Brian Leiter points to a short essay by John Perry about his colleagues in philosophy, and excerpts this scene:
[A] thought about this wonderful and interesting group of people, my philosophical colleagues. I have a very distinct memory of arriving at the Eastern Meetings of the American Philosophical Association some years back, when they were held at a hotel in Baltimore. The meetings began just after a National Football League playoff game had been played in that city, and the previous occupants of the hotel seemed to be mainly people connected with this game. Since I was flying from the west coast, and had to attend some meeting or other in the early afternoon of the first day, I arrived the night before most of the other participants. I was able to watch the amazing transformation that took place as the football crowd checked out and the philosophy crowd checked in. The NFL people were large, some very large, most quite good-looking, confident, well-dressed, big-tipping, successful-looking folk; the epitome of what Americans should be, I suppose, according to the dominant ethos. We philosophers were mostly average-sized, mostly clearly identifiable as shabby pedagogues, clutching our luggage to avoid falling into unnecessary tipping situations. We included many bearded men— some elegant, some scruffy— all sorts of interesting intellectual looking women; none of the philosophers, not even the big ones and the beautiful ones, were likely to be mistaken for the football players, cheerleaders, sportscasters and others who were checking out. The looks from the hotel staff members, who clearly sensed that they were in for a few days of less expansive tipping and more modest bar-tabs, were a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. The talk, as philosophers recognized each other and struck up conversations, was unlike anything that ever had been or would be heard in that hotel lobby: whether there are alternative concrete possible worlds; whether there is anything in Heidegger not better said already by Husserl; whether animals should be eaten; not to mention topics that aroused truly deep passions, mostly related to proper names.
What a wonderful group of people, I thought, and how wonderful, and lucky, that the world has managed to find a niche for us. Even if philosophy had no real intellectual content at all — was as silly as astrology or numerology certainly are, or as I suspect, in dark moments, that certain other parts of the university are— it would still be wonderful that it existed, simply to keep these people occupied. Especially me. What would I be doing without this wonderful institution? Helping people in some small town in Nebraska with their taxes and small legal problems, I suppose, and probably not doing it very well.
It would take very little to apply this to physicists (or scientists, or academics more generally) as well as philosophers. We tend not to bring up Heidegger, but we do argue about alternative possible worlds all the time.
More importantly, it’s the second paragraph that hits home. How fortunate we are to live in a time and place where society is sufficiently robust and diverse as to put aside a bit of its resources in order to foster a tiny group of people whose professional duty it is to think deeply about the secrets of the universe. I am reminded of the dedication page in the most poetic general relativity textbook ever written, Gravitation by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler:
We dedicate this book
To our fellow citizens
Who, for love of truth,
Take from their own wants
By taxes and gifts,
And now and then send forth
One of themselves
As dedicated servant,
To forward the search
Into the mysteries and marvelous simplicities
Of this strange and beautiful Universe,
Our home.
Oh yeah, and it’s very courageous to be a dissident and support the views of the rich and powerful and the big corporations. Oops I did it again.
btw, Dissident, Sean probably called you a troll b/c you immediately followed up his post with something that is essentially off topic, which resulted in this comment thread going completely off topic. Not that I didn’t follow along, but…
Richard:
1) Timbro is an independent think tank living off a trust fund which was set up for it a long time ago (so it’s not on anyone’s leash), generating a puny return compared to the billions of tax revenue being poured into the production of state propaganda constantly hammering at it.
2) You don’t really think “the rich and powerful and the big corporations” are libertarian, do you? Status quo is their interest. If you actually know any exceptions, please let me know. I sure could use a rich and powerful ally or two.
Science: thank you. Believe it or not, I believe dissent is good. Even for cosmicvariance. And for Sean.
bittergradstudent: I posted my sincere, immediate reaction to that “poem”. In my eyes, it’s a revolting exercise in hypocrisy.
Dissident:
1) Timbro is very much the Swedish equivalent of the Cato Institute in the US. I would not regard their findings any less as propaganda than the “government propaganda” you are referring to. I am not contesting your statement that the unemployment is higher than what the state says. But what do you think it is like being poor in the UK as compared to in Sweden?
2) No, the corporations are not libertarians. They just want to make as much money as possible without any regard for anything else, which is why libertarianism (i.e., what in Europe is called liberalism) fits them very well. (Not that the really big corporations are paying much taxes anyway.)
So I suppose you, Dissident, did not go to public school, receive any publicly funded education, health care or anything? Not to mention you’re never using the internet. So who’s the hypocrit?
Of the countries I’ve lived in, including Australia and the US, the one with by far the highest standard of living was Denmark. And from what I hear from people currently living there their economy is still doing great. Their prosperity is largely due to successful high tech industry (electronics etc), which is in large part the result of government investment (via high taxes) in education and research. To suggest, as dissident does, that the “Scandinavian model” doesn’t work, and that these countries are going down the drain, is just outrageous nonsense (akin to comparing string theory to evolution 😉 ).
David in comment 55 is not the same David as in comment 33. David in comment 33 is the David writing this comment.
Richard:
1) No. And the 25% unemployment figure is not from Timbro. It’s from the socialist trade union which founded and funds the socialist party responsible for the mess.
2) If you care to look, you will find that big corporations always align themselves with the powers that be, out of sheer necessity – the government has the guns, remember? The historical “Swedish model” was very much an alliance between the socialist party, its owner (the trade union) and big business, notably the Wallenberg dynasty. You will find an interesting account of its rise and fall among Timbro’s titles.
3) You shut somebody in a cage, then call him a hypocrit for demanding freedom after you “gave” him “free” lodging? I guess that makes sense. To you.
P.S. The Internet? You don’t really think this thing is running on state infrastructure, do you?
David #55, Swedes regard Denmark as borderline anarchic…
Okay, you’ve managed to prevent a potentially-interesting discussion about philosophers and physicists and academia by starting the billionth pointless shouting match about “taxes=theft.” It’s a big internet out there — argue somewhere else. Any more off-topic comments will be swiftly deleted.
Sean, re-read your post, starting from “More importantly”.
Off-topic?
ah now the admin prevails… thank you
I thought that tangent bypassed the very essence of your post, but I could have been wrong about that too. 🙂
So anyway to keep it short.
Hmm..did I do that……redirect my post?
the logic is, that to keep the thinking in context of your post Sean, that one could choose whether or not to follow that link. It is relevant, is it not?
I am in the Blogosphere Sean. 🙂