I forgot to post this a few weeks back, but the New York Times Magazine had an open call competition for college students to write about why college still matters...and the winning essay was written by some dude at Yale...who wrote all about postmodernism as his saving grace.
I have my opinions about this, but I will abstain from comment because I'm very interested to hear what you all think about both the selection, the author and the piece itself. Not that I'm ever a big fan of judging the world by the workings of mainstream media, it stills seems like an interesting discussion point given the title of our course.
Here's the article:
http://essay.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/the-college-pastiche/
My biggest complaints with the essay are 1) it's an embodiment of the hipster blasé tone than he pooh poohs at the outset (also supported by the overly serious picture, but there I fault the editor, who probably chose the most blasé shot) and 2) a cop out ending to top all cop out endings. He does an about face on the whole attenuation narrative when it seemed like he was setting himself up for an interesting indictment/explanation of why our generation does not vote, nor is very politically passionate in day to day life, one-off rallies and petition signings notwithstanding. We just care invisibly! Facebook is a forum for activism. I still think that the paradigmatic case for internet hype/activism not mapping onto reality is Snakes on a Plane--internet hype to top all internet hype, that bled over to major publications in the week prior to the release, but the movie had lackluster box office grosses, under $20 million opening weekend. Sure there are flash mobs and rallies that are facilitated by online forums in ways and with speed previously impossible, but in such cases the internet is the means to an end. There's a glass ceiling to online activism that needs to be more widely acknowledged. But the essay recognizes no such limits.
He had some nice sentences though. And btw, reading the comments (326 and counting) is way more interesting than the essay itself. People hating on him left and right for being pretentious, for cliche undergrad writing, for immanence in the ivory tower/privileged white academia where it's possible to sit back and complain about attenuation when, "I run an AIDS clinic", or other counterexamples wielded to disparage the author. A nice snapshot.