A graduate student's life is a lonely one: the isolation of the library, the effort of writing seminar papers and sample chapters that may never see publication. We look forward to the heightened social interaction a professorship presumably entails.
It's quite terrifying, then, to read Gerald Graff's description of a professor's life as typically involving the same kind of "institutional boredom and loneliness" (Professing Literature, 1987). I'm compiling letters of recommendation and photocopying writing samples to attain that kind of life? Namely, more of the same?
For academics, the appeal of new online forums of communication, such as blogs and discussion groups, becomes obvious. You can drop your hyperscholarly, footnote-saturated demeanor and discuss real issues with your colleagues instead of exchanging slightly stiff "hellos" in an office or hallway.
Marshall McLuhan's work is often derided as hokum by people who see television as offering sheer diversion. Yet I've often thought that if one took Understanding Media and inserted some catchall term for "electronic communication" in every place where he mentions "television," his observations that new technology enables a sense of community would be quite relevant for today.
That, at least, was how I initially viewed my department's online discussion group for graduate students, which often doubled as a blog in that students made six- or seven-paragraph comments about various topics.
It seemed an ideal public sphere where you could discuss the current state of theory, departmental politics, or, one time, whether to join adjuncts on the campus in a strike. We had been notified about the two-day walkout by the adjuncts' union weeks before, but many of us had put off making a firm decision. At the 11th hour we received an e-mail message from our own union recommending that we support the strike.
A debate ensued on the discussion group, bringing us together in a virtual town hall. Was it a "good faith" strike, given that our contract prohibited sympathy strikes? Was it fair to students to cancel class on short notice? Most of the postings seemed to support the strike, although there were a few holdouts who argued that we should go ahead and teach our classes. One student remarked how heartening it was that a vigorous debate had avoided polarization.
Then, hours before the work action, a new post appeared, one markedly different in tone from the others. "I don't think we should worry too much about avoiding polarization," John declared in his post. "The fact is that we all have two choices, and we will be divided into two groups of people after next week. If we think that 'scab' is an ugly label, we should act in a way that makes that label inapplicable to us."
Hard words, indeed. Arguably a challenge, and if so, Hank took the bait. "I guess it's inevitable that at the 11th hour, some asshole makes an incendiary posting that completely negates the spirit of discussion and rational debate that preceded it," he began circumspectly, then wrote what he really thought. "I would suggest that there are two kinds of people, right now: those who have the talent and integrity to get and keep jobs as professors and lecturers, and those who somehow get admitted to a literature/writing department without being able to use a word like 'scab' correctly." Hank concluded that he had dealt with John's type before: "When the actual demonstration or meetings occur, you're a no-show."
Well, John's posting might not have been worthwhile, but Hank's displayed everything that can go wrong with blogs and online discussion groups -- like the way the medium can encourage hair-trigger responses, snap reactions, and fierce emotional outpourings. A sudden passion seizes the e-mailer, who can be confrontational in a way that a face-to-face interaction might discourage. A bookworm who spent high school running from the jocks can now, late in life, get macho.
A stunned silence reigned for about 20 minutes before a torrent of abuse rained down on Hank's head. He issued a sheepish apology an hour later, but the damage was done -- by John's post as well as by Hank's. "Scab." "No-show." Their words sent a clear message: Not only were there people in the department who didn't agree with you, but they were actively out to get you, at least by slander.
Our discussion group was no longer a safe place. That nascent fear was borne out in full a year later, when our department was interviewing candidates in two areas, Renaissance literature and 20th-century literature by minority authors. Marsha urged everyone to attend the job talks and voice an opinion about the hiring process. "You can have an influence on the hiring process, even if it's not your field," she wrote. She feared that a reactionary candidate would be hired for the Renaissance job, and warned us that the department's conservative professors might hijack the other search by hiring the "Clarence Thomas of Minority Lit."
Within 10 minutes of her message, Dave had pounced. It was hard enough being a specialist in minority literature, he wrote. "We don't need to be condescended to as well." He angrily questioned why a minority hire must always be associated with tokenism and incompetence. He was galled by Marsha's "unconscious (dare I say) racism."
Here we go again, I thought: We won't see the last of this for several hours. I was wrong. It would be days.
In a bizarre performance, Brian vaulted into the discussion to announce that Dave was "the boy who cried racism." Neither Dave nor Marsha wanted a reactionary hire, so what were they arguing about? "We are all on the same fuckin' side," Brian announced: "Diversity is good, hegemony is bad," and if Dave or his supporters felt like protesting, Brian admonished, "bite your tongue."
Now that's public consensus with a vengeance. (And a tire iron.) Students' network connections had been sparking, but the toss of that oil drum led to an all-out conflagration, bringing out people's worst sides.
Postings from what seemed like half the students in the department alternately demanded that Dave or Brian apologize, and those postings were themselves attacked as "bad faith." A South Asian woman told a Jewish man that he could have no conception of what racism was. The debate began to develop "threads" that had little to do with the original Clarence Thomas figure of speech: One student emphasized that no charge of racism had ever, in fact, been made -- Dave had attacked the way in which Marsha's rhetoric had been "interpellated" by racist discursive formations, not Marsha herself.
It was during the follow-up responses that the term "postmodern wanker" was first used, to be deployed by both factions in various ways over the next week.
"Am I the only who that has papers to write?" one post began plaintively.
Of course, one could say that that was precisely the point -- here was the essence of a tempest in a teapot, so much more fun than the laborious business of crafting seminar papers and dissertations.
But there was a serious side to the clash. There was the effect on personal relations, on what little camaraderie the department had. The flame war could affect people's careers, given that participants would one day sit on conference panels and search committees.
In fact, in a disturbing way, the conflict mirrored larger departmental politics. A few weeks before, our professors, who had been waging a civil war for several years, resolved to break into different departments. Rumor had it that the division was only superficially along ideological lines, that in the end it came down to incompatible egos and rival cliques. I felt that I had seen the same thing on the grad-student discussion group.
Hoping to find a natural expression of community and generosity online, I had instead lived through Lord of the Flies, with the depravity of the children mirroring that of the parents. All of this has obviously changed my view of the democratic potential of online discussion forums and blogs. While I'm not an out-and-out Hobbesian, I'm definitely more of a Federalist now.
Commenting on the way literary theorists have divided themselves into diverse groups that do not directly communicate with one another, Graff argues for teaching the conflicts instead of smothering them with bureaucratic routine. But perhaps there's something to be said for the routine.
Where online environments are concerned, we may not kill each other, but we'll probably end up suing. You can spend so much time drafting a criticism of a theoretical trend that you're bored with the essay by the time it appears in a peer-reviewed journal, but at least you've produced something more lasting than a blog-delivered, "You think you're so sympathetic to the oppressed, Dr. New Historicist, but when it comes to labor activism in the community, you're a no-show."
Wherever these new technologies take us, I've certainly started living by my own set of rules -- e.g., no postings unless it's for a summer sublet. Spending time on the Internet may well be an academic's version of watching too much of the boob tube, and I'm going to limit myself to one hour a day.
