Steel yourself

[Steelhead]

Diana of York in a matronizing riposte:

>Notice your list of evil-doers in academia. What they have in common isn't
>university affiliation as much as expertise in fields capitalism
>needs/wants to continue its exponential growth.

Not true. Edward Teller doesn't give a damn about economics or GDP. His
obsession is nuclear weapons. The genetic engineers aren't
capitalists--though they are certainly *used* by them--they are obsessed
with their own theories of a better world through cloning. They are
Utopians. Himmler, Mengele, and Eichmann were far from capitalists. They
too were out to create a better, cleaner world.

>And whether you like it
>or not, Freud and his ilk have had huge and damaging effects on our
>conceptions of identity and social dynamics.  Those of us interested in
>rewriting cultural metanarratives must grapple with him and many other
>ideologues.

Still warring with Siggy, eh. I admit I'm more attracted to the psych
"theories" of Laing and Szaz, but indicting the Ole Man for having "had
huge and damaging effects on our conceptions of identity and social
dynamics?" PLEEZE. This belongs in the same heep as the ravings of that
censorious witch Catherine MacKinnon and her Boy Toy--and neo-Platonic cry
baby--Jeffrey Mousseiff Mason.  How do you hugely harm a "conception of
identity." This is where pomo-knee-jerk-feminist criticism flounders. Women
are being physically abused and mutilated every day, endentured in
sweatshops, subjected to forced starvation and servitude, flailed at by
pseudoliberals such Clinton and Co. who strip away the welfare safety net
dooming another million women and children to even more dire conditions,
and you go on and on about the evils of Freud. Well, like you yourself
observed: No one says you *have* to read him. And I bet you haven't read
much. Dipped into Totem and Taboo lately? Moses and Monasticism? Thought
not. When you--or any of your "ilk"--write a "cultural metanarrative" as
prescient as Civilization and Its Discontents, let me know. Frankly, I
don't think Marge Piercy is up to the task. Pynch came close. But then he's
not on your side.

>Theory has practical implications, even Pomo
>theory, and I've yet to see a compelling argument, from you or anyone
>else, as to why I should shun it. But no one says you have to read it. Why
>the insulting attacks?

Pomo theory may have "practical implications," but it lacks applications.
That's a reason compelling enough to attack it as a waste of time and
money.

>I'm surprised to hear you found my senior American fiction class so
>boring!  Particularly since I was surrounded by students yesterday after
>the final exam telling me (yet again) that it was the most interesting
>class they ever had, that no one had ever asked them to think before,
>that they had never thought about many of the issues we discussed in class
>or had never thought about them in those ways.

Ah...but these encomiums were laid at your feet prior to the grading of the
all important final exam, nicht wahr? Wonder what platitudes they told
their instructor of rhythmic dance before the final recital, eh? I remember
telling my structural anthropology professor just after a hellacious 3-hour
final that his lecture on the moiety patterns of the Yanonmamo was a life
changing experience for me. Seemed to help me sail through that class with
an A--though I deserved no such grade. It was only a decade later that I
developed a real interest in the work of Levi-Strauss, Maggie Mead and
Napoleon Chagnon and that epiphany certainly had nothing to do with the
cometic ramblings of that blowhard of a prof.

>And yes, every single
>one of them has a story about family financial ruin related to the
>oil bust of the '80s.  Funny though they do not view it objectively as
>related to larger issues of capitalism, technology and greed.  Why
>should they?  Who encourages them to?  Well, in the best of worlds, none
>other than your dreaded academics.

C'mon. This is so patronizing of those kids that it almost defies
commentary. I live in a little Oregon milltown not far from the residence
of Tommy P's uncle. My kids are 14 and 12. They have a shockingly precise
understanding of the forces that are shaping and threatening their lives.
So do their friends, most of whom are the children of laid off millworkers
and log truck drivers, raised by single mothers who work two jobs for next
to nothing. I try to spend two to three days a week in the classroom,
helping out, since the citizens (largely Californians in self-imposed
exile) of this "progressive state" have ruthlessly slashed school budgets.
Despite the best attempts of the government to dumb-down our offspring, the
kids remain incredibly resilient, and sharp, critical thinkers. What they
are most lacking in is precisely that which the pomo's are so abhorent to
teach: basic writing and research skills (god forbid anyone is able to scan
Keats's wonderful "To Autumn" anymore.) It appalls me that many of these
students will work their asses off to get into college only to run into to
professors who treat them with such caustic condescension.

>As for selling my students short,
>again, sadly you're mistaken.  I practice feminist pedagogy which
>in fact assumes their ability to think and speak;  this contrasts with
>traditional educational practices. In class I decenter my authority and
>hand them the majority of the burden for grappling with the texts that we
>read. I'm sure you're familiar with Paulo Freire and other progressive
>educators;  I base my classroom dynamics on their theories.

Theories upon theories upon theories. You're assertion that traditional
educational practices assumed that college seniors don't have the "ability
to think and speak" is laughable. Have you ever tuned in C-SPAN to watch
the student debates at Oxford? Hard to get more articulate than that or a
more traditional educational approach.

I, for one, think it is very generous that you "decenter [your] authority."
But the rigidity of your textual analysis leads me to believe that you
steer your class toward your own preordained explications of books that you
have chosen to anoint as Holy (hence all the nonsense about your students
never having viewed their life histories "objectively" or never having
shown an ability to relate it to the larger context of global capitalism,
until they encountered your class.) This is an insidious, not progressive
teaching method. Moreover, it's hard to imagine you tolerating an
enthusiastic embrace of Mailer's An American Dream, Foucault's History of
Sexuality, or Norman O. Brown's neo-Freudian Life Against Death.

>My turn to
>make assumptions about you: you think it's a bunch of crap and you're
>going to unload a hod of arrogant bombast that passes as argument. Talk
>about elitist, Steely, have you checked out your own posts lately?

Good word hod. It's a "v-shaped" trough on a pole, used for carrying bricks
and mortar. A hodman is--not just a worker who carries, and, presumably
unloads, a hod--but also a literary hack. Sounds good to me.

Steely