it never ceases to amaze me

It never ceases to amaze me that people still write and publish stuff like this. But fair warning: it's about another author who complains about the dominance of Theory in English departments. People bored with this topic might quite reasonably give it a miss. Me, it never ceases to amaze. I sent the author an e-mail. I couldn't stop myself. I know it's stupid.

Comments

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

I hereby invoke my right to be absolutely, 100% percent wrong.

[Jodi]

Acknowledged!

[John Ransom]

There's no intellectual position that cannot be held dishonestly and opportunistically. This is not always buried deep in some inaccessible recess. Remember the great moment in Shakespeare's *Julius Ceasar* when Antony has finished his incredible speech to the crowd that has gathered to listen to the conspirators, and then to him. Antony manages to turn the crowd completely around: from supporting Brutus and the assassination of Ceasar to calling for Brutus' head. Shakespeare has Antony say to himself in a stage whisper: "Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot, Take thou what course thou wilt!"

Antony knows exactly what he's doing. In a dangerous and unstable political environment, he's trying to stir up a hornet's nest and benefit from the chaos that results. To achieve this, he presents himself falsely as a great friend of Ceasar overcome with grief. But there are lots of other shadings of self-awareness when it comes to motivations, all the way to being quite unaware of the true motives for an act, as well as wrongly ascribing to oneself a motive that is actually a cover for another one that lies below. The division is not between those who know their true motivations and those who don't. Rather, there's a spectrum. The spectrum is called "how self-aware one is about the motives for one's acts". The left end of the spectrum is 'not aware at all' and the right end is 'completely aware.' Antony is over there on the right end of the scale. (Of course, even Antony can be talked about. The motive, 'stir things up so I can fish in troubled waters' is enough for him. He doesn't need more than that to explain his actions to himself, and does not look further. But what about his relation to Ceasar?) On the far left end of the scale are the contending royal factions in mid-nineteenth century France, the Orleanists and the Bourbons, that Marx describes in _The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte_. What these two factions really represent are two kinds of capital. But if you talk to a member of one of these houses, you'll get a long history leading up to the belief that one house should rule France rather than the other. And Marx is not utterly dismissive: "What kept the two factions apart, therefore, was not any so-called principles, it was their material conditions of existence, two different kinds of property; it was the old contrast between town and country, the rivalry between capital and landed property. That at the same time old memories, personal enmities, fears and hopes, prejudices and illusions, sympathies and antipathies, convictions, articles of faith and principles bound them to one or the other royal house, who denies this? Upon the different forms of property, upon the social conditions of existence, rises an entire superstructure of distinct and peculiarly formed sentiments, illusions, modes of thought, and views of life. The entire class creates and forms them out of its material foundations and out of the corresponding social relations. The single individual, who derives them through tradition and upbringing, may imagine that they form the real motives and the starting point of his activity. While each faction, Orleanists and Legitimists, sought to make itself and the other believe that it was loyalty to the two royal houses which separated them, facts later proved that it was rather their divided interests which forbade the uniting of the two royal houses. And as in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does, so in historical struggles one must distinguish still more the phrases and fancies of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality" (_18th Brumaire_, Chapter III).

Between the two ends of the spectrum -- not always or even usually in the precise middle between them -- is where we see a lot of the range of human acts and their relation to motivation fall. How does that work with the article in question? That's what I thought the conversation was about, and the sudden eruption of comments that are irrelevant to it caught me off guard and unprepared. They do nothing to advance the discussion. That doesn't mean everyone can't write what they want. No one is trying to be anyone's father, much less censor -- at least not consciously. "Blogs," as comrade Stalin once said in a different context, "will take anything that is written on them," and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

But this freedom should be Christian in Luther's sense. In "The Freedom of a Christian" Luther writes that "A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none." Christians don't need laws, not even the commandments; they don't need wealth, fame, and so on. A christian man doesn't need to be told not to covet: he knows that coveting is a symptom of taking this world too seriously while devaluing the only object of value, the next world. He doesn't covet not because he's been *told* not to, but because coveting is done by a slave, someone still fooled concerning the value of the things of this world.

And so commentators can interrupt a discussion and turn it away from its object and onto intellectually irrelevant topics, calling other people "asses" and "simpletons." They are free and can write whatever they want. But they should not do so. This 'should not', however, is not issued by authority figures and obedience to it is not blind. Rather our individual and communal commitment to the development of the intellectual topic at hand is what will constrain us. Everything else on a philosophy blog is *pathetic posturing*.

