My point went beyond vocabulary. Criticism of the university as a bastion of bourgeois/capitalist/alienated (take your pick) culture is a colossal navel-gazing waste of time. It's the sort of thing that leads to careers in . . . academia. It's also hypocritical, since the implication is that you should exit the U, which a) people did in my day; and b) was/would be stupid. I interrupted my post-grad career for the Rev, to my everlasting regret. (If I hadn't I'd be a professor of English lit today.) The ability to enroll in a U -- especially UC/Berkeley -- is a privilege. One is foolish not to make the most of it, either for oneself or for others. To denounce it without renouncing it is hypocritical; to renounce it is dumb. Both are bad politics.
On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Dennis Claxton
<ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
> At 01:34 PM 11/22/2009, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>>
>>> Max's response was good I think:
>>>
>>>
>>>> In college I wrote exactly this sort of essay (w/fewer 50-cent
>>>> words). Now I (and many others, no doubt) marvel, not without some
>>>> envy, at the good fortune of those who can attend Berkeley and the
>>>> foolishness and political lunacy of these critiques.
>>
>> Well, there's also the fact that students are demonstrating and
>> occupying offices to reverse the tuition increases.
>
>
> True. I was agreeing with Max about the 50 cent words.
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