Jon Cogburn's Blog

from New York Times moderated blogs

      

[Note: original article is here]

I’m absolutely with Fish until the last point about truth not being the goal of classroom inquiry, which as a professor strikes me as horrid.

I don’t currently teach political philosophy or ethics, but I can say that I absolutely want my classroom discussions to be about trying to find the truth with the students. Instead of saying that the professors shouldn’t do this, Fish should say that the institutional norms rightly require the professor to provide the best arguments and evidence for both sides of an issue and to help students she disagrees with develop the best argument they can (the last time I taught an ethics class I ended up doing a disproportional amount of work helping a student rewrite and rewrite a paper arguing against gay marriage; I disagreed with the student, but by teaching him to make the best case he could with better argumentation and better citation of good philosophers, I helped the student develop the facility to get closer to the truth, which contra Fish, is my job).

The overwhelming majority of professors deeply know that smart, informed people of good will can disagree about most of the hot button political issues confronting the United States. The overwhelming majority of professors who teach things relating to political philosophy and ethics run classrooms that are consistent with this wisdom. However, the idea that one should only find truth in one’s research and not in the classroom has nothing to do with this wisdom and is ripping off the students who benefit from being exposed to and helping our research.

— Posted by Jon Cogburn      

    

bit of wisdom from new agey types?

I'm not a fan of very much new age stuff (as Beck says, call me when the new age is old enough to drink), but one idea that does resonate with me is the idea that we waste a great deal of our lives obsessing about four things: (1) money, (2) those we cannot forgive, (3) those we wish to control, and (4) those whose approval we seek.

I'm probably worst about (4). I actually sometimes get physically ill when people are angry with me.

I realize that this is a weakness, but paradoxically it is not as weak as the opposite. People who don't care enough what others think are dysfunctional and (obviously with notable exceptions) usually not very successful. However, (4) does drain a lot of my energy and I think has led me to moral cowardice at times. I've been wondering how I can get better about this without falling into the opposite realm of insensate cloddishness.

I think the solution is by keeping focused on (1), (2), and (3). If money is not your biggest focus, if you really can forgive those who trespass against you and (and this is actually much harder) others, and if you really can wean yourself from the desire to control others (this requires respecting other people's choices even in many cases where they might be stupid or harmful- because Satan's greatest deceit is convincing us that our desire to control others is really our desire to help them), then you won't be an insensate clod.

This looms big and small. Most of us are angry at people we perceive to be oppressing others. This is very common in the workplace, where your co-workers are responsible to other workers (especially those lower down on the pole), shareholders, and customers. [In public universities you have the following equations (workers = students, faculty, staff, administration, and political officers), (shareholders = taxpayers), and (customers = parents and taxpayers (the most ignorant of whom also benefit enormously from living in an educated society)).] When you perceive your colleagues and bosses doing things that are detrimental to any of these groups it can make you livid. But this anger is almost always just an enormous waste of energy and it can end up rationalizing just your own desire to control others (via whatever you are doing to rectify the situation). But then the real danger is becoming the monster you fight.

Whenever I get into debates involving the good of any part of LSU I find that saying the most obvious things almost always provokes defensive anger and disapproval that then makes me feel ill.

I think I can break out of this if I make sure that my behavior does not involve the desire for more money (via the administrative route), the inability to forgive others (via getting in a moral rage), or the desire to control others (via the need to be seen winning the argument). If I can make my contributions to LSU without these things then it really shouldn't matter if some people disapprove. I can react to the disapproval in a spirit of love.

I realize this all sounds pretty new agey, but I most evil comes from people trying to do good but getting it horrendously wrong. From the biggest global issue to the smallest workplace disagreement, it is vitally important that the way you go about doing good not remove your love for others (even and especially your enemies) and not rationalize the ethics/psychology of control.

I'll get off my soapbox now. I'm not sure how universal any of the above is (I would never tell someone who doesn't have enough money for medical treatment that they just need to get over it). It does work for me in my present situation though.

Some things I like about students

Given that many recent posts have either mocked student foibles or openly contemplated how best to deal with those foibles, dharma demands some balance. I have the best job in the world and here are some of the main reasons. Please share yours that aren't on this list.

1. Some of my students have excellent taste in novels, better than any of my colleagues. I've read well over a hundred very good books that I would not have heard about otherwise.
2. Some of my students are very good barometers of what is good in pop culture, on the whole much better than my colleagues (with possibly one exception). I don't have a television and only watch stuff like that on DVDs. Without students I never would have gotten into: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Battlestar Galactica, Rome, The [British and American] Office, and Extras (I liked Xena before I started teaching). Likewise, I never would have discovered the great comic books Renaissance that we are undergoing, especially (for me) all things Gaimonesque. And my knowledge of video games and professional wrestling (which I think is as important an art form as opera, which is the closest genre) would be pretty poor as well. Musically, I would never have gotten into the White Stripes or AC/DC.
3. Many of my students have extremely good senses of humor, better than most of my colleagues. Class discussion is not only vastly better for this, but my life is brighter. I'm actually the faculty adviser for the L.S.U. student group Mustache Advocacy Network, perhaps my greatest distinction.
4. Many of my students are philosophically creative (two M.A. students have published in fairly decent journals) and can be taught to express this in a good way. It's work to get this out of them in a decent way. You have to spend a lot of class time talking with everyone about their paper plans (it helps the students to hear what others are doing), giving them detailed advice about how to narrow down the punch-line, and how to structure the paper to get to it. But if you do that, then at the end of the semester in upper level classes you always get at least two papers that just wow you. And this often happens in lower level classes too.
5. Tied to the previous point- In all of my classes the class discussions help my research immensely.
6. Many of my students are heroic. One works as a counselor at a summer camp for kids who suffer from severe burns. One helps take care of her sister with severe cerebral palsy. Some are returning war vets from Iraq. About a third of them were devastated to some degree (losing their homes at a minimum) by hurricanes Katrina or Rita (and devastated even more so by the Bush administration's sadistic response).
7. Most of my students are at a point in their life where they are experimenting with what kind of person they want to be. I strongly believe that learning (albeit perhaps not getting an academic job in) philosophy helps us do this better. More importantly, good-humored, free wheeling, open class discussions where we are not afraid to get lost on tangents present a model of fun collegiality and respect for people and ideas that I think help students recover from the baleful MTV and high school hegemony of cool that sucks the creativity and soul out of so many people. Amazingly, in college you see a different kind of "cool," where students excited about life and ideas and who are loving of others end up having more charisma than fratboy and other acolytes of the eternal James Dean inarticulate loutness lowest common denominator consumerist culture (as well as the women attracted to such louts). Good class discussion is like an insecticide exterminating brutishness; it is a balm for my troubled soul.
8. Many of my students care deeply about those around them, the stuff they are learning, and the fate of our Republic. I think this is much greater than when I was in school; perhaps because of the web students are both more informed and less cynical and pessimistic about the chances that they can do something meaningful for their own lives and for the lives of those around them. I hope that the Bush recession (and the economic mess he has left us in with his lack of investment in infrastructure, ruinous wars, massive corruption, deficit-causing tax cuts for the rich, and resulting horrendous monetary policy) does not beat this amazing sense of possibility out of Generation Y.
9. Students today are the least racist and homophobic demographic in American culture, and they are the least racist and homophobic group of students in American history.

