I don't think this is right either. For example, Doug's review of Wolfe contains a passage where he attempts to understand the viewpoint of the author. He attributes Wolfe's book to the fact that he moved to suburbia. Doug suggested that the book is a justification of his move from radicalism to left conservatism. Similarly, Doug makes a connection between Wolfe's findings and Wolfe's behavior at the New School. These are attempts to understand the social sources that constituted the writer's work, is it not?
Yes. It's also called ad hominem.
This just dresses it up as sociology. If you're going to engage a writer, you engage what she actually _writes_. I don't know what you intend with your list of questions, but all it seems to do is ask us not to look at the arguments in the book.
Why?
Interestingly enough, I learned from a blog reader that a variation of your approach is actually the method that Michaels uses in his literary criticism - what they call neo-functionalism. I'll get to that below.
You say the "Apollonian" style of discourse isn't unique. In all my reading, I haven't _ever_ encountered anyone so willing to make claims about anti-oppression struggles without ever actually engaging their texts or their actual political activity in an effort to criticize them -- which is what Alan is talking about.
Consider his discussion of domestic violence. The text that exemplifies a feminist analysis of DV? The work of the religous leader and columnist, Kerby Anderson. He's not a feminist.
It's stuff like that which will give you the impression that the A word is involved somewhere.
I think one of the things Carrol is trying to say to me is that, when I write about Michaels (and this is true for other authors I've written about -- Ariel Levy, the authors of Radically Speaking) I engage in my bloggy snidery. An example of that is when Carrol objected to me calling him "that guy". He had a point about that and I hadn't realized I was doing it. I was just ranting at the blog, eternal draft mode. Because, of course, were my ramblings reconstructed for official publication, I'd drop the nicknames (Gary called him Mr 3 Names and I appropriated it) and references to "that guy".
I'm not contemptuous of Michaels, though I confess I am contemptuous of the distortion of Omi and Winant's text. I *am* contemptuous of the arguments he advances.
So, I'm not saying that Michaels is a bad person, but I think Carrol believes that this tone infects my discourse making it seem as if I'm contemptuous of his person.
This is a good point Carrol made, and Carrol's argument helps illustrate how Walter Benn Michaels rhetoric performs the same function as calling people snide nicknames or referring to them as "that guy."
You can see Michaels' contempt in the various quotes I've provided where three rhetorical devices do the heavy lifting:
1. the false binary 2. the sweeping generalization 3. the unsubstantiated assertion (you can have an argument with someone who doesn't give you the respect of an argument)
If you can't read his tone, then I think you can at least see the contempt when it comes to his failure to engage other thinkers in a serious way. Consider my complaint about the chapter that begins as an examination of gender in the diversity discourse.
1. he doesn't engage the work of feminist scholars, by and large. 2. the one text he does engage, he misrepresents 3. he uses the words of a non-feminist religious leader, Kerby Anderso, to illustrate what he claims is a feminist argument
He doesn't examine the actual work of the people he's criticizing.
Not surprisingly, he comes off as the A word.
He doesn't read them because, on his own theory of literary criticism, you don't have to. http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/continuing_to_trouble_walter_benn_michaels_the_wire_and_the_spirit_of_capit/
It is this rhetorical style (I don't mean that colloquially) and theoretical approach that fosters the Apollonian stance.
When you add to that the actual _errors_ in the text, it all adds up to contempt for his imagined interlocutors.
As Carrol has noted in other contexts, when you convey contempt for your interlocutors then it becomes difficult to actually maintain political solidarity and sustain it through disagreement.
Carrol thinks I should avoid sinking into the same hole as Michaels. Well, yeah, Ima tryin'. <insert quote from Pulp Fiction here>.
shag