Posts by Russell Brown
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I think sometimes academic cultural theorists don't go far enough to see their own tribes as a culture of their own.
Ya think?
;-)
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Oh, and the folks who upload stuff have kindly done me a separate edit of the Newsmash:
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theatre...
for god's sake.
You newspaper types just have no fortitude for theory.
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Or it could just be that Easton and Geering are well versed in theories that you find less threatening and more comfortable (ie *not* Derrida, etc.).
Ahem. Could I just say I found them more lucid, broad-minded and persuasive?
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For some reason when it's walking in and out "of shot" in that corridor is one of the funnier things I've seen for some time.
Yes, for some reason, that's the funniest part of the whole thing.
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The essay is entitled "A Short History of 'the New Zealand Intellectual'" and appears in the book Speaking Truth to Power, ed. Laurence Simmons (Auckland, AUP, 2007), pp.25-67.
The full title of the book is Speaking Truth to Power: Public Intellectuals Rethink New Zealand . I'm interested in the ground covered by Roger's essay, and had a crack at it from my untutored perspective in the introductory essay for Great New Zealand Argument . I actually quoted a lecture given by Roger that had quite an influence on my thinking.
'Tis true: New Zealanders have frequently been devoid of theory, frequently to the astonishment of visitors. It's still a problem.
But I preferred the interview section of the book: the likes of Brian Easton and Lloyd Geering, independent thinkers the both, provided wide-ranging and nuanced insights. By comparison, Simmons and Stephen Turner seemed stuck in a very fixed set of ideas (despite Turner's shock-and-awe prose). Derrida etcetera ...
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Yes, thanks. I must have had this conversation two hundred times in this country and it was never except in defence of the fact that theory has *some* merit. Wish it didn't have to be said, to be honest.
But the issue was the degree to which theory -- and a particular idea of theory -- should occupy vocational journalism training. Its merit there was presented as a given, and I didn't think that argument was good enough.
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It does strike me that many PoMo theorists talk about power and privilege in derogatory terms while demanding power and privilege for themselves. They will not even let authors speak for themselves; only the opinions of the theorists matter.
Thanks, that was what I was getting at. There's a tendency to regard the merits of theory as beyond debate.
My story: a while back, I helped organise a media conference, in conjunction with a sponsor and a tertiary institution.
The people we liaised with at the institution gossiped behind the sponsor's back, and when it came to their presentations, they did not deliver. One, a semiotician, had to be restrained from telling the same unhelpful "parable" in successive discussions, and the other clipped out all the advertisements from the morning paper, sellotaped them together and presented the result as if it were an actual argument.
Later, at a debrief with colleagues, they complained that there really should be another conference for theoreticians, because they had difficulty communicating with the practioners. (I should note that we'd brought some excellent practitioners into the country for the conference.)
As one of those colleagues observed to me later: "Were they really saying they can't communicate with the industry they're supposed to be training people for?"
By the same token, we also discovered how bloody hard it is to get working journalists to come in and discuss ideas. They represented a regrettably small proportion of delegates.
Guess I'm in trouble now too ...
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Hey, here's something fun and new to watch! Charlie Brooker, of Screenwipe and general awesomeness fame, has a new series, Newswipe. It's like Screenwipe but focuses on news media.
I have to say, it's got a way to go before it's as good as Screenwipe, but maybe it'll get there.
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I don't think I'm in the tribe of academics, or post-modernists, or Marxists. On the other hand, there's the tribe of journalists...
Guilty as charged, quite possibly. But, as explored in this week's Media7, it's the likes of Phil Kitchin and Nicky Hager we rely on to speak truth to power.
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