Academia makes me laugh

From an article questioning JL Austin's concept of language as performance:

"To begin with, while 'I dare you' ostensibly involves only a singular first and a singular second person, it effectually depends as well on the tacit requisition of a third person plural, a 'they' of witness - whether or not literally present. In daring you to perform some foolhardy act (or else expose yourself as, shall we say, a wuss, 'I' (hypothetical singular) necessarily invoke a consensus of the eyes of others. It is these eyes through which you risk being seen as a wuss; by the same token, it is as people who share with me a contempt for wussiness that these others are interpellated, with or without their consent, by the act I have peformed in daring you.

'Now, these people, supposing them real and present, may or may not in fact have any interest in sanctioning against wussiness. They might, indeed themselves be wussy and proud of it. They may wish to actively oppose a social order based on contempt for wussitude. They may simply, for one reason or another, not identify with my contempt for wusses. Alternatively they may be skeptical of my own standing in the ongoing war on wussiness..."

Parker, Andrew and Eve Kesofsky Sedgwick. Performativity and Performance. Routledge: New York.

I love academics like this. The same authors earlier expressed a subtle contempt for Derrida who I loathe. And at the same time mix in a touch of the "Meow" game from Supertroopers. I can't wait to be an academic when I grow up!

on Pandora: "Don't You Fall"- The Church