Who Is IOZ?: Ceci n'est pas un con

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Ceci n'est pas un con

Having read Stanley Fish's definition of "academic work," I am still not sure what its definition is. It appears to consist of some kind of monastic obscurantism, or obfuscatory monasticism, although, lord knows, you could hardly call a guy with this mug

an unblemished lamb of god.

I am on the record as being in favor of giving the Cylons the defense codes to all of our universities and letting them have at it, so Fish's razoring of academia out of existence is no skin off my ass. Still, there's something weird about this notion that intellectualism equals objectivity and objectivity equals a kind of totalitarian relativism that cannot even claim all viewpoints to be equally valid because universal validity implies a real-world truth claim that cannot be reconciled with the imperative not to advance any viewpoint, even if that viewpoint is every viewpoint.

29 comments:

stillnotking said...: The room took on some of the aspects of an athletic competition — parry, thrust, soft balls, hard balls, palpable hits, ingenious defenses and a series of “well dones” said by everyone to everyone else at the end of each round.

Is this guy for real? He's like the David Brent of academia.; 11:00 AM
IOZ said...: Canon to the right of me, canon to the left of me, canon in front of me.; 11:02 AM
LA Confidential Pantload said...: IOW, a bunch of wankers thrusting hard balls for palpable hits - "Well done!" "Jolly good!" "Pip pip, old man!" Fuck me.

On the other hand, there's this: http://www.cnngo.com/bangkok/life/doctrine-chiang-mais-church-latter-day-dude-explained-206793; 11:21 AM
Inkberrow said...: The upshot of Fish and his ilk is that an elaborate Dance of the Seven Procedural Veils is the prerequisite to arriving "validly" at the substantive viewpoint one just happened to favor in the first place. In other words, a gerrymandered exercise from Rawlsian ignorance somehow produces an authentic socio-political assessment.; 12:08 PM
Anonymous said...: “Is the death penalty an instance of cruel and unusual punishment?” or “Do individual citizens have a right to own guns?” or “Does the category of free speech include campaign expenditures?”

Yes! To all three.. There, that was simple, wasn't it? No further discussion is necessary. Nothing to debate. Who cares what people said in the past. The answers are still "yes!" It's like asking , "Is slavery immoral?".

Hitler! Thread closed...; 12:09 PM
Anonymous said...: He's probably still feeling squishy about getting pwned by Alan Sokal and feels like he has to bend over backwards so as not to expose his anus to another unexpected reaming.; 12:25 PM
The Mathmos said...: @12:25

Just as French theorists captured major parts of the English and Litcrit departments in Anglo-American academia while encountering much less success on their home soil, the Sokal hoax was seen in Gallic years as a comical yet very passing déculottement of a given journal, while in the hard-nosed Anglo web it... somehow constitutes world-historical 'anal reaming' of a magnitude sufficient to explain the subsequent postures and projects of all participants, forever.

(That last sentence came out wrong, I realize.); 3:53 PM
Cüneyt said...: Von Braun was Fish's kind of academic.; 4:47 PM
Jay said...: As a marginal academic myself, I do think that there's one real virtue to academia that you don't see anywhere else in America.

Academics can at least try to be intellectually honest, to a much greater extent than anyone else who has a voice in America. They aren't selling something; they aren't running for office; they aren't making backroom deals. They can give you not just a narrowly true answer but their best answer, based on considerable subject knowledge. This answer may have practical applications, but to try to exploit an application is to leave academia for business, and inevitably sales.; 5:47 PM
rob payne said...: An intellectual is somebody who tries to tell you the world is inside-out and upside-down. On the other hand a consultant is somebody who borrows your watch so they can tell you what time it is. Compared to intellectuals the consultant is harmless.; 6:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Well riddle me this, Mr. Payne: what is a judge in your schema? And in a world with no judges, and no law, who would the neighbors go to to settle the issue?

I'm betting on "intellectuals."; 6:38 PM
Professor Coldheart said...: Academics can at least try to be intellectually honest, to a much greater extent than anyone else who has a voice in America. They aren't selling something; they aren't running for office; they aren't making backroom deals.

So you already have tenure, or ...?; 9:04 PM
Larry, a.k.a. The Barefoot Bum said...: Still, there's something weird about this notion that intellectualism equals objectivity and objectivity equals a kind of totalitarian relativism that cannot even claim all viewpoints to be equally valid because universal validity implies a real-world truth claim that cannot be reconciled with the imperative not to advance any viewpoint, even if that viewpoint is every viewpoint.

