Thursday, November 18, 2004
(8:59 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Friday Afternoon Confessional: Thursday Night Edition
I confess that I can be thoughtlessly evasive and opaque in my speech and writing, apparently unable to distinguish between the appropriate style for a discussion of French philosophy and that for a serious discussion with someone for whom I care very deeply. I further confess that I develop such an impenetrable web of serious and joking statements in my speech that I often might as well be asking people to just intuitively "know" what I actually think, without direct recourse to what I actually "say." This leads to continual misunderstandings among those I am just meeting and those who have known me for many years.I confess that I have thinned the ranks of The Weblog's contributors somewhat. The original triumverate of me, Robb, and Mike Schaefer remain, together with the Smith non-family. I can explain myself, if necessary, in the comments. The Young Hegelian also retains posting privileges at the moment, in case he comes up with another thought-provoking guest post. Perhaps I could work out some kind of program where a guest poster maintains his or her privileges until another guest poster comes aboard.
I confess that I was rude and short to my constantly panicked co-worker today. I confess to using hurtful stereotypes in a discussion of what it was like to drive from the big city of Chicago to the "just plain folks" heartland-style setting of Kankakee. I confess that I broke my Radiohead fast, listening not only to Kid A (my favorite of theirs), but also the vastly inferior Hail to the Thief.
I confess to not doing as much schoolwork as I should, in general terms. I confess that my desire to avoid some slight reformatting has delayed my attempt to publish my Bonhoeffer paper by several months. I similarly confess that my reluctance to go to the trouble of checking a book out of the library has kept me from making the changes suggested by my professor in my Moltmann/Barth paper and sending that off as well. I confess that it never even occurred to me to go to AAR this year. I confess to being disgusted at my own incipient academic careerism and at my inability to rigorously distinguish in my own mind between careerism and genuine intellectual inquiry. I confess that I often wonder what my blog posts will be like when I will have finished a PhD and failed to land a decent academic job.
I confess that I want to move to Chicago more every day, and that all things being equal, I would strongly prefer to continue my graduate work at a school in Chicago -- that would, somewhat ridiculously, be a more salient factor than the choice between theology and philosophy.
