Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School

[Dr. Medulla]

After becoming disgusted with current fashions in analytical philosophy, I'm strongly leaning towards UC Riverside for my PhD.

Be sure to research its scholarships and the cost of living out there. Not the most important thing, but a program that has little money is a red flag.

Yeah, that'll be part of the process.

I've abandoned the idea of trying to do an MA at UNC, though. I just can't get on board with the latest analytic stuff. So I'd rather try to work at a department with a heavy continental bent. Moreover, Wrathall teaches there, and he's one of my favorites.

If there's someone you want to work with (and who wants to work with you), that is so damned important. It really is overlooked how important the student-supervisor relationship is in the whole process. Are you corresponding with this person yet?

[eumaas]

After becoming disgusted with current fashions in analytical philosophy, I'm strongly leaning towards UC Riverside for my PhD.

Be sure to research its scholarships and the cost of living out there. Not the most important thing, but a program that has little money is a red flag.

Yeah, that'll be part of the process.

I've abandoned the idea of trying to do an MA at UNC, though. I just can't get on board with the latest analytic stuff. So I'd rather try to work at a department with a heavy continental bent. Moreover, Wrathall teaches there, and he's one of my favorites.

If there's someone you want to work with (and who wants to work with you), that is so damned important. It really is overlooked how important the student-supervisor relationship is in the whole process. Are you corresponding with this person yet?

Going to start doing so over the weekend I think.

[Dr. Medulla]

After becoming disgusted with current fashions in analytical philosophy, I'm strongly leaning towards UC Riverside for my PhD.

Be sure to research its scholarships and the cost of living out there. Not the most important thing, but a program that has little money is a red flag.

Yeah, that'll be part of the process.

I've abandoned the idea of trying to do an MA at UNC, though. I just can't get on board with the latest analytic stuff. So I'd rather try to work at a department with a heavy continental bent. Moreover, Wrathall teaches there, and he's one of my favorites.

If there's someone you want to work with (and who wants to work with you), that is so damned important. It really is overlooked how important the student-supervisor relationship is in the whole process. Are you corresponding with this person yet?

Going to start doing so over the weekend I think.

You help yourself immensely during the application process by being a known quantity. Having someone on the inside who will champion your file and say, "I want this guy" makes it easier for the admissions committee (assuming your transcript doesn't have any complicating factors). Never forget that no one wants to be on those committees so anything you can do that helps them get back to their vodka is a plus.

[Dr. Medulla]

So, how to send a class into chaos. This evening we were trying to talk about subcultures and music scenes, with me trying to build to a key question: if subcultures are about fragmentation and exclusivity and rooted in rejection to a mainstream, can they lead to challenging social movements or are they fundamentally too conservative to accomplish anything?

During the discussion, someone was trying to explain how seeming ideological paradoxes by citing the horseshoe model of ideology to explain how fascism and communism, on opposite sides of the spectrum, are so similar in many ways (they're at separate ends of the horseshoe but close together). I critiqued that idea because it doesn't allow for anarchism or libertarianism. Which led, eventually, to some caricatured descriptions of anarchism. Which I let keep going because I was amused. Finally, one student said it'd be helpful if there were an anarchist present, so I asked if anyone in the class was an anarchist. Stunned silence at the thought. So I outed myself. And, holy crap, it was like I'd revealed I was a martian. Seriously. Stunned, opened-mouth looks followed my a barrage of questions asking me to describe my values. I decided that we needed to take a break and answered questions for about ten minutes or so. Not judgey, but genuine curiosity because of their caricaturish beliefs. When I tried to start things up, it really didn't get back on track. They took up my questions, but any momentum was gone. Everyone kind of wanted to go in different directions. Going forward, maybe I've made a mistake with that revelation, maybe not. If nothing else, they've learned that anarchists can be really dull people.

[Silent Majority]

So, how to send a class into chaos. This evening we were trying to talk about subcultures and music scenes, with me trying to build to a key question: if subcultures are about fragmentation and exclusivity and rooted in rejection to a mainstream, can they lead to challenging social movements or are they fundamentally too conservative to accomplish anything?

