IVORY TOWER LAWS

(For a history of the term "Ivory Tower" see below)
You should know right away that this post has nothing to do with the many, current college crises and you will not find in it information about speech codes, administrative diktats and the other rules and regulations found on our increasingly censorious campuses. You will find instead some archaic and obscure laws that I found in my old promptuary; the kind of arcane stuff I promised, but have not yet delivered. The only reference that I found which relates to these laws says that they are “atrabilious” which means, ill-mannered, peevish, melancholy - there that should entice you to read on.

CRITICAL THEORY

I will not pretend to know much about literary theory, particularly critical theory, nor do I even know why I copied these laws down over 35 years ago. It certainly could not have been the title of the article that attracted me as you will see. I must have at least recognized them as satirical and some below (like #1 & #5 and, of course #35 - Berra’s Law) are accessible even to me. Apart from acknowledging the author’s sense of humour, one has to admire his prescience. Or perhaps her; I have not been able to identify Thersites Minor. Nor have I been able to find out much about the laws which seem not to have been widely shared. In any case, the humanities seem even more political and polemical these days and for that reason I present them here.

“How to Be a Newer Critic: Metonymic Mumblings or a Generative Lexicon of Apposite Apothegms”, Thersites Minor, Modern Language Notes, Vol. 94, No.5, Comparative Literature, 1979, pp..1188-1198.

The first paragraph sets the tone:

“CRITICAL GAMESMANSHIP: To write the NEWER or HIGHER

CRITICISM it is not so much a matter of pursuing an argument or

exploring a text as invoking the right WORDS. One's critical posture is

almost immediately revealed by the choice of sanctified words and familiar

constellations of phrases. Schools and charters of critical privilege are,

however, frequently dissolved or reorganized, so it is crucial that the as-

piring critic not be caught on the ledge of yesterday's discarded lexicon.

The following basic Do-It-Yourself Kit should suffice to get any newly

licensed critic into the game.

This one shows you that the tone is consistent and it even has Canadian content:

Franchising or the Critical Crock of Gold

Aspiring Newer Critics who do not have the time or energy to develop

their own systems should consider buying into the industry through a

franchising or licensee option. Menus tend to be limited in variety, but the

key to success lies in a careful analysis of the territory, recognition adver-

tising, and volume turn-over. Toronto marketers are still pushing Colonel

Northrop's Fryed Products….”

THE LAWS:

Laws without Order or the Methods of Our Madness

(Tractatus Heautontimoroumenos)  

Although Laws are obviously made to be evaded, the following minimal  collection of principles governing the critical jungle may be of some help to  the aspiring Newer Critic about to set off on the first safari:

1. FIRST  LAW OF RELATIVITY:  Earlier schools of criticism are trivial  (i.e., ridiculous); later schools are deliberately opaque  (i.e., infuriating).

2.  THE  AXIOM  OF  BEGINNINGS:  The  title of a critical essay must  never reveal the subject under discussion.

3.  PASCAL'S PRINCIPLE  OF EXPANSION:  Long essays are written by  critics who do not have time to write short ones.

4.  LAW OF CONSERVATION  OF ENNUI:  The  amount of boredom in  a system increases proportionately to the input of semicolons.

5.  THE  LINGUISTIC  LEMMA: Any critic with a foreign accent (spoken or written) has a  head  start; this lead  increases geometrically with multiple accents.

6.  THE  SECOND  LAW OF  HIGHER  CRITICISM:  Abstraction drives out application; examples are the stigmata of a trivial mind.

7.  MACKSEY'S  MORDANT  MAXIM:  Scientists aspire to write like critics; critics strive to write like scientists.

8.  THE  MAXIMAL  COROLLARY:  Formalization is the opium of the insecure.

9.  THE  PISGAH  PRINCIPLE:  Promise more in your footnotes than you can deliver in your text.

10. LACAN'S  DOUBLE  LEMMA:  Cover your traces; retrodict your references. The  less the reader sees, the more passionately he believes.

11.  MURPHY'S  QUASI-MAXIM:  The  critic might learn from the mathematician the value of the holes in the cheese, the substance of the line of thought to be painfully reconstructed from the relicts of what the critic deigns to print.

12. THE  OCCULT  RAZOR:  In the interpretation of literary texts the  most complex and cumbersome assumption is to be preferred; entities may be multiplied outrageously. (Cf. MESSERKLINGE'S  SECTION)

13. PNIN'S  PARADOX:  Teachers make the best critics, since they have long since stopped listening to themselves.

14.  HUMBERT'S  PARADIGM:  All autogenic criticism seeks either a point of departure (point de d~part) or a point of arrival (point d'arrivee); the trouble is usually in the middle (Mittelpunkt).

