Talk:Daniel Bell

Word Choice
I'm just wondering why someone hasn't commented on this sentence: "In the past, Bell thought sociology was gay." I find this sentence offensive.

--"At the time, Bell was attacked by politically critics, left-wing and otherwise" Does the author mean that Bell was attacked politically by critics, or that he was attacked by political critics? Gasparotto 16:15, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Failed Prediction?
It says he failed to predict mass unemployment. Is unemployment actually higher in the post-industrial vs industrial era? I am not aware of anything showing that to be the case.

Picture
Is there a reason that a pathetic cartoonish looking picture is used instead of an photo that can be freely used or no picture at all? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.235.14.134 (talk) 16:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

"Since the publication of his book, many of the predictions have turned true. He takes credit for predicting mass consumption, but he failed to foresee the social cost, such as loss of job security or mass unemployment."

Where is the factual basis for this assertion? Unemployment in USA is lower today than 30 years ago. In Europe is similar, but in Europe post-industrial civilization developed less than in US. This is only left-wing talking point without factual basis, inserted as objective fact in the text. --Lorentino1x (talk) 11:36, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Piss poor
This article was in piss-poor shape, I took a stab at improving it. Surely some sociology student can beef up the discussion of this theories more.--Milowent • talkblp-r 16:31, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Why does it mention "professor emeritus" (but not "professor") in the lede?
I noticed that the lede sentence of this article, contains the phrase "professor emeritus at Harvard University".

One possible guess
Perhaps this article used to [when Bell was still living] say "is" (instead of "was") a "professor emeritus". Now that I think of it, this seems highly likely.

Perhaps when Bell died, many of the sentences in this article were just "converted" from present tense to past tense, without sufficiently re-evaluating whether the emphasis should be reconsidered. (See, e.g., this edit.) If so, then I recommend for the emphasis to be reconsidered.

Another (less likely?) possiblity
Did Bell spend more time as a "professor emeritus", than the amount of time he spent as an actual professor? If so, then it would be plausible for someone to deliberately decide to give [the role of] "professor" short schrift, relative to "professor emeritus". This seems unlikely, but comments "if any" are welcome.

((Note for fans of the spelling "short shrift" [without the "c"]: please [feel free to] see this note about the reason[s] for the spelling "short schrift".))

I have not read the whole article -- but I did read the [the lede, and the] "Career" section. There, I found a sentence that says [quote]: "Subsequently he taught sociology, first at Columbia (1959–1969) and then at Harvard until his retirement in 1990." This suggests, to me, that he taught from 1959 until 1990 (say, around 31 years) (including the time at Columbia, but not including his work as Instructor at the U. of Chicago in the late 1940s).

Then, he was a "professor emeritus" (meaning, a "retired" professor) from about 1990 until he died (2011). (right?) That's less time as a "professor emeritus" (retiree) than time spent as an active faculty member. (right?)

Idea for a compromise
If for some reason it is important to include the phrase "professor emeritus" in the lede, then perhaps "both" "professor" and "professor emeritus" should be mentioned there. ...and/or, maybe Columbia could be mentioned in the lede,  as well as Harvard. (Any comments?) Thanks for listening. --Mike Schwartz (talk) 19:26, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Dissertation
Did he write one or didn't he? StN (talk) 02:50, 22 June 2015 (UTC)