Flatter Me, Please

[Note to readers: Some of the material contained within is absolutely, 100% incorrect.  By "some" I mean "the stuff I linked to," not the bit about me being an asshole.  Which I am, as this post proves.  Sorry all, the next round's on me.]

Not every article bears great fruit.  Sometimes, it blossoms rotten.  Doesn't matter how you approach it, you'll be gagging by the end.  Case in point.

Now you'd think people would recognize it as such.  You'd think they'd read it, be offended, and realize that no response could escape its gravitational stupidity.   Anyone could transform that "argument" into a blanket condemnation of whomever they wanted for whatever the reason.  As thinking folk, we should recognize that feint for the trap it is and Fuck that! I got me enemies! 

I'll use any excuse to vent sense into their breathables.  That'll learn 'em how to think differently 'bout things what ain't the things that article reckons.

Must every poor excuse for an argument by someone you disagree with metamorphose into a whirl of unthinking self-congratulation?  How many times can "You're so right!" appear on the same page before someone's hay-fever acts up?  You send that many allergens flying and someone's bound to not stop sneezing.

I know, I know.  Who am I to deny people pleasure?  Why not let 'em feel good about themselves for a change?  What can I say? 

In this world, there are nice people and there are assholes.

I reckon you can guess my affiliation.

P.S.  I had a much different post planned for this evening.  A followup to the previous two, in which I'd to consider the status of the literary text and why it deserved the special treatment I'd afford it now that it's divorced from theories of cognition.  I even whipped out my copy of Literary Interest, eager as I was to bounce my new theory off Knapp's. 

Then I remembered that literature's no more than an excuse for communal back-patting—a bonding ritual which ensures the survival of the pack by validating the efficacy of its idols ...

Comments

[Rich Puchalsky]

I think that it's a very highly underdetermined idea, Jodi. Has anyone had a reaction to the article that really qualifies as overreaction rather than mere annoyance? And when "some people who continue to have the feelings that lead them to write these articles" -- there's a group again -- write these articles, and publish them as a presumed part of a series (which in the current case explains why the article was published), are they doing so out of ressentiment, or out of a romanticized, nostalgic look back at their undergraduate days that is well symbolized by an attraction to the movie _Dead Poets Society_? Yes, I agree that "We make groupings all the time: writers of chic-lit, left intellectuals, lacanians, English professors" -- but those groupings are generally agreed on by the people within them. You generally don't write chick lit, act as a left intellectual, follow Lacan, or work as an English professor without knowing it.

As for the groupings that you proposed not relying on opposition, I don't get it. What then is the cause that you see of the ressentiment supposedly shared by both groups? You came up with the fantasy of the author fearing "roving bands of theorists" -- isn't that indicative of something?

Lastly, I think that "left academics, like ourselves, also demonstrate this kind of ressentiment" is also indicative of a desire to create competing camps. I don't understand how this makes sense without it being a claim that the writer of the article is not a left academic. But it's quite possible that the writer of the article is more "left", for some values of "left", than you are -- especially if he was indeed, as an anonymous commenter on LS says, a "major grad-student labor activist".

As a whole, it provides the same impression that Charles did when he wrote not merely that I was wrong or flaming, but that I was a sidekick. It's the comforting buildup of a false group identity through the desire to turn individual disagreements into an opposition.

[Alex Leibowitz]

The penguins, Scott, the penguins!

[Jodi]

Rich,

I think the group is there; and I think groupings can be made without people saying, "Sign me up!" So, I disagree that groupings are usually agreed upon by people in them: for example, it's difficult for many health workers in latino communities to identify gay men because some men who have sex with other men don't identify as gay or bisexual or as anything but straight. Another example, some people might put Judith Butler and Slavoj Zizek in the group of postmodern thinkers but both vehemently deny the term.

Also, I don't know how one would distinguish between a true group identity and a false group identity. Or, put differently, it seems to me that any grouping will have elements of truth and elements of falsity. In fact, the idea I was affirming in John's comment relied on this: there are ways that 'left academics' and 'lovers of Dead Poets' (for lack of a better term) have elements in common, elements that each shares so that a simple opposition between them doesn't work. So, opposition is there, but the distinction doesn't rely on the opposition insofar as the rest of the claim is that there is a point of overlap that would undermine the opposition.

