Neo, In neighbors, the important thing is not what they like to do in their spare time, but how they interact with you.
Speaking for myself, I would prefer to live next to Jeeter Lester (unless he insisted on playing his boom box outdoors!) than to someone who would get all bent out of shape if I didn't have my lawn properly mowed all the time, or if he heard a visitor or relative of mine utter a cuss-word, or if he suspected me of leading an "impure" life and gossiped about it, etc., etc. I have had that sort (the second sort) of neighbors, so I know whereof I speak. (They were all Republicans, incidentally; but then, it was a Republican town.) On the other hand, we do have some Jeeter Lesters (from Appalachia)on our block, and once they stopped "entertaining" us by blaring loud & awful music outdoors, they fitted in fine. They do come around occasionally to cadge a cup of sugar or a cigarette, but hey!
Mailer may have a point about "leftish" academics of the Noam Chomsky variety -- but politics is not the primary focus of most academics' professional and/or personal lives, and I don't even know the political orientation of most of the academics of my acquaintance. I am an ex-academic myself, my late husband was one; one of my brothers is one; my sister-in-law is one; etc., etc. We were/are all "liberals"; but "earnest" and "humorless" and "obsessed with politics" and "bien pensant" would be the last adjectives I would apply to any of us (myself included).
Joan |
