Monsters, Inc.

Monsters, as in the "the sleep of, produces..."   

I've just read the long, spirit-sapping report by Roger Kimball of The New Criterion on the MLA (no, not the Mendacity Liberation Army, the "Modern Language Association," which you might believe to be nothing more sinister than the nit-picking cabal behind the style manual you may have had to adhere to producing research papers in college).    I got a slight taste of the real nature of the beast during my stint in grad school at U Pitt in attending a graduate seminar about Buddhism which was literally that: we didn't study Buddhism--the primary texts and main streams of thought-- so much as we studied studies about Buddhism. 

I recall the earnest acolytes struggling to become fluent in meta-ese, the indecipherable slang of  the academic ghetto, existing pretty much for the same reason as most slang--to distinguish the in-group from the outsiders.  I suppose they were as blameless as any novice bureaucrats trying to work their way up the ladder.  The rewards were considerable; lifetime employment in a high-status profession ensuring all the comforts of bourgeoisie life which nevertheless entitled you to claim the panache of a transgressive Jeremiah.  Alas, I just didn't have the right stuff to follow suit.

I suppose this stuff is occupying  my mind now as I scurry about  to get myself a teaching gig in the States.  Can I make it without a PhD and find work at a community college?  Or how about  a private school?  Should I suck it up and apprentice myself to the  New York State Department of Education, undergo the (re)education programs and teach the Preferred Curriculum?  I suppose I'll wind up having to take what I can get, but I find myself thinking a lot about what it means to be an "English teacher."  Am I really qualified?  Do I know enough about the scope of English and American letters, as well as their foundations in classical and medieval works to make any sense?  Is my background in Japanese literature anything more than a useless accessory?   Is the intellectual environment that fosters this, from the Kimball article,

Literature was indeed the principal casualty of this convention. At almost every turn we encountered an open and agreed-upon hostility to it, and on the rare programs where it was discussed as anything but a disguised form of malign political repression or a “text” for some variety of “transgressive” sexuality, it was either derided, condescended to, or openly attacked.   

any place for me?  Better to go on teaching ESL and maintain and at least be performing a useful function in society. 

Of course, there do exist more balanced minds in academia, as this retelling of the Sokal hoax by Barbara Epstein reveals.  Physicist Alan Sokal wrote a journal article parodying post-modernism ("Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity"), which he submitted to a po mo showcase journal for publication...and which was accepted at face value!   Epstein notes that "Sokal's hoax and the laughter it generated shows that the field had become ripe for parody," but this seems an understatement.  When parody is indistinguishable from the genuine article, even mockery is no longer effective.   

Funny, I've always wondered why Goya chose to render most of his "monsters" as rather ordinary- looking owls.  Could it have been because, even 200 years ago, the symbols of learning and wisdom all too often are subverted into things far more threatening?

   

Comments

[kb]

Yes, there are many great voices which point out the content-devoid post-modernism and the intellectuals who espouse it:

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

[kb]

Oh, I forgot this book review. I hope this doesn't cause Tanuki to now side with the po mo folks:

"The modern sciences are among the most remarkable of human achievements and cultural treasures. Like others, they merit -- and reward -- respectful and scrupulous engagement. Sokal and Bricmont show how easily such truisms and recede from view, and how harmful the consequences can be for intellectual life and human affairs. They also provide a thoughtful and constructive critical analysis of fundamental issues of empirical inquiry. It is a timely and substantial contribution."

- Noam Chomsky

[rachjak]

I don't know if you're aware of the charter school movement here in (some of) the States, Tanuki, but you might consider browsing those as an alternative to the NYDOE, et al. Charter schools are funded with taxpayer dollars but operate autonomously - under a unique "charter" - and are governed by independent boards that are free to define the goals and values of the school, establish the curriculum and - horror of horrors - hold teachers and students accountable for success. The concept has produced many spectacular failures - it turns out, of course, that just because a group of citizens believes in a better system they don't necessarily possess de facto the ability to implement it - but also some quite compelling successes, schools whose very typical student body (no admissions testing allowed) rises far above the very typical student body of their public school neighbor.

Just a thought.