Windy today. Wind is both invigorating and sleep-inducing. Odd, that.
Long before "Hamilton," I had a patient who became a friend in the early 80s who had written a play about Alexander that used lots of wind images - he was quite proud of the idea of associating Hamilton with wind. That seems like something that could be better achieved in a movie than a drama, I think. The play was never produced, and when I saw him at the hospital again forty years later, as a geriatric patient this time, he marveled that I had remembered it. No, the play had never been produced, he sighed. He wondered if it were actually any good after all. I hadn't read it and couldn't help him there.
All of this is only mildly interested and somewhat poignant, except that in his two months at the hospital I re-established enough rapport with him that I was able to ask if it was his notoriety that prevented people from considering the play on its merits. He seemed a bit surprised. He took my point immediately and thought perhaps it was true. It seemed to have never occurred to him that the fact that he had murdered his roommate a few years later might have caused his work to never be viewed in a fully objective fashion.
This is an amazing thing about memory and insight, isn't it? Was this idea not part of his thinking because of his illness, because of the passage of time (he might have know this in the late 80s and since forgotten it, after all), or some theory of artistic expression and its independence from the creator that completely dominated his thinking? Likely none of these things in isolation, but in some combination.
For me, this was likely sparked by the book club (I got an invite from a frequent commenter here) reading of Intellectuals by Paul Johnson and the real-life backgrounds of some major influencers of modern thought - in this case Percy Bysshe Shelley most prominently. I knew people in the theater at college who thought they had especial license for misbehavior because they were artists. Yet I think we have to apply some discount for the fact that they were also 20 years old. Few of us were at our best then. Though these seem to be people who persisted in their entitlement for decades following.
As this is occurring in the context of me thinking about memory, insight, and describing my career, I wonder if it is possible for me to rank the professions I have known in order of their level of entitlement? I may or may not have a go at that. I have no fear of insulting my friends with that one. If you come from one of those professions I'm sure you have more examples than I do, and sigh deeply at that.
"rank the professions I have known in order of their level of entitlement?"
ReplyDeleteNot sure I can help you there. Some profs are famous for acting entitled, but no names come to mind right now. I think that the folks overseeing hiring here were trying to find team players...
Some family members might have somewhat to say about certain members of "the great American public."
"they were also 20 years old. Few of us were at our best then."
would "There were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting."
The entitlement seems to follow a credential dimension rather than a profession or industry dimension. Someone who has an 'elite' college degree, or a PhD from any school in any field, has an increased likelihood of acting entitled, though there are of course a lot of exceptions.
ReplyDeleteThe environment matters too--if everybody in the room has a PhD and a third of them are professors, it's tough to pull rank on that basis.
ReplyDeleteMost of the scholars I've known were scholars--insofar as fundraising exigencies allowed. The PhD or whatever was a tool to get them into a position where they could learn more. (I didn't deal with the funding agencies; attitudes may differ there.) And, of course, the more you know, the more contact you find with things you don't understand--your "circle of ignorance" is bigger--and some people find that humbling.
It isn't hard to find big egos, and "everyone is entitled to my opinion" folks anywhere. I've been in many meetings that would have been much shorter if people had listened to each other.