Sponsored Content
« Three Unrelated Thoughts | Main | New Leftist Line: Benghazi Was Chris Stevens' Fault, And He's Dead, So Let's Move On »
November 26, 2012

College Begins Offering Major in Pot Studies

"Interdisciplinary." You know, I took some "interdisciplinary" courses. They were sort of interesting, but they were without much rigor -- sort of interesting bullshit sessions with a reading list. When you're pulling little bits and pieces from five different areas of scholarship you're going to be pretty glib and facile about each of them.

Anyway, I was going to knock such things but then I realized, part of the way along, "Hey, those were kind of interesting."

Oh right I was talking about something else. A major in pot.

A public university located in one of California's prime pot-growing regions has formed an academic institute devoted to marijuana.

The Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research at Humboldt State University plans to sponsor scholarly lectures and coordinate research among 11 faculty members from fields such as economics, geography, politics, psychology and sociology.

Not mentioned: horticulture. I wonder if they'll actually teach pot-growing. But then, it's one of those things you don't have to teach, eh? Work as play. People do it on their own.

This is something really driving me crazy about "scholarship," this tendency to take people's hobbies and interests and craft some kind of faux discipline around them.

Aren't people just supposed to tend to their hobbies and interests on their own? Do they need an allegedly academic wrapper around Porn Studies or the like?

Not only does that tendency cheapen (down to nothing) the idea of scholarship, but it also indirectly pushes an insidious line of reasoning: that one can only learn or become more interesting (or interested) via a formal academic process with class credits and lecture halls and so on. Didn't we used to have reading clubs and other special-interest clubs for this sort of thing, this quasi-scholarly socializing/hobbyist interest thing? Isn't the "academicization" of stuff that's really Just Interesting Things kind of reducing instead of expanding the pursuit of Interesting Things? I'm starting to think that the academy is too important to be left to academics.

Anyway:

"If anyone is going to have a marijuana institute, it really should be Humboldt State," economist Erick Eschker, the institute's co-chair, told the newspaper. .

Wink.


digg this
posted by Ace at 06:31 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
NISTdot gov: office chairs, not jet fuel or impact, caused perfect simultaneous collapse of WTC7: "I can assure you that the EU, the WEF and others a ..."

Warai-otoko: "In Trump's defense, he is a big fat liar. ..."

Thomas Bender: "@161 >>Trump is literally the worst judge of ch ..."

LinusVanPelt : "142 - Thank you BD! It sure looks like a color rev ..."

Warai-otoko: "Hey, our voters seem a little worried about govern ..."

Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden: "[i]@sianetta Now I’m going to rail on Tru ..."

NISTdot gov: office chairs, not jet fuel or impact, caused perfect simultaneous collapse of WTC7: "from the "Struggle for Socialism" website: "On ..."

Joe Mannix (Not a cop!): "It started bother a while back whenever I hear pol ..."

fd: ""These pencil puns seem almost mechanical. Posted ..."

People's Hippo Voice: "For the Christian to accept transgender is a sin. ..."

Ripley: ""At the heart of sexual identity politics is an ob ..."

Huck Follywood: "John Thune, McConnell's love interest and second-i ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64