Kids Today

Outstanding article in the Washington Post this week about the crappy reading selections that undergraduates make. So timely as on Thursday I was suggesting a couple of good Spring Break books and one of my students was making a terribly confused face – he looked downright revolted. I asked him what was wrong and he replied, “Why would you read on Spring Break?” It was delivered in a tone that should be reserved for claims about having seen Bigfoot, a Yeti or the Loch Ness Monster.

However, for an interesting antidote to that venom, try one of the best blogs you aren’t reading, Future Majority, for their take on the issue. I think it’s interesting if we live in a world where undergraduates are not reading literature that is socially redeeming, but in the classroom the value structure that allows for such a literary hierarchy is being undermined by the professors in favor of social connections. Perhaps it’s spurious.

Should pragmatism be a higher value of the University? I think the divide between pragmatism and intellectualism is faulty and needs collapse. I don’t think there is any disagreement here among most people. The question is what kind of collapse? The speed? What percentage of each? A return to Aristotle might be the best move here – the idea of phronesis – which captures the best elements of both as it is currently theorized. Which makes rhetoric the most important, even though least popular, major at the University.

Why is economics so popular? Because it is a rhetoric. It allows for understanding, explanation and manipulation. And it provides criteria to deal with materiality and recalcitrance. The only thing it lacks is awareness of itself as such.

Good Old Zizek

Chatting on Skype with one of my Slovenian friends the other night revealed that he had just attended a lecture by Zizek earlier in the evening. I was very jealous. Video and/or audio might be on the way. He’s incredibly crazy/engaging depending on your point of view.

In the best traditions of synchronicity, I found later on that night a great article in the Financial Times where Zizek is interviewed. Enjoy!

It’s some sort of odd lunch/interview column, but it does give some of his more interesting ideas, although the journalist is clearly trying to paint him as an oddball. The best part is the section about “how theory works” – perhaps the most misunderstood idea among people at the present moment. The phrase, “Well that’s just a theory” should never be uttered.

Conservative intellectuals

Yesterday in my office two students and I were having a discussion that culminated in an unanswerable question for us. Where are the conservative intellectuals?  this was the subject of today’s Politico as well.

The 1940s – 1960s were full of such figures. These public intellectuals went to bat for conservative ideas in smart ways and persuasive ones to boot. They were giants. People like William F. Buckley, Jr., George F. Will, Norman Podhoretz, Sydney Hook, and Leo Strauss.

But no figure even close to any of these people (except for George Will who has all but dissapeared) that exists as a voice of conservatism today even comes close of licking the boots of this list.

Who do the conservatives have instead? Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and a number of other two-dimensional figures.

The conservative movement in the United States has replaced the public intellectual with the political celebrity.

It’s really a shame that I am forced to conclude that the conservative public intellectual is extinct.
Why and how did this happen?

At first glance it is quite obvious: The right in the United States has shifted toward a religious base and not an intellectual one.  When religion is the centerpiece, there’s little space for intellectualizing.  Often times, intellectual work is seen as the doubt of the non-believer or the act of the willfully evil. There’s not much to think about when higher beings are involved.

The religious capitalization of the Republican party has sent the intellectuals who might have defended conservative ideas into the realm of moderates, or perhaps the realm of non-existence. There’s no real reason to practice intellectual activity on the right; it just isn’t rewarded. It’s more rewarded to keep attention with cheap tricks.

This isn’t to say that Coulter, Limbaugh, et. al. don’t have important concerns worth discussion. Unfortunately, they offer the concerns as being beyond discussion – there’s no place for dissent in the realm of absolute correctness.

I’m also not saying that the left is free of these issues. Just look at that loser Al Franken. But in the past when the left had celebrity in its intellectuals it was at least somewhat legit. Herbert Marcuse was a towering intellect and wrote in a way that his books still command respect and attention from the reading public as well as academics. Phillip Rav and Stan Greenberg produced and wrote in journals that they hoped would enlighten the general working-class public to the point of revolution. Limbaugh and Coulter however will command only morbid curiosity for their books in a generation. They will be as interesting to the future as anti-masturbation books from the Victorian age are for us.

Where are the conservative intellectuals? Have you spotted one recently? These ideas deserve representation, but not by people who could just as easily be rejects from reality television programs.

Behind the Scenes at Baruch Regionals


A photo from inside the NYU apartment, very nice!

The first night of the tournament I had one of the best times I’ve had in a while. Before round 5, I became part of a secret plan – my co-conspirator and I would leave the tournament after the round announcement, make a quick trip to a liquor store, and then enjoy dinner in one of the NYU guest apartments available only to certain VIPs like my co-conspirator.

The apartment was amazing. Kitchen, living room, entryway, dining room (!) and wonderful furniture and decor everywhere. I should have snapped a few more pictures, but we had a lot to talk about. Get two debate coaches together who have similar interests and there’s little time for anything else.

It was a great time and I highly recommend visiting the NYU apartments if you get a chance. I had no idea they were even there.

New Debate Format?

Got this email off of the British Debate listserv. They are establishing an interesting new format that focuses on audience participation called Policy Slam.

This is from Debate Mate, a UK debate education organization.

The Format:

    1.  Fishbowl

This involves two concentric circles of chairs – the inner circle with
6-8 chairs and the outer with approximately 10. To start with, the inner
circle has a facilitator, some participants who support particular
positions on the topic in question and some vacant seats.  Everyone else
sits as an audience in the outer circle.  The facilitator introduces the
topic and a discussion begins.  After a while, anyone from the audience
can come up, take one of the spare seats and join in the discussion.  As
more of the outer circle move in those who have been the longest in the
inner circle are asked to move out.  The format combines the coherence
of small group discussion with wider inclusiveness.

    2. Consensus voting

This involves a discussion followed by all participants ranking the
various positions in preference order.  The higher the preference, the
greater the number of points ie.  if there are 6 participants the voter
gives his 1st preference 6 points, 2nd preference gets 5 points, and so
on. The winner is the option with the most points and the higher the
number of points the winner gets, the greater the degree of consensus. 
The aim of this type of debating is that even if you strongly disagree
with someone else’s views, you have an incentive to have a proper
dialogue with them so that they rate your opinion higher in the list of
preferences.

An event would involve two consensus votes, one part-way through a
debate and the other at the end. You win if your proposal either comes
top in the final vote, or improves the most between the two votes.

Maybe this could be a format worth trying in undergraduate courses on debate and argumentation?