Friday, April 14, 2006
(11:13 AM) | Brad:
My Current Enemy: A Confession
I'm sure everyone was woefully heartbroken & beside themselves when I failed to post on my designated day, Wednesday, but the Weblog offices were not burned to the ground so the rioting must not have been too bad.As you know, Fridays here are set aside for confessions. Sins come in all sizes and colors and flavors -- personally, I prefer tall, dark, and mango -- as do sinners. I think this is an especially good thing. Some confessions can be summed up in a comment, others, such as this one, only in a blog post.
For you see, I must confess that I have an Enemy. His name, which matters not to you, and matters to me only because he is My Current Enemy, is A. B. Okay, that's not his name, and it might not even be his initials, but that's hardly the point. What're you gonna do, track him down and beat him up for me? C'mon, grow up. Anyway, not so long ago, but before I started my doctoral work, he was my deparment's golden boy, back before the insurgence of infidel agnostics and Muslims and the subsequent de-emphasis on CHRISTIAN theology. Personally, I don't have a problem with his philosophy or theology -- frankly, I hardly even know, nor do I care at all, what they are. No, my problem goes much deeper than that, which in this case means that it's more superficial. My problem is -- as I told him, at first by accident (not realizing he was nearby) and then by a redacted repetition when he asked over my shoulder, eyebrows raised (oh, how I dislike that!), "What did you just say?" -- that he is an "arrogant tit."
If you can imagine the sort who feels compelled to bombastically and dramatically voice his opinion through declarative fiat, not unlike some bloggers I suppose, normally just before the conversation is over, not unlike some commenters, you'll be moving in the direction of an A. B. The fact that my enemy is slightly misogynistic and homophobic does not help ingratiate him to me or my department -- "my" department in this instance does not denote the department as a whole, but those who agree with me.
Damn. I just now realized that I've already spilled the beans about the story's climax -- lest you've already forgotten, or are just skimming this post because it's not written by Adam, I'm referring to the part where I finally explode, though that's to make the scene far more violent than it really was, and refer to A. B., in so many words, as a bloviating boob. A bit of context may be necessary, though, to understand the (so-called, but obviously exaggerated) explosion, to see it in its insubstantial glory. You see, I've no doubt that A. B. "knows his stuff" (a quote from a friend of mine who somehow likes him), but his preening hauteur really confuses me. I guess I should expand this a bit, since you've no idea who I'm talking about specifically, and publically affirm my conviction that the hubris shown by much of academia is a bit silly, considering that its cultural status today doesn't come anywhere near the societal value it claims to represent. (Two things pop into my head right now: (1) how poorly my academic friends are paid, not to mention the debt I've accrued to join their ranks; and (2) the curious fact that so many these same friends (and me???) hold the most unfeasible of political persuasions -- such being the power of theory!!) More importantly, and this is back to the specific criticism of My Current Enemy, because the community of academics is so small it makes me think that anybody, e.g., A. B., who goes out of his way to alienate so many people in that community is not only social-stuntedly arrogant, but is uncommonly ignorant. Actually, come to think of it, the redacted repetition to which I alluded above, was something along the lines of "[you are] an uncommonly ignorant tit," but I can't be sure whether I invoked the mammary gland the first or second time around. After all, the diatribe was a bit long, and I'm sure parts didn't make sense at all, considering my inability to say (or write) consecutive simple sentences without violently including wildly deviating parenthetical asides; but I've definitely had the presence of "tit" confirmed by a third party who has long referred to A. B. in private by other (male) body parts.
Hence, My Current Enemy. And thus is my confession.
