My own professional organization has its moments, but I don't think anyone else quite emulates the embattled solipsism of the Modern Language Association.
Posted by Alan Allport at July 19, 2004 07:36 AMDid you follow any of the MLA stories posted a few months ago on Erin O'Connor's blog? A lot of the jokes went well over my head, but you might find it amusing.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at July 19, 2004 09:58 AMI suppose a historian reading about the MLA might come across as a bit smug (well, OK, not just come across) because, for all the problems our discipline faces, we don't I think have the same - oh, crisis of purpose that the more rarefied humanities do. History boasts a genuine mass market readership, even if the relationship between academics and popularizers is getting sadly weaker, and the social importance of its study remains part of conventional wisdom, even if only as a vague nod to Santayana. Students of literature must defend their vocation more strenuously; does the world really need another book on Shakespeare, and so on? (I'm not saying that they don't have a perfectly adequate justification in hand; just that they're required to work harder at it).
Posted by: Alan Allport at July 19, 2004 10:08 AMIndirectly c/o Erin's blog, here's a particularly disgusting example of college politics gone bananas that is (unfortunately) a gift to Mr. Horowitz and his ilk.
Posted by: Alan Allport at July 19, 2004 10:42 AMBuncha things to say -- skip if you like.
Actually re: that MLA article, the guy seems to be talking about the need to do intellectual work for its own sake, whether other people think it's absurd or not.
And this is where the dark hollow of anti-academic unrest is laid bare: critics of the academy are not really afraid of explicit political indoctrination, they're afraid of these preserves of communal autonomy. They're afraid of the flowering of the arcane, the unmarketable, the unprofitable. They're afraid that their children will become scruffy bohemian types.
There were two separate points made by the panelists. The first, a critique of the Bush administration, was offered in accessible, jargon-free, bullshitless arguments. The second was a defense of academic freedom: the ability to work out scholarly issues in an environment untainted by politics. The former arguments were delivered by professors as citizens—citizens whose jobs had afforded them an audience, but citizens nonetheless. The latter arguments were delivered by professors who felt their work was jeopardized. All of the left-wing froth about the lack of public intellectuals in America, I think, confuses the obligations of these two roles—it's just one more attempt to flummox professors into usefulness, to get them on a particular side, serving a particular public purpose...Maybe it's just that epithets like "left-wing froth" are the kind of taunt mainly used by safe majoritarians when they're falsely claiming the lonely truth-teller's exemption from chivalry in debate -- but that seems like a rare nasty moment in the essay. Actually, talk about the need for "public intellectuals" is not especially "left-wing" at all. In fact, the right seems to have been much better at incubating such persons lately, though their version of "public intellectual" is more like "subsidized propagandist" (cf. the Manhattan Institute). Anyway the talk about public intellectuals isn't really about forcing reticent academics to take sides. It's mainly about the need for an intellectual leadership outside the academy -- the old New York Intellectuals kind of leadership. We do need a good honest non-academic intellectual tradition but really I fail to see what this has to do with leaving English professors to work in peace. Except maybe that David Horowitz should quit meddling in the academy and stick to picking on people in the outside world of commentary and argument who know how to play his kind of rhetorical game.
Y'know, that whole Believer crowd can be subtly conservative in their own inexorably sunny way. Though they have stood up very solidly for free speech rights on several issues, notably this one.
On the flip side do you really think this guy is insinuating the MLA convention was being spied on somehow? Funny, you'd think a bunch of English professors would be uncontroversial. Silly me, yeah. But you'd think.
And on yet another flip side, are English and social theory professors still basically implying to students that if they don't enjoy learning to use all the postmodern terms of art on postmodernism's own terms, they're mentally defective and don't have what it takes to form original ideas and should just give up intellectual aspiration and learn a useful trade instead? If so, that would be sad.
And, um, about Mr. de Man, is it really irrelevant to his embarrassing personal history that, to the small extent my poor benighted, non-academic, and jargon-resisting brain understands his brilliant work, it claims there's no way to be sure what happened in the past?
Re: the Kansas mess -- Isn't the whole notion of a student paper operating under the direct management of the grownups basically a chilling effect in itself, and also likely to imply an official endorsement of any stupid thing the student editors happen to do? And wouldn't the student paper have attracted editors with healthier political instincts if it had been a geuninely independent institution in the first place?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at July 19, 2004 12:39 PMY'know, that whole Believer crowd can be subtly conservative in their own inexorably sunny way.
