Clarissa's Blog

Hey, folks, if you are at the MLA, head over to the exhibit. Viet Thanh Nguyen is giving out signed copies of his novel and short stories for free. I was going to buy but they refused to sell them because it’s all free right now. 

The exhibit rocks, by the way. I left because I need a break but I’ll go again later. Many opportunities for free books if you sign up for newsletters. 

I hate the MLA exhibit. There are so many amazing books, and I only have a tiny overnight suitcase. 

I’m suffering. 

Viet Thanh Nguyen, the author of the best-selling Pulitzer Prize winner The Sympathizer, is a very special snowflake and very full of himself (“Of course, I can’t write in a way that my mother would understand because she’s a peasant and I’m an English professor” – a literal quote.) 

But I’m glad I kept listening because in spite of the insufferable pompousness he’s a pretty profound fellow. He poked vicious fun at the Liberal American mantra of, “We Americans are so evil, we have victimized everybody in the world, we are totally the worst.” Nguyen pointed out that it’s exceptionalism, pure and simple, and it’s annoying as all hell. 

I wasn’t going to read his book but now I will.

A colleague reminded us yesterday that initially a Humanities education existed to strengthen the class divisions between the gentlemen class and the riff-raff. Only after a BA became the pre-requisite for doctors and lawyers did these professions become fit for gentlemen to practice. The liberal arts education was aimed at fostering a certain kind of sensibility, a way of being in the world that would set its recipients apart from the lowly classes.

This, of course, was a wrong and unjust approach. But the way to fight against it that we adopted was misguided (say I and not yesterday’s speaker.) Denying the existence of a more refined sensibility that can be reached through an exposure to the Humanities is not the way. Opening the access to it to more people- ideally, to everybody who wants it – is.

I’m some sort of a huge iconoclast for saying that a developed intellect is needed to enjoy opera but not to enjoy Eminem. This doesn’t mean that intellectuals can’t dig Eminem. Of course, they can. But there is a clear qualitative difference between texts created by Cervantes and texts delivered by Justin Bieber. This sounds like the most obvious thing in the world but academics -people who go to school for years to be able to understand Cervantes- go into fits when they hear it. 

Once we have relinquished the idea that a Humanities education facilitates an entrance to a refined sensibility, what can we offer to students? All that’s left is that we are selling a chance to get a good job. And we all know where that marketing strategy led us.

And there’s so much hypocrisy. People who drag their children to the symphony from the age of 3 and who’d never release their kids into the job market with a habitual use of double negatives argue that correcting students’ speech is elitist. All of the empty social justice verbiage conceals the fact that many jobs are only accessible to those who have adopted the correct speech patterns, manners and refined sensibilities. We actually manufacture exclusion with our pathetic and dishonest blabber about inclusivity. 

Several of the sessions I attended reached the same disconcerted conclusion that left academic with the feeling of, “God, what have we done?”

We have insisted for so long that all hierarchies are bad, that knowledge is a tool of imperialist and capitalist domination, that experts are evil, that professors should listen humbly to the illiterate, that the worst thing to be is a snob, that worshipping inclusivity means never telling anybody they are unqualified to join any discussion, that pole-dancers are as capable of offering valuable insights into organic chemistry or post-structuralism as people who publish academic volumes on the subject, that of course all opinions are equally valid.

And now we are seeing the results of all this. As we have all noticed by now, the results are not good. But there’s nothing we can say because it’s what we advocated for since forever. Or at least since 1982.

So did you know that social assistance programs (e.g. food stamps, SSI, etc) give incentives for living alone? If people pool resources and live together with siblings, parents, friends, etc, they all get less assistance. The SSI is reduced by a third. Food stamps are also reduced for each person living together. 

I went to a cheap Indian restaurant and they brought me an unfamiliar appetizer that has cold potatoes, chickpeas, crunchy breads, sour cream, a sweet red sauce and a spicy green sauce all mixed together. It’s heavenly.

I cleared out after some freak announced that there is no difference between academia and the military in Israel because IDF paid for her nephew’s education. If that’s the logic professors are using, what can we expect from students?

[Anthony Kwame Appiah is moderating and doing a very good job]

A Sikh gentleman said he’s very ambivalent. 

A professor said he has many Hispanic students, so he’s in favor of the boycott.

A prof said he’s against Bibi and against settlements but it’s counterproductive to single out academics.

A young woman repeated I, I, I, me, me, me so many times that I don’t know what she thinks about the boycott.

A disabled gentleman showed great erudition gathered in his 53 years of MLA membership.

[Gayatri Spivak left and I’m following because I’m about to pass out. I’ve reported much of it bravely, though.]

A prof thundered that this is a bait and switch discussion. Grad students should ask professors why they care so much about this issue and not about them. The strongest statement so far. 

Somebody cited an obscure point of law. It seems that SCOTUS doesn’t allow for this boycott or we’ll lose our tax exemptions. 

A fellow came out carrying a puppy. Not shockingly, he supports the boycott. Everybody who opposes the boycott is uneducated, said this very young boy to a room full of older academics without furry pets in their arms.

[Gayatri Spivak is sitting next to me and giving me the evil eye because I clap in the wrong places.] 

A woman said that many Palestinians are terrified of Hamas as much as of the IDF.