It’s a busy sort of day, and I don’t think I’ll have time for a serious post.
I do want to remind folks of something: the fact that I am a college professor doesn’t mean I blog the same way I lecture. As an academic, I have a responsibility to be fair, to explore multiple points of view, and to ground what I say in verifiable evidence. But that obligation stops the moment I step off campus. I am not required to blog with the same scrupulousness with which I teach.
Yes, many of my students read this blog. But they are at least nascent adults, capable of distinguishing my in-class analyses from my personal pronouncements here. Do I have prejudices that bubble forth here? Sure. Look, in my classes I don’t take half an hour to wax eloquent about veganism and the sins of meat-eating. In my classes, I don’t suggest that most men who are drawn to much younger women are fundamentally fearful of being challenged by an actual equal. In my classes, I don’t talk much about my own colorful past.
I blog under my own name because I can’t think of a clever title for this blog. (The closest I came was “What Rough Beast”, but quoting any line from that most famous of Yeats poems is almost certainly a sign of excessive pretension, something I get accused of anyway.) Do I hope to influence a few people with my writing? Of course. Do I see my writing here as an extension of what I do in the classroom? Perhaps, but under radically different rules. Here, I can let down my guard, and abandon the strictures of dispassionate objectivity that are, frankly, often rather confining. Pasadena City College pays me to teach, I pay for this blog (and most of the posts I post are posted from my own personal computer, not from college equipment.) The rules are different.
So if you disagree with something I’m saying, say so civilly. But I am at a loss as to why some folks who seem to disagree with virtually everything I say and find me “narcissistic”, “repetitive” and “Puritanical” continue to come around and read and comment. Look, people, I’ve never understood the pleasure some seem to get from making themselves angry! Some of my commenters here remind me of a dear lefty friend of mine who listens to Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly every day, just for the pleasure of getting infuriated. To each his own, I suppose, but to me that’s an odd sort of thrill to seek. What joy is there in seeking out the annoying and the exasperating?
Is there a danger some of my students will conflate my blog persona with my classroom persona? Of course. Mind you, I’m not compartmentalizing. I don’t pretend to be something I’m not in either space. But navel-gazing on the part of a professor in the class is inappropriate; navel-gazing on a blog is acceptable and expected. What I write here, folks, is opinion — occasionally grounded in a stray fact or two, but for the most part rooted in my own melange of personal experience and spiritual faith.
In my teaching, I am committed to coherence and consistency; in my blogging, I am really committed only to the former. And sometimes, as regular readers have noticed, not even that.
It boggles the mind that a blogger should even have to write a disclaimer like this. It’s a blog, not a peer-review journal.
Yeah, I was waiting for you to give your personal opinion on the rape story, as pertaining to the Egyptians. Like, if I were in that situation, and saw my friend raping someone, what would (and should) I do? Then I remembered that you have to be more objective in the classroom. I’m just so used to reading your blog that sometimes it’s hard to shift gears.
“… nd find me “narcissistic”, “repetitive” and “Puritanical” …”
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I’m just curious, Hugo, but why do YOU think so many different people would say things like that? If they just don’t like you, why would so many different people focus in on the same thing (particularly “narcissistic”)?
Oh, because I do blog so much about myself — the blog is self-titled, I write a lot of “I” statements: “I feel”, “I believe”. And sure, like most of us I have a streak of narcissism (compounded with a mild case of exercise addiction and a fondness for fashion).
You have a lot of patience. I have noticed quite a few nasty trolls who do nothing but attack you viciously lately. Their intent, it seems, it to silence you rather than to debate you. I wonder if this blog entry is in part a response to the recent trolling.
I am sure you already know, but not all of your readers find you narcissistic, repetive or Puritanical.
Ive read this blog for many years now, and these things come and go. You get hit and run posts on every single blog I’ve ever been on. This is not limited to Feminist oriented blogs. These are the true trolls. Ignore them and they lose interest.
There are, however, other people that post regularly ( and have for years) that often disagree with the premises that Hugo makes, but more often they disagree with other posters and some of the rigid theory that many accept as “the truth”. Sometimes I think it does some good to discuss these absolute truths to see how “truthful” they actually are. That’s not trolling, it’s respectful debate and (egad!) discussion.
I guess it’s all about what Hugo is trying to achieve here. In the past he has been inclusive and allowed the pros and cons of Feminism ( and Men’s issues) to be debated, even in the midst of so much hand wringing about “trolls”. I, for one, hopes he can keep this dialog going. To me it makes much more interesting reading than the sympathetic back slapping I see elsewhere.
To answer your question Hugo, some of come back because we actually enjoy reading your blog and the perspective you present. Sorry… I know you probably hate that.. Maybe if you toned down the interesting stuff a little..