i find it appalling that postmodernist jargon has so thoroughly penetrated academia.

[cimorene]

"the roots of the post-modern individual are portable, just like the phone, which embodies both the past and the future."

and

"...intensifies the use of the public space. mobile phones can thus be defined as an extension of the field of possibilities, a discharge of social relations and tensions, and an implosion of functionality."

...oh, dear.  it reminds me of teenyboppers at that age where they have just discovered the art of quoting movies, and then watched one (something really, really witty, probably involving amanda bynes), and they can't let ten seconds pass at the dinner table without reciting a line.

Comments

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. This is the kind of thing that causes me, when asked my opinion of lit theory in tutorial, to announce that I think it's "a giant wank session." (And there's one tutor who's gonna remember my name come exam time!)

Seriously, though: I read stuff like this and...well, first I laugh, but then I start clawing at the college walls, because the "real world" has got to be better than this...right?

Well, every summer job I've ever had says no, but it's easy to forget that during the school year. *sigh*

[cimness.livejournal.com]

yeah, in the real world, they don't have even the faintest idea what 'implosion' means.

but seriously, man, this isn't meant to be lit theory. this is SOCIOLOGY and the book is supposed to be his write-up of actual RESEARCH he did--interviews. you'd think there might be some actual statistics or data, wouldn't you? i mean, sociology--as i've had drummed into my head in the intro course--has historically-rooted traditions of claiming to be a hard science, and it's clung to that ambition very stubbornly. yet even though he asked the same questions of all these people he just can't bring himself to say anything that could actually tell us anything scientifically. he calls his approach "heuristic". omg ARGH. heuristics is supposed to apply to literary texts, not to REAL LIFE.

[claire.livejournal.com]

*cries*

But what does it mean?

[cimness.livejournal.com]

when you start to figure it out it just starts to hurt more.

but i still have no idea how a phone embodies the past. i don't WANT to know.