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Friday, April 29, 2005
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TEACHING TODAY A Regular University Diaries Feature Colin “Eat My Spume” McGinn has left the philosophy department at Rutgers for the University of Miami so that he can surf. “I like water sports. Miami is a year-round water-sports place.” The top-ranked philosopher is leaving a top-ranked philosophy department (his departure “could leave Rutgers’ high ranking vulnerable,“ worries the Rutgers student newspaper) for lowly UM, which is “definitely not as good as Rutgers is,” McGinn acknowledges. “But I have to weigh how much that matters to my daily life.” UD finds McGinn’s candor about his motivations as refreshing as an ocean breeze. But she is not surprised. She remembers his 2004 interview with the Times of London, which upset a lot of people: ' "I won't talk to my colleagues about philosophy. It is too boring to me," he says. But why? "They are too stupid." He can't say that! "No, they don't get it. And I don't want to have an hour's conversation about it." But they have read the same texts? "Oh, yes. This is where I get much more intolerant. I know exactly what they are going to say. They ought to know what I am going to say, but apparently they don't.... It is a fault. But I am not as bad as Bernard Williams. He apparently was horrible to people. He could not tolerate people being less clever than him. [UD tolerates people who don't know when to use "he" or "him."] He was quicker than anybody else, and if they were not as quick as him, he would show his disdain for them." ' UD wishes McGinn well in his new life, but she worries about how he’ll handle the strong Florida sun. The Times reporter notes McGinn’s “practical obtuseness” -- "McGinn…has trouble working out where to sit to avoid the sun’s glare, leaving me to come up with the radical idea of drawing the curtains." |
