If the topics were the dysfunctional nature of the academy and the self-selection of oh-so-full-of-themselves academics, perhaps most esp. at "better" schools, or the obfuscation of racism, sexism and classism in contemporary society, or the failure of mainstream academics to bite the hands that feed them then I'd be happy to discuss that stuff. But, while all that's indirectly on the table, we're writing about a specific book not the state of the world.
Even more, sometimes explicit and sometimes implicit in our arguments is that any decent member of the actual left should have a better-than-working knowledge of the stuff that's been written on the issues you raise and, knowing that stuff, wouldn't write the kind of book this guy did! Now, it'd be one thing if his book had been published and I, or any of his other critics here had disliked it. It is wholly another thing for my - perhaps going too far, though given the names people here have called each other I can't figure out how - calling him a prick, and his argument assholic - to generate all kinds of superficial, dismissive and snide suggestions that I'm an enemy of the left (w/o actually engaging my stuff) or that critics have lost sight of the great insight Michaels has - which isn't new, is poorly made, will make the argument harder for others to make, and gets defended anyway.
I'm flabbergasted that you could suggest that the topics you raise are better topics than critiquing a book some here on the left think is just swell when, as I just said, those of us who know more than a little bit about those topics - yourself included, I'd imagine - try to dampen our Apollonian dickishness, our neurotic sneers and our indifference - if not hostility - to others. It is part of why some of us find/found it difficult to succeed at Research I universities... By doing so, I would argue, we become far more socially self-reflexive, far less proud of ourselves, far more likely to actually engage in wondering about and asking questions of others, far less likely to sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly dismiss others who - on the surface - are doing things that are ideologically impure, and far more likely to engage students and other folks in a way that moves them towards, if not into, our orbit.
Would it have been better if I'd started off saying: "Well, gee, the culture of the academy does produce some people who appear, when looking at their arguments, to be pricks but are OK because they are simply the unknowing and unreflexive product of their environment and aren't responsible for the sneering dickishness and assholic prickishness of their arguments in books of seeming political import because, you know, you can't read everything, much less engage in exchanges that allow you to understand them... and, anyway, being responsible like that gets in the way of getting provocative stuff out to advance your career. You see, contemporary society and the modern academy veil structural racism and sexism in ways that most folks don't see them (then add some citations) and so the fact that this guy dismisses it, despite claiming to be on the left, is OK, he probably can be re-educated... I'll get right on that. And, anyway, he can't be responsible for actually being on top of the extensive literature about the ways academic exchanges have and haven't been able to influence politics, foster resistance, build movements or challenge capitalism - its all really obscure."
On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 11:01 PM, Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
> Alan Rudy wrote about WBM:
>
>> 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
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
-- ********************************************************* Alan P. Rudy Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work Central Michigan University 124 Anspach Hall Mt Pleasant, MI 48858 517-881-6319