then you don't have to balance out the racism with the fact that it's literature of the highest quality that happens to be racist.  

The prose itself is over-heated and a bit cringe-worthy.  He has a great lexicon, but the prose is always purple, and never settles down into a kind of normal writing.  Everything is fortissimo, fff, with very little dynamic range.  

Three strikes, and he is out. Yet there is something about the sheer force of his imagination that makes people want to read him (including me, this particular week).