Something which has really gotten my goat lately is intellectual commentary. There are certainly innumerable culprits within this field of pseudo-intellectual guff but two among them annoy me on a daily basis: Christopher Hitchens and Slavoj Zizek.
Let us begin with the anti-theist. Hitchens is a very educated man. He went to Oxford, which is often mentioned when he is introduced before going on stage. But this is another thing: Why is it important that the man went to Oxford?! It is without a doubt a good school, but in no way is it a guarantee of the man’s competence. The snobbery of it! I know plenty of people who went to La Sorbonne. I see no greater assembly of geniuses there than anywhere else and yet it is mentioned with a certain awe, as if it were the proof of a mind as sharp as a surgical laser. Why can’t we simply accept that it is not the teaching which makes the thinker, but the studying.
Hitchens probably did a fair deal of studying. He seems to be a well-read man. But this also seems to be his only intellectual strength. If you listen to his speeches, interviews or debates or you actually read his texts you might notice that he is all reference and no analysis. He refers to literary quotes and the experiences of his own wicked self or those of others. His argument is thus based on the authority of texts or the allusion to “real life”.
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13
Mar 09
Rhetorical masturbation makes you blind
On the subject of this blog’s last defilement of a perfectly nice blank screen, The importance of being Elvis, a friend remarked that the title bore a bit of the Elvis odour itself. She claimed that this particular critique of intellectual commentary was in and by itself just another bit of pseudo-intellectual commentary. And of course she is right!
As has already been stated on this page – it’s remarkable how long a webpage really is – bloggery is fit for the more or less cultivated or casual considerations of the works of mice and men over digital drinks and dinner, but not for laborious elaborations on the subtle workings of all things theory. Blogs are the very sanctuaries of commentary, it is where commentary goes when it is no longer wanted in respectable company, which is why blogs are usually just havens for washed up intellectual waste and futile observations of abundant banality.
So why more or less consciously commit the sin you are condemning? Why throw all personal pride and integrity overboard and just plow right through the known courteous seas? Because it feels so good! Bloggery as well as commentary are generally examples of what we might call rhetorical masturbation and rhetorical masturbation, as we have all learnt in our early years, makes you blind. Well, maybe you don’t really loose your eyesight but you do tend to lean back a bit and close your eyes with the sheer pleasure of it.
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