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Bloggy blog blog
It seems, several years into the blog phenomenon, few have pondered much about the medium itself.
In the previous post's comments, it would seem commenters would have Long Sunday as some sort of peer-reviewed journal, demanding, then, the sort of analyses expected by them. Presumably, every post should be around 7000 words.
Of course no one will suggest this, so criticism comes in on entries heavily theoretical, but given the very format, necessarily without the ability to 'back them up'. I don't pretend to show you the links between Baudrillard and Lacan in a post, and even less in the COMMENTS TO A POST, which is where my analysis can be found. But that's not the point. Is there not something interesting, even liberating, about a bunch of ideas thrown in together? (Why else read Baudrillard, McLuhan, etc...?)
Instead, I seek to probe, to open up an avenue of thought you have the choice of entering, or not, just as I might or might not when passing by the posts of other people. I certainly avoid posts and bloggers generally that don't probe at all, rather remaining safe under the cover of already established viewpoints.
If we are to naively think this some sort of peer-reviewed journal, the language used in talking about other people's posts isn't one I recognize from any peer review process. It is completely unhelpful, and only renders this blog (potentially) irrelevant. A bunch of academics whining about jargon - who cares? Either go with the probe or don't.
Blog entries, like all good probes, should have a sense of humour. They shouldn't take themselves too seriously, precisely because the readers aren't going to take them too seriously, that is, won't really read them. Blog posts shouldn't be taken as some sort of definitive viewpoint, much less the comments to a post (which, again, is where my analysis can be found).
Total seriousness is important, of course, but for peer-reviewed journals! And, again, this is not it!
(If anyone cares, and I doubt they do, my work, much of which has gone through the peer review process, locates itself at the very Real - yes, I did capitalize it, perhaps it is the German in me - intersection of Zizek and Baudrillard.)
By RIPope | July 11, 2006 | Permalink
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Adam's point, as I took it, is that there's a difference between idle chatter and idle chatter which suggests evidence of sustained engagement with the things one chats idly about. (Not that I speak for him, mind you.)
To be brutally frank here, what you seem to want isn't a conversation, but to be oracular. You want to have the ideas you toss off treated seriously just because; whereas people who read them see them slight productions they are. You're upset because someone called you on the pretense, had the nerve to say that your pronouncement is not only unintellectual, but uninformed, uninteresting, and unfunny. (The call for others to acquire a sense of humor sounds as odd from your lips as it would from Dick Cheney's.)
You seem to think the blog empowers that undergraduate impulse, the one I see time and again in half-digested essays:
This seems related to that! I'll point that out and hope the teacher understands what I meant! Maybe s/he'll even think I'm brilliant!
You may call it an invitation to "probe," but it reads like a half-assed "insight" via juxtaposition which you hope will 1) impress others while 2) enticing them to finishing thinking through what you were to lazy to.
You do realize that--in this and related neck-of-the-woods--your conception of what's proper to a post flies in the face of what others do, don't you?
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Jul 11, 2006 6:19:22 PM
That's the point of this post, Scott. And rather than you trying to create an 'us-VS-you' frame here - which seems even less than undergraduate, something like grade school - the point of this post is to open up a discussion about the medium. But of course we know you're no fan of discussion.
That 'undergraduate impulse' must for you also cover most continental thought, but we already know that about you. I'm sorry to say, but I don't think you've ever enlightened anything for me, or prodded me on to think differently. I wish it wasn't so.
A probe can never be finished, or it wouldn't be a probe - just as no blog post could ever be finished, or it wouldn't be a blog post.
I don't really know, but I suspect that not everyone here subscribes to the fantasy of the 'finished' nature of every post. Of course, and to repeat myself (but you've just done it for the millionth time, so what the hell), posts that actually DO probe and RISK thinking are more likely to be attacked, for the precise reason they cannot, in a couple hundred words, provide the necessary context with which to defend themselves...
For that, look elsewhere.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 11, 2006 7:05:17 PM
'posts that actually DO probe and RISK thinking are more likely to be attacked, for the precise reason they cannot, in a couple hundred words, provide the necessary context with which to defend themselves...'
But you do no such thing. You already deleted my long comment today, due to perceived attack although you left others little more (if any merciful). I used to be your lone supporter in these jousts, but while I don't support your opponents in the least, I find you by now quite inane and prissy.
Posted by: patrick | Jul 11, 2006 7:11:39 PM
I did not delete any comments.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 11, 2006 7:20:23 PM
Are you seriously defining "probe" as "to open up an avenue of thought you have the choice of entering, or not"?
I appreciate you trying to channel McLuhan, but if your particular effort yields only two options - agree or ignore - and balks when someone confronts the form or content of your probe, then I think you might want to use a different term. Maybe invent something bloggy-specific, like blobe.
