>On Dec 6, 2011, at 5:06 PM, Jordan Carroll wrote:
>
> > And I would say that leftist engagement also has a strong correlation with
> > departments that engage in "pomo newspeak." The student movement here is
> > led primarily by students and professors in history, sociology, English,
> > and comp lit.
>
>Absolutely.
>
>I haven't posted this in a few years, but there's this wonderful bit
>from a dumbass pomo-bashing column by the egregious Eric Alterman in
>The Nation, which didn't cause him to rethink the premise of the column:
>
> > But here's the twist. [Nelson] Lichtenstein is part of a
> perfectly Rortyite reformist Campaign for a Living Wage at the
> University of Virginia. This campaign is not about ending sexism,
> racism, or homophobia, but about getting janitorial staff a few
> extra bucks an hour. Who are its volunteers? Primarily, says
> Lichtenstein, faculty and graduate students from the pomo
> literature and theory crowd.
>
>Doug
via Michael Lewis's The Big Short:
The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him. Leo Tolstoy, 1897