sometimes it's difficult to be nice, esp. when it appears that you're under
attack... judging by his ebr riPOSTe, it seems michael bérubé
feels that i've attacked his credibility... nonetheless, by having fallen into
the default intellectual-warfare mode, he's left it incumbent upon me to
highlight where we differ in point-counterpoint terms... so it's your typical
male pissing contest initially, & then i'll see if i can't push or pull the
terms of this debate in more helpful directions...
on the one hand i understand michael's defensiveness (i can't find another
word for it), esp. at $37,600 per (of two years ago), esp. given the quality of
his work, & esp. b/c i *did* publicly challenge his image as such (& i'm
probably not the first to do so)... i felt that what i said was something that
needed saying, that i needed to address publicly a (re)sentiment i've
encountered here & there -- which, for the very specific reasons i detailed,
i've experienced myself on occasion -- about those academics who, like michael,
get a lot of press, & access to same... yet i must observe that it's
generous of michael to share his salary information... i make $34,500 (in
*chicago*) beginning next september, tenure review in one year -- BUT -- nobody
in my dept., not even full profs with 25 years of service, makes more than
$40,000, which is a good deal below the ceiling down at u of i at u-c... few
perks here, to boot...
in fact i'm a bit disappointed that michael didn't make *more* of an issue
of his salary... though he ultimately seems to acknowledge his superstar status,
apparently sans superstar accoutrement, he might simply have copped to same &
elaborated on the absurd wage structure that continues to generate such
salaries, the cultural conditions that permit for this, etc... madonna would
surely not balk at superstar status, & if she were making a pittance, you'd
hear about it...
i mean, why is superstar such a dirty word in our business?... it's not bérubé's
fault that he's accomplished or relatively visible... my problem with michael
has primarily to do with what i regard as occasional lapses in his awareness of
his subject position, lapses that i aligned with his status (& how such
status comes at the expense of others less talented, or less lucky -- not bérubé's
fault, again)... it seems to me that he doesn't always grasp, or give evidence
of grasping, those privileges he enjoys thanks to his status...
two examples, from bérubé's response, should suffice... first,
when michael turns to "theorize his positionality," he begins by
observing that "by any human standards," he & his family are "absurdly
privileged ... free from torture, hunger, and most diseases preventable in
industrialized nations"... yet he ends this paragraph with the observation
that "'academic star' designation" can "render invisible a
domestic economy" that belies academic fame... but there must be *some*
benefit, in fact some economic benefit, to academic notoriety, no?... why not
say exactly what it is -- job security, publishing connections, ______ ?... why
must the (ostensibly) middleclass & professionalized domestic be measured
against the impoverished global?... this polarized compare & contrast method
reflects less positionality than op-positionality, & it underwrites bérubé's
op-positional rhetoric (at least vis-a-vis myself &, in particular, marjorie
perloff -- & yes, i partake of said rhetoric myself at times)... it may well
be that, despite mutual freedom from torture, hunger, and most diseases, despite
the fact that we both make 10 or so times the avg. global yearly salary, the
party of the second part (or am i of the first part?) maintains that "my
blues ain't your blues"...
my second example: when michael laments that his book, public access,
has suffered from a lack of reviews, advertisement, etc., i'm tempted to observe
that this is par for the course in the small press world, for most poets, for
most writers in fact... & though most writers may not labor under the
publish-or-perish strictures of the u of i at u-c, they nonetheless suffer in
many cases far more far-reaching neglect (as michael's work on melvin tolson
would suggest)... in fact michael ought to have said more about what the lack of
reception of his book might (emphasis on *might*) suggest as to a particular
public's capacity for accessing his political-ideological sensibility (& i
understand fully that the irony of this situation is not lost on him)...
in any case, i was hoping to credit bérubé (which i really do
believe i did) with opening up a specific local-to-national site of
deliberation, even as i meted out some self-deprecation that i was hoping would
be understood as removing any trace of holier-than-thou persona (e.g., when i
say that bérubé should shut up once in a while, i suggest the same
about my dear old self)... & i was hoping to give some indication of how the
back & forth of agreement/disagreement as played out in virtual space
provides not simply a more immediate forum, but a potentially much more diverse
forum -- of voices -- in which to consider these issues... more diverse than,
that is, most print fora (with due allowance made for issues of access, class,
cultural demographics, predisposition, etc.)... the relative slow-motion of
print exchange, while it has its uses (extended meditations, monologue, polished
response), is all too often predicated upon restricted access, whereas
electronic exchange permits a greater number of participants & faster
turnaround times (albeit, quite often, hastier compositions)... finally, i was
hoping the piece would capture/evoke a sense of online flows -- even if
rendering different time zones, differing cultural sensibilities, the strange
proximities & distances, the son et lumière of the internet was perhaps more
than i could hope to accomplish...