You make it sound as if there's something slightly disgraceful about the notion.
Re: the Kansas mess -- Isn't the whole notion of a student paper operating under the direct management of the grownups basically a chilling effect in itself, and also likely to imply an official endorsement of any stupid thing the student editors happen to do? And wouldn't the student paper have attracted editors with healthier political instincts if it had been a geuninely independent institution in the first place?
"Healthier political instincts"??
Your implication is that college papers could (and ought to) survive financially on their own, which might be true in certain cases but which I doubt is a valid generalization.
Posted by: Alan Allport at July 19, 2004 12:47 PMA college paper can make a good deal of money off of advertising. A good daily can make money off subscriptions. A paper with its own printing plant can make extra money printing smaller papers and advertising materials as well. Papers can also do their own alumni fundraising. The most a paper really needs is free office space. *Unless* student writers and editors have to be paid enough to live on. That's where the nature of financial aid packages gets to be important, & where a university subsidy can actually be democratizing -- but that's assuming facts not in evidence. Do we even know if this Kansas paper got money from the university at all?
Re: conservative Believers -- well, it's always aggravating to see conservatives posing as iconoclasts. Each position has its justifications and advantages but they shouldn't be conflated.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at July 19, 2004 01:01 PMDo we even know if this Kansas paper got money from the university at all?
Well I would certainly assume so, given that the vast majority of college papers are supported by their parent institutions in some way or another, albeit often indirectly.
I think you're being a bit unrealistic about the prospects of financial independence. It might work that way at Harvard, but the advertisment base at small colleges is probably just too small to make it viable.
Doesn't the consistency of conservative iconoclasm depend on what you're being conservative about? If 'conservative' just means 'hesitant about change of any sort', then I suppose the two ideas might not be reconcilable; but it's difficult to see what value the concept would have any more (it's like defining 'radical' as 'changing things for change's sake').
Posted by: Alan Allport at July 19, 2004 01:10 PMI was trying to think past the special case of Harvard, where the paper has its own building and plant and many students can afford to work as nearly full-time volunteers. But our law school student paper, a not very professional sort-of-monthly free rag, was subsidized only by having free office space & yet made enough extra money on advertising one year to rent an embarrassingly fancy boat for a staff party. Dunno. What's the situation at Penn, or doesn't Penn count as typical either?
And, yeah, here I am arguing against public subsidy from what's arguably a snobbish point of view and denouncing "conservatism" in the same breath. But, well, isn't it sort of funny to play iconoclast -- idol-breaker -- while actually setting up the old household gods in their old accustomed places? E.g. to pretend that there's something radical in suggesting reviewers should be nicer to their subjects?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at July 19, 2004 01:35 PMWhat's the situation at Penn, or doesn't Penn count as typical either?
To the best of my knowledge The Daily Pennsylvanian is independently financed and run, but no, I certainly wouldn't consider it a typical case.
Posted by: Alan Allport at July 19, 2004 01:45 PMActually, talk about the need for "public intellectuals" is not especially "left-wing" at all.
It most certainly is these days, and for precisely the reason that the right wing has managed to field an effective team of intellectuals where the left has not.
Y'know, that whole Believer crowd can be subtly conservative in their own inexorably sunny way.
It would be nice if you could point to some examples apart from the "left-wing froth" comment, which in context is obviously meant to be a little silly rather than the vicious attack you make it out to be.
And on yet another flip side, are English and social theory professors still basically implying to students that if they don't enjoy learning to use all the postmodern terms of art on postmodernism's own terms, they're mentally defective and don't have what it takes to form original ideas and should just give up intellectual aspiration and learn a useful trade instead? If so, that would be sad.
In my experience, many professors in these fields actively deter even their more promising students from trying to make a living at it. Or at least they did that a lot some years ago. I assume it's not better now.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at July 19, 2004 04:20 PMRe: conservative Believers -- well, it's always aggravating to see conservatives posing as iconoclasts. Each position has its justifications and advantages but they shouldn't be conflated.