15. THE  CRUX  FIDELIS  GAMBIT:  If the textual crux does not exist, it is necessary for the critic to invent it.

16. THE  IRON  LAW OF META-COMMUNICATION:  Respect by fellow critics is in inverse ratio to comprehension.

17. THE  COMMUNICATION  COROLLARY:  Professional success is achieved when fellow critics are afraid to admit this.

18. THE  EXHAUSTION  THEOREM:  When a critical system can produce certifiable disciples, its day is over.

19. THE  EXHAUSTION  COROLLARY:  As soon as -ism is appended to the system, the game is out of the Big Leagues.

20.  THE  IMMUTABLE  LAW OF THE  MARKET  PLACE:  The last critical audience to decline is the export market.

21.  THE  CONGESTION  THEOREM:  Critical production rises in direct proportion to the formation of tenure committees.

22.  THE  TAXONOMIC  AXIOM:  The only safe prefix for a meta-critic  is post-.

23.  THE  PATTER  PRINCIPLE:  In a closed critical system, every critic tends to rise to the level of incomprehensibility.

24.  THE  MORTAL  MAXIM:  Nothing is more deadly to a critical career than too many ideas.

25. THE PLATO PRECEPT: Poets are an embarrassment to critics and

should be banished from the Republic.

26. THE BLOOM/HARTMAN COROLLARY: Failing this exclusion,

critics should pretend to be poets.

27. THE TRISTRAM SHANDY PRINCIPLE: Critics of genius contrive

to have the reader do the work of the author.

28. THE PIERRE MENARD SYNDROME: Careers have been made by

scrupulous repetition in implausible times and contexts.

29. THE MAFIOSO MAXIM: It is better to be attacked by an Insider

than to be praised by an Outsider.

30. THE LOUIS NAPOLEON PRINCIPLE: All great events in critical

history occur twice-first as outrage and second as textbooks. (Hegel

somewhere failed to describe this as the inevitable vector from seces-

sion to parody.)

31. THE EXCESSIVE THEOREM: Every major literary text is semper

ubique at least 85% smarter than its current critic; major critical

theories and methodological resources exist to protect the critic from

this reality.

32. THE OSCAR AMENDMENT: Are Hamlet's critics all made, or only

pretending to be so?

33. THE EPIMENIDES PARADOX: This text does not communicate.

34. THE CRITICAL INCOMPLETENESS THEOREM: All consistent

axiomatic formulations of critical theory (recursive interpretation

systems) include undecidable propositions; therefore, critical readings

are more often true than proved-and no fixed system of interpreta-

tion can adequately represent the complexity of the text interpreted.

35. BERRA'S LAW: You can observe a lot by just watching.

36. THE PRECEPT OF CRITICAL EXTREMITY: When all else fails,

read the text.

[In the next number of MLN there is a brief note indicating that Thersites was not pleased with the editorial abridgement of his article and two more laws are added].

SAYRE’S LAW

All of the above laws can be subsumed under this one. I am sure you will recognize it, although you may not have known the formal name.  The original version: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake." That is why academic politics are so bitter."

Or:

"Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low."

Source: For a history of the term "Ivory Tower" see: "The Ivory Tower: The History of a Figure of
Speech and its Cultural Uses," Steven Shapin, British Journal of the History of Science, Vol. 45, No.1, March 2012.

THE PTSD PANDEMIC

Trauma Inflation

The Present Intrudes Again

If you look at the portion of this blog that offers the rather flimsy rationale for its existence you will find that I said I would likely be writing about benignly boring events and uncontroversial subjects which occurred in the remote past. Now here I am again pontificating, this time about PTSD, a topic about which I know little, but which cannot these days be avoided. And again I will be taking a contrarian position which is unfortunate since the holder of such an unpopular view will seem to be devoid of any sympathy for the suffering. (At least, I am consistent; see my earlier post about Stress and the “Anxiety Industry).

One does not have to scan a wide variety of national or international sources to find evidence of trauma inflation. Local stories about the apparent rise in the incidence of PTSD among EMS workers, first responders and the police are increasing.  Even those less directly associated with a critical trauma incident can become a victim. A recent article focussed on the PTSD experienced by a juror who had to sit through a trial involving the kidnapping, rape and murder of a young child. “Symptoms have been debilitating, she says, including memory loss, bouts of extreme anger and a shopping addiction that drained her retirement savings and children’s education plans.” Perhaps it is a good thing that in Ontario, members of juries are not allowed to discuss the deliberations with others, thus possibly preventing the infectious spread of PTSD.

