is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Entry Written on Plane and Then Posted Quickly While Trip Is Waiting For Me to Leave the House.
Entry Written on Plane and Then Posted Quickly While Trip Is Waiting For Me to Leave the House.
The interview went fine. This is how these things work. As long as I don�t make a total ass out of myself, I end up looking fine. Then it�s up to them to decide whether what I do is a match with what they want. That in itself is a tall demand, given that it will be ten people deciding what it is they want, and we all know, even if we aren�t in professional academia, how hard it can be for ten people with different goals and desires to agree on �what they want� or �what�s best.� But they are a good and smart and interesting set of people with whom it would be a privilege to have a position as colleague, and I�m lucky to have gotten the opportunity to pitch myself to them for the initial forty-five minute ruling-out session. I�m utterly sincere when I say that.
I didn�t see as much crazy inappropriate behavior at this conference as I did at Law and Society in May, mostly because I only went to two panels. I was feeling sick and exhausted and decided to concentrate on not being more sick and exhausted for my interview. It worked because Friday was the only day in the last few weeks when I didn�t wake up tired already. Unfortunately the trend of waking up tired will continue, because supershuttle picked me up at 4:15 this morning, and I had about two hours of fitful sleep last night because Rolf�s restaurant downstairs from Linda�s was so obscenely loud last night that it was unbelievable. I�m serious. I kept putting my earplugs in and then taking them out again to experience just how loud the music was, withour without the earplugs. Unbelievable. The Rolfies are always loud, with dumb drunks and bad music, etc. But usually it is a manageable level once you get used to it as a constant background to your life. And they also usually keep it less loud after 11:30 or 12 (in my experience; I�m sure Linda has much more vitriolic things to say about them). The music was so loud that even with my heavy-duty earplugs in I could hear every word of every song they were playing. Plus the whole apartment was vibrating with the beat. Without the earplugs in the music coming through the floor was louder than music I would play at one of my own dance parties. I tried calling them to ask them to turn it down but of course they couldn�t hear their phone. So I had to report a noise disturbance to the police. The police, understandably, didn�t show up until over an hour later, because I�m sure NYC cops have a lot to do on a Friday night.
So there I was in bed having all the kinds of funny revenge fantasies a person held hostage by bad neighbors can have. It is enough to make one wonder whether the natural state of human behavior isn�t a war of all against all just as Hobbes theorized. You know I don�t think it is. I tend to think along with Rousseau that it is bad social conditions that create insensitive assholes and that when we blame �nature� for it we neglect to take responsibility for our own asshole-dom (asshole-ocity?). Add �drunk� to the list and you�ll understand why in his younger days Hobbes thought that the law of nature is against drunkenness. (He changed is mind about that. Maybe someone bought him a beer, who knows.)
So I didn�t see a lot of bad conference behavior, and I�m tired. We�re all caught up now. One funny thing that happened at the conference occurred ruing a panel called �Perspectives on Continental and Analytic Thought.� I think I�ve written before about this before. Philosophy is divided (at times contentiously) between types who call themselves analytic philosophers and those who call themselves continental philosophers. Already the disjunction of the terms in that distinction should make you wonder. One kind of philosophy is characterized by its location (the European continent) and another by its method. It's strange, is it not? Even if the distinction being made between the two forms were a true one, which it cannot be, it would be an odd way of differentiating between two things.
The distinction does not hold. There are "continental philosophers" working all over the world, way outside the European continent, and it is certainly not the case that none of them use an "analytic" method. In turn, the word "analytic" describes exceedingly diverse forms of philosophizing. In fact, and strangely, and, really, a favorite quotation of mine in this regard, is in the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, where the second sentence of the definition of analytic philosophy reads: "As in the case of chicken-sexing, it is relatively easy to identify analytic philosophy and philosophers, though difficult to say with any precision what the criteria are." This is funny for at least two reasons. 1) Analytic philosophers sometimes object to the lack of "method" in the approach of continental philosophers. And yet in seeking to refine the distinction between the two philosophical orientations, we are reduced to a definition tantamount to knowing it when we see it. And, 2) the odd use of analogy allows us to imagine Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell sexing up a chicken!
So I was at a panel called �Perspectives on Continental and Analytic Philosophy,� thinking that it would be good to see a dialogue opened up at a conference like APA (American Philosophical Association) because it is so very analytic (and I am continental). But here�s what happened. An analytic guy gave a talk on hermeneutics. After he finished all the analytic types left and a bunch of new people came in. Then a continental guy gave a paper on Heidegger. The people who stayed for both papers numbered about twenty (out of 60 or 70). The commentator on the two papers made no attempt to bridge the gap between the two.
In other news, I have lately thought that, since my current living room is so large, it would be great to have the back legs of my couch installed on a hinge fastened to the floor, so I could do that Singin� In The Rain couch-flipping dance maneuver whenever I like, without fear of the couch slipping out from underneath me or scratching the floor. Someday I will have such couch, I tell you!
7:20 p.m. - December 31, 2005
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
