[csaa-forum] bolt, sticks and stones, and a proposal: how pathetic

[Gilbert B. Rodman]

>...with little of substance to disagree with you threaten each other with
>legal action. I'd like to hear what the substantive political objections
>are to Andrew Bolt's ideas, if that's not to much bother. Or maybe we
>should all chortle at how right-wing he is. Ho Ho Ho.

weighing in from *way* offshore -- so maybe there's simply some nuance of 
the australian academy that i'm not privy to in the states -- but i'd say 
that one of the obvious "substantive political objections" to be made to 
bolt's rants and raves is that he's not actually following through on his 
own agenda very well.

put simply, if the idea is to ferret out "exorbitant" expenditures of tax 
dollars on "pointless" academic work that's presented in "arcane" and 
"indecipherable" jargon, then he's pretty damned short-sighted to be taking 
aim at the humanities.  presumably, after all, the hard sciences rake in 
way more grant $$ than the humanities ever do (could the average physics 
lab, for instance, stay in operation for more than a month on the combined 
sum that bolt lists for all of elspeth probyn's grants?).  the hard 
sciences are just as likely (if not more so) to be engaged in research that 
seems trivial and/or unintelligible to the average layperson.  and the 
average write-up of said research is certainly not going to be easier to 
read (or even translate) to the average layperson than a bit of deleuzean 
theory.

lest there be any confusion, i'm *not* suggesting that the nice folks who 
run physics labs and engineering schools (and so on) deserve to be subject 
to bolt's abuse either.  far from it.  the fact that he doesn't seem 
concerned with their "wasteful expenditures," "trivial pursuits," and 
"difficult prose," however, suggests that he's not really interested in 
trimming the major "waste" out of academic research: he's engaged in a 
political witch hunt.

fwiw, i suspect that sorta response is gonna play a lot better in the 
papers than "we're admittedly elitists and the rest of you should be happy 
with that."


cheers
gil