Underdetermined? Sure. Did anyone react: John claimed that he did, that things like that really make him very, very angry.

[Nate]

The elephant in the room here is that it's abundantly clear Scott's anti-psychoanalytic perspective is a direct attempt to push his rightwing political agenda.

[Nate]

Just kidding.

[forgottenboy]

Well, I suppose there won't be much doubt about where I fit in. This morning I showed Dead Poet's Society to a class of students at Phillips Academy in Massachusetts. The students asked to re-create the scene from the film where each stands on the teacher's desk, and, in fact, we did.

The original column is, as Scott pointed out originally, a trap. First of all, it's a bait-and-switch: Mr. Keating is criticized for supposedly fascist tendencies, while the schoolmaster, McAllister, is praised for expecting mediocrity and standing firm for tradition. Mr. Benton writes that "the attractions of English, for me, had less to do with the vision of Mr. Keating than the durability of the institution that hired him."

In other words, Keating is Benton's front man for ideals of material comfort and hidebound tradition which Keating himself would reject. In fact, it is hard to tell whether the "durability" of the institution is good because it testifies to the enduring value of literature, or good simply because it gives Mr. Benton security and self-importance.

The bigger problem with Benton is that he wants to enforce a divide between activist theory and conventional literary criticism; as far as I can tell, Jodi agrees with him about the lines of demarcation.

This distinction is inapplicable to the best literary critics. Writers like Lionel Trilling and Mikhail Bakhtin are profoundly applicable to political problems. Furthermore, to deny artworks like Dead Poet's Society or The Lord of the Rings their contribution to ideological debates is to damn them with faint praise. A serious consideration of political issues does not dull the edge of sensibility, as Benton suggests -- on the contrary, the best works of literature are often highly political.

Jodi, you seem to be using the term "ressentiment" to refer to any strong feeling of distaste on the part of anyone. That's not how Nietzsche uses the term in the Genealogy of Morals. He uses it to refer specifically to the feeling in oppressed peoples that breeds cunning acts of sabotage and usurpation. It is the opposite of open confrontation. While I realize that we are not posting these comments to Benton's blog, I consider this is a much more direct form of challenge than sending an email, care of the Chronicle, to his pseudonymous attention.

Since ressentiment is based on an experience of oppression, it's impossible for two groups to be locked in mutual ressentiment. Finally, the notion of "enjoying" one's ressentiment is a contradiction in terms: one resents that one is denied enjoyment of oneself.

Admitting the serious faults and overlaps in a model does not prove the validity of the model. It tends to prove the opposite. I agree that certain "leftists" align themselves against certain "traditionalists," but the result is traditionalist misreadings of texts as apolitical, and leftist misreadings of texts as oppressive.

[Rich Puchalsky]

forgottenboy, I agree with a lot of what you write (yes, Benton is using the movie inconsistently, yes, I've given up on trying to figure out what Jodi means by her idiosyncratic use of "ressentiment" or who/what is supposed to be causing it.)

What I don't agree with is this:
"The bigger problem with Benton is that he wants to enforce a divide between activist theory and conventional literary criticism [...]"

Where does Benton actually imply this? He writes against two things: politicization and professionalization. Those do not equate to theory, even activist theory. Or rather, defenders of contemporary theory often pretend that they do, but they don't.

Benton writes about teaching his students "a century of cynicism" in his introductory theory course. That's a much longer span of time than what's usually included in theory / anti-theory conflicts -- I don't often see people rejecting the theory of 1910. And his positive statements are those like

"I associated literature with the feelings of fall -- the vague sadness of the end of summer, the crisp air, sweaters and wood smoke, stained glass and gothic architecture, and the optimism that comes with new books and stationery."

It seems to me that Benton is writing a nostalgia piece. Nostalgia is generally objectionable, and a second-hand version of it that relies heavily on a movie is worse. But I don't see the enforcement of a divide between any two reified things.

