Anything that can be measured and rewarded can be gamed. Historian Jerry Muller
Category: Reading notes
Max Weber on Academia
Academic life is an utter gamble... when young students came to me to seek advice about qualifying as a lecturer, the responsibility of giving it is scarcely to be borne... [Students] must be asked to examine their conscience: Do you believe that you can bear to see one mediocrity after another being promoted over your… Continue reading Max Weber on Academia
Toni Morrison quote
It's important, therefore, to know who the real enemy is, and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your… Continue reading Toni Morrison quote
Barack Obama quote
This idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically woke, all that stuff... you should get over that quickly. The world is messy, there are ambiguities, people who do really good stuff have flaws, people who you're fighting may love their kids and share certain things with you, and I think that...… Continue reading Barack Obama quote
American Pastoral quote
How could their innocent foibles add up to this human being? Had none of this happened, had she stayed at home, finished high school, gone to college, there would have been problems, of course, big problems; she was precocious in her rebellion and there would have been problems even without a war in Vietnam. She… Continue reading American Pastoral quote
prelude
I've started a personal project recently, and part of it consists of writing every day. I've not missed a day since last Monday and have written about six thousand words so far. I don't want to miss today's work, but not yet ready to plunge into the writing itself. So, here's just a prelude to… Continue reading prelude
junky
It is possible to detach yourself from most pain--injury to teeth, eyes, and genitals present special difficulties--so that the pain is experienced as neutral excitation. From junk sickness there seems to be no escape. Junk sickness is the reverse side of junk kick. The kick of junk is that you have to have it. Junkies… Continue reading junky
Disobey! by Frederic Gros
Perhaps also "Non-delegable Selves"... 1. Each person fearfully obeys his hierarchical superior, right up to the tyrant who alone decides. But this vertical representation masks the horizontal chain of complicities, and the portion of pleasurable condolence that each is offered in a tyrannical regime. The main reason why people tolerate being tyrannized is that they are offered the… Continue reading Disobey! by Frederic Gros
the divided self
I'm going to reclaim myself. "style is the cement holding the various parts of the personality in balance"--p. 151 Solitude by Anthony Storr
κολακεία
Flattery
Not An Avocado Life 