• via Feminist Philosophers, social networking sites have passed porn as the top attraction on the internet (Reuters).
• Alex Reid searches the MLA job list and finds that more posts list “new media” and “digital” than “Shakespeare.” What does this mean for English departments and English majors?
• via the Blogora, Zizek’s The Audacity of Rhetoric. An excerpt (go read the whole thing; it’s short):
When Obama talks about the “audacity to hope,†about “a change we can believe in,†he is using a rhetoric of change that lacks specific content: To hope for what? To change what?
One should not blame Obama for his hypocrisy. Given the complex situation of the United States in today’s world, how far can a new president go in imposing actual change without triggering economic meltdown or political backlash?
But such a pessimistic view nonetheless falls short….
re: Zizek, I am reminded of an early comment made by a mid-level Bush staffer about the US as an empire, in the heady days of 2002-2003:
“When we act, we make our own reality.”
It’s one of those things that’s been roundly derided, but has a lot of truth to it. Sort of like Rumsfeld’s riff on knowns and unknowns. I mean, the Bush staffer may have missed the part about others being able to similarly act and create their own realities, but hey, they were at least partially right. Thanks for the link.