Theory Land

Now that I've spent the bulk of my week getting over the flu, studying for a variety of tests and trying to figure out how the hell someone might become immortal (it's for a my personal writing work and WHY must I always find the hardest fucking things to write about is beyond me...) it feels good to get back to some serious, solid blogging.

Whatever the hell that is.

And lo and behold - a topic has found itself prominent in my mind once more: theory.

I feel like I have spent too much time this year reading the same stuff over and over and over in regards to Cultural Studies. I took a 1000 level course last spring (that operated much more like an 8000 level) and now, in this 5000 class (which is like senior-beginning grad school realm) I feel like I basically already know this stuff. I mean, the prof highlights some new things but, for the most part, I've got the origins of CSCL under my belt.

Which means now I'm just trapped in the realm of reading theory. More and more and more theory.

Here's the deal - on any given day, I don't usually mind reading philosophy/theoretical texts. Foucault? Bring it on. Adam Smith? Love the guy (Theory of Moral Sentiments for the win!) Hobbes, Thoreau, Rousseau, Bordo? All things I have read, read part of, will read, will re-read (Bordo refers to Susan Bordo, author on gender studies; she's pretty awesome).

But somehow... somehow I have gotten myself stuck in the "hey, guess what, our world sucks and we don't know what to do about it" realm of theory. The post-modernists or something. IT IS KILLING ME.

Generally, I wouldn't mind reading this stuff. Disagreement or lack of interest isn't the issue - I am interested and I don't totally disagree with what they are saying; and even when I do, I don't mind, I like reading stuff I disagree with. But something... something about these readings are rubbing me the wrong way.


I think it's the sheer amount of it. I had ninety some pages to read for this weekend for one class alone. By the time I get the rest of my homework done, I can't care about anything anymore, I just feel numb. The deep thoughts, the little ideas that are worked into the texts...I don't have the ability to focus on them. I can't. I simply have too much to read. 

And reading things that all seem to say the same thing. It makes me nauseous after a while. It all sounds tripe, already said, even though I know each author is saying something distinct and something different. I'm supposed to appreciate the complexities of the writing but I can't when the professors assign so much.

And I'm a fast reader - maybe a little too fast, but I generally read well. I can't image what it's like for other college students who just read slowly but as effectively (if not more effectively) than me. It must take DAYS  to get all of their reading done. And now, I don't even have psych to run to for support because they still assign us ridiculous readings from terrible textbooks and then never reference what we read. And they are, of course, theory obsessed. Actually, they split things into "theory land" and "data land" and doing experiments take us from theories into actual evidence. I got a nice little diagram of this from one of my psych classes last spring:

Not gonna lie, it kind of makes me sick. Thanks for making me fee like I'm back in the sixth grade.

See? See what's going on here? I'm complaining about being treated like a college student with too much reading and then complaining that I am getting treated like a elementary school kid when they dumb things down. I am clearly having some kind of academic crisis here.

I think I'm having a senior slump. In my junior year. Which is a problem. I've done too much, in too little time and now my brain is screaming, "NO, STOP IT! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? THIS SHIT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER!!!"

In some ways, I worry that is true. Cultural studies is attempting to take on all these lofty issues which, my professor has nicely admitted, is really dangerous and hard to do. But here's the problem: hypocrisy is really, really REALLY HARD to avoid.

CSCL is kind of Marxist. Which means we spend a lot of time talking about labor and the poor and how elitism sucks and screws over the common man. True. But here's something one of the authors I'm reading, Henri Lefebvre, said, regarding the misunderstanding of a theory Lefebvre was setting up:


... and the first schoolboy who comes along will be able to say that the way he is taught at school (especially if he really is being badly taught) and the work he has to do there are turning him into a thing.

Lefebvre is talking about alienation and how apparently people will overgeneralize feelings of alienation if they don't understand it properly. There is some truth to the fact that people can incorrectly learn information and get ideas wrong. But isn't that a bit hard to judge against when the ideas you're discussing are so hard to grasp?

Furthermore, he says later: "... people, in general, do not know their own lives very well, or know them inadequately" (the italics are his).

Hypocrite.

And here's why I think that. Just before this, he's been talking all about how capitalism makes us feel alienated and he seems to be along the lines of the general Marxist thinker looking out for the guy who gets stepped on by the big-wigs.

And then he says this. And I get insulted.

