“Fighting that bears no fruit” is what Nezua dislikes about lo académico. It is the best concise diagnosis of the problem I have seen. It took me about five years of professordom to finally understand: these people want to complain and struggle, but they do not want to resolve problems.
There is also the penchant for making problems more complex than they are, or renaming them so that they look like victories. One of the patriarchal women I complain about having to deal with, doubled in weight the year she came up for tenure because of eating chocolate for nerves. Then she decided that “having as much volume as a man” was a good thing. It gave her more authority. Now she exhorts others to increase in size as well.
I clearly do not value my own position enough, because when I heard her give this talk I thought, if that was what it took to make tenure and have a modicum of authority around here, I did not want any of it. The more important point is that even if the increase in size really did serve my colleague well as an individual, it did not represent a structural change.
If I could afford it – that is to say, if I did not prefer to spend money on travel and home improvements – I would engage in more spa-like activities than I do now. However, I do not wish to engage in major body modification, and I am more interested in working for the good of the whole than for individual advancement. In the view of my colleague, she is the feminist and I am the dilettante. That is one more reason why I am glad to have left Women’s Studies.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Oh, “fighting that bears no fruit” is a good way of putting it. And I wonder if I could bring it into the classroom in terms of discussions of student “fighting” as well, over the length of tests, etc. Not because I see it as the perfect phrase to shut my students up for good, but just as a means of getting them to think a little more consciously about how and why they raise disputes.
I have to admit, you have been so prolific lately with your postings that I have not been able to keep up in order to form an acceptable comment (versus a superficial one, however, I am the judge if it is acceptable or superficial LOL), for example the entry you had up before I received my copy of The Nation. What is up with that, I thought subscribers supposedly have the privilege of getting something first. Oh well. Anyway.
Doubling one size is insanity. I struggle with my weight. Unhealthy weight is unhealthy weight. I have seen a list of excuses for keeping on weight and, incidentally, appearing more “threatening” is in fact on the list. If I find the list on the net, I will bring the link back. As far as fighting the patriarchy, how is mimicking a man’s size subversive? It ain’t. It is unhealthy. For some reason this post has me spitting nails. AHHH! You know what it sounds like? Justification to do whatever the hell she wants to do and not be held accountability for her actions. She wants to eat to the point it makes her fat but she does not want to suffer any negative consequences for being fat. I take that back, maybe doubling in size for her did not make her fat. Maybe I am projecting, because if I doubled, I would be fat, I would also be miserable because it would limit my mobility. Actually, I think it pisses me off because this kind of nonsense is partly to blame for doctors, insurance company, and even one’s own family to have an unwillingness to support people who do struggle with weight. Imagine her representing people who would like insurance companies to pay for weight watchers or a gym membership? It would not happen.
OK,
I can’t help but comment. Doubling in size?. . . can I still that?
It is too good to be true. You should make a character. It is Roth, Kafka and Carpentier all wrapped up into one.
If it was fiction it would not be so sad.
OK, I’ll make two characters – one based on my friendly whiteman, and one based on her. I’ll add a few others. The plot thickens! Roth, Kafka, Carpentier, I hadn’t realized but … yes … !
Can you steal it, do you mean? Sure! Fact is stranger than fiction, and there is much surreality in Louisiana!
She’s obese and seems old. But if you look twice, you realize she has very fine bones and would have been quite petite before the weight gain. But: authoritarian and self-justifying, yes. Oppressive.
She would hate to find out that being more threatening was a standard reason for keeping the weight on – she seems to think it is original with her, LOL!
excellent post…one of your best yet!
“And I wonder if I could bring it into the classroom in terms of discussions of student ‘fighting’ as well, over the length of tests, etc.”
Good point. That too is academic fighting that misses the point of why one is here.
Azg – thanks! 🙂
I’ve been thinking that one of the problems with a certain prevalent maldevelopment of western consciousness is the growth of a tendency to believe that “perceptions” and “reality” do not correlate or intersect. It is considered “masterful” to take the position that somebody else’s perceptions have nothing at all to do with reality. Perhaps only one’s own perceptions are really able to dominate reality appropriately — separating truth from falsity in an accurate way.
This, in my view, is why many people speak forth with the expectation of struggling but not with the expectation of achieving something real. Because to “struggle” is to put forward one’s perceptions into the public realm. But the perceptions would have to be perceptions of reality itself in order for the putting forth of one’s perceptions to have any chance of changing reality. But most people are conditioned to believe that we cannot change reality, only perceptions: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
So, pointless struggle becomes very common indeed. One gives up on changing reality all for the liquid joy of expressing one’s perceptions in pure form. Expressing one’s perceptions becomes a compensatory compulsion due to being deprived of a notion of reality, and not having any clue what reality is.
This is very western (it’s not Eastern in my experience!). In terms of the effect of embracing perceptions as reality itself, and ignoring that there is a reality that is independent of perception (such as the reality of global warming, the reality of miscommunication and twisted reasoning, and so on) many westerners speak at cross purposes to themselves and others. It’s a tower of Babel.
Rational thinking has become a lost art, and catering to each other’s “perceptions”, by treating all perceptions (no matter how outlandish) as if they were already valid components of reality itself have become more common. In other words, social interactions have become politicised in such a thorough way, that current stakeholders are easily able to keep out newcomers who do not play this game of manipulating perceptions. Rationality has had no or little stake in western cultural consciousness due to the advent of this egoist subjectivist approach which accepts that what is real is the aggregate of common opinion, and nothing else besides. A rational person cannot be expected to succeed in this society, unless they prostitute themselves by playing a highly irrationalist game.
Yes! This is key! And you have said it so well!