class policies I'm toying with

My Oklahoma/book-with-Mark/child-with-Emily/intermittent-severe-pain-in-my-gastro-intestinal-system idyll will be over in Fall of 08 at which point I will be back at LSU in the trenches.  The last semester at LSU I had a ridiculous amount of skipping in my classes and a ridiculous amount of late work. In the past I've always been incredibly laissez faire about that, reasoning that the important thing was that the work was the best the student could do and that good late work is better than bad on time work. But with the expansion in class sizes at LSU and students' increasing tendency to avail themselves of my lenience, this is now creating so much extra work for me that I didn't get any research done during the last semester. And my contract stipulates that half my work time is supposed to be research (which is weird because according to the contract the other half is teaching, even though service is part of what determines retention, raises, and promotion). I'm also not convinced that the freedom is producing better work at this point. Deadlines are a good thing. And the vast majority of students who miss over half the class periods are not going to learn very much, even if they can game the grading such that it doesn't effect them horribly.

Makeups- No makeups will be given. Instead, the portion of your grade that would have been determined by that test is added to the final exam (which is cumulative).
Exams- All exams will be multiple choice. Exam help (discussion questions such that if you can answer them correctly, then you can ace the exam) will be distributed one week prior to each exam.
Short Papers- Short papers answering a discussion question on the reading will be due at least once a week. Most of these will be graded on a check/no check system. No late papers will be accepted, but students will get a pass on two of the papers.
Attendance- Attendance will be taken at the beginning of class. If you are late then you count as absent for that day. Students get a pass on one week's absences and after that lose one point a day from their final grade. No distinction is made between excused and unexcused absences. If students miss so many class days for excused reasons that this impinges on their grade, then the professor will support their efforts to get a retroactive drop.
Specific Disruptions policy- Laptops will remain shut in the classroom. Unless you must cover your face for religious reasons, hats will be removed in the classroom.No food, gum, or tobacco in the classroom. Newspapers and books not related to the course material will not be accessed during class time. Cellphones must be turned off and text messaging is not allowed (an exception is made for people with dependents or who are like to have to deal with an emergency in class; such people must set their phones to vibrate and leave class before answering the calls).
Long Papers- In 4,000 and higher level classes a substantial research paper will also be due on the Friday of the penultimate week of class. Students will have to turn in an annotated bibliography and paper proposal a month before the due date of the paper.  Late papers lose 5 percentage points per day late, with no distinction made between excused or unexcused papers. Again, if this hurts someone's grade too much due to excused absences then the professor will support an excused withdrawal from the class.
Review Week- In all classes, the final week of class will be review for the final exam. As with the short exams, a review sheet will be distributed one week prior to the final exam.

[P.S. After writing the above, I thought of three additional new policies.

1. Don't add students over and above the class limit. I used to add anyone who wanted, but these were the students who didn't register in time and most of them would end up barely attending and then doing badly (and a non-attending student that does badly is a lot more work in terms of grading and in terms of the demands they make on you outside of class).
2. Don't do independent studies any more. I've done well over twice as many of these as any of my colleagues, but you are not paid extra, you don't really get service credit for them, and (most important) very few students in American Universities have the ability to effectively avail themselves of this kind of learning.
3. If a registered student does not attend the first week, LSU lets you purge their registration from the class. Pretty cool. Start doing this.]

 

March, 2008 posts on blind refereeing

1. Brief Explanation of How Blind Refereeing Works

Academic journals have varying levels of blind-reviewing. The levels enter because the editor first looks at the manuscript, then determines whether to send it to referees (usually two to four), then (should he so decide) sends it to them, at which point they read the manuscript and write a referee's report to the editor. When he gets the report he can either accept the paper for publication, allow the author to revise the paper and submit it again (at which point he may send it back to referees for one more judgment, or just accept or reject the piece), or just reject the piece.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there is no consistent terminology for these. I think the most standard use is the following. Single blind reviewed journals are ones (like The Journal of Philosophy) where the author does not know the identity of referees that write reports to the editor, but where the referees do know the identity of the author. Double blind reviewed journals are ones (like the Australasian Journal of Philosophy) where the editor knows the identity of the author but the referees do not, and as before the writer does not know the identity of the referees. Triple blind reviewed journals are ones (like some Kluwer journals, I think Synthese and Philosophical Studies) where even the editor does not know the identity of an author. With these, a secretary assigns the manuscript a number, and even the editor goes by that. I guess you could have quadruple blind reviewing where the editor doesn't know the identity of the referees, but nobody does that, and it's hard to see the point.

A few years ago there was a brouhaha in the letters section of the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association where people complained that The Journal of Philosophy could be single blind reviewed and still be considered the best journal in the field. The editor's response was especially embarrassing, given that students take logic classes in philosophy departments. He listed a set of second tier schools where some of their published authors resided, as if that was enough to refute claims of heuristic bias. If any student in a freshman level informal logic class did something like that they would get an F (and I can explain why if anybody is interested), but here you have the editor of the most prestigious journal in philosophy doing so with (I assume) a straight face.

I don't think this is so pernicious on the field, just because it is so uncommon.  A much more pressing problem is the fact that heuristic biases almost certainly lead editors to interpret reviewers' comments more or less charitably depending on the identity of the author. If this is the case, then there is a problem, because the vast majority of journals are double blind reviewed. While this is anecdotal, it is at least a piece of data that I know a number of people from top (and none from second tier) schools who have been given multiple revise and resubmits of the same piece after getting successive negative reviews. In some cases, the editor had previously gotten the writer to referee articles for him, based on a recommendation by members of that writer's dissertation committee. Well, nobody I know from OSU, even those who have published very well, has been given a second revise and resubmit for the same paper. If the editor decides that you can revise and resubmit the paper, then the norm is that he either accepts or rejects the rewritten piece, not give you another chance with another set of referees, if the initial referees still don't like it.

