Sunday, November 21, 2010
Nonsense
“I’m sure you’re talking nonsense in calling this inn a castle.” / “Sé que decís disparates en llamar castillo a esta venta.”
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Write what you mean, not what you want to sound like
When I read pre-structured, soulless academic writing, I can’t help but lament the gigantic waste of time and talent that such a vapid task surely cost.
A colossal waste of time.
Pages and pages of sugar-free information.
Inane diagrams, vida infras, and see appendixes. Stretching on for literary miles.
I don’t know why exactly but I see the written word as a medium for the conveyance of emotion; not rote, basic communication. Don’t get me wrong – when you’re writing an email or a text message to simply convey rote, basic information, then it is appropriate to write accordingly. But I cannot fathom spending hours and hours of my time writing to simply convey rote statistics and figures. That’s not even what I think of when I think of “writing”. It’s more like mechanized reporting; a form of soul-sapped, automated stenography.
Perhaps it proves difficult for many people or maybe it’s just against the “rules” of academia (or maybe I’m just getting used to the devil’s side of the whole “advocacy” thing) but I think that when you’re writing, you should always say what you feel. You should let a little bit of that soul - that ever-evasive “self” - shine through. Everyone out there has something to say more than they have something to convey. Some of the most powerful and profound academic work I have ever seen belies a little sadness, gives you a little wink, lets you see the obvious anger permeating every account of injustice or maltreatment or asinine historical misconception.
I want a nudge, I want a nod, I want encouragement. I don’t want simple percentages and pre-authorized transitions and standardized paragraph structure and data reports.
No one wants to read that shit. Not even other academics. It’s all just an arcane set of Ivory Tower writing regulations that are essentially intended to keep John Q. Public from cutting into the “experts’” monopoly on information. They make it so no one has the ability to read it without the proper academic credentials. But hey, what’s the point of going to years and years of school except to make your theories sound more professional? By making it only intelligible (or halfway interesting) to other academics and “experts”, they can pour more cement into the foundation of their intellectual stockade, the garrison that separates them from the people without as many degrees.
This is most remiss for sociologists, social psychologists, and other humanities experts. It is our job to explore and expose the machinations of this social world, not to further shroud them in secrecy and unintelligible academic buzzwords. It is not our job to be uppity elitists and study mysterious “theories” encrypted with pseudo-Greek and Latin academic gibberish* about the way our society works. It is not our job to write really smart-sounding academic papers with impressive vocabulary and sentence structure. It is our job to debunk, to demystify, to instill hope, to figure out. It is our job to provoke change, and no one ever achieved that by inventing esoteric six-syllable quasi-Latin words to describe simple, everyday occurrences. You talk of “phenomenology” and “philology” and “pedagogy”. Why not “how stuff happens” and “how people say stuff” and “the way people teach”? Is all of this coding really necessary? Don’t you want to make a change in this world? Don’t you want people to understand you?
There are things that are broken in society, things that need to be fixed. Writing about the ontology of semi-urban disenfranchisement in divested zones of transition is not going to help any poor folks in the inner suburbs get more rights.
I think we need to re-examine the way we write to exact change. Everyone knows we’re smart already. Let’s try to help. Let’s try to share some real emotion and stop being such unsure-of-ourselves, insecure, namby-pambies. Let’s bleed and be pissed off together.
It’s not a fucking “-ology”. It’s life.
*I realize the irony of saying something is “pseudo-Greek”. Go fuck yourself.
OK, now that that’s all said, I think I have officially justified not doing my reading for the evening. Good night!
A colossal waste of time.
Pages and pages of sugar-free information.
Inane diagrams, vida infras, and see appendixes. Stretching on for literary miles.
I don’t know why exactly but I see the written word as a medium for the conveyance of emotion; not rote, basic communication. Don’t get me wrong – when you’re writing an email or a text message to simply convey rote, basic information, then it is appropriate to write accordingly. But I cannot fathom spending hours and hours of my time writing to simply convey rote statistics and figures. That’s not even what I think of when I think of “writing”. It’s more like mechanized reporting; a form of soul-sapped, automated stenography.
