Sociologists embarrass me sometimes. I just received a pretentious letter from past ASA president Cynthia Fuchs-Epstein personally inviting me to spend more than a quarter of my yearly stipend for what appears to be an utterly pointless and self-congratulatory quasi-"public sociology" endeavor to India in the middle of the upcoming November.
This wouldn't be so irksome if the form letter wasn't littered with bullshit intended to make the recipient feel special. The letter writes "Invitations for this project are being sent only to select members of the American Sociological Association" and "I believe you would contribute valued expertise to the mission[.]" Considering I've never met Ms. Fuchs-Epstein in my life, and I have nary a publication in my young career for her to know me from (further, little does she know that I have no "expertise"), this strikes me as a bit insincere. Somehow I think having a pulse and/or being on the ASA mailing list were the lofty benchmarks chosen to help select the fortunate "chosen invites." The "Immediate Past President" may be mad with power and going wild with the ASA mailing list.
Better yet, the letter promises forthcoming missives with additional sign-up information (does signing up for ASA membership entitle you to this kind of wonderful unsolicited sociological junkmail? I'm so glad I checked whatever the relevant box was that ensured I received stuff like this). Needless to say, I'm going to save the 39 cents on the stamp to mail my RSVP that I will regretfully decline participation on this trip.
However, if I had $4995.00 plus bus fare to Newark, NJ, I'd be much more inclined to donate that money directly to the many poor people in India than use it to help bad sociology diffuse between the upper-middle-classes in both societies.
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