And again, while this is entirely anecdotal, I should note that the first journals I was able to publish in were Kluwer journals where only the secretary knew my identity. Prior to that I had two years of getting mixed referees reports and rejections by editors.

Oh well. What doesn't kill you and all that. . . . There is at least little enough heuristic bias that people from second and third tier schools can get top publications, albeit perhaps we have to work a bit harder (note how easy it is for someone with tenure to discount the effects of what are almost certain rampant heuristic biases; dear Jesus, what have I become?).

In this respect, it would be really nice to have a list of all the philosophy journals that genuinely do triple blind reviewing. I might do this after the rewrite of the book is in. This process has made me pretty interested in the ethics of refereeing. The fact that the author doesn't know the referee's identity presents a Ring of Gyges (if you could be invisible, what would you do?) scenario that can lead to moral atrociousness. I have strong views on what a referee's obligations are and I'll blog on that tomorrow. After Mark and I finish the book, and I finish and get out four co-written papers (and I don't deserve the forgiveness of my co-writers Sal Florio, Jason Megill, Sean Whittington, and the long suffering Mark Silcox in this regard) on which I'm horribly behind, I'm going to write a paper on this topic (tentative title "Three Blind Referees"), so any thoughts would be really helpful. I'll outline the main argument tomorrow.

2. Three Blind Referees

Time is short today, so I'm going to do another part tomorrow on the ethics of blind reviewing. Today I want to just define a few more terms to be able to set out the problem of what kind of reviewer one should be. [And while we are on the topic of journal procedures- also check out a recent post by Andrew Cullison defending open access in philosophy journals; you can read that on his interesting blog here.]

Referees know that the author will not know their identity. This leads to the proliferation of hostile and abusive comments (albeit, some journals, in particular the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, send a note out to all referees stating that if the review is overly negative the editor will not send it on to the authors). And yet despite anonymity, some referees are incredibly helpful to both the editor and the writer.

I propose three archetypes. On one side is the Good Samaritan reviewer. Even though the writer does not know his or her identity, the Good Samaritan goes out of her way to at the very minimum provide detailed advise about how the article could be improved, even in cases where rejection is counseled to the editor. Such referees play a very important role in improving the level of published academic philosophy, and have certainly saved the careers of young Ph.Ds struggling to go from dissertationese to mainstream published philosophy.

On the other side is Professor Angrypants. Professor Angrypants uses the anonymity as a bad person uses Plato’s invisibility granting Ring of Gyges, to take pleasure in terrorizing those who cannot know his or her identity. Rhetorically, Angrypants always presents him or herself as just objectively explaining to the editor the myriad reasons the editor should not publish the article, though the astounding level of misplaced condescention (strangely, almost always redolant of the manner in which twits and gits put down others according ot the assholery standards of the British class system) is a red light for editors in search of this. Unfortunately though, the process of blind refereeing is set up just because (in the vast majority of cases) the editor cannot be a specialist in all of the areas in which the journal in question publishes, and because the editor cannot possibly read all of the articles submitted. Thus, Professor Angrypants can resort to breathtaking sophism and uncharity and get away with it if he or she is rhetorically skilled enough. Every published author has suffered multiple times at Angrypants’ hand. Many professors are surprised when they inadvertantly learn that one or more of their colleagues is actually Professor Angrypants (albeit it is from such incidents that we have ascertained that Angrypants' behavior is almost always the result of overwhelming vanity, unjustified professional dissatisfaction, combined with other forms of jerkiness).

In between the Good Samaritan and Professor Angrypants is Joe Friday, who really does in a straightforward way present “just the facts” to the editor. The paradigm Joe Friday reviewer is very good at telling the editor what claims are being argued for and assessing the extent to which they have been successfully established according to the standards of the journal in question.

The way I’ve set this up, makes it appear that Joe Friday is the Aristotelian mean for which we should all aim. In fact I think this is demonstrably false. We should all aim to be Good Samaritans. Since this suggestion (not framed in this terminology) enraged a number of people when I made it on Leiter Reports, I’ll set out the defense tomorrow, when I have more time.

3. In praise of Good Samaritans

Here I want to defend the claim that all blind reviewers should try to be Good Samaritans. It is perhaps not so strange that this claim strikes some as common sense and provokes a great deal of defensive hostility in others.

To make my case, I want you to first imagine somebody defending the Joe Friday approach as striking them as the right Aristotelian mean between two vices, in the sense that courage is the mid-point between cowardice and foolhardiness. Such a defense does not get very far on its own though, because the Good Samaritan does not accept the view that Good Samaritanism is a vice. So Joe Friday will have to offer other reasons. For example, Joe could argue that he can do more reviews if he doesn't try to help the writer and thus contribute more to the greater good. But the Good Samaritan can respond by saying that by charitably construing the writer's claims and arguments and then giving the writer detailed advice about how to recraft the paper (or book) so that it achieves these goals he or she plays a crucial role in: (1) helping grad students mired in dissertationese learn to write published papers, (2) helping everyone's published papers be the strongest they possibly can. If everyone was a Joe Friday, the level of published philosophy would be much worse and many good philosophers would not develop their writing skills well enough to get tenure. Joe Friday will have a response, but like all such debates the participants will not convince one another.

Here's a much deeper reason why all reviewers should consciously try to be Good Samaritans. Professor Angrypants always thinks that he is really Joe Friday. Almost nobody consciously thinks, "I am going to be hostile, abusive, and uncharitable." Instead, they think that they are just presenting the facts to the editor. And yet the number of reviewers that are hostile, abusive, and uncharitable are legion.

There is a lot of cognitive science on this very issue, the ethical consequences of which are explored in the excellent papers by my ex-colleague Patrick Boleyn-Fitzgerald. In brief, anger really is a "short madness." When people are angry they systematically lose the ability to determine when anger is justified. Due to the similarity to self referential paradoxes ("this sentence is false") Boleyn-Fitzgerald appropriately calls this "the paradox of anger." Thus the kind of misdirected animosity characteristic of Professor Angrypants is such that he will be much more likely to see his behavior as not the result of animosity or even particularly angry.

