Jonathan Hight posted on his heterodox blog, an article entitled the two fiduciary duties of professors. He said basically like the goal of a professor to students should be to teach them well and to science,. It should be truth, like, or just a dedication to truth. And we can't serve two masters; if you're making me put social justice in my work, then I feel like you're violating the sanctity of my dedication toTruth. You corrupt and subvert the fiduciary's ability to carry out their duty.
We dive into David Foster Wallace’s sprawling 1993 essay “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction.” How do TV and new forms of media keep their hold on us when we know at some level that they’re reinforcing our loneliness and passivity? That’s easy, Wallace says, post-modern cool. Flatter me, let me think we’re all in the joke together, give me “an ironic permission-slip to do what I do best whenever I feel confused and guilty: assume, inside, a sort of fetal position, a pose of passive reception to comfort, escape, reassurance.” But in the years since this essay, the TV landscape has completely transformed. Has it transcended its function as a surrogate companion for lonely people, or has it just found new ways to keep us isolated and passive?
Plus, we talk about the recent new SPSP guidelines and Jon Haidt’s recent essay on why he’s resigning from the organization. (Sorry, Jon!)
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