from 21 Feb 2014

The "take down" and "righteous" blog posts in response to Kristof's piece have really made me think a lot less of the professoriate (or at least that part of it that is also in the online mix). I don't think the post hoc snarky line by line preaching to the choir genre is very becoming and I don't think it's a style of discourse/thinking that we should be modeling qua teachers. It reminds me of a rhetorical style I've seen in bullies

Self-satisfied, "hey, look, fans and friends, what I can do to this one," and again, and again.

Link-based pugilism. Interesting how often people mention a link without attempting a paraphrase so that the link is not so much a reference for a point made as a source for a point implied.