So.. another Eastern APA is slowly winding down. How depressing it was! Rows of empty interview tables, an army of morose and dejected job seekers facing another year of under-employment, a Central-sized smoker, a sparse book display. I'm sure it was all quite good for the hotel bar.
How clever it was of the APA to not print the locations of the sessions in the Program. I'm to understand that the placement service was especially unhelpful this year, too! Keep paying your dues, people....
Another thought: would someone please coin a clever word to characterize the kind of philosopher who, while in conversation with someone at an APA, constantly and conspicuously scans the room from someone more important to talk with? You know what I'm talking about.
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Perhaps just "opportunist" or "opportunistic asshole" or a more commonly used term: philosopher-asshole.
A peripathetic.
philosopolitician
or
philosopho-politico
I remember talking to you in person about this once and you called them "star fuckers," which strikes me as pretty appropriate.
Yeah, the star fucking. Don't think it changes after you get a job. At some point, you'll figure out that you go to find your friends, and then you go find a restaurant, bar, or whatever. Think of the smoker as a gathering room; then get the fuck out of there. Those left behind will still be looking for stars to fuck.
another thing that amazed me was the huge line for registration on thursday. First, they didn't open until 3 pm. Why? That didn't make any sense at all. They, even if you had "pre-registered" you still basically had to register all the same, making the pre-registration seem essentially worthless. At any decent conference the registration is done almost entirely on-line before hand- you say you'll come and you pay on line. Then, the registration people _already_ have your badge printed and the registration is divided by letters of last name. You simply get in the right line, say your last name, and get your stuff. Not only would this be faster, it would also be easier and surely better for the APA itself. I was shocked.
Someone who scans the room while you're talking to him? That would be the Philosophical Gourmet Himself.
Once I got a job, I stopped going to the APA Eastern Meeting except when there is a special reason to do so. It's at a terrible time of year, and it's nearly always a miserable experience if you stay for more than a couple hours.
More generally, the APA seems to do nothing significant except host conferences (which I rarely attend), publish JFP and the newsletters (which I don't read), and allow philosophers to recognize each other by electing to positions which seem to involve no work except sitting on committees that don't do anything useful. I'd prefer it if they lowered the membership fee and increased charges for the services for which I have no use.
I'm an established older philosopher. When I'm at the Eastern APA, it's usually to interview candidates. But it's also an opportunity to bump into old friends, including former colleagues in graduate school and beyond, and former graduate students. A good number of these people are people I have been very close to personally, but with whom I have lost touch. We've known each other through husbands and boyfriends and late-night dissertation nervous breakdowns. Often, in the smoker, I wonder how Jane is doing or Bill, and I wonder whether they too are interviewing candidates at the smoker. So my eye is often wandering, even when I am speaking to a candidate that I am trying to recruit to my university. I realize I should be completely focused on my work at the smoker. But after a day of interviewing candidates, sometimes the possibility of running into an old friend who helped me through dark days in graduate school is hard to get out of my mind (especially when it's my 20th year away from my family during the holidays). So it's usually very hard for me to focus on the person I'm talking to at the APA, especially if it's work related and in the evening. But this has nothing whatever to do with opportunism.
Perhaps it's time for facebook. Then you'll know that Bill is 'single again' and Sally is 'tired of the APA but knows she'll be back next year anyway'.
I'm so, so sorry, but the clever word is "everyone." :-( Yeah, it's horrible. It's especially horrible thinking this is horrible, but finding yourself doing it anyway.
Gee, Anonymous, if you hadn't been anonymous I would have looked at you directly.
About the 3 o'clock registration start time. Word was it had to do with the hotel internet system not working properly for two hours as they were trying to set registration up earlier in the day. I can't remember the exact details but that was the explanation we got as we stood in line.
We have spoken about this several times before --- and Imipolex has the same recollection.
I also thought it was a bit gloomy as well. In addition to the much smaller than usual turnout, conversations regularly turned to the horrific lines to even pre-register (it took me 30 mins to pre-reg) and the very poor job scene (including job placement services). Ugh.
Of course, you know I continue to be irritated by how often the proud city of Newcastle is rendered as "New Castle" by the APA on yet another name badge. Ok, so I work outside the US. Must I also have everything spelled wrong, too...?
