This Thing Is Finally Paying Off
Those of you who have ever talked to me - ever - know that I'm a gigantic Joss Whedon fan. And that' s not just because I'm physically huge - although I am 10 million feet tall - it's also because I think his television shows are the best television shows ever made. Those shows are Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. For those who feel the urge to make fun of me for liking a show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, please kill yourself. When organizations as different as
The American Prospect and
The Weekly Standard can get behind a show, somebody must be doing something right. Specifically, Joss Whedon must be making the best television in history. Also,
Thomas Hibbs , former chair of BC's philosophy department, and
and Daniel Drezner, over at the University of Chicago, agree with me. So there.
Which brings me to the point, or at least closer to the point. Buffy and Angel both had long, relatively happy multi-season runs. True, Angel was cut tragically short and I still cry about that sometimes, but things could have been worse. They were, in fact, worse for Firefly, which lasted less than a season. I could, and possibly will, go on at length about why this happened, how awful it was, how I still cry about it sometimes, etc. But because he's awesome like that, Whedon didn't let his baby die. After insane amounts of work, he convinced Universal Studios to take a risk and bankroll a big-screen version of Firefly. This is something that shouldn't have happened, but it did. The movie is called Serenity, and it comes out this Friday.
The problem is that it may be unmarketable. I just did my best to persuade you, and it took two paragraphs, and if you haven't seen the show, it still probably didn't work. So, Universal is trying out new ways of building buzz. One of those new ways involves giving away tickets to an early showing of the movie to bloggers across the country. When I found out about this, it took me a second to realize that, nominally at least, I'm a blogger. So I sent in a link to the blog, and either because we're inherently awesome or because I sent it in really early, we were chosen, and I now have two tickets to see the movie on Wednesday. So a review is coming. I might cry.
If your interest has been piqued, learn more about the movie here:http://www.serenitymovie.com.
Or read this synopsis and imagine how it can be crafted into a compelling existential examination of morality in a godless world, both maintaining and subverting its genre elements: Joss Whedon, the OscarR - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family -squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.
Hey I'm Posting
This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, by which I mean me posting again. Herewith, the final version of College Stupidheads. Hurrah!
At colleges across the country, this is the golden age of campus conservatism. Whether described by the painfully awkward nomenclature of “South Park Conservative” or the somehow worse “Hipublican,” conservative college students have significant voices in important debates at a wide swath of college campuses – but not, of course, at Columbia.
The conservative movement here is, simply put, a joke. And not a good joke, like the one about the Rabbi and the parrot; more like a bad joke about John Kerry’s flip-flopping that involves actual flip-flops. They have gimmicky “affirmative action” bake sales that generate far more rhetorical heat than light, while antagonizing everyone who isn’t Mr. Burns. Many students perceive the College Republicans as obsessed with Israel to the detriment of, well, everything that’s not Israel. The president of the Columbia College Conservative Club is an avowed fascist. The only way for conservatives to make themselves more marginal at Columbia would be to… I can’t actually think of a way conservatives could make themselves more marginal at Columbia.
Making fun of these poor souls may seem tantamount to laughing at that kid who ate worms in third grade, except for the prominence of conservatives at all those other schools. As an article in The New York Times recently pointed out, numerous polls demonstrate that overall student opinion on a variety of issues, including abortion, sex before marriage, taxation, and gun control, has shifted to the right in the past ten years, as students with sepia toned images of Reagan from their youth replaced those with jaded memories of the ineptitude of Ford and Carter. The terrorist attacks of September 11 pushed many students further to the right, or at least against radical anti-war groups. Although the ongoing collapse of the Bush administration’s project in Iraq may reverse this trend, for now the national political terrain still provides campus conservatives with a strong platform from which to make their case.
Various right-wing groups have also made special efforts to, in the proud tradition of McDonalds and Phillip-Morris, hook potential consumers while they’re young. Money from institutions like the Intercollegiate Studies Institute flows to conservative college organizations, creating the appearance of grassroots support among students. Some distribute handbooks with useful advice for conservative students about how to relate to the kids of today. This advice can often run perilously close to “Dressing like a douchebag with an ascot and affecting a British accent will make everyone hate you. Don’t make everyone hate you.” Seeking to capitalize on the stereotype of youthful rebelliousness, many have portrayed campuses as domains of liberal hegemony, making conservatism a logical alternative for students looking for a way to quixotically rebel against The (College) Man.
More than anything else, though, today’s college conservatives owe a debt to a book written more than 50 years ago. In God and Man at Yale, William F Buckley Jr adumbrated the basic framework college conservatives have used ever since to promote their cause. Buckley, then a recent Yale graduate, later went on to found the America’s foremost conservative journal of opinion, The National Review. In the process, he became one of, if not the, the most important journalists in America. But he first rose to fame by riding the coattails of his alma mater, if “riding the coattails” can be used to mean attack viciously in a best-selling book. God and Man At Yale, the aforementioned vicious attack, situated its critique firmly within the author’s broader conservative ideology, but focused primarily on Buckley’s college experience.