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Jul 11, 2006 9:08:55 PM
That 'undergraduate impulse' must for you also cover most continental thought, but we already know that about you.
Wow, that sentence and sense aren't even remotely acquainted. I think your point is that I believe all continental thought to consist of the particular intellectual shortcut you employed in your previous post...which is absurd. It is, as I said, typical of people who speak in an oracular fashion, i.e. those who believe their gnomic musings possesses inherent value which other people would do well to probe. It's laziness wielded from and wedded to a particular, imagined relationship of self to audience. Sometimes, as I noted, it appears as the crutch of the undergraduate who has an idea but lacks what it takes to think through its implications; and sometimes it appears as a means of entering into a "discussion" in such a way as to alert conversants that they're in the presence of someone who believes him/herself in possession of a superior mind. That is what I said, and that is what I meant. If you want to argue that this applies to continentl philosophy tout corte, that's your business.
But don't attribute the argument to me.
A probe can never be finished, or it wouldn't be a probe - just as no blog post could ever be finished, or it wouldn't be a blog post.
You know, I can't believe I had the nerve to call say you spoke in an oracular tone. I must be an idiot, because everyone knows that tomorrow's link-dump could never be completed or it wouldn't be a link-dump...despite, you know, someone dumping all the links s/he intends to and posting it. To hit post is hit post forever, or it is not to hit post at all; similarly, to eat a cheese sandwich is to eat a cheese sandwich forever, or else it is not a cheese sandwich.*
Of course, and to repeat myself (but you've just done it for the millionth time, so what the hell), posts that actually DO probe and RISK thinking are more likely to be attacked, for the precise reason they cannot, in a couple hundred words, provide the necessary context with which to defend themselves...
People don't attack what you write because you've probed some important depth. And this whole idea that throwing out two quotations and an undeveloped idea constitutes some heroic "RISK" of thought, well, keep telling yourself that. I'm sure it's really RISKY to burden others with the connections you're too lazy to forge yourself. Sadly, some people do respond, seem to enjoy doing the difficult, intellectual labor you oracular lot avoid.
*By "eat a cheese sandwich" I obviously mean "blog."
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Jul 11, 2006 9:14:36 PM
The risk of thought clearly applies to my COMMENT to the post, from where the attacking departs. You added "heroic". There's something a bit absurd here.
Who, now, is attributing an oracular quality to my comment to a post? I find this somewhat bizarre. It's as if I was force-feeding everyone Lacan, though I hardly consider a blog comment an act of force.
In a comment I probed the Zidane incident through a Lacanian lens, simply because at that moment it seemed to present itself. What's remarkable is that no one, in all this, has presented a different Lacanian argument that might contradict mine. So, virtually no one is following through the probe (of the comment, that is) - though some have from the Baudrillardian side of the equation. I forged some connections, and I'm happy if others do some as well. The truth is I'm not about to write an essay on the incident, and I suspect most others are not about to either. This is something I alluded to in the preface to that comment. So perhaps a little lightening up is in order.
Of course another question is why it was/is taken so seriously, despite the preface and all...
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 11, 2006 9:35:33 PM
I'll stop now, but I just want to point out:
The risk of thought clearly applies to my COMMENT to the post, from where the attacking departs.
vs
posts that actually DO probe and RISK thinking are more likely to be attacked
I'm not sure that "clearly" is entirely warranted. That said, note how you've obsessed at people not taking up your probe, the Lacanian one. Why would that be the only probe worthy of the name? It seems to me a genuine commitment to discourse would entail a willingness to have one's conversants understand the juxtaposition on their terms. The insistence that they do so on yours is partly me point here.
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Jul 11, 2006 10:12:33 PM
Well the con-fusion between the post and the probe is one we're all engaged in here...
Everyone should understand or work through a probe on their own terms, this is true, but most of the attacks suggested there was a faulty reading of Lacan here. On THESE terms, no one has worked through it properly.
Now, one might just not want to bother with a Lacanian probe, just as some might not want to bother with a post concerning liberal niceties. But then one shouldn't, at the same time, bother to attack such posts, or even comment on them. Unless, of course, one is working towards some sort of synthesis of the two positions.
This might have been possible were it not for the multitude of inflammatory “loads of shit”. But again, flaming is a well-documented behaviour of cyberspace.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 11, 2006 10:48:31 PM
Your Lacanian reading, such as it was, just didn't work. It seemed to be based on a rather naive concept of the Real -- in fact, you sometimes give evidence of thinking that "the Real" just means "actual material stuff" rather than... well, what Lacan thinks it means, or what it comes to mean in the course of Lacan's work. Or else you just use the word "real" as it is normally used, execpt you capitalize it (as in your remark above about "the very Real connections between Baudrillard and Zizek").
