Theorists

Wow, on perusing the post below, I do go to college and ain't it obvious? The time when students are stimulated to put a padlock on their mouth and writing when realizing that someone's trying to help them climb up a giant. (In the sense that we suddenly realize that what we might write might be sophomoric, can't hope to be original, is merely us... the more we, as Faulkner says, "write write write, read read read"). Even that now I feel certain people, including myself, must shut up and not even make small chit chat about certain subjects (like personal philosophies, my pet peeve) unless they have a pHD. That's what it feels like. I have wanted to bone up on the greats, to devour them all, to "gird my loins," in my whole career at Sarah Lawrence College. I'm going to be a senior now.
The people in school, because it is such a crazy liberal one have been way against my 1950's history textbook reading, 101 mentality. Or at least, they have a different idea and I suspect think that my hungry ghost thing is stupid.
In college I also discovered academics with different opinions. Journal articles that sum up all the research that's been done before and variously dis it as stupid or inadequate or missing an avenue that the article will spend filling. Critics that denigrate maybe what I like or each other's work as vapid or missing something. At the core, I think, they think of themselves as people who make good judgment calls. And I've wanted to be that, to analytically piece something apart and realize why I'm the best judge. Or to be like Peter Abelard, the young academic whippersnapper who goes against all the other old opinions and proves they are right. Frequently these academics shift the perspective in a mind-boggling way. They make me realize something new, an alternative I've never seen before. And that's frightening. That's what a lot of revisionist historians, critics, theoreticians of race have done, pulled the ground from under us in a cocky, snobby way. A way that refuses to translate from ancient Greek and Latvian, sometimes (in the case of postcolonial theory) a way that fires off references we're supposed to know without explaining and simultaneously mind-fucking us, a way that sneers at the "undergraduate mentality" or "well, this is good enough for undergraduate students" in comparison to serious scholars. The word scholar, such a humbling one indicating continuing learning.
I'm afraid of these theorists who make the ground spin underneath me just when I thought I was getting it. Maybe they've been spoiled comparing too many greats or observing too much historical phenomena. But critics are mean. Telling us that, "No, you don't understand how things really are, they're much more complicated," and imply, "I understand, I'm right, let me show you, you dolt."
And us with our undergraduate papers, bumbling through various essays not quite at ease with casual academic talk and jargon. The best thing about honorable academic speak is at least it's trying to make things clear. Maybe underneath someone's reinterpretation of Henry James is a lot of heart.
But the thing is, I'm in no position to talk about this, I'm the worst procrastinator I know and barely read. Plus, the worst thing is to do some idiosyncrology (a term from the genius Hipster Handbook: http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/idio.html), or make fun defining generalizations about something you know nothing about. Something that less qualified Sarah Lawrence students than me do all the time.