I am pleased to live in a compassionate society and in such a place one expects compensation as well as commiseration. As a result, a local hospital is doubling the size of its “operational stress injuries clinic” and the province is “dedicating money and resources to preventing and mitigating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in first responders.” Earlier this year (2016) the Ontario Government introduced Bill 163, Supporting Ontario’s First Responder’s Act (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder), 2016.  The Bill sets out proposed changes to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997 (“WSIA”) and the Ministry of Labour Act.

“The amendments to the WSIA cover a variety of first responder’s, including among others, firefighters, including volunteer firefighters and part time firefighters, fire investigators, paramedics, and police officers.  The amendments would create a presumption that a first responder who is diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder is eligible for WSIA benefits as if the PTSD was a personal injury.  For purposes of entitlement, the Bill removes the need to prove causation or a link to the workplace, and creates the presumption that the PTSD arose out of and in the course of the worker’s employment unless the contrary is shown by the employer.  Workers will not be entitled to benefits for PTSD arising out of an employer’s decisions or actions relating to the worker’s employment including a decision to change the work, the working conditions or to discipline or terminate the worker’s employment.” For now, at least, the last sentence seems to indicate that PTSD cannot be claimed if one is simply shouted at by a supervisor.

In the case of the traumatized juror, the jury is still out. Victims of violent crime are entitled to compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and in this instance the juror argues that she also is a victim of the crime. Her case will be considered soon by the Ontario Court of Appeal. Some fear that “compensating a juror would open the floodgates so anyone who sits through a extremely violent trial — judges, court staff, prosecutors, defence lawyers, police and journalists — will want compensation.”

There is some evidence from abroad that the floodgates already have been opened. A veteran BBC war reporter with some experience with circumstances we will simply describe here as ‘difficult’, reported on the expansion of PTSD claims among civilians who generally operated in more peaceful and serene environments. According to his report on the “Trauma Industry”, it is now worth 7 billion (pounds sterling). One person interviewed for the program indicated that he thought that PTSD was being over-diagnosed: “ Dr.James Thompson, a trauma psychologist, made the comments on BBC's Panorama programme investigating the growing army of sufferers. The programme claims that the NHS now treats an estimated 220,000 people a year suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder, a diagnosis once reserved for those coming back from war zones. The disorder is adding enormously to the burgeoning multibillion personal accident industry business, it said. Those being diagnosed include people who have had a minor traffic accident, bullying in the workplace, even in the schoolyard. In the programme, titled “The Trauma Industry,” Dr Thompson suggested it was part of the growing "victim culture"."And that is always attractive to all of us. Now you can teach yourself PTSD on the internet within five minutes." “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Has Become a "Fashionable Diagnosis" That is Far Too Liberally Diagnosed…”,  Richard Alleyne, The Telegraph, July 27, 2009.

Trivializing Trauma

There has been an increase in both the types of things classified as ‘traumatic’ and in the number of those individuals likely to experience them. A term originally applied to physical injuries is now applied to psychic ones and those affected include not only those who experienced the incident, or witnessed it, but even to those who have learned or heard about it. Perhaps it is the case that not every unfortunate episode is traumatic nor is everything that is horrible horrific. The merely distressing does not have to be totally debilitating. If one uses the term ‘traumatic’ to describe a bad day at the arcade, how does one describe a day in Aleppo?

Stoicism

Since you probably remain unconvinced by my argument, here is a piece by someone better credentialed than I and I encourage you to look at the full article:

“How we Became a Country Where Bad Hair Days and Campaign Signs Cause ‘Trauma’”, by Nick Haslam, Washington Post, August, 12, 2016. ( Haslam is a professor of psychology and head of the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne.)

“Trauma is being used to describe an increasingly wide array of events. By today’s standards, it can be caused by a micro-aggression, reading something offensive without a trigger warning or even watching upsetting news unfold on television. As one blogger wrote, “Trauma now seems to be pretty much anything that bothers anyone, in any way, ever.”

This is not a mere terminological fad. It reflects a steady expansion of the word’s meaning by psychiatrists and the culture at large. And its promiscuous use has worrying implications. When we describe misfortune, sadness or even pain as trauma, we redefine our experience. Using the word “trauma” turns every event into a catastrophe, leaving us helpless, broken and unable to move on.

