Pretentious! Moi?
I have to learn to write in words of one – um – syllable. I am too – er – pretentious. People keep telling me that. ‘OB,’ they say, looking all stern and disapproving (okay, mostly one syllable – anyway, I said I have to learn: I haven’t learned yet, I’m working on it) – looking all grim and censorious, ‘you are too pretentious. You use big words that you don’t know what they mean or that other people don’t know what they mean, and you only do it to be pretentious. You should be cool and ironic like us. We have 75 degrees and you have one, and that is why you are pretentious and we are cool and ironic. You see, people like you, who know nothing but wish they did, do not like it when people like us, who know everything, are cool and ironic about knowing everything. And that is not entirely a bad thing – it is mostly a bad thing, but not entirely. It is a little bit good that people like you who know nothing should go on thinking knowledge is a good thing, because that gives people like us something to be cool and ironic about. May I pat you on the head? Hold still – there. However, you are too pretentious. You don’t talk about pop culture enough. You don’t talk about how ironic you are enough. You don’t write a book every three months. All that adds up to a severe case of pretentiousness. You must do better.’
So I have to try to do better, you see. When people get all grim and censorious at me I take it for granted that there is something badly amiss with my behavior and way of thinking, and I resolve to improve – I mean fix it.
Actually I suppose the simplest way to do that would be to say the hell with all this and get a job cleaning toilets. Nobody ever tells janitors they’re pretentious (well, except other janitors).
No use looking to me for help, OB. I’m the sort of blighter who calls a spade a “gradient alteration device, iron, handle wooden, manually operable, other ranks, for the use of.”
Well as Dorothy Parker said in another (but similar) context, Elliott – come over here and sit by me then.
Pretentious gits gotta stick together.
I’m guessing those who get at you for being “pretentious” don’t have the foggiest what it means.
Oh, damn, maybe that was what your post was saying? I’m slow sometimes.
No, that’s not what my post was saying! Not slow at all.
No, my post was saying that it really gets up my nose when people with PhDs tell me I’m pretentious and elitist. Then when they condescend to me I get even more irritated.
Surely you kind of give up the right to accuse uneddicated people of being pretentious and elitist when you get a PhD – don’t you? Isn’t that a rule? If not it ought to be. Surely it’s just having it both ways to get the eddication yourself and then sneer at people who have amateur intellekshul interests. That’s how it seems to me, anyway.
Your work on this site alone probably constitutes more effort, research and output than most doctoral dissertations require, with the possible exception of those in hard sciences. It is clearly looked at and referenced more than any individual dissertation as well. You have had one hell of a long defense of it against a pretty rigorous body- and you are not doing it to get a degree, either, but for some sort of nefarious self-interested intellectual goal. Sounds like elitism to me!
Break out the pitchforks and torches! Which castle is hers again?
Plus, I recalled your magnificently argued opus on Wallification (or, Paranoia I), which will certainly garner you several honorary doctorates in time, you pretentious, er, git?
-MP
If they want their accusations to be taken seriously, perhaps they should criticize either the substance or the style of what you write and propose an alternative that your readers would prefer.
I don’t think they can do it, though.
Ophelia lacks irony? Sure, I believe that.
But the condescending anti-elitists are right about one thing: OB’s writing is bafflingly obscure. 90% of the time I haven’t got a clue what that crazy woman is talking about. I gather it’s some fashionable nonsense about “human rights” and how it’s wrong to murder women who want to walk about freely and think for themselves. C’mon, stop living in the 1970s, will ya? Get with the program. It’s the 21st century, for crying out loud!
Which are the hard sciences? I only ask, because I’m mid-way through my thesis and any excuse to throw it in and blog instead would definitely do me nicely.
Anyway, you can’t be pretentious if you use your words correctly, no? And you always (well, mostly, I’m not really checking so who knows) do, to a tee.
Good heavens, no, that’s not the standard. You’re pretentious just for using the words. Pretentious words like ‘situations.’ (Don’t ask me, I don’t get it myself.)
Exciting about honorary degree, MP – I think when it arrives (they send it UPS, right?) I’ll change my name to Dr Kissinger, or maybe Dr Johnson.
Seriously, Ophelia, who the hell called you pretentious? Was it anyone whose opinion on anything matters at all?
OB, don’t you *dare* quit!
OB: I’m sending you, gratis, one gross of 180-grit aluminum-oxide abrasive shop roll. Apply vigorously twice daily to limbs and torso. You really gotta toughen up that hide of yours, kiddo. Ain’t nuthin’ like a full-body callus. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and get back to beating the shit outta fundies and pomos, dammit!
I’m not quitting!
Gosh, Karl, thanks ever so, I do long for a lot of 180-grit aluminum-oxide abrasive shop roll. I do have a tough hide, in my way – that is, I can trample on dear little babies and darling little kittens without a second thought. But there are certain things that just get on my nerves.
But I’ve been busy, that’s all. Out most of the afternoon, and then slaving away at a TPM chore. Will resume cruelty to fundies soon.
So if your writing is fun and poignant, then what is is pretending to be?
Ummmmm – let’s see –
It’s pretending to be a Foucauldian analysis of an Althusserian examination of a Derridaesque interrogation of that key metanarrative of hegemonic Western technocratic positivist scientism Introduction to Chemical Engineering. That’s what.
But if that particular metanarrative is “key”, then aren’t you privileging it over others? Who’s to say which metanarrative is key? Aren’t the subaltern metanarratives ultimately subversive, just as the masochist is actually the one controlling the discourse within a sado-masochistic relationship? I ask you now!
I have my PhD diploma silk-screened on a wife-beater, and it really wows ’em at the roadhouse! Well, that and my tongue piercing…
:P
Speaking as somebody who is finally about to start his second PhD a week from tomorrow (naturally, I didn’t finish the first one!) … yes, you do give up the right to call someone else pretentious and elitist if you’ve a PhD. Then again, as a PhD you are one of God’s favoured creatures and really don’t need to care what the undissertated masses think of you. That’s what I’m looking forward to, anyway.
Here’s a properly unpretentious answer to the condemning crowd:
Get stuffed.
Tut, tut, OB. You forgot to disarticulate the patriarchal constraints of neo-liberal gendered discourse.
A couple of summers ago, a contributor to the city paper got raked over the coals by outraged letter-writers. His sin: he used the word “infelicitous,” which was, like, such a totally pretentious word to use, dude. Since then, I’ve made a point of incorporating “infelicitous” into the classroom whenever possible (e.g., “This is infelicitous phrasing”).
Damn, I always forget to disarticulate the patriarchal constraints of neo-liberal gendered discourse. Mind like a sieve.
Infelicitous is a terrific word. All those felix words are good. Absent thee from felicity awhile. (Actor joke: Felicity Awhile is Horatio’s girlfriend.) (Another actor joke: saying ‘Hamlet cast thy coloured nighty off.’ Especially saying it to the actor playing Gertrude just before curtain up.)