> If his rhetorical style were more open, if his perspective was transparently
> situated rather than invisibly Apollonian, and if he didn't ignore and
> collapse a myriad of really politically important levels of analysis then
> he'd have written much more like Adolph Reed - who makes the same argument
> (one just about all critics of Michaels have noted their appreciation of)
> without the sneering dickishness.
This inadvertently and vividly illustrates Carrol's point. Rather than trying to understand the social sources of the viewpoint and style of the writer, you treat WBM's work as a unique product of an individual who suffers from various individual deficiencies ("sneering dickishness" among them, apparently).
I agree wholeheartedly with Carrol that it is counterproductive to analyze writing in terms of the psychological characteristics of the individual. Discourse is a product of social interactions and social structures, and it is much more informative to analyze how those social forces shape language use than to engage in meandering speculation about the motivations and psychology of any particular author.
Some illustrative questions:
1. How does the culture of academe socially produce and sustain WBM's "Apollonian" style of discourse? It certainly isn't unique!
2. How does the obfuscation of institutional racism and sexism occur in our society? How does academic discourse contribute to this obfuscation?
3. How do academic debates (e.g., "class vs. race!") perpetuate and/or challenge capitalism? Or perhaps they are simply epiphenomenal?
Note that this type of analysis requires us to think about how social forces shape our lives and how we can shape social forces to change the world. There is no compelling need to indulge in--let me be blunt!--pointless speculation about an individual writer's psychological deficiencies.
Miles