After all, most college professors recognize that unlike janitors, hairdressers and personal trainers, no one really needs their services.
by Leon Hadar
As someone who wasted a few years of his life teaching in undistinguished academic institutions, I could never figure out why Hollywood would bother making movies about college professors and why anyone would want to spend his time or money watching for two hours a disheveled and grumpy middle aged man, portrayed as a misogynist and a misanthropic, trying to overcome his writer’s block while forcing himself on his female (and occasionally, male) students. Like who cares?
But who knows? Perhaps after getting tenured and spending the rest of my life teaching illiterate and apathetic kids about the same esoteric and boring subjects year after year after year, writing articles and books that no one reads, and being surrounded during long faculty meetings (where, as Dr. K. once noted, the fights are so bloody because the stakes are so small) by obnoxious and emasculating feminists and lefty guys with beards and/or pony tales, I would also have probably lost my own lust for life, or my so-called “life.”After all, most college professors—and I’m talking here about the humanities and social science departments—recognize that unlike janitors, hairdressers and personal trainers, no one really needs their services. Students sign up for classes in political “science” (which is what I was teaching) or Shakespeare, because they tend to be painless and inflated with a lot of “A’s.” If you really wanted to study French lit or American history, all you had to do is pick up a few good books in the library and read them. You certainly didn’t t have to force your divorced father, burdened with a huge alimony and a new wife, to pay $$$ (I’m not sure what’s the cost of a “credit” is these days) and to listen to an unkempt and bearded grump (don’t these guys get paid enough to join a gym or visit the dentist?) read his notes for the thousandth time.
In short, there are Alpha Males—and then there are college professors who wake up late in life in their cluttered office, as they wait for another student to knock on the door and ask them for an extension on their paper, finding out that all they have to show for their efforts is their tenured position. Isn’t that exciting?
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/real_men_dont_get_tenure/