You want guilt? You can’t handle the guilt!!
The Chronicle of Higher Education asked several academics, “to share their secret (or not so secret) guilty pleasures” outside of the classroom.” Cosmic Variance’s Sean Carroll provided an answer, but is thoroughly unimpressed with the entire exercise: Seems like a potentially amusing parlor game, no? Well, as a moment?s reflection would reveal, no. Because you ...
The Chronicle of Higher Education asked several academics, "to share their secret (or not so secret) guilty pleasures" outside of the classroom." Cosmic Variance's Sean Carroll provided an answer, but is thoroughly unimpressed with the entire exercise: Seems like a potentially amusing parlor game, no? Well, as a moment?s reflection would reveal, no. Because you see, what could they possibly say? Most academics, for better or for worse, basically conform to the stereotype. They like reading books and teaching classes, not shooting up heroin or walking around in public dressed up in gender-inappropriate undergarments. (See, I don?t even know what would count as a respectable guilty pleasure.) And if they did, they certainly wouldn?t admit it. And if they did admit it, it certainly wouldn?t be in the pages of the Chronicle.... As it turns out, compared to my colleagues I?m some sort of cross between Hunter S. Thompson and Caligula. Get a load of some of these guilty pleasures: Sudoku. Riding a bike. And then, without hint of sarcasm: Landscape restoration. Gee, I hope your Mom never finds out about that.Henry Farrell chimes in: I?m as bad as any of the respondents if not worse ? my guilty pleasures are nothing more exciting than science fiction and fantasy novels with garish covers ? but if anyone else has more interesting pleasures to confess in comments (anonymously or anonymously), go ahead.Some of Henry's commenters comes up with some good ones, but my personal fave is: "snorting meth off the flesh of naked people using a rolled up Universal Declaration of Human Rights." I have no shortages of guilty pleasures, but there are limits to sharing. Still, to make Sean feel better, here are links to my guilty blog pleasure du jour and my ridiculously guilty TV pleasure from last fall (in my defense, the official Blog Wife was also transfixed by the latter).
The Chronicle of Higher Education asked several academics, “to share their secret (or not so secret) guilty pleasures” outside of the classroom.” Cosmic Variance’s Sean Carroll provided an answer, but is thoroughly unimpressed with the entire exercise:
Seems like a potentially amusing parlor game, no? Well, as a moment?s reflection would reveal, no. Because you see, what could they possibly say? Most academics, for better or for worse, basically conform to the stereotype. They like reading books and teaching classes, not shooting up heroin or walking around in public dressed up in gender-inappropriate undergarments. (See, I don?t even know what would count as a respectable guilty pleasure.) And if they did, they certainly wouldn?t admit it. And if they did admit it, it certainly wouldn?t be in the pages of the Chronicle…. As it turns out, compared to my colleagues I?m some sort of cross between Hunter S. Thompson and Caligula. Get a load of some of these guilty pleasures: Sudoku. Riding a bike. And then, without hint of sarcasm: Landscape restoration. Gee, I hope your Mom never finds out about that.
I?m as bad as any of the respondents if not worse ? my guilty pleasures are nothing more exciting than science fiction and fantasy novels with garish covers ? but if anyone else has more interesting pleasures to confess in comments (anonymously or anonymously), go ahead.
Some of Henry’s commenters comes up with some good ones, but my personal fave is: “snorting meth off the flesh of naked people using a rolled up Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” I have no shortages of guilty pleasures, but there are limits to sharing. Still, to make Sean feel better, here are links to my guilty blog pleasure du jour and my ridiculously guilty TV pleasure from last fall (in my defense, the official Blog Wife was also transfixed by the latter).
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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