During the discussion, someone was trying to explain how seeming ideological paradoxes by citing the horseshoe model of ideology to explain how fascism and communism, on opposite sides of the spectrum, are so similar in many ways (they're at separate ends of the horseshoe but close together). I critiqued that idea because it doesn't allow for anarchism or libertarianism. Which led, eventually, to some caricatured descriptions of anarchism. Which I let keep going because I was amused. Finally, one student said it'd be helpful if there were an anarchist present, so I asked if anyone in the class was an anarchist. Stunned silence at the thought. So I outed myself. And, holy crap, it was like I'd revealed I was a martian. Seriously. Stunned, opened-mouth looks followed my a barrage of questions asking me to describe my values. I decided that we needed to take a break and answered questions for about ten minutes or so. Not judgey, but genuine curiosity because of their caricaturish beliefs. When I tried to start things up, it really didn't get back on track. They took up my questions, but any momentum was gone. Everyone kind of wanted to go in different directions. Going forward, maybe I've made a mistake with that revelation, maybe not. If nothing else, they've learned that anarchists can be really dull people.

I didn't realise you fully identified as an anarchist. I thought you still had a toe in social democracy.

[Dr. Medulla]

I didn't realise you fully identified as an anarchist. I thought you still had a toe in social democracy.

If you really want to get picky and specific, I identify as pacifist and I see anarchism as the most consistent with that. My understand and adherence is undoubtedly less developed and committed than many here—I see it more as critical position than workable on a grander social scale—but I've come to see it as sensible to my own inclinations. Given the limited practical choices for social organization now and in the foreseeable future, I find social democracy the most appealing if only for reducing material deprivation and marginalization, but it's not without enforced norms, reinforced prejudices, and top-down we-know-better-than-you attitudes that I find objectionable.

edit: I agree with the basic premise of Green politics—that we need to reframe our perspective to one of the biosphere rather than of economic growth, of the production/consumption cycle—but rarely do the Greens in practice not just seem like a bunch of flakes.

[Dr. Medulla]

*oops - meant to edit but quoted myself *

[eumaas]

I think having that critical position as an anarchist can help push socdem into better directions anyway. I make sure to talk to Sanders supporters about workers councils and stuff like that, and they're receptive. Some already talk about workplace democracy, which is incredible. If, like Colin Ward, you see non-hierarchical organization as the mortar to the bricks of society, then there's always anarchism present in varying degrees across societies.

[eumaas]

Fascinating class story by the way, Neil. I doubt you did anything bad by outing yourself. Hopefully they went to wikipedia or something.

[Dr. Medulla]

I'm hoping it was just a once-only thing in terms of discussion, but it really did throw them for a loop and ended up encouraging people to go on tangents the rest of the evening (somehow we finished off with the one country music fan feeling she had to prove she wasn't some kind of redneck; the irony there is that she's probably the most perceptive person in the class). I'm pretty open about letting discourse evolve—it's their class and I'm reluctant to force discussion, only guide it to constructive places—but we ended up so far afield of the theme of the evening. I'm wary of expressing my position on topics because it tends to inhibit students from disagreeing, so my fear is that having outed myself as holding unconventional values will keep them from expressing their own, frankly, rather conservative views. I try to plant little intellectual time bombs in their brains, asking some difficult open-ended questions (like last night's, about whether subcultures are conducive to wider social change or are they fundamentally a retreat and an admission of defeat) even tho I know that they rarely have a response, but I hope that at some point in the future it goes off and they're forced to deal with it. If a two or three people leave the class confused but curious, I think I've done my job. But if they're now reading me as having a political agenda, I may have lost that. Which isn't to say that they don't enjoy the class or whatever, only that a barrier may have gone up with the revelation.

[Flex]

Very interesting story, Doc.

[Dr. Medulla]

Oh, something positive that did happen in my class last night. I had them read an essay on riot grrrl as music scene and I pushed them on the issue of excluding or minimizing men's participation, regardless of how sympathetic they might be. I was very pleasantly surprised that they all appreciated—men included—that there was no hypocrisy or paradox going on, that male privilege allowed them to speak everywhere else and that this was a means of redress if only for a few hours and in that small space. Men can contribute by shutting the fuck up. It wasn't that "if we're all equal, why can't men talk" stuff, which I remember from the time. So it's a weird collection of ideas in the group. On the one hand, a certain naturalized acceptance of capitalism and lack of interest in music as social change, but on the other an understanding of issues like privilege and trying to be conscious of these absorbed inequalities. Hard to figure them out.

[Flex]

Democrats, basically.

[Dr. Medulla]

Democrats, basically.

Ha! Tho maybe these kids are all a bunch of Trudeau Liberals.

[JennyB]

Fascinating class story by the way, Neil. I doubt you did anything bad by outing yourself. Hopefully they went to wikipedia or something.

I agree - and I think that by you disclosing your leanings, you have probably "normalized" anarchism for them. I'm sure they all had a vision of some Exploited looking guy as their example of an anarchist. I hope this leads to some more meaningful conversations.