Enough Said

[cbertsch]

Michael Bérubé has the perfect rejoinder to all those people -- and I hope it's not too many -- who are still considering voting for Ralph Nader or other "other" candidates:

It would especially help if you began all letters, emails, speeches, essays, books, and other “interventions” by saying, “I am a crusader for peace and social justice for all peoples, but in 2004 I could not be bothered to concern myself with the question of whether the world’s most powerful nation would continue to be run by evangelical Christian nutcases and far-right sociopaths.” That way, the rest of us will know just how seriously we’re supposed to take you. Thanks!

When the Weimar Republic is on the ropes, you have to vote for a party willing to preserve the parliamentary system. Tom Delay's Republicans? They're printing T-shirts that read, "Don't hesitate to invoke Article 48."

Comments

[sisterblister83.livejournal.com]

You should have to come to the Association for Psychoanalysis and Culture's conference.

One cool, non-pretentious academic attacking the Lacanian institution would have been very nice, but alas, you did not come...

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

Lacan expelled me from the organization from the grave, then started his own skeletal splinter group after finding himself excommunicated as well.

Seriously, was it crazy there?

[sisterblister83.livejournal.com]

It was run by, the other Charlie, my thesis director.

I had only been to local conferences at this point, New York English College Association, etc.

It was... really disapointing. They throw around words like phallus and jouissance and crap without taking account for them. Very insular and superficial. Is all of academia like that?

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

Sort of. It's much worse when a particular sub-discipline is speaking to itself, especially when it's got its own specialized terminology. You can look at the terminology as a kind of shorthand, if you want to be charitable, but more often than not it seems like people are using words they don't fully grasp themselves or, less dramatically, are using words they don't care to interrogate. I can usually tell the difference between someone who is using words automatically or by choice. That matters to me. It's funny. A lot of the big names in theory actually use fewer words of that sort. You'd be able to understand Zizek or Judith Butler better than most of their academic commentators.

Hang in there. At some point the shock wears off and you feel a little more comfortable inside the conference vibe.