I've never seen any evidence that you've really wrapped your mind around these concepts at all -- you're just kind of "throwing it out there." Whereas if you had the thorough mastery of the concepts that you seem to fancy yourself as having, it should just come naturally to you. Of course, this begs the question of whether I personally am a good judge in such matters, and I'm sure that we could come up with some really amusing and edifying way to compare cock size here -- but I'm just going to say, since you're trying to cultivate a reputation as a Great Lacanian, maybe you should hit the books and get back to us.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Jul 11, 2006 11:21:10 PM
Richard - your initial post, on Baudrillard and the final of the World Cup - expressed strong opinions, was dismissive of football tout court, etc.
Responses to it were similarly energetic. Flaming might well be a well-documented aspect of cyberspace, but so too is flamebait. I don't think any expectation of 'serious analysis' or essay-like posts had much of anything to do with the argument that ensued.
There was disagreement, is what.
Posted by: s0metim3s | Jul 11, 2006 11:31:13 PM
Adam, I'm not going to provide you with an essay here surrounding the ways in which I use the term Real in the comments to a Long Sunday post. I'll just mention that when I say "the Real connections between Baudrillard and Lacan" I'm referring, precisely, the absent dialogue between them, the disconnect that is also, from a certain 'parallax view', a connection. I've never set myself up as a "Great Lacanian", but if you'd like to judge me, judge me by my peer-reviewed work.
s0metimes: my initial post included a quote of Baudrillard, and Johnny Rotten's, and my comments were prefaced by an encouragement to NOT take things too seriously. This WAS flaming.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 11, 2006 11:46:34 PM
Okay, yeah, it was flaming.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Jul 12, 2006 12:19:36 AM
As in a flaming load of shit.
Which means I guess we know what kind of probe it was.
Du da dum.
Alright, can we officially declare these two threads over and done?
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Jul 12, 2006 12:43:49 AM
Yes, let the hysteria end.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 12, 2006 12:52:47 AM
And the tedium, and the bore. I'd like to read something interesting now, that is, something I haven't read a thousand times before.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 12, 2006 12:58:21 AM
And someone ought to put an end to this terminal Lord of the Flies-like environment...
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 12, 2006 1:01:10 AM
Now, I'm not one to complain about a poor or unsubstantiated Lacanian reading. When I target Lacan, I aim for parts more fundamental...but I spy in these two posts a desire for isolation, for a space in which one can philosophize wildly, free of all constraint.
While I understand why someone would desire such a place, is it not healthier to test the mettle of your conviction against those who don't already share your assumptions? Because in your response, I sense a strong desire to live-and-let-live. But do you think your ideas are the sharper for that?
I would feel better, smarter, fitter and more productive were I to associate only with those who share my beliefs; but I think I am better, smarter, fitter and more productive because I consistently thrust 'em into the fire.
Different strokes & what-not, I understand, but I can't help but see the limits you set on these discussions--and, in particular, on what you think constitutes an "interesting" argument--as counterproductive to sustained intellectual development. By which I mean, when I hit the marketplace of ideas, I can handle sound critiques of my methodology and account for my decision to practice it anyway; but I have the feeling that, while you have the confidence (no one'll begrudge you that), you may not have the chops to handle the critique.
Consider this a bit of friendly advice--no, I'm not kidding, I mean it--but if you don't learn to think beyond limits you've imposed upon yourself, I don't think you'll make it in academia, be it here or overseas.
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Jul 12, 2006 2:19:06 AM
Well Scott, let's not kid ourselves. Many academics "make" it without thinking beyond the limits imposed upon themselves. They're not reshaping the Zeitgeist, but they do fine.
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Jul 12, 2006 2:26:12 AM
What are you still doing awake, E.S.T. Boy? Anyway, of course you're correct, but you shouldn't be. You're a former debate coach and I've a Master Debater plaque on my wall. I think we can agree that ideas refined are better than those asserted, no? And that we'd all be better off if we had more of the former and less of the latter?
(And yes, my high school letter jacket was the funniest thing ever.)
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Jul 12, 2006 2:31:42 AM
We can indeed agree. And I have no idea why I'm still awake.
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Jul 12, 2006 3:25:24 AM
To hit post is hit post forever, or it is not to hit post at all; similarly, to eat a cheese sandwich is to eat a cheese sandwich forever, or else it is not a cheese sandwich.*
Is it just me, or is this equation impotent/lacking something?
To wit: "to eat...at all"
Posted by: Charles | Jul 12, 2006 6:45:31 AM
Sucks to you and your ass-mar!
