Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Glice
Lacan and Hegel aren't the best writers; does that invalidate their point?
People don't think the humanities is pretentious and pointless because of Lacan and Hegel. I'd be very surprised if anyone who says that has bothered with the Phenomenology of Spirit.
It's not a matter of 'honesty' or otherwise that I have read Lacan and feel like he's made sense to me. The problem if that you're being made to feel bad because you didn't get it when it occupies such a central position in critical theory. Lacan is important, but no-one's important enough to be ubiquitous.
|
Ok, that's an exaggeration. But even I have thought at times, whilst doing my degree, that literary criticism has become pointless (incorrectly) because of similar problems. The admiration for, and (pretended) use of, the work of people like Lacan, Derrida, etc is part of the problem.
I would say so. Dishonest academics are the reason why people like him are popular. It's same kind of dishonesty that most religious people have to maintain for their comforting beliefs to survive.
I don't feel bad for not getting it! There's plenty of other, actually difficult, rather than obscurantist, which I read and take pleasure in, and there many things that I recognise as being just too difficult for me, and don't really mind that.