And Chest-Puffing Ensued
Time, I think, to dip a toe in the world of academia. Specifically, some lively rumblings on the relative importance of electricians and sociology lecturers. I suppose you could start here, with this, but there are plenty of tangents and pith, and moments of slightly comical indignation.
Among those moments, this one:
Societies lived without electricity for millennia. Some still do. Don’t give me this shit.
By contrast, societies have ALWAYS needed individuals to assess their societal needs and propose solutions.
That by nature is The Sociologist. https://t.co/A0xifaYrXW
— Tim Gill (@timgill924) July 22, 2025
You see, Dr Tim Gill, our associate professor, is “an authority on society and everything in it.” Being an “intellectual,” he can “diagnose entire societies.” And then issue instructions to people of less importance.
Update, via the comments:
From one of Dr Gill’s own students:
Quoting this,
Rafi adds,
Which does rather suggest a gap in his model of the world.
At one point, Dr Gill boasts of never having used a lawn mower. Because apparently that’s a credential. Readers may also note Dr Gill’s use of the word handyman, complete with connotations of something other than respect. Still, you’ve almost got to admire the imperviousness of someone who responds to accusations of being arrogant and haughty and unmoored from reality by being arrogant and haughty and unmoored from reality.
Regarding Dr Gill’s rumblings of alleged profundity and intellectual heft, commenter Chow Bag draws our attention to this.
No laughing at the back.
And it must be quite strange to be rendered indignant by something – assumptions about a field, its standards, and the kinds of people it attracts – that your own indignant replies are pretty much confirming.
The thing is, the field of sociology needn’t, I think, have become so disreputable. I see little that’s inherently dubious about an attempt to study human society. But the field’s near-total occupation, or colonisation, by smug, delusional leftists, with all of their blind spots and baggage – and the consequent near-ubiquity of faulty default assumptions and predestined conclusions – has, inevitably, taken a toll.
The kind of people who, like Dr Gill, want to use a pretence of academic rigour to propagate their own rather weird and implausible political preferences.
Which is why we get supposed social scientists who find it problematic that Wikipedia entries written by men about pop culture topics that tend to be liked by men are often longer and more detailed, more nerdy, than entries by women on topics that are more likely to be of interest to women. As if men and women were somehow – and must be – identical in their psychology, their preferences and priorities, and as if any difference in Wikipedia entry length must be a result of some social oppression, some invisible downtroddenness.
And likewise, it’s why we get a social science lecturer being bewildered by the inegalitarian distribution of litter, and fretting about how to “narrow the gap” in discarded fag packets and food-smeared detritus, while studiously avoiding any acknowledgement of obvious differences in behaviour between social groups, as this would presumably offend his own egalitarian assumptions. And who gives no thought, none at all, to how the litter gets there in the first place. As if it just fell from the sky, randomly, like overnight snow.
And among Dr Gill’s peers, thinking of this kind is hardly uncommon. Hence the reputation.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye, and so forth.
Vigilantism seems less objectionable with each passing year.
I took all my Gen Ed requirements at a community college, and chose World Geography & Conservation, and American History to 1865 over Abnormal Psychology and Intro to Sociology. On purpose. The latter classes were taken by the majority of students because they were considered easy A’s.
As to Ass. Prof. Gill’s assertion that the commenter “could not pass his class” I passed my two required Humanities courses (I took American Literature to 1865 and Art Appreciation) with high marks for the same reason I would be able to pass this guy’s course if I had to take it: egotistical profs like him have Opinions and they are Always Right. They will tell you in class what every poem, or piece of art, or whatever it is, means – all you have to do is note it down, memorize it, and regurgitate it on the exams.
Someone showed me his Rocks for Jocks midterm exam. I knew the answers to most of the questions solely thanks to casually reading National Geographic as a child.
My emphasis…obviously…notice it is propose, not implement nor direct nor manage nor do anything else that could put them in hot water if (I.e.when) their solutions fail.
She played the race card at the wrong time.
How many people do you know, off the cuff, that have hired a sociologist to help them with their problems? But I know a lot of people who have hired electricians.
“Yes, a poet is essential for complete home comfort, and all-year-round reliability at low cost. We in the East Midlands Poet Board hope to have a poet in every home by the end of next year.”