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Jul 12, 2006 10:56:49 AM
Scott, your argument is so completely divorced from anything approaching reality to even begin to make sense of it would be to improperly validate it. Too many assumptions in the comment to a post? WTF?? All you can do, in the most insidious and rhetorical of tones, is continually pretend that you are the protector of learning and open minds.
So the irony is that your enunciated is perpetually undermined by your place of enunciation. You say one thing, and do another.
All you ever seem to do falls in the noxious tradition of academic careerism, and you WILL have a great career in the more boring parts of academia following this through. You might not, of course, ever have an original thought in your life. Your choice.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 12, 2006 11:15:01 AM
And Scott, if career ambition is what drives you through these posts, don't you think you might be wasting your time 'finding' the assumptions within a 200 word (comment to a) post? Is that something you can add to a CV?
Or, just might a hiring committee suggest you read their actual work? (I should note I do not waste my time on your site.)
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 12, 2006 11:26:46 AM
I'm here more and more agreeing with Zizek's statement that our attitude towards cyberspace should not simply be seen as some sort of perverse immersion into the maternal Thing, but also as a kind of hysteria. In front of the screen we ask: what am I for this Other?
More fundamentally, what kind of Other is this? At this point, as Zizek does NOT argue, perversion and hysteria meet.
It seems like a lot of this talk is careerist in nature. What do we have here - a bunch of grad students, anxious regarding their future hiring committees, trying to protect/create their turf? Hysteria can but be the result. (Who is reading? How will this be recorded? What are the consequences? Am I even present?)
One is tempted to provide a political economy approach: faced with too few jobs (the boomers not retiring), cyberspace provides an outlet, and an imaginary battleground.
The irony is that we waste our time here, instead of reading each other's actual papers, or, indeed, writing them. Words wasted. Feeding the economy.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 12, 2006 12:11:09 PM
Members of hiring committees routinely read comments at Long Sunday, particularly the longer threads.
(I'm trying to think of an appropriate way to deploy an analogy between Piggy's "specs" and theoretical paradigms... it's just not coming.)
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Jul 12, 2006 12:59:56 PM
Charles, yes, I spent too much time refining it, I guess.
RIPope:
Scott, your argument is so completely divorced from anything approaching reality to even begin to make sense of it would be to improperly validate it.
Do you mean "reality" or "Reality"? Because I'm certainly divorced from the latter. (Not that you'd think so, but that's my point.)
You might not, of course, ever have an original thought in your life.
C'mon everybody, pony up. You have to admit that some theorists do, in fact, conform to the adolescent post-Romantic stereotype who haunts our respective local coffee house. This obsession with originality for the sake of originality is, frankly, pathetic. No, RIPope, I may never have an original thought in my life; I may make truthful, incisive observations about the world in which I live or the one which I describe, but I'll never have "an original thought." Oh, and Operation Ivy is so much better than Rancid, but The Clash is better than both.
And Scott, if career ambition is what drives you through these posts, don't you think you might be wasting your time 'finding' the assumptions within a 200 word (comment to a) post? Is that something you can add to a CV?
Originality, it seems, doesn't require intelligence. Or maybe it's that, after years of not working with it, you just don't know what to do with evidence. Look, let my put this to you plainly: I value thought, and inasmuch as I believe that it's necessary for a successful career in academia, then I'm a careerist. You don't think, you allude. You don't argue, you evade. Perhaps you do more in your peer-reviewed work--I have my doubts, but let's not deal with the evidence--but I think that characteristics like "attention to detail," "the ability to argue," "treatment of source material" &c. are something one possesses or not.
You don't seem to possess them--you prefer to declaim, to cite additional authors who make your argument for you, and to discuss your own brilliance and/or originality whenever you're challenged. (The irony!) That makes you a pompous, "intellectual" coward. Now, you could argue "But I only behave like this online!" Fair enough. I don't believe it, but fair enough.
Finally, this:
All you can do, in the most insidious and rhetorical of tones, is continually pretend that you are the protector of learning and open minds.
The implied opposite here is so foul, I can't noxious, I can barely bring myself to confront it. So let me just say: Yes, I pass the mantle of "protector of learning and open minds" to the guy with the self-confirming, unfalsifiable system and the chutzpah to never admit it. Let him be your beacon.
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Jul 12, 2006 10:55:23 PM
But Scott, the point to that last quote of mine in your comment is that, while you pretend to protect free thought, you effectively close it down. You're going off about a prefaced comment to a post. There's a tinge of absurdity here. For whatever reason you have an incessant drive to attack me, without ever actually addressing the points. You say I am blinded by Lacan, but you never address the Lacanian readings themselves, nor even address how they conflict with yours. You have never really ventured beyond a "Lacan is dogmatic - you are Lacanian - you are bad", however much you might protest that you are, somehow, open to Lacanian readings.
