Leaky pipes and slippery slopes

This is one of those days when I find myself suffering from Kotsko envy. His sense of humor is much better suited to the blogosphere than mine. After all, he has rightly pointed out that Holbo's approach is that of the send up (see Anthony Paul Smith's brilliant extension of the idea in the comments). Yet, I find myself perpetually trapped in taking the words seriously, unable to find the joke or the wit or anything other than oddly narrow and dismissive 'readings' of what happens to fall under his gaze.

This time, Holbo has found a year or so old article of mine that appeared in Bad Subjects. Anyone familiar with Bad Subjects will know that it is a posty, cultural studies, publication explicitly oriented toward left politics run by graduate students at Berkeley. One commenter associates it with the 'wired left.' I posted an early version of the article here , where I explained that the paper was for a talk at the annual meeting of the Cultural Studies Association in Tuscon. I changed a few things and gave an updated version of the talk at the Hyperpolis meeting in New York this past fall, and pasted that version here.

So, what does Holbo say in  ‘Theory’ for me but not for thee?:

The piece drops the heavy hint that there is not just something importantly distinctive but distinctively good about theory blogging. But how could this be due to anything but the distinctive, good character of theory?

I wonder if John can read. If he could, he would recognize the point of my argument and why I discuss academic and theory blogs at all:

these small academic and theory blogs belie a number of assumptions about the internet in general and blogging in particular. And, as they do so, they expose a problem we encounter in cultural studies and critical left theory—a problem regarding a particular celebration of transgression, on the one hand, and a valorization of a notion of publics or counterpublics, on another.

The 'good' that he finds hinted at is not a general good (or even the good in Hobbes' since of pleasurable to me). Rather, it is good for correcting false assumptions about blogging in general and good for exposing a a problem encountered in cultural studies and critical left theory. This statement in no way implies that other examples might not be similarly good--or even better. Rather, these are simply the examples I use as a way to make the points about blogging and about critical left theory and cultural studies.

So, what are my points?  I challenge assumptions about speed, punditry, and self-indulgence that are common in mainstream media discussions of  blogging. I write:

In contrast, my experience with blogs is that they allow for slower reflection, the emergence of spaces of affinity through specialized writing, and the experience of a presentation and cultivation of a self. And these three attributes of blogs—reflection, affinity, self-cultivation—necessarily traverse the old liberal division of the world into public and private spheres. This division does nothing to explain or express blog patterns. Most bloggers are not speaking to some kind of infinitely large audience that could mistakenly be deemed a public. Rather, they are speaking to strangers, to ones they do not and may not ever know.

From this point, I move to my critique of a position prominent among some working in critical left theory and cultural studies, namely that inclusion is always valuable and necessary and that transgression is always radical and emancipatory. I write:

Reflection, affinity, and self-cultivation, whether done in direct conversation with others via the comments feature, or less directly via responses to other blogs that one writes in one’s own way, on one’s own blog, are necessarily exclusive. This is obviously true when we recall the issues of language and access to technology. It is also true when we think of the topics and terminologies, the terms of art with which one thinks, the contexts to which Fish draws our attention. And, it is true when we recognize that one does not have time to read everything, respond to everything, link to everything, explain everything, to debate every single point. To offer one’s thoughts, one’s reflections on one’s life, then, is not enter into a discussion forum where one expects to have to defend every utterance or event from attack, to give reasons for everything one thinks or does. At the same time, it is also not to expect simple acquiescence, agreement, or praise from one who might happen on one’s post and decide to comment. The writing, the thinking, is rather different—more an exposure, invitation, or gift, an offering of one’s vulnerabilities in the hope that the one who accepts the offer will not simply respond, but will be responsive.

Comments

[pebird]

I don't know if John can read either, but he sure can write.

And write, and write...

[VA]

"Most bloggers are not speaking to some kind of infinitely large audience that could mistakenly be deemed a public."

This seems especially true with respect to the Valve. In fact, they seem to pose the problem of how small an audience can be and still be called an audience. It will never cease to be a mystery to me that their writers and commenters consist of the same dozen guys and one woman, churning out the stuffiest musings on all the internet, editing comments against some standard of rigor, and pooh-pooh-ing large swaths of academia, but nevertheless carry the academ. cred. they do. Don't they ever worry that one day they'll turn the valve and find that the Truth of the Engine is that it offed itself? Anyway, at the risk of going on too long, I'll cut myself off before getting into what I really think.

[Jodi]

VA--take the risk, keep going, no word limits here!

[pebird]

The Valve is aptly named - an attempt to control the flow of ideas - a project always/already doomed to failure.

[Zeke]

For all of his supposed interests in what he takes to be "analytical philosophy," Holbo produces paragraph after paragraph of sludgy pseudo-criticism. Most of the ValveClowns specialize in light-weight irony.

At some point a progressive makes a decision on politics vs. aesthetics, as even the Bolsheviks did, and were in the main, contra-aesthetics (Marx himself had words for the belle-lettrists). There were Fabians also somewhat opposed to the literary business. The Lit. peoples' "appropriation" of political theory (if not history, philosophy, psychoanalysis, etc.) should itself be, like, denounced.

[Zeke]

For all of his supposed interests in what he takes to be "analytical philosophy," Holbo produces paragraph after paragraph of sludgy pseudo-criticism. Most of the ValveClowns specialize in light-weight irony.

At some point a progressive makes a decision on politics vs. aesthetics, as even the Bolsheviks did, and were in the main, contra-aesthetics (Marx himself had words for the belle-lettrists). There were Fabians also somewhat opposed to the literary business. The Lit. peoples' "appropriation" of political theory (if not history, philosophy, psychoanalysis, etc.) should itself be, like, denounced.