In his book, Buckley developed a radically conservative critique of the academy with an intellectual rigor and stylish (if pompous) flair that puts today’s college conservatives to head-hanging shame. He rested his book on an attack of academic freedom, a trope just as sacred to academics of Buckley’s day as to ours. In the face of this overwhelming opposition, Buckley claimed that academic freedom has “never been practiced, and in fact, can never and ought never to be practiced.” Whether universities admit it or not, Buckley charged, they create cultures that limit the bounds of acceptable discussion. While his individual criticisms – such as when he defines socialists as those who support welfare programs, the inheritance tax, the income tax, and deficit spending – have not worn particularly well, but his analysis of academic freedom’s limits has.
At Columbia, the boundaries created by our culture leave conservatives somewhere in Siberia. When Ann Coulter came to campus following the 2000 election, activists shouted at her while she tried to speak, forcing her to leave. Learning from this, Columbia’s conservative organizations have since tried to bring prominent speakers like Ken Starr to campus under a veil of secrecy, so that they can actually here what the speaker says. Even apathetic students often mock them with juvenile attacks, like comparing them to “that kid who ate worms in third grade.”
In the face of this opposition, the willful marginalization of conservatives makes sense. It takes a kind of craziness to continually oppose such an overwhelming consensus. But, others have demonstrated that kind of craziness before. The implicit message of Buckley’s book should remind today’s conservatives that even if they may never win an argument, by boldly and intelligently making their case on issues crucial to college students actual lives, they can win themselves a stall in the marketplace of ideas. For all its impracticability, if the noble ideals behind academic freedom – namely, the importance of free speech – have any value, even those of us who don’t support their cause should wish them luck.
Awwwww, thanks Jim
Wait, what was that about 9/11?
College Stupidheads
the first part of my ass-kicking of college republicans:
At colleges across the country, it is the golden age of campus conservatism. Whether described by the painfully awkward nomenclature of “South Park Conservative” or the somehow worse “Hipublican,” conservative college students have significant voices in important debates at a wide swath of college campuses – but not, of course, at Columbia.
The conservative movement here is, simply put, a joke. And not a good joke, like the one about the Rabbi and the parrot; more like a bad joke about John Kerry’s flip-flopping that involves actual flip-flops. They have gimmicky “affirmative action” bake sales that generate far more rhetorical heat than light, while antagonizing every non-upper-middle-class white male within shouting distance. Many students see the College Republicans as obsessed with Israel to the detriment of, well, everything that’s not Israel. The president of the Columbia College Conservative Club is an avowed fascist. The only way for conservatives to make themselves more marginal at Columbia would be to… I can’t actually think of a way conservatives could make themselves more marginal at Columbia.
Making fun of these poor souls may seem tantamount to laughing at that kid who ate worms in third grade, except for the prominence of conservatives at all those other schools. Numerous polls demonstrate that overall student opinion on a variety of issues, including abortion, sex before marriage, taxation, and gun control, has shifted to the right in the past ten years, as students with sepia toned images of Reagan from their youth replaced those with jaded memories of the ineptitude of Ford and Carter. The terrorist attacks of September 11 pushed many students further to the right, or at least against radical anti-war groups. Although the ongoing collapse of the Bush administration’s project in Iraq may reverse this trend, for now the national political terrain still provides campus conservatives with a strong platform from which to make their case.
Various right-wing groups have also made special efforts to, in the proud tradition of McDonalds and Phillip-Morris, hook potential consumers while they’re young. Money from institutions like the Intercollegiate Studies Institute flows to conservative college organizations, creating the appearance of grassroots support among students. Some distribute handbooks with useful advice about how to relate to the kids of today. This advice can often run perilously close to “Dressing like a douchebag with an ascot and affecting a British accent will make everyone hate you. Don’t do that.” Seeking to capitalize on the stereotype of youthful rebelliousness, many have portrayed campuses as domains of liberal hegemony, making conservatism a logical alternative for students looking for a way to quixotically rebel against The (College) Man.
Victory Lap
But before I do that, a brief recap of how Hungry has already changed the world for the better.
Thursday, August 30 - Hungry:
"Because, despite his undeniably massive accomplishments, Sachs does not teach undergraduates in the strictest sense of the word. In fact, he doesn’t teach undergraduates in any sense of the word, unless one takes teach to mean “give occasional lectures open to the Columbia community which undergraduates may attend if they find out about them in time.” Since coming to Columbia, Sachs hasn’t taught one course available to a broad array of undergraduates...Jeffrey Sachs really has done many, many good things in his life. It’s too bad that teaching undergraduates at Columbia hasn’t been one of them."
Friday, August 31st - e-mail to Columbia students:
SDEV W3300x The challenge of Sustainable Development; 3 pts;
"Instructor: Jeffrey Sachs. Lecture and discussion. An introduction to the interdisciplinary field of sustainable development, drawing on the most recent developments in social and physical sciences. Describes the interactions between physical ecology and economic development and stresses the ways in which they impact each other. Aims to provide students with an understanding of the ecological bases of human settlement and economic development."
