QUOTE:
"The compulsion to prove the utility of ideas spread through the humanities and social sciences like a contagion, assuming a variety of political, ideological, and theoretical colorings. It was no longer sufficient to master and convey the great historical record, or to locate and celebrate the pleasures of great works of literature or painting or music. Even the pursuit of wisdom was not enough, once wisdom got problematized. Theorizing took over. Elaborate theorymongering, often French- or German-inspired, displaced the mastering of subject matter, so that fledgling literary scholars, for example, ended up knowing more (or thinking they knew more) about Bakhtin than about Chekhov, more about queer theory than about any literary tradition. The pretense of helping the working class, or liberating gays by deconstructing texts, or doing meta-meta-interpretations of historical questions appeared to be the really serious work. No matter that such seriousness arguably achieved no serious real-world consequences. No matter that it became increasingly irrelevant to the real world--and completely impenetrable to most people in that world."
-From The Wilson Quarterly
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
No comments:
Post a Comment