Bear in mind, however, that there are active and even talented social scientists who don't have [a sense of] creative puzzlement. These are faculty members who do social science not for love but for a living, going through conventional motions often with considerable success, a success they value more highly than inquiry itself. You will recognize them by their behavior; one is smart but condescending and uninterested; another is eminent but conventional and stale. When you go to office hours and meet such people or their cousin the bland, busy professional with all the answers but no ideas, extricate yourself graciously. Such people have nothing to teach you.As I read this paragraph, I felt that warm, familiar sensation of a Friday Afternoon Blogpoll come a-washing over me:
Friday, September 24, 2004
a great thing about blogs is that you can 'extricate yourself graciously' just by closing your browser
Here is the penultimate paragraph of Andrew Abbott's new book Methods of Discovery: Heuristics for the Social Sciences:
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7 comments:
i don't know about these options. i think there should be something a little bit more along the lines of "quirky, mumbling professor whose colleagues completely misunderstand his research and who ends up writing a lot of letters of reccomendations for undergraduates who think he's funny when he paces during lecture."
I'm darn curious to know your own prediction here, Jeremy! (I'll show you mine if you show me yours...)
I object to this poll! I've never met a man more interested in the world than Jeremy Freese. I think the blog proves that again and again. Perhaps the most likely option is Mr. Freese will choose to remove himself from the discipline. But only because he's found something more stimulating and fulfilling to do with his time.
NOTE OF CLARIFICATION: While I appreciate the sentiments, this was not intended as a Jeremy-needs-affirmation blogpoll but a Jeremy-doing-some-teensy-self-deprecation-but-mostly-mildly-making-fun-of-Andrew-Abbott-blogpoll.
I've met Mr. Abbott, and the man could afford to be a little more self-deprecating.
We have a quotation up in our office. Something to the effect of, "The only person in all of recorded history who has ever done anything of note in this domain is Abbott." Guess who wrote it? Hee!
I think he's the guy in the department with an incredible knack for crushing everyone else's projects with intelligent, precise, and devastating critiques. But that's just me.
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