March 16, 2008
So, really, why wasn't that race-and-feminism conference more bloggable?
That's the question I'm asking myself this morning. And now I have a new question: Why isn't the answer to the question why wasn't that race-and-feminism conference more bloggable more bloggable?
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17 comments:
60% sow’s ear
25% distraction
15% peer pressure
Because neither group has much of a sense of humor?
plays well with others?
Conference solution:
The only way to end discrimination based on race and sex is to stop discriminating on the basis of race and sex.
Conference adjourned.
Are you standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon of blogging going 'HELLLLLOOOO' and waiting for the answer?
I was banned from annual mandatory consciousness raising seminars myself, but I noticed the others who went didn't like them much.
I always had a good time.
rhhardin said...
I was banned from annual mandatory consciousness raising seminars myself, but I noticed the others who went didn't like them much.
I always had a good time.
That was the problem. You were there to get your consciousness raised, not have a good time!
Because, Prof. Althouse, for all your profesed sympathy for feminists, I suspect you have no more patience with gender mongering and race mongering than some of us that just come out and say so.
Because the academic world is hard for everyone else to understand.
How do you explain to the public that what happens in a conference isn't ridiculous? Especially with the quotes you mentioned; we just have our prejudices confirmed.
It's too far removed from daily life. Academics tend to focus on bizarre ideas, or they tend to over-complicate issues that seem simple to most people.
That's not to say it isn't valuable. It's just hard to convey why it's important to the lay reader.
It's too far removed from daily life. Academics tend to focus on bizarre ideas, or they tend to over-complicate issues that seem simple to most people.
It seems to be a little more serious.
Wm. Kerrigan writing in 1991
As I write I am steeling myself for the beginning of an academic year. The state of the university community, as I view it from my home in the English Department, depresses me no end. I share Harold Bloom's diagnosis of a ``culture of resentment,'' his
feeling of being surrounded by a ``pride of displaced social workers.'' Alcohol has been banished from the campus. We are forbidden tobacco, even in our offices. Strictures on ``sexual harrassment'' have become so ferocious that they treaten to outlaw age-old forms of human warmth. Twenty years of theory have managed to make political name-calling into the cutting edge of criticism. During the forthcoming year lecturers will scoot around the country to define in trite phrases the sins of race, class, and gender in famous works of art. Literature is thought of as political apologetics. The role
of criticism is to expose its ideological treachery.
There is a high degree of sanctity in the air. Professors are quick to take offense. Indeed, the taking of offense has become so inflated as to make an art of its defensive opposite: the not giving of offense. There can be few more pitiful sights than an academic male trying to say something to an audience that includes feminists, fumbling to cram his fretful sentences with ``he or she,'' scheming to head off feared assaults by bathing their anticipation in his unremitting tolerance.
_Raritan_ X:3 p.134, Winter 1991
Why isn't the answer to the question why wasn't that race-and-feminism conference more bloggable more bloggable?
The answer is, to paraphrase Samuel Foote, that the conference was not only dull itself, but the cause of dullness in others.
Those that can't do, teach.
Those that can't teach, confer.
John wrote: "That's not to say it isn't valuable."
John, you just made the point about the lack of value! You said that it was not valuable quite ably!
If I were to attend an advanced physics lecture, I would not understand it. But they would at least be talking about something!
Modern academia in the humanities has lapsed into almost complete solipsism. There is no there there, so there is nothing to blog.
Trey
I think Theo Boehm hit the nail on the head in the previous post's comments:
Engaging with ideas is a fine thing.
The only problem here is that virtually every piece of writing quoted or linked by Althouse is in such a jargon-filled, incomprehensible style that it is nearly impossible for an ordinary educated person to make out what the ideas are.
It would be very interesting and useful if Althouse were able to summarize in plain English the main themes of the Conference.
7:45 PM
Thanks, Maggie.
I should have said, "...if Althouse were willing...." or, "...if Althouse had the time...."
Althouse is perfectly ABLE to summarize anything in plain English. It's just a matter of priorities. She no doubt has other things to do.
Plus, going around and around about this Conference would shortly turn into chasing one's tail.
That's what I want to know!
Was it like observing somebody autofellate and grudgingly acknowledging their flexibility?
Or was it like finding yet another way to repeat the reiteration of the iteration that was a previously rehashed repetition of the thousand minutia of something Barak Hussein Obama something Hillary Rodham Clinton something something?
*gets back to finishing Winters Tale, which is turning out to be one of the best books I ever read, chock full of fine linguistic touches, if a bit stuck on color as a persistent theme.*
Because by and large we are tired with the subjects?
Because the ideas are so bullshit that they can't be summarized in a clear and interesting manner?
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