If you aren't going to address the actual issues, there is no real thought involved. Just rhetoric - which you clearly enjoy. I can only wonder why you prefer to spend your day going off about a comment to a post - without really addressing it - instead of working on your own stuff, whatever it is.
And yes, I certainly do think there is a difference between online behaviour and otherwise. Though most seem to think this a continuation of the seminar room, I've never seen people act towards each other like this in such a room. Flaming. In a seminar room people try to understand where the other people are coming from, while here you misquote something and hold it up as indicative of 'all that evil theory dogma' you see everywhere else. No doubt this is an outlet for frustration or annoyance you feel within the real university (no, not capitalized, I'm talking about reality). For whatever reason I've become the lightning rod. If we were sitting across from each other in a room I doubt things would have progressed in this manner.
And if one is simply attacking people, it's rather easy to pretend one is doing precisely what one does in the university generally. It's much harder to pretend this when one is posting or commenting 'probes' or 'ideas' - for they, to achieve the criterion of 'truth' you seek, need much more time and space with which to do so... So, for those that do seek original ideas (and I do not mean 'original' in any naive sense, but I do seek to open up new avenues of thought, or to look at the world askew), this medium must be used differently... I'm not saying I've accomplished much here. It seems every time I try, this sort of thing happens. And I wonder what's the point.
But it's funny. Hundreds of people read these blogs every day and don't comment. Maybe they read them in the way I imagine. Maybe I should just go ahead and not give a hoot what some commenters might say. Who knows.
Hysteria.
And why the Op Ivy reference, btw? Funny, I've got an Op Ivy tattoo...
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 12, 2006 11:56:14 PM
'Total seriousness is important, of course, but for peer-reviewed journals! And, again, this is not it!
(If anyone cares, and I doubt they do, my work, much of which has gone through the peer review process, locates itself at the very Real - yes, I did capitalize it, perhaps it is the German in me - intersection of Zizek and Baudrillard.)'
Peer Reviewed Journals.
Almost as Important as the Real.
'my work, much of which has gone through the peer review process, locates itself at the very Real'
should read:
'my work, much of which has gone through the peer review process, locates itself at the very Careerism' which is involved in reappearing on blogs, decrying them but not being able to resign from them.
You are just advertising yourself in a particularly vulgar fashion, a little preen and pirouette here, a desire for grand jete as peer-reviewed journalist, and a retreat into tutu...(so where are the 32 fouettes?)
Literally Incredible that you would accuse The Others of Careerism (even they all deserve it.)
Oh, how Peer-Reviewed Journalist one is!
How capable one is of using blogs for Real Ads!
Your retreat into Zizek and failure to understand anything of Baudrillard's recklessness and lack of interest in public opinion, reduced to a kind of attempted replica of his own style is Real Careerism with a Capital Advert. Zizek is strictly careerism.
'locates itself at the very Real - yes, I did capitalize it, perhaps it is the German in me - intersection of Zizek and Baudrillard.)'
This is the one accurate thing you have said herein, because the 'very Real (gee whiz, neat-oh jet!) intersection of Zizek and Baudrillard' is a little hollow place reserved for only you in your extensive Peer Review Process that you learned how to do at the Real of the European Graduate School.
I don't think Baudrillard knows a thing about your intersection. You don't know anything about Baudrillard, as that would take guts. Stick with Zizek, I was all wrong about this a while back, he's your man, all cowardice, bluff and Careerism.
Posted by: | Jul 12, 2006 11:57:14 PM
The above overtly Original comment was posted by patrick
Posted by: patrick | Jul 13, 2006 12:00:35 AM
What's the point of this attack? I just don't get it. I mentioned `peer-review' precisely because of attacks like this, particularly since the one at T&E deals with Zizek and Lacan at length. Since all these attacks suggest that I have not grasped Lacan - without showing how - it seemed rather natural to suggest people look there for the 7000 words they seek...
Now with such an undeserved attack I probably shouldn't answer further, but you're right about Zizek's careerism, or, perhaps better put, endless commodity-object production.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 13, 2006 12:22:53 AM
I might note that every time - however few and far between - someone has actually asked me to clarify my usage of Lacanese, I have done so. If we are actually interested in understanding each other's different ways of thinking, this would seem to be the path towards it.
To simply say one doesn't allow for different ways of thinking, without even beginning to attempt understanding of my own, well, the contradiction is obvious. I'd be happy to work through various things with others here, though that, unfortunately, is not what most commenters are interested here. Something else is on the agenda.
