> Apologies for not yet responding to your comments on The Trouble with
> Diversity.
> I seem to be using up my quota of posts, playing defense for the god
> squad --
> an activity that people on both sides of the question should regard as
> pointless: divinity's probably able to take care of it/her/himself.
> (Which
> reminds me that I also haven't responded to Chris Doss' discerning comment
> on
> theological language and analogy.)
>
> But diversity's another matter. Judging from the frenzied concern on
> campuses
> at least (or at least the campus that I know best, which has a
> long-standing
> contretemps over a native American mascot), diversity seems to need all
> the help
> it can get; but Michaels argues that this is a displacement (altho' he
> doesn't
> use the YA language), the affect arising from the effort to avoid doing
> anything
> about the reality of economic difference.
>
> So I'm surprised that you're curious about "who he thinks he has to
> admonish" --
> the academy seems to me in need of a good bit of admonishment. Putting
> aside
> for the moment the vagaries of he term "Left," I agree that the Left as
> defined
> as the members of this list (with exceptions) is clear on the matter of
> economic
> inequality. But what counts as "the Left" in the ideological institutions
> (universities & media) right now is just that collection of "liberals,
> democrats, etc. [who] have never been interested in economic inequality
> anyway."
>
> BTW I've always liked Chomsky's suggestion that, used consistently,
> Left/Right
> means more/less democratic -- liberals want to democratize the polity and
> socialists, further Left, the economy as well; the problem (and Chomsky's
> point) is that such a usage would put the M-L Left well to the Right...
>
> And I think that many people on the Left under any description have not
> really
> taken in Zizek's point that the pomo holy trinity -- gender, race, and
> class --
> are not alike: the first two can in principle be solved by reconciliation,
> but
> not the third (exploiter/exploited), which requires the elimination of one
> of
> the parties (the class role, if not the physical elimination).
>
> Michaels writes, "...we have started to treat economic difference as if it
> were
> cultural difference. So now we’re urged to be more respectful of poor
> people
> and to stop thinking of them as victims, since to treat them as victims is
> condescending -- it denies them their ‘agency.’ And if we stop thinking of
> the
> poor as people who have too little money and start thinking of them
> instead as
> people who have too little respect, then it’s our attitude toward the
> poor, not
> their poverty, that becomes the problem to be solved, and we can focus our
> efforts of reform not on getting rid of classes but on getting rid of what
> we
> like to call classism.”
>
> There's a lot of that going around. --CGE
>
>
> shag at cleandraws.com wrote:
>> Carl (CGE) recommended Walter Benn Michaels, The Trouble with Diversity.
>> I'd enjoyed the review, reposted below.
>>
>> I have some criticisms of the book --mostly I am curious who he thinks
>> he
>> has to admonish. That is, I think he's confused. Most folks who are
>> lefties (as on this list) are and have been making these same criticisms
>> for nearly two decades. I have. The rest? These are liberals, democrats,
>> etc. and they have never been interested in economic inequality anyway.
>> So, it seems like his book is kind of a wasted effort. The people who
>> think like this aren't ever going to change their minds.
>>
>> but that said, who is this guy? I've barely heard of him and he makes
>> $175k in Chicago? as a professor of English? at a public university? did
>> the fortunes of the professoriate dramatically reverse in the last 8
>> years?
>>
>> He acknowledges that he's doing pretty well for himself, of course,
>> which
>> was the point of the whole "about Walter Benn Michaels" chapter -- which
>> was pretty funny in terms of a rhetorical tactic to deploy against
>> critics.
>>
>> And CGE, I'm disappointed that you haven't responded!
>>
>> shag (artist formerly known as bitch)
>> http://cleandraws.com
>> Wear Clean Draws
>
>
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