And electricians, like plumbers and HVAC repair guys, are never going to be replaced by a call center in India.
So . . . no Coldplay concerts?
For Dicentra:
I just want Nicholas Decker to tolerate random attempts to murder him like Americans tolerate car crashes as just part of life.
How many people do you know, off the cuff, that have hired a sociologist to help them with their problems?
Shoot, I get more help from Jubal, my AI assistant that I programmed in ChatGPT.
Rest in power, Prince of Darkness.
I am pretty sure few,societies before 1900 had professors of sociology.
???
I hate it when things go over my head.
It’s in the little things, too. His vaguely sneering use of the word handyman, for instance. Dr Gill also played his Neil deGrasse Tyson card, which was very nearly funny, albeit unwittingly.
I regularly pass a notice board that’s used to share the business cards of recommended plumbers, electricians, joiners, window fitters, and so forth. Those handymen for whom Dr Gill apparently has little respect. Oddly, I’ve yet to see a card pinned on that board for a 24-HOUR EMERGENCY SOCIOLOGIST.
Missing commas.
[ Slurps coffee. ]
Thing is, the field of sociology needn’t, I think, have become disreputable. I see little that’s inherently dubious about an attempt to study human society. But the field’s near-total occupation, or colonisation, by smug, delusional leftists, with all of their blind spots and baggage – and the consequent near-ubiquity of faulty default assumptions and predestined conclusions – has, inevitably, taken a toll.
The kind of people who, like Dr Gill, want to use a pretence of academic rigour to propagate their own rather weird and implausible political preferences.
Which is why we get supposed social scientists who find it problematic that Wikipedia entries written by men about pop culture topics that tend to be liked by men are often longer and more detailed, more nerdy, than entries by women on topics that are more likely to be of interest to women. As if men and women were somehow – and must be – identical in their psychology, their preferences and priorities, and as if any difference in Wikipedia entry length must be a result of some social oppression, some invisible downtroddenness.
And likewise, it’s why we get a social science lecturer being bewildered by the inegalitarian distribution of litter, and fretting about how to “narrow the gap” in discarded fag packets and food-smeared detritus, while studiously avoiding any acknowledgement of obvious differences in behaviour between social groups, as this would presumably offend his own egalitarian assumptions. And who gives no thought, none at all, to how the litter gets there in the first place. As if it just fell from the sky, randomly, like overnight snow.
And among Dr Gill’s peers, thinking of this kind is hardly uncommon.
[ Post updated. ]
If you’re going to study society it helps if you have some idea what people are actually like. (Not what you think they should be like.)
Well, yes. But the steep leftward tilt of the field – the need to affirm dubious assumptions and to deny obvious realities – is precisely what has rendered it so disreputable.
And so, for instance, we get supposed authorities in gender studies who casually wave aside as “inconclusive” the decades of extensively documented and carefully measured male-female physical differences – glaringly obvious differences, seen every day – on grounds that they are politically offensive to supposed authorities in gender studies. And because apparently we shouldn’t mind cross-dressing men cheating in women’s sports.
This tendency to dismiss observable reality in favour of some weird political goal is a routine feature of the so-called social sciences. It results in the kinds of mental contortion and outright ludicrousness we’ve seen here many, many times.
As when Scientific American, in a death-spiral of wokeness, expected its readers to believe that any difference in performance of male and female athletes “is a result not of inherent biological differences between the sexes, but of biases in how they are treated in sport.”
This attitude is enormously corrosive to probity, and to the reputation of any institution it infects, even in small doses.
It’s the fleck of faeces in the cheesecake.
Alluding to this.
Strongly agree. Although I’d change “little” to “nothing”.
An inevitable toll. Lying is inherent to leftism. And the more that the left’s assumptions have proven false, the more extreme and bizarre the lies have become.
Thus producing academic rigor mortis.
Roving gangs of white supremacists, brutally beating POC’s to drop litter while shouting “This is MAGA country!”.
Just as those same MAGA country thugs force sweet innocent trans people to commit sex crimes, force gentle “migrants” to commit all sorts of crimes, etc.
It was bad enough when leftists demanded that we not notice that faeces.
But now they require that we sing songs of praise to the faeces.