Sadly, I've seen it a million times over, and not just in the blogosphere, even if here it takes on a new dimension - without responsibility.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 13, 2006 12:36:21 AM
Richard - I say this because we're doctoral students at the same school: did you do any coursework at all? I say this quite seriously. I highly doubt the pedagogical environment is that different in C&C than it is in SPT, sociology or political science. I most certainly snapped at people who I felt said stupid things and I've seen others do the same - students and faculty alike.
Posted by: Craig | Jul 13, 2006 12:37:32 AM
Yes, of course, I've done all my coursework. And I can't seriously believe you don't see a difference between this and the seminar room. Did you snap and refuse to listen further, stare at the wall for a while, until you decided to snap back further? Have you got along well with your colleagues? Really...
(DISCLAIMER: capitalized only because of its place in sentence)
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 13, 2006 12:44:53 AM
'What's the point of this attack? I just don't get it. I mentioned `peer-review' precisely because of attacks like this, particularly since the one at T&E deals with Zizek and Lacan at length. Since all these attacks suggest that I have not grasped Lacan -'
You did not need Peer Review to prove yourself here, you needed to prove yourself here by saying something worth listening to or abdicating, which could prove you'd put your money where your mouth is.
The ones who say they want you to prove that you have grasped Lacan don't really care about that anyway, as they are quite as careerist as you said they were. The problem is that so are you--or so determined to think about the Real that you manage to define it as an unreal you which engages while pointing out how you have remained aloof. Ultimately, it is you who have made this personal, because you have at least some residual interest in proving yourself in these parts. It is inexcusable that you should care. And it is that caring for something so worthless that proves that you do not understand Baudrillard.
Posted by: patrick | Jul 13, 2006 12:55:53 AM
Chevy Chase:
Real: pronounced Ray Al. Not Reeel. Royal. Kingly. Del Rey. A display of absolutism chastising lèse-majesté, followed by the constitutionally mandated rebuke from the judiciary. Zidane's gesture introduces the royal, the regal, the Real, from Ray Al Ma Dreeed.
Emily Latella:
Oh. Well. Never mind.
Posted by: | Jul 13, 2006 1:06:12 AM
Patrick, you're absolutely right that a true Baudrillardian wouldn't care, but Baudrillard worked long and hard to achieve his aloofness, didn't he?
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 13, 2006 1:36:17 AM
Richard, why don't you just post a pdf of your Zizek/Lacan paper and submit that as your defense?
And I agree with Patrick: Baudrillard takes guts.
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Jul 13, 2006 7:32:37 AM
It seems, several years into the blog phenomenon, few have pondered much about the medium itself.
Can this be serious?
Richard, why don't you just post a pdf of your Zizek/Lacan paper and submit that as your defense?
Yes, please do. And let's leave Charles his comments too. Thanks.
Posted by: Charles | Jul 13, 2006 10:24:24 AM
Sadly, it is dead serious, at least when it comes to these parts.
The idea that I need to defend the comment to a blog post is a little odd, and can only suggest that there aren't, in fact, open minds here... Or at least aren't many who comment, which might be something altogether different.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 13, 2006 11:56:47 AM
I've been lurking here for quite some time, but only now have I felt a real need to speak out.
Those who share Scott Eric Kaufman's view are far too critical. RIPope is right when he suggests that Long Sunday is not meant to be a peer-reviewed publication. I've always thought of blogging as a sort of sketchpad; it's where ideas can be formed and maybe not entirely coalesce. It's like having a public notebook. It's good to be challenged, but one shouldn't expect a blog (or its comments) to be the place to go for in-depth critical studies.
Don't get me wrong, I respect Kaufman quite a bit, but where RIPope might be lax in his blog-related critical work, Kaufman is particularly dogmatic. The first approach shows a lack of hard thinking and the second shows a lack of an open mind. Las time I checked, we're not here to instruct or to preach, we're here to have conversations, otherwise we wouldn't bother having comment threads.
I'm not really sure entirely where these thoughts are going, but this whole flame war is getting a bit ridiculous. We're all supposed to be intellectuals here, right? How about we act like it and start having dialogue instead of pedantic bickering?
Posted by: Bryan | Jul 13, 2006 12:12:13 PM
Here's what I don't get. No one has thought seriously about blogs because there is flaming and a misunderstanding about the proper use of the medium? Umm, in all seriousness, why isn't flaming the proper nature of the blog? The same phenomenon occurs in all other aspects of society, but only for its online version did we need to invent a new term.
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Jul 13, 2006 12:15:41 PM
And Richard, are you going to post the paper or not? I'd like to read it. Pdf or doc or (preferably) odt work fine for me.
