Elsewhere (166)
Kevin Williamson on cultural critic Lee Siegel and other student loan deadbeats:
The justifications are piled high: [Siegel] comes from a modest background and finds it unfair that other people have had advantages denied him. He declares it “absurd” — making no case, only the declaration — that he could “amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college.” Never mind that his borrowing and spending was, in fact, reckless, and that an Ivy League degree or three is every bit an item of conspicuous consumption and a status symbol as a Lamborghini.
To default on a loan because you do not wish to pay it back is theft, in this case theft from all of us, since the federal government is on the hook for the loans in question… We hear variations on Siegel’s argument that education is a social good, that we should be glad to have spent whatever sum we spent in order to avail ourselves of his “particular usefulness to society.” This is an example of the special-snowflake philosophy of social organisation: Yes, your feminist slam-poetry collective is very, very impressive — but even T. S. Eliot went to the office six days a week when literary life wasn’t paying the bills.
It’s hard to feel much sympathy for someone – a grown man in his fifties, writing in the New York Times – who believes that paying his debts as agreed, as millions of others do, would entail wasting his life, due to his enormously artistic “usefulness to society,” i.e., his self-imagined talent as a profound and insightful writer. A claim somewhat undermined by his own self-flattering article and its thin rationalisations. The short version of Mr Siegel’s article would be, “Fuck you, taxpayers. I’m an artist and intellectual.” But that wouldn’t present him in the all-important and very much expected Heroic Victim Light.
On the subject of student loans and baffling choices, see also this and this.
Ed Driscoll probes the mental fever swamp of Ms Naomi Wolf. Including her theory that American troops building field hospitals in Liberia were actually there to secretly take Ebola back to the U.S., and thereby justify “emergency measures” and “quarantining Americans.”
Theodore Dalrymple shares a tale of underclass moral squalor and the role played by the state:
Never in the book is there any recognition that a mother whose children meant “the world” to her should not leave them in the care of an obvious psychopath or go to bed so drunk that she does not even realise that she has vomited in her sleep.
Needless to say, it’s not a happy tale and not for the squeamish.
Franklin Einspruch on the art media’s fawning over “mattress girl” Emma Sulkowicz:
Her piece, entitled “Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight),” was named by Jerry Saltz of New York Magazine one of the best art shows of 2014. That’s not the sort of thing we usually think of as a show, but never mind. “This work is pure radical vulnerability,” he gushed. Ben Davis of Artnet wrote that it was “almost certainly already one of the most important artworks of the year,” and furthermore praised its “thoughtfully composed symbolism.” Roberta Smith wrote for the New York Times, “it seems certain that the piece has set a very high standard for any future work she’ll do as an artist and will also earn her a niche in the history of intensely personal yet aggressively political performance art.”
Because slandering a fellow student in the most appalling way possible – and being given course credit for doing so – makes her radical, and brave, and so terribly non-conformist.*
And Roger Kimball suggests new signage for the modern campus:
Cigarettes manufacturers are required to ornament their wares with all manner of alarming advisories, why shouldn’t institutions of higher education face similar requirements? After all, the noxious atmosphere they diffuse is perhaps even more dangerous than cigarette smoke, which harms only the body. A college education threatens to eat away at a student’s soul and capacity for a healthy, robust, adult emotional life.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets below. It’s what these posts are for. *Added via the comments.
cultural critic Lee Siegel
Who in their right mind gets into mortgage-size debt to be a ‘cultural critic’?
Who in their right mind gets into mortgage-size debt to be a ‘cultural critic’?
Yes, it’s a peculiar conceit. I shouldn’t imagine there are vast numbers of people who pay their mortgages and household bills with the proceeds from cultural criticism. It isn’t something that leaps out as a viable career and sound investment. As a way to earn a living, it strikes me as no more likely than being a world-renowned rock star or international supermodel. I’m not even sure why someone would assume, and assume so expensively, that cultural criticism is a thing one needs several degrees to do. I mean, in a small and unglamorous way, it’s what we do here, isn’t it?