Now let us return to Aristotle, who very sensibly said that the virtuous person will often need to shoot for an opposite vice than the one to which he is prone. So if I tend to be too much of a Puritanical tea-totaler I should shoot for more drunkenness in order to achieve true temperance (and vice versa if I tend to be a drunk). Without admitting that Good Samaritanism is a vice, this insight can be used against the defender of Joe Friday. Everybody suffers from the short madness of anger and as a result does irrational and destructive things, but research (cited by Boleyn-Fitzgerald) shows that if one prepares oneself ahead of time by noting that people are going to do irritating things (i.e. submit badly prepared papers) and tells oneself that one's job is to help people, then the irritating things do not provoke anger. So if one rationally wanted to be a Joe Friday (and not a Professor Angrypants who thinks he is being Joe Friday), then one should consciously strive to be a Good Samaritan. So we must all try to be Good Samaritans.

Fitzgerald uses this paradox to argue that anger is never justified. The only way one could have a justification (in the epistemic sense) that one's anger was justified is if one was not angry. The above reasoning is similar.

I don't think this argument will change anything, even if I get off my butt and write it up as an actual paper. There are too many Professor Angrypants in our field. Most of them are extraordinarily bitter for personal reasons (such as thinking they should be at a better ranked institution or that their articles should be cited more) and take it out on writers. Unfortunately, almost none of them realize they are doing this, and they get very defensive when confronted with it. Like all evil and abusive people, they see themselves as good guys doing the right thing. Moreover, given the nature of academic philosophy it will never be possible for the most conscientious editor to always catch Angrypants.

One thing that could change though is that journals and presses could explicitly tell reviewers that they expect them to be Good Samaritans even when counseling rejection. Of all the journals I've reviewed for and published in perhaps Australasian comes the closest to already doing this. And clearly Mind has been the worst in this regard; about five years the editor publicly rationalized the shoddy paperwork that leads them to keep papers for over a year by saying it's not Mind's job to help young scholars get tenure (long turnaround times are murderous when you are under the publish or perish gun). This is the classic Angrypants claim that he is just being Joe Friday. But if I am right that we need to all try to be Good Samaritans, then it is the job of Mind to try to help people get tenure. Even rejected authors should get helpful non-abusive comments in a timely fashion.

I should not have to say this

I'm already getting crap about Freddie Fratboy in the previous posting, albeit not nearly as much harassment (and no threats as of yet) as when I caught a whole frat cheating in my intro class and they weren't allowed to recruit the next year because the F's brought their GPA's too low.

I shouldn't have to say this, first because the previous post clearly does not apply to everyone in a frat (I know some very caring and decent people who survived the Greek system), and second because any minimally informed person realizes that college fraternities are pernicious. But many people are for whatever reasons unable to parse satire, which by definition is mockery infused with moral rage.  For one source of the moral rage (leading to the comment about date rape not being an intramural sport in the preceding the post) consider all of the following.

(1) Around two percent of female college students are raped in a fraternity house (statistics from which this can be extrapolated here). This is not two percent of all women who are assaulted, rather two percent of all female college students. Likewise, this does not account for rapes committed by fraternity members outside of the house, even though most frat-rats live off campus and many frat parties are now off campus to get around no alcohol and no hazing policies. Thus, especially given the following research, one should reasonably conclude that the number of female college students raped by fraternity members is much higher than two percent.

(2) S. B. Boeringer ((1999). Associations of rape-supportive attitudes with fraternal and athletic participation. Violence Against Women, 5, 81-90) discusses the repulsive attitudes of the average frat-rat. This is summarized here in the following manner.

The author examined rape-supportive attitudes in a sample of fraternity members, university athletes, and a control population. In all, a sample of 477 male university students were recruited. Results indicate that fraternity men report significantly greater endorsement of five statements supportive of rape and adversarial gender beliefs than did the controls. The author also found that athletes reported significantly greater agreement with 14 rape-supportive statements than did men in the control condition. The control group only reported greater agreement with 2 rape-supportive statements. This study tends to support the contention that there is a measurable relationship between rape-supportive attitudes and membership in fraternal or athletic organizations.

(2) T.J. Brown, et. al. ((2002). Understanding sexual aggression against women. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 17, 937-952) showed that fraternity membership (alongside conservative attitudes towards women and viewing contact sports) was a significant predictor of sexual violence against women.

(3) J.D. Foubert ((2000). The longitudinal effects of a rape-prevention program on fraternity men's attitudes, behavioral intent, and behavior. Journal of American College Health, 48, 158-163) showed that the institutional impetus to sexual assault was so great in the fraternity system that anti-rape programs led to no long term decrease in sexually coercive behavior.

(4) M.P. Frintner, et. al. ((1993). Acquaintance rape: The influence of alcohol, fraternity membership, and sports team membership. Journal of Sex Education & Therapy, 19, 272-284) determined that though fraternity members consisted of 25% of the student population (at the predominately white midwestern school they researched), they committed 50% of the campus rape (sports team members were 2% of the population and committed 20% of the rapes).

So no, I don't think I'll remove the bit about Freddie Fratboy, and if it offends you then your priorities are horrendously misplaced. 

Since satire confuses some mentally limited people, let me reiterate non-satirically that I am not being in the least facetious when I say that if there was anything approaching the level of "faculty governance" that the U.S. courts have posited to make it harder for professorial staff to unionize (since the existence of powerless faculty senates apparently makes us management), then all of the frat houses would be seized and either blown up like those orthodox churches circa 1917 Soviet Russia or at least converted into something more useful such as Christian Science reading rooms.

updated list of (Jungian arche-)types of irritating students

One of the three (along with this and this) most googled and linked-to posts on this blog is "updated list of (Jungian arche-)types of irritating professors." Basic fairness dictates equivalent lists for students, administrators, and support staff. Today we begin to rectify this.

This will be a work in progress. I'll add your suggestions, and revise the names to conform to "Rate Your Students" terminology. [Also see Philosophy Factory's breakdown here.] I hope this ultimately catalogs all of their types, with links.