[Tom Hitchner]

Rich, I assumed that FB was referring to this passage:

"It surprised me that none of my students mentioned a commitment to social justice or to some specific political ideology as a motive. Nearly all of them would have skewed to the left on most of the usual subjects.

When I asked about that, one said, "If I wanted to be a politician, I'd major in political science. If I wanted to be a social worker, I'd major in sociology." English is, among my undergraduates at least, one of the last refuges of the classical notion of a liberal-arts education."

...the implication being that the proper sphere for English studies isn't politics or social issues--as if only politicians and social workers are concerned with those things. Describing English as "one of the last refuges ... of a liberal-arts education," suggests both that liberal-arts education should be apolitical (news to this Sarah Lawrence grad), and that politics is something we all need "refuge" from, a nightmare from which we are trying to awake. Of the people in my program, I make use of politics less than many others, but I'm not inclined to agree that this "ubi sunt" view is a very sympathetic one.

[forgottenboy]

Honestly, Rich, I have no idea why Benton wants to lump postmodern theory in with the earliest days of modernism. I don't think it makes sense to collate all the thought of the 20th century under the banner of cynicism. However, I do think his column makes politics, theory, and academia in the 20th century into one thing. I appreciate Tom's further quotations and explanation on this subject.

More textual support: notice that Benton uses his own "theory seminar" as the antagonist, and writes that its purpose is to prepare students to change from "romantics" into "Realpolitikers."

I assume that these "romantics" would, if hired to teach English, produce fairly standard analytical readings -- what, in my earlier comment, I called "conventional" literary criticism. I put the word "romantic" in quotes because Benton thinks it means "irrational" and "intractably emotional." The concern with social justice in Hazlitt or Lamb would, I imagine, utterly confuse him.

I agree with you about the uselessness of Benton's nostalgia. For me, growing up and attending college in California, studying English had nothing to do with crimson piles of leaves or Gothic architecture.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Tom, you quoted a sentiment that Benton claims was said by one of his naive undergraduates. I don't think that's really supposed to be an authoritative illustration of the proper sphere of activity. But in any case, I agree that Benton writes against politicization. I just don't see how this is an anti-theory stance, unless theory == politics. Which it doesn't.

[Rich Puchalsky]

forgottenboy, if I was analyzing the intent of the model author of the piece (rather than Benton's actual intent, which I obviously have no clue about), I'd say that the reason he mixes up politics, theory, and the academia of the 20th century can all be indexed to the phrase "the vague sadness of the end of summer". The nostalgic mode that he's writing in demands that a Golden Age has passed. Just as, in microcosm, the golden age of undergraduate boyhood must pass into the grad school world where people must learn academic politics etc. etc.

Which is horrible, yes. But why should it be given any credence as a pseudopolitical program of division-enforcement, or as representative (in Jodi's terms) of a group of "lovers of Dead Poets"?

[Nate]

Tom, I'm willing to believe you're right about Benton's meaning - in terms of politics not being proper to English - though I didn't read it this way initially. There is a grain of truth here, though I think. Politics isn't improper to English, but surely going into English is pretty low on the list of what one would recommend to a student who came to office hours and said "I feel the need to act on my political convictions and I don't know what I should do." (Not to single out English, of course, I'd say pretty much any academic field, if the aim is to become a prof.)

Benton poses the question to his students, "why study literature?" and is surprised that no one answers "a commitment to social justice." If anything, I'm curious as to whether that surprise is genuine on Benton's part. I for one would be more surprised if people _had_ answered that way. "I study literature because I am committed to social justice" would be a bit of an odd sentiment if not qualified and "Because I am committed to social justice I study literature" even weirder still. At least if "committed to" means "want to have an impact in service of". If it means "interested in" or "compelled to study and feel strongly about" then it's a different matter.

[CR]

Rich,

Explain for me, then, what he meant by politicization if he didn't mean theory. Voter registration tables in the quad?