All of this is problematic. The way we interpret an experience affects how we respond to it. Interpreting adversity as trauma makes it seem calamitous and likely to have lasting effects. When an affliction is seen as traumatic, it becomes something overwhelming — something that breaks us, that is likely to produce post-traumatic symptoms and that requires professional intervention. Research shows that people who tend to interpret negative events as catastrophic and long-lasting are more susceptible to post-traumatic reactions. Perceiving challenging life experiences as traumas may therefore increase our vulnerability to them.

Another fine invention of the ancient Greeks was stoicism. Contrary to popular opinion, the stoics did not think we should simply endure or brush off adversity. Rather, they believed that we should confront suffering with composure and rational judgment. We should all cultivate stoic wisdom to judge the difference between traumas that can break us apart and normal adversities that we can overcome.

Some Sources:
“Juror at Trial of Michael Rafferty, Found Guilty of Killing Tori Stafford, Suffering PTSD, Looking for Compensation,” Jane Sims, The London Free Press

Tuesday, October 18, 2016.
“London's Parkwood PTSD Clinic for Veterans, Soldiers, and RCMP Officers Expanding,” John Miner, The London Free Press, Friday, October 21, 2016.

When I poked around a little bit, I was surprised to learn that the founder of a major PTSD Association has London connections and she would certainly offer a rebuttal to this piece. For more see:“Struggling for a Way to Just Get Over It: After Witnessing a Horrific Car Crash, Ute Lawrence Couldn’t Find a Group to Help Her Recover from PTSD, So She Started Her Own,” Gerald Hannon, The Globe and Mail, Aug. 4, 2008. [The accident was indeed horrific - the fog crash on the 401 Sept. 3, 1999, 87 cars, 45 injured and 8 dead- and Ms Lawrence was in it.]

Ute Lawrence is the CEO and founder of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Association and has published The Power of Trauma.
(Since I have not ‘gone public’ with this blog she is unlikely to read this, nor is my son who is a first responder - nor for that matter is his mother, who is in the ‘industry’ and would surely be opposed to these opinions.)

See also this interesting article which shows how the definition of trauma has evolved: “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Put the War Behind Him. Why Can’t We?” Annals of Psychology and, "Getting Over It,” Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker, Nov. 8, 2004.

“Somehow in the intervening decades our understanding of what it means to experience a traumatic event has changed.”

Canadian Thanksgiving

Columbus Day

Those of you south of our border may not realize that we do have a Thanksgiving holiday up here. One of the many great things about it is that it frees us from having to mention “Columbus Day”, a term that now should not be used unless you are at an Italian event or attending a meeting of the Explorer’s Club. In many places Columbus is now regarded as one of an invasive species who should be exterminated.

Naturally, I choose to mention “Columbus Day” because of my contrarian nature, but also because I noticed an article about the subject and Brown University where it is now known as “Indigenous People’s Day." Apparently the students were happy to have the holiday, but uncomfortable about what they were celebrating. They have been calling it simply “Fall Weekend” since 2009. Variations of “Indigenous People’s Day” (and other phrases) are used throughout the country and the only argument left is about the apostrophe and where it should go in the word “People’s, or if it should be left out completely.

I had planned to go on, but won’t since I have been scooped again by Wikipedia which has a thorough entry about Columbus Day that even has sections discussing “Non-Observance” and “Opposition to Columbus Celebrations”. While you are visiting Wikipedia see also the entries for “Canadian Thanksgiving” and the one called “Christmas Controversy” which is useful in terms of thinking about the Columbus one. The article about Brown is here: “At Brown University, Columbus Day is Now Indigenous People’s Day,” Daniel Victor, NYT, Feb. 3, 2016.

Before I abandoned this project I did learn three things: 1) the dispute over “Columbus Day” is not new; 2) it was not always over “Indigenous People”, but sometimes about religion; and 3) I finally learned what the new meaning of “Appropriation” is all about (and this is not in Wikipedia). Here is the title of an article from 1917 along with the first paragraph which illustrates those three things: “Columbus Day Acts Protested,” Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 13, 1917:

“Appropriation of Boston’s annual observance of Columbus Day for sectarian rather than historical purposes was criticized today by citizens who objected to the dedication of Columbus Park, a public recreation ground on the South Boston Strandway, with a Roman Catholic mass celebrated by William Cardinal O’Connell.”

The protesters felt that, what were then regarded as the ‘achievements’ of Columbus should be celebrated because he was an Italian, not because he was a Catholic.

I did not check to see if the park has been re-named.