Sadly, the class is scheduled for M-W-F at 8:45-10:00 AM. Still, for any who doubted, there is now definitive proof that this blog controls the future. Also, I own Jeffrey Sachs like a motherfucker, which means I own him a lot.
Also, I'd like to announce that it's a real shame that nobody has yet given me my own island as a present. And that my birthday is on September 10th.
So Very Tired
For me at least, these next couple of days will be not-un-so-busy-I'll-want-to-kill-myself-and-,-let's-be-honest-here-,-probably-others. Ahh, some gags never get old. Anyway, my blogging will be more sporadic for the next few days, but after that it will return stronger and more protein filled than ever. Also, no carbs, unless carbs are good now, in which case, there will be lots of carbs. Anyway, to tide you guys over, here are three possibilities for future bloggery, at least two of which will happen:
Tim vs The Lameness of Columbai College Conservatives (I lied about getting my column stuff done this week. But it will be over soon. I promise.)
Tim vs God (Since at least one of us doesn't exist, the fight should be pretty awesome.)
Buried Treasure (Who will find it? PERHAPS YOU!)
More Columbia Stuff
Because I'm thinking out loud for my column next semester, and by Saturday-ish I should be done, so shut up. Also...
Last summer, I was punched in the face for the first time, and I didn’t see it coming. Granted, the punch came from a fourteen year old who couldn’t have topped 5 and a half feet, so it was under the range of my vision. Luckily, the punch had strength proportionate to the kid’s height, so my pride suffered the most damage. That’s the good part about getting punched by a fourteen-year-old kid.
The bad part, of course, comes from having a fourteen-year-old kid want to punch you at all. Around ten o’clock at night, I was sitting around the sundial across from Low Library with three other Columbia students. Since I’m a gigantic nerd, I was in the middle of a conversation about different professors at Columbia and their work on race as a social construct. About five teenagers – one of whom would punch me in the face in a few minutes – came up to us while we were talking and began shouting obscenities at us. As anyone who has ever come into contact with one first hand can attest, the teenage boy may very well be the most obnoxious creature in the world, and these boys were living up to that reputation. They harassed all of us, but the one girl in our group received the brunt of their attention and comments, none of which I feel comfortable repeating in something my Mom could read. (On a related note, hi Mom!)
Assuming that they would go away if we ignored them long enough, we tried to act as if nothing had changed. Instead, the kids’ yells became louder and more aggressive. Eventually, one of us stood up to ask them to go. He became the center of attention, with all the kids circling around him. Even though I’m a pitiful weakling, the kid’s were too, so I got up to provide support. That’s when one of them punched me. He did it again, and again, and again. It didn’t hurt, I didn’t want to punch back, and I didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t do anything except look at the kid and see how much he hated me. Seeing that neither of us would respond, all of the kids left. None of this made for a particularly pleasant evening. This is what made a bad situation truly painful: all of the kids, but none of the Columbia students, were African American.
Being a stereotypical Ivy League, wannabe professor-in-training, the day after the confrontation, I walked to Labyrinth and went to the Cornel West entry in the African-American Studies section. West, formerly of Princeton, then Harvard, then Princeton again, although very controversial, is probably the most prominent African-American scholar in America today. In one of his books, Race Matters, I found what I was looking for – an explanation for why a fourteen year old would want to punch me, even before I had a chance to be a jerk to him.
West asserts that a kind of nihilism, although not one Nietzsche may have immediately recognized, dominates the lives of urban African-American poor. Although nihilism has always been a threat, West argues that, for a variety of reasons, it has gained a particular power in the last thirty years. In a telling example, he notes that whereas before the 1970s African Americans had the lowest suicide rate in America, in the past thirty years suicide among young African Americans has increased more than any other group. West attributes this to “a profound sense of psychological depression, personal worthlessness, and social despair,” which characterize a nihilism that comes from “the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelesness.” This “breeds a coldhearted, mean-spirited outlook that destroys both the individual and others.” And leads to me getting punched in the face. More importantly, it could lead to the same thing happening to Columbia, at least metaphorically, in the near future.
The kids who came up to us were almost certainly from Morningside Heights, also known as the area that Columbia wants to take over so that it can build labs to study slime molds or something. If West is right and his understanding of nihilism is now the dominant attitude of African American urban life, then expansion may be even more difficult than Columbia has anticipated. Convincing people to leave their homes is difficult; convincing them to overcome an overpowering, nihilistic rage so that financial discussions can even began is probably harder. And my finely honed intuition tells me that Lee Bollinger and Robert Kasdan, the man in charge of the expansion project, have more experience with the former than the latter.
Even if Columbia convinces the government to use eminent domain to seize private property, widespread nihilism could make their victory pyrrhic. The next time racial tensions climb to a fevered pitch in New York, Columbia could very likely become target. Nobody can predict what people who continue to live mostly out of habit would do in a situation like that, but the results could be a lot worse than a punch in the face.