[Tom Hitchner]

Rich/Nate, I take him to be using his students' words to justify his anti-political stance, since the whole article has a very "out of the mouths of babes" thing to it. And while I agree that being an English professor (or any humanities professor, really) is not the most direct way to affect politics, hardly anything is. As I've said before on this space, there are strong political and social elements and obligations to being a professor; "A "geeky" attraction to intricate alternate worlds such as those created by Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and George Lucas" doesn't quite cut it as a justification. Perhaps I'm taking a straw man to task here, but I'd like to know what he does mean.

This may be the wrong time to say this, but I find some of what he says (or means to say) sympathetic. There is too much politics (of the academic infighting kind, not the political kind) in the academy, and I get annoyed when theory is over-applied. I just think that the illusion of the grand ol' days of the academy is way too simplistic, and plus it's a boring story by now.

[Charles]

wups, here

[Nate]

hi Tom,
Thanks for clarifying. I think we're probably in general agreement. I'm very sympathetic to any sort of claim to do political stuff (or anything else, really) in the academy when it's asserted as, well, a private good, along the lines of "I want to study and teach this and I shall." At the same time I'm suspicious of any claims to political value to stuff in the academy as a criteria for recommendation or as a public good, along the lines of "I want to study and teach this and it shall be good for others that I do so." I may be off topic here, reading my own axe to grind into this thread.

[Rich Puchalsky]

CR, I don't know what he means -- I'd guess that since he sets up an opposition between romanticism and realpolitic, he mostly means academic politics, or the appearance of interest in real-world politics for the purposes of academic politics. Calling it realpolitic doesn't make sense otherwise.

I do find the presumption that theory-politics has any relationship to actual politics to be annoying, of course. Look at the link that Charles supplies above, which he apparently thinks has something to do with this case. One of the things that Mark Kaplan in that linked essay condemns is "The support for Trade Union and/ or workers’ struggles only when they are abroad and in defiance of some designated enemy". Well, here we have someone (if the rumor about Benton is correct) who really was a trade unionist (for grad students), and he's being presumed to be a rightist. It's a weird inversion of values, in which actual politics doesn't count if you appear to have the wrong attitude.

But at the most basic level, I don't think it's that important which kind of politics he means. I don't trust this article as an item of political analysis, or as representative of a political group. There are clearly some people here who want to use it for that purpose, however.

[CR]

He means theory, Rich.

He must not have gotten the memo.

Your objection to the equation of theory and politics doesn't mean that no one else endorses it. Which, basically, is the perspective that you've been arguing from throughout this comment thread. Which, well, makes you sound a bit silly, and confuses those who aren't verse in Puchalskyite reaction.

[Rich Puchalsky]

CR, I think that you missed a double negative -- that you really meant to write "doesn't mean that anyone else endorses it" above. Assuming that's the case, of course many other people endorse it -- people who do political work tend to observe that whatever the verbal commitments of academics in the humanities, they are in practice generally apolitical. Like, well, you, for instance. Going into a
"Flaubert-type coniption fit / grand mal seizure" during and after a single political meeting means that you really have no interest in working with people politically. Which is fine, of course, not everyone has to be political. But it does present the repeated claim of politics in your work as a form of overcompensation.

So yes, many people hold similar views, including, I'd say, Nate when he writes "surely going into English is pretty low on the list of what one would recommend to a student who came to office hours and said 'I feel the need to act on my political convictions and I don't know what I should do.'" It's just that literary academics who are supposedly political hardly ever talk to people who are actually involved in politics, so they sometimes think that this viewpoint is rare or individual.

And if Benton really was a union organizer, then I'd guess that he understands the distinction as well. Maybe that's why he "didn't get the memo".

[CR]

Argh.

Rich, I'm not arguing right now about the connection between theory and politics. I am arguing (not sure why, exactly) about what Benton meant in this sad little article. And he didn't mean what you say he did. The obvious answer is the right one. I have no idea why you're trying to make a crappy article echo your thesis. Just a standard build "would that these kids, like tenured me, were allow simply to love literature rather than getting all wonky with Judy Butler about it." Standard culture war fissure dancing.

You have a very strange investment in making this bit of boilerplate say more than it says.