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Originally Posted by noumenal

I know who John Rahn is -- I was in the same room as him often, but I didn't meet him. I know several people who are on familiar terms with him though I suppose, and he seems like a very nice man. I could theorize about why you're being so hostile, but I won't. I do feel, however, that your constant antipathy towards all academia (not that is doesn't deserve tons of criticism) is annoying. I really have to bail out of this thread now.

damn, i'm a phd dropout, and while i'm not anti-academic in the strictest sense, i do feel strongly about what academia has become in the hands of the mla and the conference circuit. in this sense i am pro-academia, pro-research, in favor of the advancement of knowlege, and for this reason i am against the coopting of academia by corrupt practices and institutions that DESTROY what is best in academia. people behave like in that scene in "metropolitan' where the guy argues that he has no need to read jane austen because he can read what the critics said about her books. people try to "apply" "theories" to as many "texts" as possible, as if this was the apex of understanding.

i have no qualms with music theory, musicology, etc. i think it's a great thing-- i do have serious problems with the "critical theory" camp, however. they are my mortal enemy. i would have been happy if they did not control my field of studies. i was not ready to compromise my principles in order to get a job, so i quit. the articles that people are forced to publish in order to keep their jobs are so much crap, it is ridiculous. it operates as a form of censorship and groupthink. i'm speaking here of literary critics, not other fields, though the same "toolbox" is "applied" to film, art, and other cultural productions and institutions.

i hope that offers a satisfactory explanation-- please don't take this as a personal attack against you or some other such shit. maybe my sniping is coming across as carpet bombing-- but anyway... feel free to be annoyed. it's a free country, etc.