1. Amy Air Calv: Drawbacks- Living embodiment of all that is unfair about what Jameson used to call "late capitalism." That is, most students don't have parents with enough time, money, and bad parenting skills to swoop in with the family lawyer at the helicopter machine gun port ("Get some! Get some!").  Be prepared to give Amy an incomplete (though she never showed up to class), extra credit (for work not offered to others), and allow her to redo plagiarized work. Amy, her parents, and their lawyers create not only massive extra work for everyone concerned but also (especially among untenured) gut wrenching fear that administrators will get angry at you for not "taking care of it" in a way that doesn't force them to deal with yet another helicopter. And since you can also get in trouble for not being fair to the other students, there is nothing you can do. You, the professor, are screwed. And, moreover, you better not slip up once in any way, and you better be a canned lecture regurgitating robot up there in front of everybody (e.g. one of my colleagues at a previous university slipped the "F" word in class, and this was so psychically traumatic that Amy's F (the grade, not the word) was removed from her record and my colleague who had won teaching awards was reprimanded). Benefits- Often these students have nice social skills and an immense skill at flattery before the velvet gloves come off and the iron fist descends. This could conceivably help set a tone where the other students think the class material is worth learning. [Also see here.]
   
2. Andy Angry: Drawbacks- Andy is perversely empowered by school shooters, because professors really, really fear him now. If he talks in class, he will mostly just complain bitterly about you and the fact that he has to take this class. If he attempts to engage the material, this will involve examples that are not only irrelevant but also racist, sexist, and homophobic. If you rebuke him even for just lack of relevance, he will present himself as part of the great victimized conservative movement in this country. If he has prison ink and/or that psychotic I-will-kill-you-with-less-feeling-than-when-I-magnify-glass-burned-ants-as-a-child look in his eyes, you probably should be too scared to report him for academic misconduct. Benefits- May not talk in class. May not show up to class much. To the extent the anger gets expressed other than voting Republican and spewing diatribes ripped off from talk radio, he is statistically likely to take it out on somebody other than you and the students. Most positively though, with Bush/Cheney/Rove's declining political fortunes, anger combined with idiocy has become uncool to our students. As a result, the Angry Andy herd is being thinned out.
3. Aubrey Ubermench: (from Mark Silcox) Drawbacks- Has read loads of Ayn Rand or Nietzsche outside of class, and only takes an interest in the content of the course when something said by the prof or the textbook author serves to confirm his absolutely irrevocable sense of his own superiority over fellow man. Benefits- Sometimes is actually willing to work pretty hard, which I guess is a benefit, as is the little thrill of pure malice that one gets when giving him a final grade of 'B.'
4. Chester Cheater: Drawbacks- Given most university policies, Chester ends up taking up a tremendous amount of time. You have to write up a report documenting the plagiarism for the Dean of Students office and then deal with them as well as Chester. Once after giving Chester an incomplete so he could redo the assignment (at the encouragement of the Dean, though without tenure I didn't really have a choice), he cheated on the makeup. I wrote up the report on that and for my labors had to go before the academic dishonesty committee, which included a student campus activist with an uncanny resemblance to Toulouse Lautrec. I kept thinking of those weird paintings of ballerinas. The star chamber grilled me about how my syllabus didn't say enough about plagiarism the whole time since they could not be told this was Chester's second chance. I couldn't tell them why I'd given him an incomplete and they acted as if I was covering something up. Then, while deciding the young man's fate, they made me sit in a room with Chester for an hour. He was very angry and freaking out about getting an F. It sucked, but my situation is better than an untenured friend of mine (at another university) who has been forced by the academic dishonesty committee to give the plagiarizing students the grade they would have gotten had they not plagiarized and then subtract one letter grade from that. They both got B's and continued to openly mock him the whole semester. Benefits- Though the system adds massive amounts of work when you are desperately trying to publish enough to not be fired (as well as do right by the non-cheaters and do administrative stuff), the benefit is that you can convince the student that your hands are tied in a way that minimizes the chance that violence gets aimed at you. [Also see here and here.]
5. Connor Colleague- Drawbacks- When you are freaking out about the astoundingly uncharitable things referees for peer-reviewed journals have said, it does absolutely nothing for your ego to have Connor tell you "good job" after class. And when he nods and smiles after judging you to have made a good point in class, deep existential anxiety descends. Is this what you slaved through grad. school for? Is this why you lick the boots of your at best clueless baby boomer colleagues? And when Connor "corrects" you and other students on some point for the eight hundredth time, you begin to feel the need to smash something. Benefits- The other students hate him a lot more than you do. In addition, the thought, "Jesus Christ, was I like that as an undergraduate?" might inspire well-needed humility and kindness. Or it might deepen the despair.
6. Darla Dropslip- Drawbacks- Benefits- [Also see here.]
7. Donald Dope-Drawbacks- Sends incoherent e-mails at odd hours of the morning. Takes up space with his underachieving self. Sometimes smells bad. Benefits- Generally hurting nobody but himself. Will hook you up with some good s**t (please don't report this blog to the war on drugs; that was a joke). [Also see here.]
   
