Adrian tells us to ‘hold [y]our fire’, but I think that the one negative post on crit-geog-forum was indicative of a much wider held belief. I do think some people find blogs threatening. There is an interesting analysis here (via here), especially about the question of exposure. This has also now been picked up by an academic ‘career coach’ (whose comment to my original blog post is worth reading) and blogging described as another way of extracting academic surplus-value.
The Brassier interview I linked to, and quoted from, has caused a bit of a stir. There are a couple of comments to the post which are in agreement. A few noticeable people have, perhaps wisely, chosen not to respond. But Eric Schliesser at APPS is critical, and Peter Gratton at Philosophy in a Time of Error more balanced. Peter’s comments pick up on the disparaging tone of Brassier’s remarks about grad students. They would have been offensive from anyone, but Brassier isn’t that far beyond that stage of his career himself.
The question to Brassier was probably provocative – ‘love affair’ – but imagine if he’d responded to say: “well, it was a conference or two, and we were doing different things so there wasn’t much of a movement. I have some serious disagreements with the others. It’s been developed by people since, especially online, but personally I’m not convinced blogs are great venues for philosophy”. Is it perhaps telling that Brassier, in an online interview, falls into the same kind of incendiary rhetoric that is often associated with email lists and, perhaps, blogs?