I’m sure we touched on Rachel Dolezal here but a cursory search on my part bore no fruit. Briefly this lady is “Professor of Africana studies” and “Spokane president of the NAACP” – that’s the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People – and pretended to be black*. She’s of Czech-German heritage.
That’s sort of funny. But one thing I like to bring to people’s attention is when such figures fake hate-crimes. It’s early days yet, so take it with a proverbial pinch of salt, but I’ll be keeping an eye on this story.
Because Ms Dolezal also reported, amongst other things, some hate mail directed at the NAACP that, it turns out..
was never sent through the regular mail and, according to postal employees, could only have been placed in the organization’s post office box by someone with a key
A common trajectory would be a retraction of sorts from Ms Dolezal, followed by her not losing her job or position in the NAACP, and nobody batting an eyelid.
* I understand she ticked not just “White” and “Black”, but also “Native American” as her ethnic group on job application forms.
could only have been placed in the organization’s post office box by someone with a key
But if victimhood is a credential, a sign of radical authenticity, and if no-one is actually victimising you, what’s a girl to do? And a fabricated “hate crime” is just as useful.
Also, this:
I’ll just leave that there, shall I?
‘Also, this’.
Sideshow Bob?
Sideshow Bob?
The Ms Dolezal saga does, I think, capture the flavour of identity politics and its inevitable role-play. In that she, like so many others, is pretending to be a cartoon approximation of a given identity group, in this case a black woman.
I mean, in a small and unglamorous way, it’s what we do here, isn’t it?
Don’t be modest. 🙂
Don’t be modest. 🙂
Heh. I’m not often accused of that. But the notion of cultural criticism as a necessarily, or even ideally, academic activity, one requiring multiple degrees from a statusful university, seems rather antiquated and silly. Precious in the pejorative sense. In many respects, academia has become antithetical to certain lines of enquiry and certain types of evidence. As noted by Roger Kimball, above.
I mean, in a small and unglamorous way, it’s what we do here, isn’t it?
Quite. If you really wanted some tertiary training for cultural commentary, surely a degree in history would serve you better.
Mephiticrievance.
Neologism, or spelling mistale? Either way, I quite like it.
The spam filter is getting ideas above its station. If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll sacrifice a puppy.
“In her book, Tina Nash describes how she tried bravely to get on with life after being blinded. After she finished the book, she found a new boyfriend. He has just been sent to prison for assaulting her. “
I don’t know whether I want to cry, laugh or scream…
‘The Ms Dolezal saga does, I think, capture the flavour of identity politics and its inevitable role-play. In that she, like so many others, is pretending to be a cartoon approximation of a given identity group, in this case a black woman’.
There is that question of what do you do if (for whatever reason) you are profoundly unsatisfied with what you are.
Aside from taking the Walter Mitty route, you can make definite changes to your life. Changing religion, or political allegiance, is easy. From the Bolsheviks to the 1968 generation to the Islamists now, poor little rich (or comfortably middle class) boys and girls have turned towards the red or green flag. Ex-Trotskyists have become neo-cons, and various creatures have made excursions from the far-left to the far-right without any problems at all.
As for class, traditionally education and self-improvement were seen as the way out of the mine or the mill for the aspirant worker. The armed forces (the Army in particular) has always provided a home and a way out for anyone who doesn’t want to spend a life on the dole in a rust-belt. Conversely, guilty-minded toffs have had a tendency to reinvent themselves so that they can be prolier-than-thou (e.g. the late ‘Tony’ Benn).
It used to be that you could never change your gender or your race, but you can now do the former if (say) you are a man who wants to be a woman. But if you’re white, and you want to be black, you cannot change that at all. And any effort to do so lends you to ridicule.
It must be a sad existence. You’re alienated from your family and your old friends because of your pathological issues, while the ‘oppressed’ and supposedly morally superior group you want to join will always regard you as a face.
I think the only comparison here is with the likes of Miriam Margoyles, Alexei Sayle and a minority of clowns who have eagerly embraced the ‘anti-Zionist’ cause, not realising (or preferring to ignore) the fact that many of those who join them on the protest marches would happily exterminate them along with the less ‘repentant’ Jews.
Jonah Goldberg on the left’s politicising of culture:
He’s not making it up.
