Continuing a long academic tradition, I am going to take a Fall break. For 50 years, the tempo of my life was governed by that of the Academy. Starting the year in September, taking a break in the middle of the fall semester, Christmas holidays off, then the Spring semester, followed by the long summer vacation. Although on a number of occasions I taught summer school, this was nonetheless the shape or arc of each year of my life. Then I started blogging 11 years ago and I found myself on a treadmill. No sooner had I put up one post than I was writing the next.
Well, at 86 going on 87, this takes it out of a guy. So I have decided to revert to my long custom and take a Fall break. I am not so sure how long it will last, perhaps no more than a few days, perhaps several weeks.
See you in a while. Behave yourselves while I am gone.
This from A.J. Ayer's recollection of a certain head-master of an English boarding-school: "Boys, always be pure of heart. If you are not pure of heart, I'll flog you."
ReplyDeleteTake a break, Professor, you deserve it. See ye in the Fall, if I see ye at all.
ReplyDeleteSeems Donald Trump will be taking some time off soon also. I will miss you a lot more than him though. Stay well Professor!
ReplyDeleteWhen is the exam?
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the break, but don't take too long. I'll miss you.
ReplyDeleteI wish you a relaxing break and hope to be able to read something again very soon. Your blog is very special. I would miss
ReplyDeleteSome universities, not many, are on what we call the quarter system. So instead of having breaks, we have 12 week quarters with one week off in between. I have not taken a vacation in ten years. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteMy wife just finished reading Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald and said I would benefit from it. Has anyone read it? Just curious. Looking for something to pull me away from my Horkheimer addiction.
-- Jim
Jim,
ReplyDeleteIf you are interested in Roman history, I would highly recommend the multi-volume series by Colleen McCullough. She had an encyclopedic knowledge of Roman history and Latin, despite the fact that her training was as a neurologist. I would also recommend any historical novel by Gore Vidal, and especially my favorite, “Burr.” (By way of mitigation, I would classify this submission as a recommendation, rather than as a comment.)
Enjoy, Prof Wolff!
ReplyDeleteGoing off topic, I’m invoking the old man’s privilege of repeating myself to preach, no doubt, to choir.
ReplyDeleteDavid Leonhardt has an interesting piece in yesterday’s NY Times concerning the action Biden can take on climate change even if the Republicans continue to control the Senate. One paragraph, in particular, struck me:
“The fact that Mr. Biden seems inclined to make the climate a top priority does not stem from a longtime personal obsession. He is not Al Gore. But he has spent his career trying to understand where the center of the Democratic Party is moving and then moving with it. And both the Democratic Party and the country have moved on climate.”
(I’d argue that the Party has moved on other issues as well, e.g. health care, largely, if not entirely, because of Bernie.)
The center of the party is where Biden and most politicians want to be. Move that left or right, and they’ll move left or right. One might argue that they are without principle, or that they may be principled and are simply being pragmatic. The center, in any event, is where things get done in a large democracy.
Moving the center further left is the challenge. How to do it is the problem, and I don’t have a good answer. I think it has to be accomplished primarily at the grass roots level, starting with state and local government simply because they are closest to the people, and where persuasion—as opposed to argument—can be most effective. My problem is that I—like many of you, I suspect—live in a bubble. My views are the views of friends and family, with the exception of a couple of unreachable in-laws. There are no obvious targets for me to try to persuade.
The best I’ve been able to do is to sign up for regular monthly contributions to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee which supports candidates in elections for state legislatures. I also contribute to one state legislator, Elizabeth Guzman, who was recommended by Our Revolution when she first ran for the Virginia House of Delegates in 2017. She flipped a Republican seat that year and was re-elected 2019. I don’t live in Virginia, but I’ll continue to contribute—she’ll be up for re-election next November.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteMax Horkheimer is a good addiction to have! Feed your habit!