8. Eddie Email- Drawbacks- Your administration might be on Eddie's side, since b.s. boilerplate about using new technologies doesn't cost anything. Well, it doesn't cost anything other than the six figure salary of the Vice Provosts who, in between forcing faculty to write horrendously time consuming (yet unread and useless) reports, reflexively spew the kind of management school garbage that would make any private company go broke within a month. You, the professor, must develop overwhelming passive aggressive kung fu in two directions, fending off students and administrators alike (just think of the time Kane had to fight multiple people blindfolded; you are Kane). Benefits- What does not kill you makes you stronger. The skill at dealing with Eddie is transferable. First, you learn to have no guilt whatsoever when confronted by Eddie about the fact that you did not answer his four e-mails sent to you after midnight the day before the test or assignment was due. This leads you to be able to ignore all of the deranged e-mails sent to you during the brief period between the final exam and when all of your grading has to be done. Then, finally, you are self actualized, staring down from the Nietzschean summit of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, learning to deal assertively with your students, colleagues, and administrators while brushing off unreasonable demands (WARNING: As with the thing about buying drugs from Donald Dope, this is a joke. Do not attempt being assertive in your home department. We are trained professionals on this blog.) [Also see here, here, and here.]
9. Evan Evangelist: Drawbacks- His smarmy condescension towards the hellbound can grate. Weirdly, Evan is usually pretty smart I.Q.-wise. But then if the Bible is as important as he claims, why doesn't he take some Religious Studies classes and actually learn about its history of composition as well as what those words actually mean in the original languages? Could it be because all students as smart as Evan who do this end up giving up on the claim that the Bible is literally true and hence stop being Evan. Evan is smart, but his religious mandate to convert you the professor (combined with blindness to contrary evidence and reason) retards his ability to write a decent paper, can make him disruptive in class, and entails that you will probably waste hours with him in your office. Benefits- Suffering at the hands of graduated Evans in the Reagan Administration led the Dead Kennedys to pen two punk rock classics, which you can hear here and here. Sometimes Evan's papers are genuinely funny, especially if (as is often the case) he is a closeted homosexual who thinks that Jesus was as obsessed about gay sex as he and his fellow conservative evangelicals. Example- I rarely teach ethics, but in the course of doing so, two separate Evans have argued in final papers that gay marriage must be illegal because if it was legal men would just marry one another and the human species would die out. Well. . . there's something to make you go "hmm." Finally, Evan will often give you weird a-historical books that are popular with evangelicals. If you have more than passing anthropological interest in the poison coursing through the veins of our great Republic, then these books are a goldmine (though sadly not a velvet one).
10. Fanny Facebook: Drawbacks- Sometimes it is much more difficult to teach when students are so clearly in no way engaged with what the professor is saying. It distracts the other students too. Benefits- She invariably has a wide variety of facial expressions depending upon what is going on with all her Facebook "friends." As she instant messages and notes her way to an F in the class, you get to see the fundamental emotions (the ones we have in common with dogs and lower primates: angry, sad, scared, happy) light across her face several times a class period, all having nothing to do with what's going on in the real world surrounding her. This can be entertaining. Also, from a teaching perspective, is it any worse than the alternative of being stared at in a bored and hostile manner? [Also see here and here.]
11. Freddie Fratboy: Drawbacks- His very existence is irrefutable proof that "faculty governance" is a complete lie. If faculty had any control over the universities, then there would be no frats, and this ass-hat would be ridden out of town on a rail. Q.E.D. Benefits- The Dead Kennedys wrote a great song about Freddie. Greatest benefit of post-manufacturing economy is that Freddie is now downwardly mobile and will end up taking orders from the nerds he picked on in high school. Is at least courteous enough to identify himself with the sullen and condescending demeanor, a-literacy, submental sense of humor, and stupid looking backwards baseball cap. Most Americans now instinctively know that: (1) fraternity without liberty or equality is fascism, (2) there is something deeply wrong with buying friends, and (3) date rape should not be an intramural sport. [Also see here.]
12. Grandy Gradegrubber- Drawbacks- Sometimes Grandy has a secret super-villian identity and by his behavior you realize that he periodically morphs into Marshall Manipulator and/or Amy Air Calvary, a transformation that terrifyingly does not even require a Greatest-American-Hero style super-suit. One day Grandy himself is turning on the charm while indicting your unreasonable demand that assignments instantiate such ephemera as grammar, clarity, and having a thesis, and the next day he's morphed and you are dealing with chairs and administrators. Benefits- None. Grandy is so self-deluded that life will never really kick him in the pants, so any revenge fantasies of your own involve self deception. For his entire life, Randy will radically reinterpret everything so that it does not contradict his view of himself as actually talented and deserving. Even worse, if he is socio-pathic enough to succeed at convincing others of his genius, he might end up being Chancellor or Provost of your university, or even President of these United States from the years 2000-2008 C.E. And as the final insult, it's not clear that Dead Kennedys wrote a song indicting this jerkypants. [Also see here.]
13. Ingrid Involved: (from Neal Hebert) Drawbacks- Frequently misses class (with signed notes by the Dean of Students) to be the Student Government representative at national fundraisers for the University's newest capital outlay program. Often falls asleep during lectures after this week's Up Til Dawn St. Jude's Children's Hospital fundraiser. Assumes student involvement should substitute for academic achievement, and predicts her grades with the efficiency of a horse-bookie in order to ensure that she maintains the University-mandated 2.2 semestrial and cumulative GPA to stay involved. Incessantly asks for five minutes of class time to announce the newest SG initiative or program to bolster student "cohesion," leaving less time for lectures and discussion. Benefits- If hasn't adopted hostile administrative stance towards professors, can often provides useful context and information to supplement rampant professorial speculations about why the University is slashing academic/humanities funding. If professors suck up to Ingrid, and she is so inclined, then her ties with administrators can lead to the bestowal of university-awarded teaching awards and the monetary pittance that goes with them. Incessantly asks for five minutes of class time to announce the newest SG initiative or program to bolster student "cohesion," leaving less time for lectures and discussion. [Also see here.]
14. Larry Pre-law: (from Robby B) Drawbacks- Professes to everyone not interested that his major is "pre-law," though there is no "pre-law" major; will not claim his real major because he thinks it may not be impressive enough to the "ladies," though it's all moot because he will get into law school anyway because of some horrible legacy plan. Is in your class because of equivocation on his part entailing that what lawyers and philosophers do are somehow the same. Larry could be Freddie Fratboy, or at least alot like him. Always wants to cross-examine you in the manner of the lawyer shows watches on television while drunk and/or high and feels he is uniquely qualified because of his job as a "runner" at his uncle's law firm 10 hours a week. Benefits- ?
15. Marshall Manipulator: Drawbacks- Benefits-
16. Mary Maternal: Drawbacks- Takes it upon herself to speak for the whole class in petitioning for you to change the date of the exam. Almost always has some rude habit (bringing McDonald's "food" to class, horrifically smelly perfume, open-mouthedly smacking on gum, inability to sit still) that seems inexplicable given everything else about her. Twice before has bullied the department chair/staff into giving her my home phone number so she could harangue me about the exam. Benefits- The most obnoxious of the male students tend to behave much better when Mary is in the class.
17. Nancy Nude: Drawbacks- Anything critical you say about her just makes you look sexist in the 1950's American Taliban kind of way (one of my colleagues once confronted Nancy (at the time wearing vaguely see-through pajama bottoms, a too-small tube top, and sandals) in our departmental office and said, "Young lady. Does your mother know you go out in public dressed like that?" He is a nice guy who really wanted to help her, but he sounded like a tool.). Anything humorous you might say about Nancy sounds ugly and sexist in the "free" (for asinine bearded men) love 1960's kind of way. Benefits- Generally not a bad student. Perhaps a visual palliative for pathetic midlife crisis professors contemplating all the money they are going to lose in their second divorce. [Also see here.]
18. Randy Returning Student- Drawbacks- Is likely to predicate sentences with "in the real world." Benefits- At least it talks. [Also see here.]
19. Sammy Sullen- Drawbacks- Though Sammy's in class behavior runs the gamut from slouching and  looking disgruntled all the way to openly mocking the professor in class, he always makes teaching a drag. Unfortunately, in freshman classes, Sammy can constitute up to half of the male students. This is because he has not yet had the high school hegemony of "cool" violently kicked out of him.  Benefits- I am just the boot to do it. [Also see here and here.]
    