Goldberg’s article on Battlestar Galactica, linked in the piece and here, is also worth a squint.
Re: Dalrymple
So, we discover Ms. Nash’s mother was a fuck-up; Ms. Nash is a fuck-up. Any wagers on where her children end up? And how many generations of fuck-ups are we to endure before the State’s wisdom, treasure and supervision yield tangible benefits to society as a whole? Weren’t we promised 50 or 60 years ago that the “War on Poverty” would eliminate such behaviors and consign memoirs like Ms. Nash’s to the dusty shelves of the history section in our local libraries?
Franklin Einspruch on the art media’s fawning over “mattress girl” Emma Sulkowicz:
Because slandering a fellow student in the most appalling way possible – and being given course credit for doing so – makes her terribly radical, and brave, and non-conformist.
The Ms Dolezal saga does, I think, capture the flavour of identity politics and its inevitable role-play. In that she, like so many others, is pretending to be a cartoon approximation of a given identity group, in this case a black woman.
While it is amusing and enlightening to see a white woman pretending to be a cartoon approximation of a given identity, it is depressing to watch so many in the black community pretending to be a cartoon approximation of black America itself. This being reproduced millions of times across the country on a daily basis. The phony conceit of “authenticity” that one can see played out in many of the #AskRachel tweets that Dicentra linked on a previous thread.
Does Lee Siegel know that he will not receive social security payments when he retires? And when that happens, will he claim it is unfair?
it is depressing to watch so many in the black community pretending to be a cartoon approximation of black America itself.
Absolutely. If you watch the reality show Cops, you’ll see this every week. It’s quite strange, watching people whose uniform affectations suggest they’re aspiring downwards to an unflattering parody. A cartoon version of negro-ness that’s actively encouraged by so-called educators.
wtp,
… it is depressing to watch so many in the black community pretending to be a cartoon approximation of black America itself.
I can only marvel at how “authenticity” has become “talk like an idiot and act like a buffoon”, seemingly “proving” the ugliest racial stereotypes. Did this behavior start off as mocking the white racists’ caricatures, but the practitioners have completely lost sight of it, and have really become that stupid?
Regarding identity politics, Jeff Goldstein has some thoughts:
A long read, but worth it.
In re: the Rachel Dolezal affair, we’re always being told that gender is “just a social construct”, and that therefore if somebody chooses to identity as a certain gender we should accept that, no questions asked. We’re also told that race is just a social construct. Therefore…
“The Ms Dolezal saga does, I think, capture the flavour of identity politics and its inevitable role-play”
My apologies if I’ve posted this Hofferism here before:
“The followers of a mass movement see themselves on the march with drums beating and colors flying. They are participators in a soul-stirring drama played to a vast audience–generations gone and generations yet to come. They are made to feel they are not their real selves but actors playing a role, and their doing a “performance”, rather than as the real thing.”
The True Believer
Eric Hoffer
1951
I can only marvel at how “authenticity” has become “talk like an idiot and act like a buffoon”
David Starkey made a not dissimilar point in the wake of the 2011 London riots. His comments regarding a “particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture” enraged much of the left and led to his now-famous exchange with Laurie Penny.
Cultural criticism? Is that what we’re doing?
Kind of a fancy tag for “dissing the idiots and mountebanks that infest society”, isn’t it?
Oh well. Maybe I need a Harvard degree to understand the nuance. Being a mere engineer and all.
BTW: David Starkey’s “Monarchy” is absolutely the best historical examination of the English manner of government’s development I’ve ever seen.
Related to Williamson’s piece on Siegel, Ursula K. Le Guin is nervous for the state of American literature on account of the fact that writers are being threatened by “Corporate Fatwa“.
Apparently.
Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice art. Developing written material in order to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profits and advertising revenue is not quite the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship […]
Yet I see sales departments given control over editorial. I see my own publishers in a silly panic of ignorance and greed charging public libraries for an eBook 6 or 7 times more than they charge customers … letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, who tell us what to publish and what to write …
The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in Capitalism. It’s power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.
