academe

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 11:12 AM 5/31/01 -0400, joanna wrote:
>
>Maybe it has to do with the fact that engineers are making things, whereas
>lit-critters so obviously are not (and suffer from a kind of neurosis of
>futility), but I always thought the shameless ass licking, bullshitting and
>back stabbing prevalent in lit departments resulted mainly from the size of
>the financial pool available for humanities salaries relative to the size
>of the pool of applicants for humanities jobs.  The ratio is better for IT
>workers.  Makes for better human beings, overall.  Erst das Brot, dann die
>Moral.

You are absolutely correct. The nonprobablity sample of engineers I met
tend to be pretty authoritarian, especially on social issues and when the
"u" word is mentioned, but these tend to be older, industrial types. I can
easily imagine that the newer IT models are more laid back, at least on
social issues. 

wojtek