>Thanks for providing me with the opportunity to slit my wrists. Before I
>do so, I thought I would ask whether this or any other evidence would be
>sufficient for you to reconsider the high esteem in which you hold the
>academic left.
I don't hold the "academic left" in particularly high or low esteem. I'm not even convinced there's such a thing as "the" academic left. There are tenured professors who profess some kind of radical politics and then harass their students and use their research assistants as drivers and factotums. There are tenured professors who teach in prisons. There are cult studs who scour films noirs for counterhegemonic subtexts, and there are those who try to organize their colleagues.
It's been a while since I quoted this bit from Eric Alterman's anti-pomo screed in the Nation a few years ago:
"But here's the twist. [Reformist Social-Democratic Leftist Nelson] Lichtenstein is part of a perfectly Rortyite reformist Campaign for a Living Wage at the University of Virginia. This campaign is not about ending sexism, racism, or homophobia, but about getting janitorial staff a few extra bucks an hour. Who are its volunteers? Primarily, says Lichtenstein, faculty and graduate students from the pomo literature and theory crowd."
And like I said the last time I quoted the passage, this undermines Alterman's whole point, but it didn't stop him from writing the column.
Doug