Even as parody, only a true academic could have written such a sentence, and only a true academic would have published it.; 9:18 PM
rob payne said...: "Well riddle me this, Mr. Payne: what is a judge in your schema? And in a world with no judges, and no law, who would the neighbors go to to settle the issue?"

What do you think you are living in now? A land of laws?; 10:08 PM
dah_sab said...: They aren't selling something; they aren't running for office; they aren't making backroom deals.

Except when they are. There may not be big paydays on the horizon for most academics, but the pursuit of another kind of currency, prestige, involves every bit as much Machiavellian intrigue as the pursuit of money & fame outside academia.; 10:33 PM
Enron said...: In other news, Friedman has landed in Egypt; 12:49 AM
Anonymous said...: Uh, Payne, I think we're talking about the UK in this case. And it seems they have at least one law. And a judge has interpreted that law to bar someone from having gay sex, which he enjoys, because he's too stupid by an antiquated measure of intelligence and it epaters the bourgeoisie.

Apart from statist issues, don't you think the problem may be that he's not intellectual enough?; 7:06 AM
Jay said...: There may not be big paydays on the horizon for most academics, but the pursuit of another kind of currency, prestige, involves every bit as much Machiavellian intrigue as the pursuit of money & fame outside academia.

No place in America is completely without politics and salesmanship. But watching academics do sales is like watching cats use doorknobs. It's a pale reflection of what you see the minute you step off campus.; 7:47 AM
IOZ said...: Yes, it's true. You see more compelling intrigue among data-entry temps than among Named Chairs. The pre-K playground is more Machiavellian.; 8:06 AM
Anonymous said...: Is someone vaguely claiming that 'intellectuals' ('the credentialed class' is more accurate) do not prescribe policy and are not intimately involved in 'educating' those who actually end up implementing policies? They are naive bumpkins who just want to find Truth?; 8:40 AM
Anonymous said...: @Jay: there is no such thing as "intellectually honest." Honest takes not modifiers. It's a Boolean.

Also, why don't you ask yourself what you're trying to sell in your comment and why you assume every person alive who draws a paycheck from some agency other than a university's sports and defense driven bank account is a liar.; 10:02 AM
rob payne said...: "Uh, Payne,"

You may be talking about the UK but I’m speaking in general. What you don’t get is that the law is used by one group of people to lord it over other groups of people. You seem to be laboring under the delusion that intellectual means “smart” which isn’t true. An intellectual is someone who rationalizes everything, even murdering children, you can keep your intellectuals they make me ill.

The law is the advantage of the ruling elite used to keep the rest down, just look at the disproportionate number of blacks in prison, that’s the law in action. In this case the law is working in favor of whites against blacks. However, an intellectual would explain to you how we aren’t abusing blacks, which is what intellectuals do making them essentially propagandists, think most of the writers at the NYT.; 10:27 AM
Jay said...: @Anon: I find it helpful to draw a distinction between mere honesty and intellectual honesty. The latter involves not just avoiding untruths, but actively trying to find the best, most accurate answer to the question at hand.

For instance, lawyers are usually honest (it's considered bad form to lie in court) but are hardly ever intellectually honest because they won't let the evidence sway their position and they avoid mentioning facts that are relevant but inconvenient to their predetermined position.; 10:42 AM
Montag said...: i don't know, Jay. are you claiming academia somehow operates outside the same forces discussed here the other day regarding who get to write opinion for major news outlets?

http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2011/01/mediums-message.html?showComment=1296521954075#c2327985900473105834; 11:04 AM
LA Confidential Pantload said...: Jay, I come not to urinate on your birthday cake in re the honesty of academics, lawyers, etc., intellectual or otherwise, but the facts would appear to be somewhat in dispute: http://articles.philly.com/2011-02-08/news/27107201_1_data-incoming-freshmen-mark-sargent; 11:41 AM
Anonymous said...: Payne, I can't make any sense of that hash so why don't I just stop eating. You do a good job of not sounding like an intellectual, I'll give you that.; 12:36 PM
rob payne said...: Of course you cannot make sense of it, considering your statements I didn't really expect you would. And I'll take the part about the intellectual as a compliment since that is the last thing in the world I would want to be. You're not so bad after all, I may have to revise my opinion of you and your intellectual integrity.; 10:54 PM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...: Nonny's trying hard to baffle and/or anger Rob, but he's having none of it.

Oops, Nonny.

Oops.; 11:13 AM
NutellaonToast said...: Terrible writing aside, I'm tickled pink you object so strenuously to the idea of listening to all opinions with an open mind.

What do we need to do things like debate when clearly all we have to do is ask IOZ for the answer?!?!; 1:50 PM

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Ceci n'est pas un con

29 comments:

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