It’s the fleck of faeces in the cheesecake
This made me think of using British spelling on social media just to bait people and then I realized how many British people I know are no longer engaging on social media. Is there truly a fear that the coppers will come knocking should the State perceive anti-social behaviour?
…among Dr Gill’s peers, thinking of this kind is hardly uncommon.
Slight bit of editing…
…among Dr Gill’s peers, thinking
of this kindishardlyuncommon.[ Compiles Friday’s Ephemera. ]
Ooh, maths. They’ll love that.
Like wearing jewellery, or a posh frock. Class the place up a bit.
Judging by a handful of lurid news reports, it does happen. Though as to exactly what was said or how egregious it was, or wasn’t, I can’t recall details. And I don’t spend my time trembling with fear. I think of what goes on here, for instance, as reminders of the fairly obvious, even humdrum, not gratuitously provocative.
And require that we pledge to also put faeces in the cheesecake.
The omission of details is, I am sure, intentional. For various malign reasons.
But imagine how Merle Haggard felt when he missed the bloody obvious regarding Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall.
When we invited students to celebrate their culture, we didn’t mean that culture!
I’m not as a rule in favour of people making abusive or threatening phone calls, but on the other hand, angry pushback is hardly inexplicable and not unwarranted, and it seems to me that the parties responsible for this latest oikophobic farce should be afraid. It might even prove educational.
That’s the thing. If ever a society *needed* sociologists, it is this one right here, right now. Honest sociologists, ones who could communicate to..society…just how off the rails it has gotten and why. Yet here we are, a society literally stupid with more sociologists, by degrees anyway, than one could shake a stick at. And they are all absolutely worthless. Worse than worthless. Same thing regarding psychology.
The tendency is at the core of utopianism & reality’s inescapability drives utopians to greater frenzy.
Off topic question but it’s July over there too, right? Is there no summer break there? We tried that in Florida, and I believe many/most other places about 30 years ago. It was such a complete failure that no one speaks of it. It’s like it never happened. Just like the open classroom concept and covidiocy.
[ Hears agitated barking of squirrels in garden, peers out of window. Sees neighbour’s cat sitting on edge of lawn. Squirrel barking finally aggravates cat sufficiently for it to wander off into adjacent woodland. Seconds later, loud, agitated clicking from a hundred or so birds. ]
School summer holidays can vary a little depending on the local authority, but it’s usually from, well, today, I think, until either the very end of August or early September.
LOL. Poor cat.
Heh. I think the cat, now of an age, has pretty much given up on catching anything. The squirrels are always faster. But still, wherever it goes, even just to nap in the sun, it’s greeted with loud consternation.
They’re still clicking as I type.
Without exception, I have found that any time anyone begins a social media post with the formula:
I’ve seen so many of these over the years:
Whatever follows on from that is inevitably risible, worthless, or some combination of the two.
Either what you have to say is worth saying or it isn’t.
To put on the digital equivalent of a lanyard stating your ‘expertise’ not only singularly fails to convince anyone of the quality of the message – usually the reverse is true as seen here – but worse, you can end up bringing an entire profession into disrepute at the same time.
Just don’t do it.
Holy Moley!
I’ve been propping up the bar here staring at those same pickled eggs – quite possibly literally the same pickled eggs – for over 10 years now.
Skimming the comments of that post I came across some of my own.
Now don’t judge me, but considering I made this comment in 2014 and considering all that has gone on in Britain over that decade, I was quite chilled to the bone seeing some of the things I’d said 11 years ago.
Bear in mind, this was before a year before the rise of the Corbynistas, two years before Brexit, three years before Grenfell, at least five before the collapse of the ‘Red Wall’, Covid lockdowns, and the so-called ‘Boris wave’, and almost 10 before people in Britain have started talking quite sincerely about the possibility of sectarian conflict and even civil war. The latter would have been unthinkable to all except tin-foil hat wearing types in 2014.
Anyway, this is what I wrote:
Yup, amulet polishing is not a good look.
Try sitting here, matey.
[ Applies moisturiser. ]
Oh, is that what you’ve been putting on those eggs?
Union Jack dress…
The article quotes an explanation by the school of their follow-up to the incident. Meeting with the student and parent, etc. Blatantly absent is any mention of who committed the expulsion, or what action was taken regarding them, or to prevent a recurrence.
No. Apparently it just happened without any human agent.