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THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY

1230 YORK AVENUE NEW YORK, NY 10021
January 29, 1980

 

JOSHUA LEDERBERG

PRESIDENT

Dr. Eviatar Zerubavel

Western Psychiatric Institute
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260

Dear Dr. Zerubavel:

Thank you for your reprint on private and public
time. I found it interesting to read, and as an exten-
sion of Moore's analysis. But your reference to Merton
1968 is not a sufficient pointer to that huge volume.

(I was to have dined with him this evening but I have a
lingering flu that it was better to respect. I know he
is still interested in “time-bound social phenomena” -- we
had some, by no means exhaustive, discussion of the mean-
ing of a (political) “honeymoon, and of the “lame duck).

As to the paper, I have little to add, but the hope
that the analysis will continue, and still more deeply.

You do talk about "bureaucratization" of a profession
as related to the erosion of ever-availability. I am not
sure I understand "bureaucratization". 35 years ago it was
commonplace for graduate students to be in their labs. 24
hours a day, 7 days a week. Is the shift to hedonic values
what you mean by “"bureaucratization"? It would be inter-
esting to get more quantitative data on accessibility, and
over a period of time. Do time budgets show this?

My present institutional role certainly does expose me
to being scheduled day and night,to a degree I could never
have predicted (and you would be right to guess this is one
of the sources of my interest). I suppose it is hard to
get around "socially perceived indispensability"; but a
great deal of that is indeed ceremonial. There are some
distinctions between that and the exigencies of real respon-
sibility which apply to all statuses of command but which
rest on the physician in purer form. Do you think nurses
would hesitate an instant to extend their duty hours ina
truly life-threatening emergency?
Dr. Eviatar Zerubavel
January 29, 1980

-2-

At 39 you agree that private-public is a continuing;
but do you attempt to define the poles? I am alone now,
but am penning a draft to you. A while ago, I was reading
your reprint. How much less private if you had been in
proximate discourse? behind a one-way glass? on the tele-
phone? Is the person ever totally abstracted from a social

milieu?
oy A
pornos Lederberg. )

bee! Rv, Meta