[Bride of the Son of Serenity Sperm]

I think some of the criticism of Thomas H. Benton's article is a little unfair. (I didn't like the piece either, perhaps mainly because I think "Dead Poets Society" is a terrible movie.) For one thing, I don't think he's hiding out as an anonymous author; in fact, Thomas H. Benton is actually William A. Pannapacker, a prof at Hope College--don't think I'm giving anything away here, as Dr. Pannapacker proudly lists his "Benton" publications on his website! For another, calling Dr. Pannapacker a racially insensitive white guy hiding out from invading multicultural hordes (or something along those lines) is overly simplistic. In previous columns Dr. P. has talked about what it was like to be a working-class grad student who went way beyond the educational levels of his parents. That is, while Long Sunday has focused on race/gender, let's bring in class, a little bit. I've always thought that Benton/Pannapacker is slightly hostile to theory because he associates it (rightly or wrongly) with elite privilege. BTW, as a side note, Pannapacker was a major grad-student labor activist in the 1990s, so if he's become more "establishment," it's by a very roundabout route. I'm not trying to smack anyone down here, just complicate the discussion a bit. A lot of you are making highly personal bad-faith charges, so it would be a good idea to research the author a bit; you might end up liking him more in spite of yourself.

And yes, I am going to be anonymous for my own comment...frankly, yes indeed, you guys are pretty intimidating, though I don't imagine you smashing a baseball bat through my window :) It actually reassures me to know that at least three people on this comment thread are parents!!

[isakofsky]

One aspect of Pannabacker/Benton's article that interested me (I'm a Brit) is his nostalgia for something that didn't exist: a kind of faux anglaiserie; (the bit about the fall, the gothic and sweaters). I think what he's evoking here is the American borrowing of a British private ('Public'(!!!)) school domination of English studies at Oxford and Cambridge on either side of the First World War.

Part of the resentment towards theory is that the beastly foreigner got into 'our' patch. 'Alien' voices from France and Germany have invaded. 'We' know how to do literature: we sit round in the company of like-minded people and 'appreciate'. Anyone who questions the assumptions and origins behind this activity is suspect.

[N.Zuckerman]

There is more bullshit in the comments than in the article that the poster is scornful of.

[John Ransom]

Well, now there is.

[Kristine Danielson]

Well, just to address the last issue... If we're going to "complicate" Benton/Pannapacker wouldn't it be advisable to look into the politics and position of Hope College? I have my doubts any self-respecting, working-class activist would take a job there. For example: http://www.mediamouse.org/briefs/042605hope_.php

The "elite privilege" that you claim Benton/Pannapacker associates with theory, I would surmise, is *leftist* theory. I doubt he has any problem with the New Critics. And using Dead Poet's Society as a target is old hat (and a dead giveaway) that it's coming from conservative circles. I should know, I attended Hillsdale College in the 80's, which is known as the No.1 conservative college in U.S. I'm still recovering from the brain-fuck I received there. I too was a working-class undergrad dazzled by the "ivied halls of learning". It's all too easy and pleasant to get sucked into defending and identifying with the very status quo that served to determine your initial exclusion.

[Adam Kotsko]

Coming into this a little late, I can say that I viewed Scott's comments as a pretty shocking non-sequitur.

That said, I would also remark that John and Scott are not the only people who post at the Valve and that the general drift of comment threads at the Valve could fairly and intelligibly be referred to by the shorthand "at the Valve." Admittedly, it's hard to rigorously document "the general drift of comment threads" -- and so demanding particular concrete evidence would be a great way to completely kill a discussion of said drift.

In conclusion, obviously anyone who thinks that Freud's data-gathering techniques were sometimes suspect longs for a return to Jim Crow.

Thanks for your time, everyone.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Coming into this a little late, I can say that I viewed Scott's comments as a pretty shocking non-sequitur.

I concur!

[jholbo]

It's interesting that the author turns out to be Pannapacker - who, after all, attacked the Valve for its treatment of the Theory issue. Reading the pseudonymous column, it's hardly surprising that he attacked us. What is surprising - I agree with Scott about this - is Craig's linkage between the column and the Valve. How can it possibly make sense to move from the column to the Valve, like so?

I think there is in much "anti-Theory" writing (of varying sorts and varying qualities and varying sophistications) an underlying concern (to be diplomatic!) with identify and multicultural politics. And this is why "we" are so willing to jump on people from The Valve when they make arguments attempting to separate political committments from "Theory" while defending their own work's (and their own) credentials as (at least) "liberal."