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Jul 13, 2006 12:16:30 PM
Umm, in all seriousness, why isn't flaming the proper nature of the blog? The same phenomenon occurs in all other aspects of society, but only for its online version did we need to invent a new term.
I think the difference is that in person, we're more apt to be kinder to one another. At the very least, we treat each other with a bit more respect. Online people tend to be unspeakably rude in ways that would be absolutely unacceptable in person. I think the Lifehacker comments policy (adopted by Feministe) says it best:
[...] tongue-lashings from condescending smartypants will go over as well on someone's blog as they would in that someone's living room. Expect to get shown the door in the form of the delete button. When fact-checking, pointing out a typo or dead link or asserting a dissenting opinion, do it in a respectful, friendly way.
Posted by: Bryan | Jul 13, 2006 12:20:02 PM
Flaming as the proper nature of the blog - well, let's hope not. And as Bryan notes there certainly is a reason for the new term here, since without actually being in the same room the sense of, or need for, responsibility is lost.
Yep I'll post the paper at CPROBES when I get a chance.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 13, 2006 12:41:57 PM
Oh come now, we really think it's about physical copresence generating more kindness, or rather less aggression? If that's your thinking about the medium, you can keep it. I remember the Internet scholarship of the mid 90s as well as anyone.
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Jul 13, 2006 12:45:39 PM
Kenneth: It's much easier to be a prick when you don't have to look into the eyes of whomeever it is you're flaming. I've seen plenty of things online that I could never imagine being said to someone's face. "Kindness" isn't necessarily the word to use - pricks are pricks - but there's a tendency to conduct one's self in a slightly more civil manner, particularly with people one has had little to no contact with. There is also a diminished lack of awkwardness - no dealing with the aftermath of what's been said.
I think that particularly those who write under a pseudonym are embolded by the lack of personal contact (and the minimal risk of identification) and are more likely to say thing they wouldn't say to you in a million years face-to-face. Without a real life reputation to defend, there's no need to hold your tongue.
Posted by: Bryan | Jul 13, 2006 1:23:37 PM
I might note that every time - however few and far between - someone has actually asked me to clarify my usage of Lacanese, I have done so.
"Clarify," perhaps, but "justify"? Never. Now, you may see Long Sunday as a place to twiddle your Lacanian thumbs—I disagree. When I see unsophisticated Lacan blather, I call people on it. I may seem to attack you more than most. There must be a reason for that...
...in addition to which, there's the arrogant, high-handed way you initiate and carry on conversations. Anyone who denies the immanent explanatory power of Lacan is an "academic charlatan" and so on. If you want to chalk that up to online triumphalism, fine, but when you inflate yourself so, you're asking to be popped.
Sadly, I've seen it a million times over, and not just in the blogosphere, even if here it takes on a new dimension - without responsibility.
You lament the lack of responsibility, yet you refuse to treat the medium responibly: "I vomit probes, for you to do with what you will!" How is that an intellectually responsible position? (Also, how does it not introduce an unsavory power dynamic between vomiter and vomitee?)
Craig, while not at the same institution as you two, I can say that I've taken both types of courses at UCI: charged critical theory seminars in which points were feverishly argued; bland courses in the post-post-human in which everyone added a little something to what the person said before...and which, in the end, seemed intent on making people feel good about themselves and the wishy-washy thought they peddled. The latter classes were a waste, an exercise in creating original monstrosities which couldn't stand the test of, well, anything. Theoretical edifices erected for the day, memorialized nowhere, but wholly original. No one could ever replicate them—nor would anyone want to. As I mentioned to Ken earlier, I believe ideas refined are superior to, well, idle internet chatter.
Lest anyone think me inflexible, I think there's abundant evidence that I'm not—even, I say, even on the subject of psychoanalysis. Why? Because over the course of a conversation which all parties took seriously, I have been convinced of that mine is "the poorer" intellectual position. My ideas, see, have been refined. Now, some people think the academic blog charter includes "a safe space in which I can express my opinions without fear that they'll be tested." It doesn't. Which leads, on occasions, to trolls; but I don't see any of the regular (non-psychotic division) commenters here or around the block as trolls.
I point this out because, to my mind, academic blogs constitute an extension of the life-of-mind I already lead, and so I hold what happens here to similar (though, obviously, not identical) standards. That may, pace Bryan, make me appear dogmatic. I don't think it does (nor do I feel particularly dogmatic, or dogmatically anti-dogmatic, as the case may be), but I'm not too concerned about the labels.
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Jul 13, 2006 2:59:07 PM
It's abundantly clear that our vulnerability is all our insensitivity, which may be why I for one am feeling rather lost in the supermarket.