Star fuckers is ok. Peripathetic is good, but a bit learned. I prefer phildos -- philosophical dildos. These tools get off on sticking their heads up "stars'" asses and other orifices. Shiny, plastic, bland, and no substance. The stars seem to enjoy it too.
Phildos bring to mind that great philosopher, Jello: "Is my cock big enough? Is my brain small enough? For you, to make me, a star?"
I'm not really sure what this post, or these comments, are talking about when they discuss "stars". But I have never seen a star at an Eastern Division APA. But believe me, if I thought for a moment that Brad Pitt was in the smoker, I would not be caught dead paying attention to you.
It's tricky to find a clever word for a social-climbing philosopher--although Peripathetic is pretty good, I think.
One might claim that this sort of philoscopical behavior was first noted in the literature in the Protagoras, where we find Plato describing the first Smoker at Callias' house. After Socrates introduces Hippocrates and himself to Protagoras, Protagoras makes a brief speech and then Socrates relates: "It looked to me that he [Protagoras] wanted to show off in front of Prodicus and Hippias, and to bask in the glory because we had come as his admirers" (317d). Now, how could Socrates have known that Protagoras wanted to show off to Prodicus and Hippias? I submit that it must have been a conspicuous scanning of the room while he was speaking, as he was looking for more important people.
I continue to find this discussion utterly bizarre. Do people find it offensive when others are scanning the room at their high school reunions? Or do they find it quite natural? For us middle-aged folks, the smoker has salient similarities to a high school reunion.
Do you suppose Leiter masturbates while he trolls around blogs looking for someone to shit on?
Wow. Spiros: you've been invaded by the junior high school lunchroom!
I'm abashed.
Dysfunctional for sure. I know a job candidate who went to the placement office to get the room number for an interview and was told that all interviews with that school had been cancelled! Luckily the candidate called the contact person, ended up interrupting another interview, found out what room to go to and that no the interviews had not been cancelled. If the office had made this kind of error on the first day they could have prevented a whole set of interviews from taking place!
Anon at 7:06pm: It would be helpful to know whether you're the same Anon who posted at 9:50am. If so: There's nothing like launching an unprovoked insult a t1 and then at t2 claiming the moral high ground after the target of the insult replies! Well done!
If Anon at 7:06pm is not Anon at 9:50am: Nice combo of random insult and vulgarity, all while posing as moral arbitrator! So gifted you are.
Professor Leiter: Yes, the kids from the junior high have arrived.
Dearest Brian.... You are the master of the junior high lunchroom.
Non-Leiter Sycophant:
Thanks for the marvelous post. Let's try to notice a few things, ok?
First: It was not Leiter who started this annoying thread, but someone anonymously taking a gratuitous pot-shot at him.
Second: The original pot-shot was of course of the junior-high variety (sophisticated pot-shots are rare), and the piling on that has followed-- including your own contribution-- hasn't raised the bar.
Third: The only reason why Leiter (the man) is *ever* discussed on this blog is because people like you insist on talking about him. To then criticize him for being arrogant (or whatever it is that conveniently anonymous people only obliquely say about him), and me for being a Leiter sycophant is stupid.
Why don't those of you who are fixated on hating Leiter start your own blog where you can stew in your own juices?
First: How very astute of you. No doubt you are a Leiter-star.
Second: Who cares about bar?
Third: So. Fucking. What.
Spiros: I'd suggest just deleting the comments by this sorry individual, rather than replying further to them. Some very sad people have only one outlet in life, and it appears to be in the anonymous comments of blog threads.
Happy New Year! (You can also delete this comment as well after taking out the trash.)
"Some very sad people have only one outlet in life, and it appears to be in the anonymous comments of blog threads."
Such a fine thread between being you --sad, abusive, egomaniacal-- and me. Anonymity.
I can think of no one who has harmed the profession more than you, Leiter.
Keith, is that you?
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/10/keith_burgessja_1.html
In response to Non-Leiter Sycophant's use of the argument form: "I can think of no one who P." This is a decrepit argument form because it is open to a simple and crippling response: Why don't you try harder?
The postings on this thread remind that the Eastern Division meetings were this year what they have been for decades: a bad Irish wake. The casket is closed, the beer is flat, and no one makes any interesting speeches.