This sounds uncomfortably similar to the kind of game the abgo neo-cons used to play. Take one thing you say, one element of your thought, use it to paint you as the puppet of some monolithic group, and point to any deviation from that supposed monolithic ideology as somehow dishonest. I suspect I just read you wrong.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at July 19, 2004 04:25 PMI suspect I should probably just come back at Alan H's comments with a fresh mind in the morning. Dunno. Maybe it only boils down to the Believer being just too all-fired cheerful for my taste.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at July 19, 2004 04:44 PMUm, well, here goes:
"Leftist froth" doesn't really sound like a gently teasing thing to say, but OK, for all I know the author of this article feels able to say "leftist froth" more pleasantly and jocularly than I do, and for all I know, if his tone of voice were conveyed it would sound perfectly charming.
As for whether talking about public intellectuals is a lefty thing to do, Alan H. and I are picking up the same point from opposite sides -- we pretty much agree that the right has its pundits in place and the talk among liberals & on the left is about answering them in more organized fashion.
About being basically dismissed as dumb for not talking po-mo -- well, it wasn't a question of making a living at it. At the time it seemed like a question of having any right to any intellectual life whatsoever.
And, um, well, about the Believer house attitude -- well, um, maybe conservatism isn't quite the right word, but its emphasis on finding novelty in appreciating the underappreciated commonplace, and in refusing to dis when expected to, gets on my nerves, very possibly for unworthy reasons involving knowing quite well how really non-commonplace it actually is to live a life like the productive, rewarded, well-adjusted, homeowning lives described here. It's like reading Archibald the All-Right in Patience -- Bunthorne's rival, the one who reads nursery rhymes to his lady admirers. There's this emphasis on stuff that's kind of cute and cozy -- arch niceness and down-to-earthness, but not just any niceness -- sort of a special in-house high-grade down-to-earth niceness that looks from the outside like it might be an inside joke. The campaign against "snark" especially. And it's nice that they have features like the one every month about some really great kid they've met who has a wonderful future -- but the whole operation just seems a little too pleased with itself and the world, in a world that does not actually happen to be a very nice place. Yes, I know that in at least Eggers' case it's kind of a protective niceness set up defensively against, yes, a cruel world. But, well, there's a complacency to it if not a conservatism. Defending the MLA for the sake of saying something unexpected seems kind of part and parcel of it. Nothing against defending the MLA -- actually I see what the guy means about keeping political "duty" out of people's scholarly lives and it's a point that needs to be made (and Proust made it better). But making a house style out of offering praise where criticism is expected -- well, it gets wearing after a while. You're happy for all these people they enjoy approving of, but after a while it's like attending the lovely wedding of some people you don't really know very well, and the smiling leaves stretch marks. I'm probably not putting this very well, or at least not very attractively, but it's probably closer to what I was thinking than what I said earlier.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at July 19, 2004 07:56 PMWell, I think I can sympathise to some degree, although I haven't read much of the snark alert thing. What has always bothered me, being a generally avid reader of things like Harpers and the New Yorker, is all the ads for watches that cost as much as a normal person's car, or the incredible self-parody of ads for various "wealth management" routines that address the reader, counselling that it's pointless, really, to be ashamed of your wealth because, after all, you must deserve it if you have it, meaning you are better than everyone and awfully smart, so why not let us have a piece, etc. The feeling of accidentally listening in on what overwhlemingly privileged people say to each other when they know that normal inferior types aren't around has always vaguely sickened me.
These things point to an insular culture surrounding the big literary and intellectual magazines which, for all their often excellent content, really annoys me. People in these powerful cliques can only study the world that others live in. Barbara Ehrenreich comes immediately to mind, who is on record suggesting that domestic servitude is a moral failing of the middle class. (It would be wonderful for middle class women to feel better by firing their servants, but I'm pretty sure that the other women who make their living that way might see it in another light altogether.)
The point being, I suppose, that this isn't a liberal or conservative thing. It's a matter of power and privilege.
About being basically dismissed as dumb for not talking po-mo -- well, it wasn't a question of making a living at it. At the time it seemed like a question of having any right to any intellectual life whatsoever.