Posted by: Nate | Jul 13, 2006 3:09:30 PM
Shorter version: I'd rather online discussions not resemble dull, unproductive (but therapeutic) seminars.
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Jul 13, 2006 3:13:11 PM
I don't know what you're talking about, Nate. I've a guaranteed personality.
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Jul 13, 2006 3:15:16 PM
That may, pace Bryan, make me appear dogmatic. I don't think it does (nor do I feel particularly dogmatic, or dogmatically anti-dogmatic, as the case may be), but I'm not too concerned about the labels.
Dogmatic may not have been the best word. If I were to amend that statement, I'd call you stubborn, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. When it comes to Lacan or Freud... well, education gap aside, let's just say I wouldn't want to engage you in a debate. Not for fear of argument - I'm all for argument - but because I couldn't see the conversation heading in any mutually beneficial direction.
Posted by: Bryan | Jul 13, 2006 3:21:19 PM
Scott, I was just reminded of this article, which you link on your own blog. The relevant excerpt:
So I would say that blogging is a great way for academics to socialize and should be encouraged -- it's especially great for academics who would otherwise be quite isolated from other academics of similar interests. But what goes along with that is a tacit agreement -- nothing can exceed the level of rigor of a conversation at the pub after class. If people make overblown statements, no one necessarily has to call them on it. No one has to be convinced of, or especially prove, anything on the spot -- because that's the kind of thing that we do in journal articles and books. And we do that kind of thing in those formats because it's the kind of thing that takes a really long time and a lot of work and study and because it's not easily digested in any other way. Maybe it's a shame that certain articles aren't read very much, but the point isn't to put those ideas into a blog so that they'll get read -- the point is to say, "Hey everyone! There's this cool article out that I just read!" You know, social stuff. Recommendations. Passing the news along.
Posted by: Bryan | Jul 13, 2006 3:45:52 PM
Yes, I link to it, but disagree. Don't get me wrong, I like that Kotsko kid. An agreeable fellow. Only in this case, wrong.
The fact that we're doing this in a written medium—one conducive to citation, no less—makes me think that our conversations can be far more substantial then what can be "accomplished" in a pub. I've thought, re-thought, re-re-thought, considered, then considered again a number of issues I'd already comfortably dismissed. Even if, in the end, I'm not persuaded to change my mind, I'm still left with a more nuanced dismissal, a greater awareness of what it is I find distasteful and why. Now, that may not seem productive, but I think it is, superficially so, even: I don't fence with straw men, even in my head, anymore. (I don't know what my review of Crews' Follies of the Wise would've looked like last year, but I can safely say "Nothing like what it'll look like now.")
One final note: I went and read RIPope's latest article and found its conclusion odd, given the anti-careerist position articulated above:
On this note, for more, and for discussion, please visit my weblog CPROBES: http://www.cprobes.com - and a group blog I contribute to, Long Sunday: http://www.long-sunday.net. After the publication of this article I will, particularly at CPROBES, routinely draw out contemporary cultural objects exemplifying sinthomic enjoy-meant and the 'Orders of Pomo'.
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Jul 13, 2006 5:48:31 PM
Ya... that was in the interest of experimentation with this medium... Hmm....
There's nothing wrong with having an interest in a career. The opposite would be odd. The problem, if there is one, is when one's work - and I'm not necessarily saying that this defines anyone's work here... I wouldn't pretend to judge someone based on their contributions to the blogosphere... - is only ever motivated by how those on hiring committess MIGHT see it. In my mind, this winds up putting blocks on thinking, since it involves preconceptions of what certain people want to hear or see.
Posted by: RIPope | Jul 13, 2006 5:56:04 PM
The fact that we're doing this in a written medium—one conducive to citation, no less—makes me think that our conversations can be far more substantial then what can be "accomplished" in a pub.
They can be - and probably should be in certain circumstances - but they don't always have to be. I'm here to learn, first and foremost, but I also wouldn't bother with the blogosphere if I didn't also think it was a fun way to spend my time. I enjoy getting the chance to "socialize" via the Net with academics/scholars/activists I may never come in contact with otherwise. There are pros and cons to both arguments and no need why they can't peacefully coexist. I have a great deal of respect for you and your position, I just don't think you're entirely correct.
Posted by: Bryan | Jul 13, 2006 6:04:21 PM
"academic blogs constitute an extension of the life-of-mind I already lead"
the usual arrogant, hackish crit.speak of the Squat Kowmann, deluded lit. careerist and darwin-lite moraliste...not worth even summoning up some bon mot to put the foooo in his place
Posted by: Raoul | Jul 14, 2006 6:33:25 PM
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