January 24, 2005

clueless in academe

In the Introduction of his Clueless in Academe Gerald Graff says that he is concerned to look at academia from the outside. He looks at the inherent difficulty of academic intellectual work, and the bafflement, shame and resentment (cluelessness) felt by students, the general public and the media when they encocunter that academic culture.

What they see is the impenetrability of the academic world, and they are made to feel dumb and clueless. This culture is seen to be elitist, at odds with a democratic education and overlaid with anxieties about class snobbery and inferiority.

Graff argues that academia reinforces this cluelessness by making its ideas, problems, language and ways of thinking more opaque, specialised and beyond normal learning capacities than they are or need be. This is a culture of argument committed to articulating ideas in public, listening closely to others, summarizing them in a recognizable way, and making your own relevant argument.

Argument literacy in a persuasive public discourse is the name of the game in academia, but the game is hidden and obscured amidst a disconnected clutter of subjects, disciplines and courses. The sharing of this public language of ideas and arguments is what seperates academics from their students and many Australians.

All this needs to be said. I am pleased that Graff is saying it, and I concur with what he is saying. It contextualizes the debates over Theory in academia, as it suggests that students find it hard to figure out what is going on. You know that something is going on. I could feel it in the air.

I could tell from the emotion, body language and words. Philosophy is not being done. It is an argument --just like one we have at home. The whole argument culture has been dropped, or rather it was the form and not the substance that was in play.

But what were they arguing about? I had no idea. I was even more puzzled when I realized that what was being said by both sides did not connect with the actual texts written by the names mentioned. And the combatants did not read the texts. Nor did they express any desire to do so. Nor did that matter. It was amazing.

Yet the combatants continued to squabble without acknowledging that they were trashing the academic culture they resolutely defended from the populist media attacks. It was all most odd. Even when a text came out that dealt with the philosophical issues of the conflict in a philosophical way--Habermas' The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity--few read it.They dropped the name though.

How come Habermas was not picked up? That always puzzled me. The material was too alien? Or too difficult? Habermas was not accepted as an analytic philosopher? Habermas was a German?

What I've found disappointing about Graff's text is that, judging from the material online, it does not deal with the issue of the conflicts 'Theory' at all. That is raised here; a review of Terry Eagleton's After Theory.

This text refers to the end of the golden age of cultural theory. "Theory" for Eagleton in this text means cultural theory: the theoretical innovations and insights of cultural theorists, such as Raymond Williams, Jurgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigray, Frederic Jameson and Julie Kristeva and the issues of gender, sexuality and colonialism.

What no Foucault? Did he not have a few things to say about sexuality, biopolitics and governmentality?

Okay, Eagleton doesn't really argue in a philosophical sense. His style is a brilliant and polished rhetoric that zig zags around witty discussions of different issues. He does not engage with a particular text of a particular figure and his comments are often glib. But it is good writing and it makes what is puzzling digestible and understandable; so he is a guide that enables you to get a handle on things.

In providing a step into an academic culture, and a guide to the issues and debates, Eagleton helps students overcome the state of cluelessness. That has to be a good thing.

Maybe the easy takeup of Eagleton, and the indifference to Habermas, highlights a dark side of academia. They are clueless about the conflicts between analytic and continental philosophy--but they are not going to let on. They are narrow specialists after all, not generalists, and they are comfortable with their niche.

start

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at January 24, 2005 09:56 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Hey, no fair correcting the typo. Now I have to update my post.

Posted by: jholbo on January 26, 2005 11:19 AM

John,
sorry about that.

I have to admit that I kinda liked 'glueless' as it captured the nomadic experience of being in academia.

That mode of life as a doctoral student was more than being clueless. The social bonds that connected the old liberal university had become torn and frayed in what had become a shell.

On the other matter, I will download your Socratic dialogue about arguments, ornaments and other things tomorrow.

My gut feel from reading the first few pages is that it is a replay of a very old debate about logically based arguments(p.1; p.2;therefore) which the norm in the culture of philosophy departments) and rhetoric.

You are defending the former whilst Eagleton practices the latter. But we will see.

B

Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson on January 26, 2005 03:45 PM
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