I agree with Yoshie partly that a lot of non-academics view professors as woolly-pated fools and suckers out of touch with the real world and sort of pathetic with their pay that is not that of doctors, lawyers, or Wall Street investment bankers, not to mention movie or sports stars or even a lot of "Main Street" business people, although generally better than many other members of the working class (of which they are a part, even though most don't recognize or admit it).
However, it seems that even so there is a lot of resentment in particular of tenure. Last I saw a majority of Americans oppose it. I hear non-academics tell me how they can be fired on the spot for almost nothing (if they are in the private sector). Why shouldn't we be like them? Barkley Rosser On Tue, 26 Jan 1999 14:05:29 -0500 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
> I think that teaching at a community college (even as a tenured professor)
> is a lot different from the working conditions that you described. My good
> friend Michael Hoover says, if I remember correctly, that in Florida a
> state law mandates the *word count* of each community college student's
> coursework output. As to teaching as exercise of creativity, traces of it
> still remain, but Hoover says that he has to 'teach' a prepackaged TV
> course. In general, much more micromanagement of course content, office
> hours, minimum enrollment, etc. seems to be the norm in the community
> college land. (Maybe you'll discuss all that in the 'debasement' chapter
> you mentioned in your post?) I hope Hoover will expand on this.
>
> I agree wholeheartedly with the following statement you wrote:
>
> "As I came to see it, the problem was not that I was in a privileged
> position but that most other workers were in unprivileged ones."
>
> The only reason I don't quite agree with you on everything is that workers
> who are not paid intellectuals, in my view, don't see us with 'envy and a
> lot of hostility.' I'd say that the prevailing working-class view may be
> affectionate condescension toward Professors (pronounced with ironic
> emphasis) both in the USA and Japan. (Then again, I never had to experience
> a conflict with my father over Vietnam.) The reason why I harp on this
> matter is that the Right has been putting forward their pseudo-populism
> (which has us believe in the existence of 'workers who don't like PC, Pomo,
> Multiculti, Literature, etc.' in conflict with the 'Cultural Elite'--except
> that the Right doesn't say 'workers'--they say 'taxpayers' or something
> like that). Our lefty angst over privilege usually doesn't help the working
> class _objectively_ and instead helps the Right by giving them ammunitions
> with which to destroy the past gains of the working class: wider access to
> higher education. Of course I'm not saying there is no objective difference
> between steelworkers or waitresses and college teachers with regard to time
> and control over work process. It's just that when we publish our thoughts
> on the matter in non-left fora, we ought to be really careful so as not to
> help the Right.
>
> Yoshie
>
> P.S. Our lefty angst kills comradely discussion among leftists too, as in
> the recent case of Lou, Mark Jones, and Doug.
-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu