Bad Jokes & bad schools

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

In a well intentioned post, *Jimmy* includes this gratuitous remark:

> Obviously, I have no truck with the Derrida/Lacan/Foucault
>school of literary criticism which holds that the only focus of critical
>attention is the text, the whole text and nothing but the text.

Good thing you included that *obviously* there, jimmy, since it lets me realize that 
you're just telling a--joke!  There ain't no such animal as the *school* you describe.  It's 
just a chupacabra.  The three names you link together (headmaster, dean of students and 
head of the English dept?  Moe Larry and Curly?) are very different writers and thinkers 
with very different aims.  I remain appalled at the way folks who can minutely analyze 
the difference between a history professor quoting Hitler and a skinhead quoting Hitler 
can just toss into a bag (school?) everything but the kitchen sink (which let it be known, 
can be found in the text of Derrida's seminal work: *TomToms and Soft Shoes: Freud's 
Orthopedia*) and think that's a legitimate way to argue a point.  

john m