Monday, August 23, 2004

How Much is my Soul Worth?

I wrote one of the best papers of my life. I fought hard to make it fair and balanced, while still coming to solid conclusions that I believe in. My advisor has an agenda to advance, at the expence of my fair and balanced aproach. There are a number of things I could do:
1. Go PoMo: Who is to privalege my agenda over his? We are all biased really, so his bias is different than mine, so what. All attempts at balanced writing corrupt our notions of objectivity, and feign a notion of "truth". That is really the true form of deception. At least writing with an agenda does not make any attempt to fool the reader into thinking they are receiving 'objective' material.
2. The Lesser Evil (aka selling my soul on the installment plan): Edit what I can, but leave most of the slant.
3. The Greater Evil (aka selling my soul cash on the barrel): So the paper has my name on it, big deal. It also has his. It will help me get a job or into graduate school, and that's what counts anyhow, right?
4. Fight: Stop the presses, take my name off this thing.

So I like 1 a lot, and that will be my cover. Then I will say I am doing #2, but really I'll take #3. It is a shame that the Devil does not quote you a price, but just insures you'll get paid, somehow.

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