Well, that depends a lot on what your intellectual life is like, and who you're dealing with. In some classes you may find yourself in a protracted and nasty struggle against your classmates and your professor for suggesting that there is a partially knowable reality. (And this in a literature class, not a philosophy class.) On the other hand, certain areas are less theory laden and you can specialize in those if you really can't handle the strife or come around to the po-mo line.
I do think that "theory" has been useful in some ways and most of the useful bits have already been assimilated into the culture at large. But like anything else it solidifies into a doctrine after a while, just as the New Criticism did in the US after the war. Nothing unusual about it, really. Once it gets to that point the paradigm is already in decline and hopefully it will leave a few useful insights or qualifications behind; I think this article illustrates this late period in the life of a paradigm very well.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at July 19, 2004 10:04 PMWhat has always bothered me, being a generally avid reader of things like Harpers and the New Yorker, is all the ads for watches that cost as much as a normal person's car
Really? I've always found it amusing to think of the advertising dollars being totally wasted on me ... a piffling amount no doubt, then like like the Believer perhaps I have a troubling tendency to find pleasure in what ought to be annoying.
Posted by: Alan Allport at July 20, 2004 06:03 AMKnowing quite well how really non-commonplace it actually is to live a life like the productive, rewarded, well-adjusted, homeowning lives described here.
So what are you saying? They're all fakes? Or that The Believer ruthlessly screened out all the responses from artists starving in whatever the functional equivalent of a garret is these days?
Posted by: Alan Allport at July 20, 2004 06:08 AMOr that The Believer ruthlessly screened out all the responses from artists starving in whatever the functional equivalent of a garret is these days?
Yes, the staff of The Believer deliberately set out to dash the hopes of the less fortunate. As we all know, in the absence of conscious effort to the contrary, human organizations tend to be utopian models of fairness and meritocracy.
Did anyone read the article in Harper's recently about Leo Strauss? It was about as well written and informative as one of my blog entries on an off day. But the fellow happened to be an editor, and no doubt happened to graduate from Yale or some such place, and no doubt was at least passing acquaintences with one or two people already on board and it seemed only natural to give him a shot.
This sort of thing happens all the time. Maybe it's human nature. Still annoying, though.
My intellectual faculties aren't really up for a full-on debate, as I'm distracted by the really pressing question of the day, which is: should Doctor Who be wearing a (albeit tasteful looking) black leather jacket and a T-shirt for a costume?
But, as to the Believer, well, they're just these kids, y'know? It's not my cup of tea entirely, but I think that "finding novelty in appreciating the underappreciated commonplace" is, in its own way, countercultural. Snark pervades the Internet-- spend twenty minutes on Television Without Pity if you don't believe me.
People often look at things through the prism of trust or suspicion (or perhaps a bit of both). I look at something like this and suspiciously think it's a bit too self-congratulatory and smug, but I can also see that maybe what it's doing isn't such a bad thing.
I dunno. I think Christopher Eccleston looks good in black, and the outfit does look good on him. I wish they had come up with a more Edwardian looking shirt...
Posted by: Graeme Burk at July 20, 2004 01:43 PMGraeme, your link seems to be broken.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at July 20, 2004 04:01 PMI can't seem to get the hang of doing links within comments. Anyway, try www.televisionwithoutpity.com
Posted by: Graeme Burk at July 20, 2004 05:12 PMRemember to use quotation marks around the link and make sure that you've put the end anchor tag (the '/a' one) in place ...
Posted by: Alan Allport at July 20, 2004 08:52 PM>Knowing quite well how really
>non-commonplace it actually is to live a life
>like the productive, rewarded, well-adjusted,
>homeowning lives described here.
So what are you saying? They're all fakes? Or that The Believer ruthlessly screened out all the responses from artists starving in whatever the functional equivalent of a garret is these days?
No, more like thinking that people who are that all-fired favored and fortunate should have the decency to feel sheepish about it. (Bah, humbug...) On reflection, an unworthy thought.
Graeme, it might help to just type out the generic parts of the commands first -- [a href=""] and [/a] (obviously using pointy instead of square brackets around these), so then you can just drop the URL into the quotation marks and the link text into the spot between the commands. Makes it easier to keep everything parallel that way, I find, especially if the URL happens to be bulky.
So wotzis about Doctor Who going all James Dean on us? Is this in the film version?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at July 20, 2004 09:54 PM