Comments on: First tragedy, then farce dept., bureau of advanced academic fatuousness

By: Alex Reed

Alex Reed — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:58:14 +0000

Perhaps we are too quick to dismiss the attainments of the good Mr. Bhabha. True, his work is just a down-market parroting, in English translation, of the lexicon used by his French mentors: Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, (and distantly, Barthes), etc. However, it is no mean feat for anyone to have mastered this obscure vocabulary (and he gets extra points if he’s read all the ‘texts’ in the original French), tortured mindscape, and the prose style that results. This much is true.

The problem I find with the mercifully small sampling of Mr. B.’s work that I’ve read is that amidst all the free-floating verbiage there is no there there. As a student of the Frenchies in the great long-ago, and as nutsy as many of them were up-close in real life, persistence with their tangled prose often yields a wealth of unique ideas and systems. Such effort is ill rewarded in the Bhabha oeuvre that I’ve glanced at. What ideas can be extracted remain like wisps of seaweed on the great tide of words — coherence, as R.K. has pointed out, is not a predominant characteristic. What ideas can be discerned are but borrowed castoffs from the wardrobe of Mr. Said with some added froufrou from the glittering geegaw boxes of the French contingent. So much for the ‘reality’.

What we must admire, however, is the great edifice of academic success that Mr. B. has spun from such disparate bits. He has shown great acuity and enterprise by correctly identifying and taking advantage of the supreme twin turn-ons for American academia: masochistic self-loathing, and instant swoon for the impenetrable lexicon of their French betters. This is his genius turn, and the motor of his success. Marketing is everything! Hats off!

By: tanstaafl

tanstaafl — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:19:06 +0000

Mr. Bhabha may have a few mildly interesting points hiding in all that verbiage, but his reader would become exhausted trying to ferret them out.

Cowardly academicians often hide in a fog of polysyllabic pontifications, but Mr. Bhabha’s obscurantism is an extreme case.

Where did “Manny” end up, rvastar ?

By: Lgude

Lgude — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 04:50:15 +0000

Given the intelligibility of the Harvard professor in question and that of the commenters on this thread I must ask is Harvard really necessary?

By: Larry Rasczak

Larry Rasczak — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:11:40 +0000

Yet another excellent reason to send one’s children to Texas A&M.

I suppose the Ivy League may still carry some weight east of the Berkshires; but as this shows, they have become nothing more than overpriced schools trying to slide by on a reputation for academic excellence that was last deserved during the Garfield Administration.

P.S. Kudos to thomas hazlewood, on the Ellsworth Toohey reference!

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:47:43 +0000

How odd these creatures of feigned intellect be.If they are praised, and hired, it would be of some interest to know who chose and contracted them.Ah, but if all must get “A’s” and graduate with Honors, then, we can no longer aspire to critical
standards for hiring the ‘finest,’
most, brilliant genius, because we ALL are-in our own way, which must never be questioned. How does the ‘elite’ judge who is ,or isn’t? How are they assessed as ‘elitist’, if there aren’t standards by which to judge? More ‘elitist’ fallacies burst,or is it busted? Oh, well, no matter.
Where is Emily Dickinson when you need her? Or is there someone out there with an old-fashioned
qualification of actual knowledge of Miss Dickinson’s oeuvre?
As a matter of fact, where is S.J.Perelman? Twain? All right, on our bookshelves.
( I’m sorry, if I exposed anyone else.)
The Left is loosing its true thinkers and writers.As it happens,
The Spectator.UK has a current blog on whom is
defecting, or, if you prefer, coming out, i.e.Amis,Mamet,Hitchens.
They dare write having come out of the morass,the fog that creeps in as one tries to hold on, because one cannot help it if one is truly a searcher-a thinker, an intellect.It is the compulsion to understand the world in which we live as it progresses and regresses.
(Some are quicker than others.It is true.)
As they leave, they expose those left behind, who in turn, frequently, rise to the bait to counter.They are stuck and can’t get out.
Writers are, also, compulsive communicators, and their transformation is laid out before the public.( as though everyone, or anyone else cares.Be that as it may.)Because they want to communicate, and to write is to communicate.
The ‘Harvard ilk’ cannot.They can only obscure.At some point in writing, one has to work to be clear.One wants to be clear.This ‘ilk’ is muddled, non-objective, Narcissistic while feeling inferior. They are unskilled in critical faculties, and, thus, they are incapable of it.Yet, who in this false realm will admit to it- any of it? Thus, he passes, and they pass.The perfect mud pie.
However, returning to Ali, judging from Roger’s excerpt and
attending description of this post-Colonialist,Harvard example, what is curious is why the animosity is concentrated on the U.S.? Why not on Britain? It makes one suspect, in Ali’s case, he is lacking basic knowledge of Britain’s Empirical reign in India.
Note: I want to thank each of you who gave me a laugh.

By: Cristina

Cristina — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 04:12:06 +0000

LibertyFreedomPatriot:

It’s been almost 12 hours since my challenge, and still no response from you.
What I suggested was a simple, freshman-writing class exercise. What’s so hard?!?
If by tomorrow, April 25, 2008, at 12:00 p.m., you fail to post an intelligible paraphrase of Bhabha’s deep thoughts for my unwashed, un-intellectual self, you shouldn’t be surprised if I exult in a fully merited “Quod erat demonstrandum.”

By: Cristina

Cristina — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 04:02:36 +0000

LibertyFreedomPatriot:

By: thomas hazlewood

thomas hazlewood — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:13:39 +0000

I will be astonished if Ellsworth Toohey was not instrumental in Bhabha’s advancement.

By: David Thomson

David Thomson — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:09:38 +0000

Homi K. Bhabha is simply another example of Harvard University’s increasing marginalization. It is fair to describe much of this institution as something of an intellectual whore house. Harvard is also a diploma mill. Inflated degrees may be the norm. Just about everybody, for instance, graduates with honors.

The American public fails to realize the extent of the Harvard scam operation. I sometimes half jokingly assert that there should be a RICO investigation concerning its questionable activities. The school motto should be: slut it out good on behalf of the leftist agenda—and we will take care of you.

By: Solomonia

Solomonia — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:49:35 +0000

Harvard Educator or Sokal Hoax?

You be the judge: Within that conflictual economy of colonial discourse which Edward Said describes as the tension between the synchronic panoptical vision of domination–the demand for identity, stasis–and the counter-pressure of the diachrony of his…