& this word "evoke" is crucial here... let me cut to the chase: while i believe michael &
i share similar convictions regarding the left, the right, justice &
injustice & the like, i suspect that we differ in some significant ways in
terms of how we envision ourselves as writers... "writer" isn't a hard
tag -- i understand the vagaries of this latter, & given that i'm what some
call a "poet-prof.," & that michael has himself made the move into trade publications, we share a discursive, if
not marketplace, orientation that more traditional scholars may not... but our
self-identities, our self-constructions seem quite a bit different, at least
vis-à-vis our alphabetic leanings...
let me put our differences this way: for me, to steal rachel blau
duplessis's way of putting it (the pink guitar), i need what i write, &
i need what i write in ways that implicate other people---in the *process*... &
for me, as for duplessis, this need takes the form of challenging not simply the
normative (whether universal or no) as a political construct per se, but the
normative as a formal & no less institutional construct, as a
textual-ideological construct -- which orientation toward text itself suggests
the possibility of different communities of readers & writers, of different
publics (than we have now)... there are all sorts of histories---writing
traditions, counter-traditions, what have you---implicit in what i'm saying
here... nothing too unorthodox (or even, to use michael's term, idiosyncratic)
about going back & forth, testicularly, debating points, surfacing &
pushing the argumentative basis of critical discourse... "i agree here
but..." "i disagree there but..."...
my somewhat unorthodox plunge into online fora using michael's essay as a
springboard signaling -- not agreement or disagreement exactly -- rather a
somewhat different way of conducting critical practice... espace, both in terms
of the poetics list & ebr, permitted me the luxury of airing some
fairly dirty laundry -- to use *my* system, locally, & without any but a
single editorial green light, to speak out against THE system---the advancing
(national) educational complex... & further, to hazard an ex post facto
elaboration (of
this process of
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then
& now -- more needs, again, & yes, more desires as well)...
which latter simply *must* speak to the politics of *poetic* fora -- both the
list, that is, as well as formal-material features of list exchange -- whether
one regards onself as reconstructed, unreconstructed, or merely constructed... i
hesitate to use a term like 'online ethnography' here simply b/c, again, i was
after the evocation of an online environs, writing-wise... but my more material
motivations should nonetheless be evident -- it's the online possibilities i'm
busy exploiting in my piece... & these answer to michael's actual
print-based arguments, if non-argumentatively...
if michael & i had been members of an online list, we might have had
*this* exchange more directly, using second person, w/o the unnecessary
mediation of journal apparatus, & without the status-conscious worries that
come of *publication*, & of the rather rigid subject positions owing
thereto; we might have reached more quickly a happy resolution of these matters,
or at least a happy state of agreeing to disagree; we might have benefitted from
the intervention of others; & it seems to me this speaks rather directly to
the point of my piece...
i might have been able to modulate (&, if you like, demodulate) my
position -- of which latter i take some pains in my writing to permit
fluctuation -- in order to encourage less an agonistic exchange, however
passionate, & more a mutual grappling with matters that in any case exceed
individual control... i might have been able, in fact, to apolgize to you,
michael, in something like real time, for any harshness gave offense...
i might have been able to pose, without pose-itioning, more questions about
bérubé's notion of "economic nationalism," & to
answer fewer badly-posed questions of my own surmise... one question i would
surely want to ask -- right now, while i'm writing this, to be posted to a list
& answered by michael within, say, 24 hours or so, and perhaps glossed by
others -- is whether michael's "economic nationalism" is predicated on
a somewhat idealistic understanding of u.s. political realities to the extent
that *any* nationalist construct is bound to emotional structures saturated
historically with the "blood & soil" of past nationalisms...
another would have to do with the apparent dismissiveness of his coda, his
somewhat vague assignation of "comic relief"... is literary work --
both the writing & study of literature -- comic relief?... i'd like to hear
more... & i'd like to hear what michael has to say to stanley fish's recent
critique of his book public access, in which fish takes michael to task
for not spelling out precisely how cultural studies will alter the culture it
studies (see fish's professional correctness: literary studies and
political change, oxford up, 1995)... it seems to me that both bérubé
& fish would do well to spend more time talking about teaching... anyway,
i'd like to hear more...
& michael bérubé may well have been able to do likewise,
may well have been able to throw some tough questions in my direction...
goodness knows i need it -- my thinking is often as shaky & as loopy as the
next homo sapien's, if not more so... this presumes, of course, some good faith
on both sides -- on all sides -- which i don't (and won't) for a moment not
presume, call it a mark of my optimism...
flamewars are always a possibility online, to be sure, but at least such
unpleasantries are seen online as just that... flames in online discussion space
generally do not pass for measured scholastic response -- as they might in
print, or as they often do in electronic publication... in my experience anyway,
somebody is likely to jump out of lurk mode & insist that correspondents
cool down... i certainly do not wish to suggest that there is no threat of
damaging or demeaning or snide conduct -- online space is no utopia... yet the
immediacy of online exchange permits for rapid dismantling of assumptions as to
reading & writing realities -- provided, that is, list communities are
sufficiently diverse, & participants come to these spaces anticipating
dialogue... diversity & dialogue are not a mean feat, i grant you, but they
can be handled expeditiously by a much larger invitational effort than is
usually facilitated by print media... how well online spaces work is in part a
function of the specific network community, sure, how much contentiousness it
can handle... i've seen folks (myself) dig in, but usually they (i) come around
to backing off, reconsidering... & simply put, there are plenty of
opportunities to do so...
this is not exactly what i said.