Anti-Theory writing betrays an underlying ... Pannppackerishness? So when you see what is obviously wrong with the column, you see what is secretly wrong with ... much that goes on at the Valve? Why should that be?

There are obvious reasons why saying this is wrong, and no obvious reasons why it should be secretly right. (Just curious whether Craig thinks he can fill in the blanks.)

As to the question of 'drift', I fail to see how Bauerlein - who posted very infrequently, very little about Theory, and has now left - can be the tone-setting figure here. He didn't even post his contribution to the Theory's Empire event at the Valve. Also, he doesn't self-identify as a 'liberal'. Scott and I produce, by weight, most of the Valve writings on the Theory thing (together we produce more than half, I'm sure). I would tend to assume that if you talk about 'the Valve on Theory' you are basically talking about the two of us. So what are the grounds for reading us as crypto-Pannapackers?

It also seems worth mentioning that Pannapacker's position is not represented in Theory's Empire. There is basically not one single contribution to that thick volume that sounds his (quite familiar) chord of complaint. So the fact that someone is positive about Theory's Empire is not exactly prima facie evidence of Pannapackerishness.

[Nate]

Kristine,
Can you explain your take that no self-respecting working class activist would take a job at Hope College? I'm committed to a view that academics also work, but "working class activist" is a bit of stretch applied to faculty I think. Does the non-credibility of Hope employees apply only to faculty, or to leftists who may be working there as clerical workers, janitors, computer support, etc?
Take care,
Nate

May I just say, Kristine, thanks for commenting. You make some very appropriate contextualizing, and revealing points, to be sure. So thanks for setting the record straight.

John writes:

It's interesting that the author turns out to be Pannapacker - who, after all, attacked the Valve for its treatment of the Theory issue

Yes, that is interesting. Of course he "attacked" you for not being polemical enough, and not because he disagreed with anything you were saying, or for that matter the generally perceived thrust of the attack or indeed the organizing impetus behind Theory's Empire.

Singing the nostalgic culture-warrior's song, in other words, he only wished your event had been less polite.

As such, one might say, risking a bit of honest contention, that whether consciously or not, he does appear content to play the predictable and unwavering foil to modern times, as it were (much like Brian Leiter), the very existence of whose tired bluster rather dignifies the Valve's (or for that matter Theory's Empire's) self-positioning as the more intellectual, "polite" alternative front in this battle with a long and ignorant history on both sides (though one waged almost exclusively against "Theory"), a battle nevertheless repeatedly framed by yourself, John, and others with such an obvious interest in such framing, as directly targetted on "an entire school of thought" (presumably all of post-structuralism, or anything indebted to either Marx, Freud/Lacan or Heidegger – it seems to depend on the opportunity) "that cannot die fast enough."

Nothing is beyond criticism, of course, including Theory. But when one conveniently groups such diverse strands of thought together under one roof, as a "school of thought" (in Holbo's exact phrase), nuanced or useful criticism is often (though not always, it is true) sacrificed to such things as polemic, to popular history, to advertising, and so on. I take it this is all rather obvious, and indeed John himself is quick to admit as much wrt "analytic philosophy," when he is pressed.

In any case, however real, thankfully self-positioning and academic politics are not the final say on anything, and so being joined – whether in pure coincidence or in general historical agreement – by an anti-Theory bent is hardly any reasonable cause to rule out prima facie anything John at The Valve lets flow (some of which has little or nothing to do with such axes being ground, after all). Which is only to say, again, with Craig, that there are in "'anti-Theory' writings... varying sorts and varying qualities and varying sophistications." So, let's assume that John Holbo would prefer to be heard as an example of the more sophisticated wing, if on any wing at all. In which case, it would of course be necessary to turn to his writings (or those of Scott) directly, and especially to the responses that follow in specific comments, all of which rather speak for themselves, if one wishes to be more than general.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

I'm not exactly sure who I'm responding to--though I could venture a guess--but if you want to turn to my most recent musings about theory, you could start by looking at the posts linked to in this comment. The comment threads following them are long, deliberative and have an effect on the posts which follow them. Granted, they're at my place, not the Valve. (But it's only a matter of "yet," as I'm still working through those ideas.)

[jholbo]

So, can I take that as a (rather drawn-out) 'no' answer to my question? The question being: was Craig's hint at a Pannapacker-Valve equation warranted?