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Mark Krueger finds, Friday, January 23, 2004, a Princeton thesis on the similarities between academics and caged rats
Conformist historians as caged rats?
I FOUND a paper by Princeton's James R Beniger, "Using the Principle of Least Interest to Derive a Dominance Hierarchy from Interaction or Exchange Data."
On page 741b of this web-available pdf file:
"Attention, esteem, friendship choices and Academic Citations are all examples of commodities exchanged in SIR [Status in Receiving] relations."
I got a kick out of that because not long before I had read your article [about conformist historians] in Focus, Nov 1987, "Counterpoint, a Radical Revision," page 7:
"They quote each other, and have the satisfaction of being quoted in return. An historian who is not widely quoted in his fellows' footnotes does not exist."
On
page 744 of Mr. Beniger's article he shows his system
deriving data from "Actors" ranging from "Frogs" to "Major
World Powers" (and of course "caged rats"). Seeing
such a system include mention of Academic Citations left me
laughing out loud.
You probably don't need help finding topics for comic-relief, but I , of course, found it significant that a Princeton sociologist acknowledged Academic Citations as a commodity to exchange.
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David Irving