Sorry you don't like the PGR. Hope you feel better now.
Does anyone expect the Central and Eastern APA's to be depleted as the Eastern was? Those conferences always struck me as being better-sized as philosophy conferences.
I think some remain anonymous because they fear for their privacy, some because they want to be vulgar, and some fear the for the damage that can be done by the retaliation of those with widely-read blogs. My two cents.
Good point, if Leiter were to post on his blog the name of a philosophy professor or grad student who wrote, "Do you suppose Leiter masturbates while he trolls around blogs looking for someone to shit on?" that probably would do that person a lot of damage. And that would be really unfair, wouldn't it?
I was wondering if anyone can explain the point of the APA placement service besides giving candidates room locations. From what I understand, few if any of the listed jobs are new. If I didn't apply for a certain job the first time around, why on earth would I apply for that same job during the APA? If I did apply the first time around and didn't get an interview, why should I think that I would get an on-site by submitting the same CV to the same folks who didn't grant me an interview a week or two earlier? Am I missing some crucial feature?
Maybe you could all convince Dan Dennett to stop funding the APA with the Philosophical Lexicon. That would be a gesture in the right direction.
Does "stray lapdog" give a good enough picture of the type of person you're describing?
Wow, I wish I could leave my comment nearer the top, before the degeneration began.
I only wanted to say I thought the more egregious characters, worthy of the name "peripathetic", are the people at the APA who approach you until they see the name/school on your name tag, and then avert their eyes and make their escape!
I think the APA is designed for talking while scanning, and that even good-hearted people fall into it. Certain cultures make people worse rather than better.
Thank you all, sincerely, for making me feel better about not being able to afford the APA Eastern.
In light of claims made above, I suppose it is only fair to note that "anonymity" on the Internet is not quite what it seems. A tech savvy observer informs me, for example, with a high degree of confidence (and evidence), that the January 1 anon posting at 9:18 pm, above, has an IP address of 69.247.49 and is posting from Fort Myers, Florida--though his posting is obviously unoffensive. But the "sad" and "abusive" Sycophant, above, is either 75.170.162 from Denver or 76.237.190 from Chicago, or perhaps two different posters using the same moniker. I'm pretty sure I know who the Denver person is (he is a serial miscreant, as I learned from others some time back), but my geek friend claims he will be able to confirm the identity in both cases (unless it turns out to be a proxy IP address, in which cases his tricks-of-the-trade are defeated).
Anyway, a word to the wise (or, perhaps more aptly, to the junior high school lunchroom crowd): the tech savvy are able to pierce the veil of apparent anonymity on the Internet.
Spiros: sorry that this thread got derailed, but perhaps if the jackasses realize that anonymity is an illusion, they'll behave better next time.
...which is yet another reason to never post anonymously and let everyone know who one is (as I do).
I can't really come up with "a clever word to characterize the kind of philosopher who, while in conversation with someone at an APA, constantly and conspicuously scans the room from someone more important to talk with" -- the best I can do is "scan artist." Though the scan artist's end is to perform an act of affilatio, which is the act of sucking up to (or off?) someone whose name tag indicates a more prestigious affiliation.
This is all rather childish. Amusing, certainly, but childish nonetheless. Long live philosophers anonymous.
I like 'peripathetic.' Of course, APAthetic works, too.
One reason for posting as Anon is that getting the google blogger account to work can be a pain. I've given up for now.
JPH's "stray lapdog" gets my vote for best term.
We need also a verbal form to capture what stray lapdogs do....
I suppose being periPEThetic is out. ("Peripathetic" was my suggestion--I'm so hurt Spiros!--but I'm also too lazy tonight to login as an alter-ego to gush my gin and Platonic sorrow.)
Hmmm--"stray lapdog" rearranges to "ply as rat-dog"--mobius justice is good in a moniker. . .
Nah--I'm (ironically?) standing by "peripathetics"--it has an easy adjectival form by dropping the s, and a very accessible adverbial *ally* by replacing it.
"We need also a verbal form to capture what stray lapdogs do...."
Ass-sniffing?
imipolex:
You've done it again. Genius.
Just out of curiousity, how does Leiter know the IP addresses of commentators if he's not the blog owner? Thanks for clearing this up.
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