20. Samuel Sickly- Drawbacks- If you routinely depart from your syllabus for him, then you have also routinely rewarded dishonesty. Sometimes when he really is sick he shows up in your office to let you know it's for real and in the process gets germs all over you. Plus, it's really none of your business! I don't even want to know what an anal fissure is, much less that they are the reason Samuel can't make it to class all semester. Finally, so many students now do the Elvis Presley thing of prescribed speed during the daytime (for their ADHD) and prescribed downers at night (for the prescribed speed) that you can end up with nobody in class doing the work on time because they all have psychological excuses. But then there are no rules. Everything is permitted and you not only have war of all against all where life is nasty, brutish, and short but also anarchy descends in a poetic sense, and we're left with a planet of these sick bastards up to no good snuffling towards Bethlehem. Benefits- I'm serious, the drug-addled Fat Elvis was way better than Skinny Elvis. Fat Elvis fired the horrible Jordiniares back up singers and regained artistic control from Colonel Parker. And he rocked. Go watch the "Aloha Show" if you doubt this. The fact that Americans voted for the Skinny Elvis stamp is just one more example of how we are failing as educators. [Also see here.]
21. Simon Superkeener:  Drawbacks- The other students resent you the professor, for not shutting this windbag up. Benefits- At least it does talk. Learning to deal with Simon may help you learn to deal with other socially hopeless people. William S. Burroughs says that you should look people like this in the eye and think, "I hate you. I love you. I hate you. I love you. . ." until they shut up. If that doesn't work you are supposed to say, "Tell a shrink. I am not being compensated for listening to this." When you find that neither of these things work with Simon, the last vestiges of your faith in the author of Naked Lunch will vanish. This is not such a bad thing. Ultimately he himself really was just the loudest drunk at the bar, a beatnik Simon if you will. [Also see here and here.]
22. Seymore Sleepy: Drawbacks- If he is the type of Seymore that stays at home to sleep, chances are that he will hassle you about his grade. Benefits- If he is the type of Seymore who actually comes to class, only to immediately fall asleep, great fun can be had at his expense. You can hide his backpack. If your classroom is on the ground floor, you can get the entire class to sneak out and stare at him through the windows. When you bang on the glass he'll briefly wonder where he is.
23. Sparky Spook: Drawbacks- Even though Sparky misses over half the class periods, he will inevitably: (a) angrily and self-righteously blame you for his bad grade, and (b) show up on the day student evaluation forms are handed out. Benefits- The Stoics or the Romans (I don't know exactly who, but I'm sure it was guys who wore those weird skirt things and sandles but still kicked butt with swords) used to say that hunger is the best dressing. Likewise, some things are better for their absence. Almost certainly Sparky is. [Also see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.]
24. Stanley Student Athlete: Drawbacks- In most cases is illiterate and aggrieved. Can send you into an intensive care unit should he so desire. Instead of wasting four years ruining his health via tendon damage and bodily injuries, might actually excel academically at a community college, or perhaps vocational-technical school, or perhaps whatever is on offer at the correctional facility he may still wind up in. In rare cases is actually a nice guy, which makes the fact that he is a dimbulb getting ripped off by a world ruled by idiots all the more depressing. In very rare cases, may actually not be a dimbulb, which makes the fact that he could have afforded college without destroying his health and missing all his classes even more depressing. Finally, with the exception of professional wrestling and competitive figure skating, sports are boring and stupid. I mean, this is a university for God's sake. Why don't they build a huge-ass stadium for the chess team or math squad or some s**t like that? Benefits-  If you are lucky enough to teach in a department that does not have required classes (As a Philosopher, it would be remiss for me not to say "Booyah! In your face English Department!") and maintains anything approaching standards (I would say something about "general studies" (or whatever equivalent your university has to try to keep graduation rates high enough to game the relevant U.S. News and World Report statistic), education, kinesiology, business, or sports medicine here, but that would be rude; let me humbly suggest that interested parties look at average student GPA's in these majors (the highest) as well as average SAT scores (the lowest) for people in them), then you won't have to deal with Stanley. [Also see here and here.]
25. Wally Warbucks: Drawbacks- Will miss large swaths of class due to trips funded by super-rich parents. Benefits- Will miss large swaths of class due to trips funded by super-rich parents. [Also see here.]
    
26. Wanda Waterworks: Drawbacks- While weeping, tells you things that are none of your business, usually to explain missing over half of the class periods while simultaneously trying to get you to violate the stated policy of your syllabus. As with Samuel Sickley, if you reliably respond in the desired manner then you have rewarded dishonesty multiple times, and for that matter are always being unfair to students who have rightfully internalized the wisdom of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca. Benefits- The best thing to do is to solicitously direct Wanda to the health clinic, the ombudsperson, or the relevant administrative staff. If she's faking, then it's a brilliant passive aggressive bit of psychological kung fu on your part. If she's not, then maybe you piled up some good Karma and increased the chance of not being reborn as a tree-sloth or worse next time around.
27. Wilbur Whinger: [Also see here.]
28. Willy Wayward: (from Mark Silcox) Drawbacks - Wears a carefully cultivated goatee and expensive concert shirts for bands that are sort of indie and esoteric, but maybe not really (think Weezer, Coldplay, System of a Down, etc.). Is enrolled in Business School, "cause my folks, like, thought it would be a good idea." Claims to be a guitar virtuoso. Develops morbid temporary fascination with liberal arts topics, leading to endless conversations during office hours about The Meaning of (His) Life. Will not read, cannot write. Professes to despise the prospect of a career in business, but would never seriously dream of leaving Business School. Benefits- At least he's interested, albeit perhaps in the sense that hypocrisy is vice paying tribute to virtue..

