[PEN-L:6812] Re: Old "foggies"/"fogeys"

[knowware@xxxxxxxx (Tom Walker)]

To coin a term: is there a "heterodoxymoron"?

At 07:25 AM 5/14/99 -0700, pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>Michael Perelman wrote:
>
>>>In my department, the
>>>average tenure must be about 20 years.  We have no young people and we old
>>>foggies hang on.
>
>Michael Keaney wrote:
>
>>One possible advantage accruing from present circumstances - more an
>>unintended side effect - is that the so-called old fogeys preserve what
>>remains of heterodox teaching and research.
>
>On the other hand:
>
>"As with other marginal groups, a certain handful of [heterodox old fogeys]
>are accorded higher status that they may perform a species of cultural
>policing over the rest. . . Such exceptions are generally obliged to make
>ritual, and often comic, statements of deference to justify their elevation."
>
>I've paraphrased from Kate Millett's Sexual Politics (1969), substituting
>"heterodox old fogeys" for "women". By definition, a "heterodoxy" offers a
>critique of the arbitrary selection and privileging of some discourses
>(orthodoxy) over others. But no critical discourse has the right to exempt
>itself from its own critique. So we may suppose that certain heterodox
>positions are "more orthodox" -- that is to say, more _deferential_ to the
>orthodoxy -- than others. And, we might suppose that it is those "less
>hetero" heterodoxies that are allowed by the orthodox to represent
>heterodoxy. Thus the "advantage" of preserving an old fogey heterodoxy must
>not be assumed to accrue to heteroxy per se. Quite the contrary.
>
>But I'm sure my incessant carping on this theme is boring to those who would
>distinguish between "the informed critique" and my inchoate rage at the deep
>structures of oppression. Long live econometrics! Long live NAIRU! Long live
>tenure for a handful of well-behaved radicals!
>
>regards,
>
>Tom Walker
>http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm
>
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regards,

Tom Walker
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm