4 ms·

It's actually anti-urban-intellectual posturing, suggesting that the comment author is on a higher level intellectually. I had a good laugh at both the joke it

by psutor 13y ago

It's actually anti-urban-intellectual posturing, suggesting that the comment author is on a higher level intellectually. I had a good laugh at both the joke itself and that the telling of the joke is an act of "verbally humiliating the dumb".

brazzy 13y ago
It's domination-posturing all the way down!
James_Duval 13y ago
Oh, I think I saw a different irony to you -- I saw the comment as an act of verbal aggression towards the author of the article on the grounds that the author was being too academic. The author of an article about geeks being bullied, not because they were too academic, but because they were seen as being of a different class. I prefer your interpretation to be honest, but clearly there is enough irony for everyone.
- pekk 13y ago
  I agree with your exact wording: applying Marxist theory to everything is exactly 'more academic' in the sense that it is an artifact of fashion in educational institutions. It isn't actually 'more intellectual' because it is content-free, being equally applicable to everything, and brings little or no insight to any topic outside of economics. Taking this criticism as validation of Marxist analysis (or accusing the critic of bullying, etc.) is cheap and pointless, like Freudians answering criticism of a weak Freudian analysis by saying the critic is only criticizing due to reaction formation. If we disallow this kind of criticism then we are validating every kind of posturing. Not everything anyone says can be correct and it isn't bullying or snobbery to say so. It's not even personal.
  - James_Duval 13y ago
    I'm not sure what exactly you're responding to, here, but I'm certainly not disallowing this kind of criticism or claiming that the top-level comment validates Marxist analysis because it's poorly thought-out. I don't use Marxist analysis myself, at least not deliberately (I am not myself an academic), either. I don't know what you mean by: >content-free, being equally applicable to everything and I think that: >brings little or no insight to any topic outside of economics ignores the fact that a large amount of history, culture and contemporary society has been profoundly shaped by economics. >Not everything anyone says can be correct and it isn't bullying or snobbery to say so. It's not even personal. Yes. There are a lot of things I agree with in your post, the problem is that they are "equally applicable to everything", so I feel like I've joined an argument halfway through, and I have no idea what you are responding to or why.

by psutor 13y ago

brazzy 13y ago

It's domination-posturing all the way down!

James_Duval 13y ago

Oh, I think I saw a different irony to you -- I saw the comment as an act of verbal aggression towards the author of the article on the grounds that the author was being too academic. The author of an article about geeks being bullied, not because they were too academic, but because they were seen as being of a different class. I prefer your interpretation to be honest, but clearly there is enough irony for everyone.

pekk 13y ago
I agree with your exact wording: applying Marxist theory to everything is exactly 'more academic' in the sense that it is an artifact of fashion in educational institutions. It isn't actually 'more intellectual' because it is content-free, being equally applicable to everything, and brings little or no insight to any topic outside of economics. Taking this criticism as validation of Marxist analysis (or accusing the critic of bullying, etc.) is cheap and pointless, like Freudians answering criticism of a weak Freudian analysis by saying the critic is only criticizing due to reaction formation. If we disallow this kind of criticism then we are validating every kind of posturing. Not everything anyone says can be correct and it isn't bullying or snobbery to say so. It's not even personal.
- James_Duval 13y ago
  I'm not sure what exactly you're responding to, here, but I'm certainly not disallowing this kind of criticism or claiming that the top-level comment validates Marxist analysis because it's poorly thought-out. I don't use Marxist analysis myself, at least not deliberately (I am not myself an academic), either. I don't know what you mean by: >content-free, being equally applicable to everything and I think that: >brings little or no insight to any topic outside of economics ignores the fact that a large amount of history, culture and contemporary society has been profoundly shaped by economics. >Not everything anyone says can be correct and it isn't bullying or snobbery to say so. It's not even personal. Yes. There are a lot of things I agree with in your post, the problem is that they are "equally applicable to everything", so I feel like I've joined an argument halfway through, and I have no idea what you are responding to or why.