Maybe I'm just overly introspective. I think I might be. We were talking about this in social psych this week and our prof said, "Usually we don't think about ourselves that much. We think we do but, on a given day, it's really only once and a while. We're usually more focused on work and school and things of that nature."

And I was blown away.

I THINK ABOUT MYSELF ALL THE TIME. That sounds weird, and creepy, and selfish. But I do! I'm always self-reflecting, naval gazing, thinking about my life. Probably because I write this lame-ass blog. But I feel like... I don't know. I feel like people do think about themselves and know themselves. How can someone say that people don't know themselves? How does Lefebvre know? HE ONLY KNOWS HIS OWN LIFE. HE CAN'T KNOW THEIRS.

I actually like Lefebvre's writing better than the other book we read last week for this class, so I feel bad ripping him a new one. But I feel like this is such a common assumption that keeps getting made in the theory I'm stuck with, that people in our society don't think about their lives. They have to, don't they? Once in a while, probably not as much as me (I'm admittedly may not have great mental habits sometimes, so make me an outlier). It's like assuming that people don't think about deep things or don't read in their spare time, or that people who have working class jobs aren't that intelligent.

And that's totally insulting (and kind of elitist) to the people the Marxists thinkers are "supposed to be looking out for."

Not to exclude myself from the elitist category - I openly admit I can be one (it started as a joke because this girl in my CSCL 1001 class called me elitist for not liking Avatar and [Львица] and [mind ninja] started calling me elitist. But then [uber gay] and [X] joined in and then it got weird). But I can be one - it's easy, being in college, thinking you know stuff "most people" don't. I'm not saying that Lefebvre is being that petty about it; I know he means well. But saying people don't think about their own lives... that's like saying everyone is dumbed down and stuck in the system and not capable of any deep thought. There is one great reason why this is wrong. And his name is Mike LeFevre.

Mike is steel worker interviewed by Studs Terkel in his book Working. Mike's a tough, no nonsense kind of guy, the sort who's been working in a factory for years and knows that the work is taking its toll. He recalls a instance where he has an encounter will a college boy at a bar:

He saw a book in my back pocket one time and was amazed. He walked up to me and said, "You read?" I said, "What do you mean, I read?" He said, "All these dummies read the sports pages around here. What are you doing with a book?" I got pissed off at the kid right away. I said, "What do you mean, all these dummies? Don't knock a man who's paying somebody else's way through college." He was a nineteen-year-old effete snob.

There's a fine, fine line here in academia, between using what you know to good use and just pissing people off with it. This poor kid made the mistake of thinking that just because Mike works in a factory, he's not the sort who would read books. Mike admits he wants his son to be like that "snob," call him a dummy, to "not be like me." But Mike's no dummy; his interview with Terkel is interesting and thoughtful and intelligent.  He knows what's going on in his own life. He knows what's good and what's bad. HE DOESN'T NEED A COLLEGE KID TELLING HIM WHAT TO DO.

So no offense to Lefebvre, but maybe saying that people don't know their own lives is a major miswording on his part. I think people are really more introspective than we give them credit for. I don't care if you're a steel worker, a SO chef, a banker, a journalist, a politician - YOU'RE LIVING YOUR OWN LIFE. You know what's going on there. Unless you're hiding from yourself. Which would take some skill.

I'm probably over-reacting to Mr. Lefebvre here, but really, dude, you like totally set us back like ten feet with that sentence. Cultural studies is constantly fighting theory battles as to what's the best way to look at culture (newsflash - there probably isn't just one!) but so many ideas that have been proposed are actually kind of dangerous. It tries to include everything, yet all I hear is "science is wrong, sociology isn't quite right, we need to look at culture THIS WAY" and they just further isolate themselves from EVERYONE. Lefebvre, at least, was doing so well... and then he said this...

Now I know why I'm so tired, so frustrated and worn-out with school. It's because every day is a fight. Every day is a battle to pick out what you believe to be right, what feels true in the world, amongst all the other stuff that people say that misconstrues the world, or is just inappropriate, or leaves something out. It's a fight to retain yourself, to keep what you believe alive against so many opinions that seem more powerful and credible than yours. BUT THIS IS HOW I SEE THE WORLD. Who's to say I'm wrong? Yes, my worldview cannot be generalized - but it's part of the world. I am because we are and we are because I am. I don't need theorists telling me what to think.

I want to think for myself. Even if I'm wrong. Especially if I'm wrong.