The longer I’m in this business, the better the informal longitudinal data I have about others in it. An observation from this data: When people say “I really want to do X, but not until I have tenure,” they don’t actually do X after tenure either. The only systematic exception may be having a child.
My father had this invention and spent some time trying to convince other people to make and market it for him. He would say “If I were ten years younger, I would just go into business and do it all myself.” I resisted the temptation to answer “As a matter of fact, we have pretty conclusive evidence that you wouldn’t” when he passed the ten-year anniversary of saying this.
What I haven’t figured out yet is what are the main justifications that go between “I really want to do X, but not until I have tenure” and “I really want to do X, but I’m too old.”
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I suppose it boils down to figuring out when public commitments encourage behavior and when they have no effect. What amount of time needs to elapse for the commitment to be forgotten? Or, how specific must the commitment be?
Habitus.
what are the main justifications the go between “I really want to do X, but not until I have tenure” and “I really want to do X, but I’m too old.”
I really want to do X, but I am on a bunch of committees right now.
Fear of failure?
Or, in my case, I should disambiguate … actually doing X might interfere with my ability to see all of the original episodes (and reruns) of Swingtown, Flavor of Love, Cops, Big Bang Theory, etc.
Also reminds me of this.
Isn’t it mostly about money-related risk? “I have too many side bets (i.e. a mortgage and dependents) riding on my steady income, so I can’t afford to threaten it.” It’s too bad, because as some sociologist said, that which you practice being for years (e.g. a risk-averse salaryman), you eventually are.
I’m not implying anything about your father, Jeremy.
Isn’t this why the favorite person of Civilized Society is an employed married homeowner?
In my experience, the “don’t do it until tenure” advice is given for risky projects. So it comes down to a standard risk/reward assessment, and pre-tenure academics can be very conservative and risk averse with their careers.
At one point, before I had tenure, I wanted to study metaphor, because in the end, it’s the basis of meaning in language. One of the most experienced people in the field of semantics recommended I only do it when I have tenure, and then only during sabbatical years.
I think what she was saying is that it’s an incredibly risky project because we don’t know how to tackle it in the usual formal semantics paradigm (where she and I both spent our time then). Better to remain a drunk under the lamppost.
One of my academic heroes, Richard Rorty, bailed on the whole analytic philosophy enterprise when he came to believe meaning is mostly metaphor driven by convention and pragmatic goals. He became even more well known for his post-analytic work on meaning. At the time of his change of focus (mid to late 70s), he not only had tenure at Princeton, but was president of the Eastern division of the American Philosophical Association, which successfully staged a coup to remove him, which he went along with.
A colleague always goes nuts when a young faculty makes the tenure comment. He screams, “No you won’t! The best predictor of what you will do tomorrow is what you do today.”