Lying to Ourselves: the Poignant Fallacies That Keep Us Going

Thinking about the ideological commitments of academia and its professionalized forms of self-deception as linguistic sleights of hand.

This post is actually meant to celebrate the thirst for ideology critique I see around me today: yes, we can pierce the veil of falsehoods, the improvised and opportunistic lies we have to accept. Yes, we can start in the every day language and practices of a profession alleged to be disinterested in anything but the “truth.”

In the history of academic essays, we have “deconstructed” and “subverted” so many institutions and binaries, it’s amazing that buildings are still standing and bridges still supporting the weight of transport vehicles. So many readings of popular texts from film to YouTube videos and Video Games have been so emancipatory that you have to wonder, why is there anyone who still feels oppressed by the work and time disciplines of the capitalist mode of production. I’ve listened to and read papers detailing the ways in which “casual” phone based games provide commuting workers with so much freedom, pleasure and autonomy, you’ve got to wonder why people are complaining about politics or the economy.

We have found so much “meaning” in exploitation genres that you would think we would have accepted meaningful exploitation of others and ourselves.

When talking about meaning, we’ve been unpacking so much of it, you would think the world would have no use of luggage.

We have embraced and spoken for marginalized communities so much that you would think either these communities have become so thoroughly centered as to have disappeared or so appreciative of our efforts that they would be attending academic conferences where they could finally see themselves as they are.

We have also “blurred” so many boundaries in our papers, books and articles, you have got to wonder why nation states and hierarchies exist at all. We have challenged so much normativity, you would think that we would have abolished heterosexual reproductive rites by now and the ever present family. Abolition hasn’t happened, but CIA has taken notice of the identities we have affirmed within the hothouse.

We’ve mobilized experimental and avant-garde temporalities, you would think everyone would love art and embrace it for its own sake. What’s wrong people? Why don’t you like fragmented, non-closure of narratives?

And yet, in the midst of all this twisty, turny, screwing with traditions we increasingly do not even understand, people are not rushing to read academic articles about how to decipher popular culture and their own enjoyment of it! The politics of the culture industry remain regressive and escapist. And why not? There is only so much of reality, normal or not that we can take.