Leiter thread on McGinn/Honderich reviewing brouhaha mentioned in the Manchester Guardian

There's an interesting thread here on Leiter's blog to which I contributed.  It concerns a really entertainingly withering review by Colin McGinn on Honderich's new radical externalism book.  I'm torn about this.  On the one hand I think the cult of niceness is part of why Democrats are losing to Republicans who have vastly less popular substantive positions.  As such it's a bad thing.  In addition, my favorite writer in the world is Kingsley Amis.  In spite of his (or Lucky Jim's) wisdom that nice things are nicer than nasty things, Amis could be hilariously nasty.  Finally McGinn is a very, very good prose stylist, and this goes a long way with me.

On the other hand, I'm completely fed up with snarky condescension by academic philosophers.  Part of this is because I'm interested in stuff that is so often condescended to (e.g. phenomenology, Dummettian anti-realism, the Lucas-Penrose arguments against mechanism).  But such snarkiness keeps people from following the Muse, which in my opinion is the greatest possible aesthetic and philosophical sin.

Another issue that is raised in the chain concerns McGinn himself saying that the kind of rudeness of his article would be inappropriate if directed against junior professors or people with less prestigious institutional affiliations than Honderich.  I think this is morally plausible.

Oops, the pizza's ready.  Tomorrow morning I'll add a humorous anecdote about how a famous logician renown for his kindness was an incredible bastard to me at the Prague Logica conference when I was just out of graduate school.  I'll name names.  For now, click on the link above.  It's interesting stuff.

writing a book is sui generis and psychologically weird

Ludwig Wittgenstein's dying words were supposedly, "I would have loved to have written a work of philosophy consisting entirely of jokes.  The problem is, I had no sense of humor." 

I realize that these last words aren't nearly as awesome as Oscar Wilde's "Either that wallpaper goes or I do!" but they do have the advantage of exactly describing the philosopher in Winter.  And it's freaking cold in Oklahoma right now.

Philosophy Through Video Games [which you can pre-order here (note that amazon mistakenly lists the book as being by me, as opposed to me and Mark Silcox; this will be fixed)] is going well, but the February 1st deadline is looming very large.  I've hit a stride and am now working as hard as I ever have. Mark and I want this book to be really good.

Whenever you work really hard at something creative, you always wonder who will really avail themselves of it.

Academic articles are on average cited one point five times, and one of those times is by the author of the article citing her or himself in another article.  Given that a few classic articles are always cited so many times, this means that the overwhelming number of academic articles are never cited by anybody other than the author.  This is much worse than only ever being praised by your mother.

I hope what I'm about to reveal isn't like that time I drunkenly showed a member of the media the secret philosophers' handshake in a New Orleans bar, but the deep dark secret truth is that the overwhelming majority of academics don't really read much in their field unless they are teaching a class on the topic or some external reviewer tells them they have to cite the article in question.  This is probably a necessity, because if you really tried to read the hundreds to thousands of articles on what you are writing about, all the other thoughts would cloud out any creative idea you might have.  So I don't mind that so much.  It's notwhere near as hideous as the disturbing percentage of academics who don't read novels. If aliteracy can now be this rampant among college professors, there is probably no hope for humanity.  But I digress.

With extraordinarily few exceptions, the only way of getting your work thought about is by giving papers at tons of conferences.  I'm not complaining, but this has hurt my career due to three personality flaws I possess: (1) my not being very good at networking (my rock star hearing is just too bad to have decent conversations in APA related stuff, and any of my friends (people I actually love) can tell you that I'm an atrocious e-mail correspondent), (2) my hatred of contemporary airline travel (since the sadistic jerks in charge of this country made the seats and seating area murderously small and began criminally overbooking the flights and overcrowding runways, every aspect of flying in these United States is physically and psychologically revolting; read latest developments here), and (3) once I've figured something out to my satisfaction, I want to move on and think about something else (so I don't enjoy giving papers on areas in which I've already published, and I find that giving the same paper multiple times prevents me from doing new work).

I'm not complaining!  I'm very happy at L.S.U. and very lucky to have tenure there, and I don't begrudge the success of my good friends (e.g. Roy Cook and Joe Salerno) who have skill sets that allow them to write great philosophy while simultaneously having philosophical adventures all over the world.

This being said, if the book gets bad reviews or doesn't sell well I'm going to be pretty extremely bummed out.  I don't know why a book is different.  I'm very happy making music (free MP3s here) just to commune with the muse and have a blast with Emily.  I don't care that the recorded stuff is so distasteful/unpleasant to people.  The thought that Lester Bangs is in Heaven rocking out to my work is consolation enough.  Likewise, with articles I'm very happy to write just to get myself closer to the truth.  Somehow while working myself ragged on this book with the Martian landscape outside, I want more though. 

This is almost certainly gods-punishment inducing hubris.  As long as I don't wind up on a dungheap or poking out my own eyes, I'm O.K. with that.

can somebody please answer this?

Why is it that my most radically conservative students are always some combination of child-of-divorce, in-the-closet homosexual, and short?

Just to be clear for any non-philosophers reading this, the presupposed claim is not that all or even most short, closeted, children of divorce end up being wackily conservative.  It's just that every single student I've ever had who is wackily conservative has at least one and often more than one of the three properties.  I willingly admit that this may be a statistical fluke, but if not, then why?

Before answering the question, we must better understand our terms.  Characteristic behaviors of the wacky conservative are: (a) continuing to strongly support President Bush (in particular, his torture policies, but also his ruinous deficit spending and monetary, environmental, and foreign policies) at this point in history, (b) arguing that the Confederacy was a good thing, (c) bringing in pseudo-scientific arguments against evolutionary biology, and (d) reading and quoting submental books by Fox news personalities.  This isn't a definition yet.  Can anyone come up with a set of informative necessary and sufficient conditions?  Or even just more characteristic behaviors?

Please note that many of my beliefs are what Americans traditionally called conservative [e.g. against affirmative action, against various kinds of grievance studies as academic areas, against deficit spending, enthusiastically for the military and police officers, for a strong liberal arts education rooted in the classics, against Johnsonian welfare, for markets entirely free except when strong utilitarian concerns override (as is the case with environmental concerns, civil rights enforcement, anti-monopoly legislation, a high minimum wages, a graduated income tax, the earned-income tax credit, research funding, education, and health care)].  So I don't mean to be putting down the conservatives among us.  In fact, as much as is possible for a proud New Deal Democrat, Barry Goldwater is my hero.  I'm just talking about wacky conservatives here.

Have I defined my terms correctly?  Is it out of line to wonder about this?  Help me here.  I think I'll be a better teacher if I get insight into this, even if it's just that I'm mistaken.