Perhaps it proves difficult for many people or maybe it’s just against the “rules” of academia (or maybe I’m just getting used to the devil’s side of the whole “advocacy” thing) but I think that when you’re writing, you should always say what you feel. You should let a little bit of that soul - that ever-evasive “self” - shine through. Everyone out there has something to say more than they have something to convey. Some of the most powerful and profound academic work I have ever seen belies a little sadness, gives you a little wink, lets you see the obvious anger permeating every account of injustice or maltreatment or asinine historical misconception.
I want a nudge, I want a nod, I want encouragement. I don’t want simple percentages and pre-authorized transitions and standardized paragraph structure and data reports.
No one wants to read that shit. Not even other academics. It’s all just an arcane set of Ivory Tower writing regulations that are essentially intended to keep John Q. Public from cutting into the “experts’” monopoly on information. They make it so no one has the ability to read it without the proper academic credentials. But hey, what’s the point of going to years and years of school except to make your theories sound more professional? By making it only intelligible (or halfway interesting) to other academics and “experts”, they can pour more cement into the foundation of their intellectual stockade, the garrison that separates them from the people without as many degrees.
This is most remiss for sociologists, social psychologists, and other humanities experts. It is our job to explore and expose the machinations of this social world, not to further shroud them in secrecy and unintelligible academic buzzwords. It is not our job to be uppity elitists and study mysterious “theories” encrypted with pseudo-Greek and Latin academic gibberish* about the way our society works. It is not our job to write really smart-sounding academic papers with impressive vocabulary and sentence structure. It is our job to debunk, to demystify, to instill hope, to figure out. It is our job to provoke change, and no one ever achieved that by inventing esoteric six-syllable quasi-Latin words to describe simple, everyday occurrences. You talk of “phenomenology” and “philology” and “pedagogy”. Why not “how stuff happens” and “how people say stuff” and “the way people teach”? Is all of this coding really necessary? Don’t you want to make a change in this world? Don’t you want people to understand you?
There are things that are broken in society, things that need to be fixed. Writing about the ontology of semi-urban disenfranchisement in divested zones of transition is not going to help any poor folks in the inner suburbs get more rights.
I think we need to re-examine the way we write to exact change. Everyone knows we’re smart already. Let’s try to help. Let’s try to share some real emotion and stop being such unsure-of-ourselves, insecure, namby-pambies. Let’s bleed and be pissed off together.
It’s not a fucking “-ology”. It’s life.
*I realize the irony of saying something is “pseudo-Greek”. Go fuck yourself.
OK, now that that’s all said, I think I have officially justified not doing my reading for the evening. Good night!
Monday, November 1, 2010
Jackson Pollock
I wear a badge on my sleeve
I've got a fucking chip on my chest
You've got some egg on your face
Might as well live with it
It's better than a little bit of blood
I'm caught in the throes of a forced word vomit
Spray my brain on the wall like paint
And we can make a mural
Gutted on all fronts by hungry ghosts
Not sure I'll be able to ignore their sighs
Drown in a bottle like a famous painter
Move to Idaho like a bunch of White Elephants
I wear a badge on my sleeve
Better than a little bit of blood
Caught in the throes of a forced word vomit
Paint my brain on the page like I mean it
And we can write a song.
I've got a fucking chip on my chest
You've got some egg on your face
Might as well live with it
It's better than a little bit of blood
I'm caught in the throes of a forced word vomit
Spray my brain on the wall like paint
And we can make a mural
Gutted on all fronts by hungry ghosts
Not sure I'll be able to ignore their sighs
Drown in a bottle like a famous painter
Move to Idaho like a bunch of White Elephants
I wear a badge on my sleeve
Better than a little bit of blood
Caught in the throes of a forced word vomit
Paint my brain on the page like I mean it
And we can write a song.
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