I’d offer the link to the video, but honestly it takes her like half a f****g hour to spit out what she’s trying to say. It is on YouTube though.
http://fan.tcm.com/video/duck-amuck-1953
Erasing characters on celluoid is an art. That stuff has nitro built in.
Very flammable.
And when the erasers get going, they last forever.
The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art.
oh lord
Whenever anyone trots out that line it is because, well, they don’t want to actually work for an audience. So messy and uncomfortable to actually have to deal with those people and what they may actually enjoy buying.
I Am Artist! You will worship me with your money!
Failing that, it must be up to Government to sustain the Artist and teach those little people what is in their best interests.
I’m sad to see Le Guin yearning for a return to time where Artists didn’t have to work for an audience, just had to secure a rich patron. Just this time, it needs to be The State.
I didn’t realize what a misanthtope she was.
The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art.
I posted this in the comments a few days ago. Alex Tabarrok tries to shoehorn basic economics into the mind of Ursula K Le Guin:
Presumably it’s a comfort to blame “Capitalism” for the changing appetites of the public.
Only someone who lives in the lifestyle bubble of MSNBC liberalism would ask a character for children [i.e., Miss Piggy] whether she was pro-choice or not.
Wait til they find out how offensive Miss Piggy is to Muslims.
Do you think Rachel Dolezal was a fan of The Jerk?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANph32LoXR4
“British Novelist to American Grads: There’s Nothing Virtuous about Being Offended”
Ian McEwan, is who.
Notice where the applause lines are NOT. Also consider that those students probably don’t get most of his historical references — Salman Rushdie for example — and think that the purpose of free speech is to be nice to each other.
Poor sots: when they realize how incredibly ill-served they’ve been by their teachers, they’re going to be hella angry.
Someone remind “artistes” that wages are the profit for using their time.
Yes, Squeeze. I forgot about that one. But I have been awaiting the appearance of Lou Reed. Though I suppose it’s a bit too strong, as this was the best version I could find after a short search. I recall a live version being much better.
I wanna be black, be like Martin Luther King
Get myself shot in the spring
Lead a whole generation too
And f**k up the Jews
…
I don’t wanna be a f****d up middle class college student anymore…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4ehoomjQjfI
So the crazy and the silly are our cultural betters, huh, and we need to give them all of our attention and money?
Which one of these clowns is the Nekkid Emperor? Let’s get this over with!
“The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. “
So you have no need of money then?
Good, glad to have that sorted out.
So the crazy and the silly are our cultural betters, huh, and we need to give them all of our attention and money?
Oh, no, not betters, and why bother with any attention at all? Genuine musicians and mathematicians and writers just command the attention without demanding, because they just are genuine musicians and mathematicians and writers.
Which one of these clowns is the Nekkid Emperor?
One?
Further to last: is grubbing for taxpayers’ lucre not also bowing to the “profit motive”? Or is it sufficiently progressive and thus different, because shut up?
More on the lofty Mr Siegel from Patterico
And so we get leftist students protesting about tuition fees while simultaneously demanding an even more bloated diversity bureaucracy.
“When you subsidise something, the price goes up.”
But more importantly quality declines.
Hal, we need a parade of our Nekkid Emperors.
Shudder.
Lesseeeee . . . adding pictures. Hadn’t thought of that before, but yes, it’s doable.
So, do you suppose Rachel Dolezal consummated her transracialism with triumphant use of the word “nigger”? I bet she could not wait until the day she was able to use the word for herself.
I’m reminded of the TV show Seinfeld, when Jerry begins to suspect his dentist converted to Judaism solely for the right to tell jokes about Jews.
Speaking of Ms Dolezal and her strange little brain:
Some psychodramas are just too perfect.
So a male student at Amherst College goes back to bed with a female, falls asleep rather early – as you do. While he sleeps she performs oral sex on him.
Nearly 2 years later she decides to accuse him of sexual assault. Unfortunately Amherst College had exactly the sort of guilty-until-proven-innocent hearing standards that Laurie Penny and her mates would like to see for male on female sexual assault cases. They expelled the male student, apparently because he couldn’t prove his innocence 2 years after the event.
Good job his clever lawyer found texts that show the students innocence, eh? Well it didn’t help – Amherst College refused to open the case.