Caveat Lector

Why so defensive about something clearly tongue-in-cheek? Like anything else, there's decent cultural criticism - I'm rather fond of Will Self and John Lanchester, myself - and rubbish; similarly, intellectual discourse. And not all of those who criticise such discourse are ignorant of it, though we may not have 'earned' it at conferences. Some of us, in fact, can actually read - and do.

But guess what? According to your bio, you're searching for a new word for 'intellectual'. I'm sure you've read Lewis Hyde. In his Trickster Makes the World you'll find quite a few.

Feeling disgust and boredom at a lazy jab at cultural theory is hardly the same as being "defensive."

What really put me off was not so much the abject witlessness of it, proper, as Frank Wilson pushing it so hard at his blog -- calling it "important," with the implication, I guess, that this would blow the lid off poststructuralism. It does nothing of the sort. (It is a good test of something though, per the lines indicated in my post.)

I read Hyde's book when it came out, and reviewed it, but do not see the point of application here.

I don't know, Scott. Back when it debuted in 1996, it was damn funny and only dated by ten years. Now that it's twelve more years obsolete, I think it even more apropos.*

*Of the state of the field.**

**In 1986.