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30 March 2003 (Sunday): enjy the wasp
I bought James Q. Wilson's The Marriage Problem the other day. I feel like hiding it tucked under my arm when I'm reading it in public; this is, after all, one of the sources that I found so annoying in a Salon article several months back. Sure enough, his sweepingly judgmental statements still grate on me, and I feel like covering every page's margins with countering remarks. But this is exactly why I'm reading it -- to engage with a perspective with which I'm inclined to disagree. Makes me think harder. Last time it was William Henry III's In Defense of Elitism, and that ruffled my brain in some very good ways.
Also bought Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. Between that and The Marriage Problem, you'd think that I'm trying to become a middle-aged male executive.
posted by enjelani @ 12:01 PM PST
Replies: 7 comments
Expanding your mind is a waste of time! Fight the urge! Why do you want to fill up your mind with further perspective?? It just complicates the core issues!
Saddam = Bad
Bush = Good
War against Saddam + Bush leading war = Super More Gooderer
See the logic? It's that simple. Don't question it!
*smirk* ;)
posted by syndromes @ 30 03 2003 02:29 PM PST
aw, c'mon. if she wants to fill up her brain with useless junk, let her. I, in the meantime, am required by law to fill my brain with useless information. For instance, do i really need to know the symbolism represented by the objects in the tree of To Kill a Mockingbird? (gosh darn core assignment...)
posted by Liz @ 31 03 2003 06:00 PM PST
ooo goody, i got the underline thing right
posted by Liz @ 31 03 2003 06:01 PM PST
i find it so COOL that my sister comments on my blog. :)
just thought i'd say that.
and Liz, i'm with ya on the core assignments. ick. but annoying as they are, i think they're valuable. training wheels for the brain, you know. later on you just come up with the questions yourself, automatically, and you don't have to get writer's cramp answering them.
posted by enjelani @ 31 03 2003 09:07 PM PST
Enjy the wasp, why do you pick on middle-aged male executives? :) Are they necessarily more marriage-obsessed than firefighters or truck drivers or immigrants from a religious country?
Salon's indignation is amusing. "How can these two factors -- poverty and single parenting -- possibly be separated from each other?" By multivariate regression, of course. Social scientists do this sort of thing all the time. It's sad how little some journalists know of what they write about.
posted by beefeater @ 01 04 2003 01:10 PM PST
i also find it so cool that beefeater's here to call me out on such things. :)
on the second point: precisely. hence i am reading the book. it's too easy to fall into reflexive head-nodding when reading something from one's own camp, without stopping to consider that one's indignation may be misplaced. in fact, any time i have an indignant reaction to anything, i figure it's time to examine my assumptions more closely.
as to the first point, i was just being flip. :) Wilson's introductory chapters talk about a divided America: black single mothers on welfare on one side, white affluent married couples on the other. not hard to guess which side he believes is on the right track.
posted by enjelani @ 01 04 2003 11:22 PM PST
It's cool to be here :) More power to you, Enjelani. But be prepared for an occasional disappointment. Some of those public policy pamphlets are only a tad more scientific than Salon articles. You're more likely to find serious science in textbooks and in original research papers.
posted by beefeater @ 02 04 2003 08:02 PM PST