From another list I frequent, by another poster (not me):

"""
I've done more than my fair share of time in academic philosophy
circles, and I've learned what an evil little phrase "check your
privilege" really is. It's shorthand for "I'm right (and am speaking
on behalf of <insert oppressed group>), you're wrong, that's settled
and now the only thing we can discuss is how wrong you are". It turns
conversation into lecture. It inevitably -- and subtly at first, for
those unfamiliar with it -- restructures all subsequent discourse to
the advantage of whoever first manages to utter it.

And that is, frankly, unproductive and unbecoming of civilized people
who are trying to talk meaningfully to each other. So let's check our
checking (not least because we are, all of us, educated people with
technical aptitude and internet access, and if we make a start of
trying to out-privilege-check each other we'll never make an end of
it).
"""

Time was, one couldn't do "anthropology of academia" without
it seeming a spoof, or a satire. Ethnography was about going
to far off lands and living among head shrinkers and cannibals.

Those days are over.

Awhile back in this archive I was posting about a trend in
anthropology. Embedding journalists in maybe caused them to
lose perspective (witness CNN), but anthropologists are trained
to handle immersion and are already hip to the mind control
techniques any community will bring to bear (might be a
nursery school).

http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2011/04/roller-coaster-at-reed.html

Wittgensteinian philosophy is proving helpful in all this, in that
he indeed helped turn the lens more directly on the philosopher
as a hub of language use. One may take more responsibility
for one's usage patterns, upon appreciating one's freedoms.
Perhaps this is a next step in becoming less unconscious,
on the heels of Freud. What you might expect out of liberal
Vienna, despite reactionaries and setbacks (e.g fascism and
imperialism).

Kirby

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