I’m reading the abstracts that Bob Lawson and Phil Magness helpfully compiled into their new volume, Neoliberal Abstracts. This volume brings together in one place the abstracts of 100 of the most unintentionally zany and moronic papers that are poorly costumed as “scholarship.” Each of these abstracts is to a paper by an author (or authors) who use(s) the term “neoliberal” (or any of its variations) to smear those of us who reject ‘progressive’ notions of identity politics, collectivist economics, class warfare, and all of the other uninformed presumptions and juvenile attitudes that today haunt too many halls of higher education.
Reading these abstracts – each of which is meant to be serious – provokes a mix of laughter and despair: Laughter at the inanity (often verging on insanity) of the self-anointed crusaders against “neoliberalism,” and despair that such people are employed as college professors.
One other impression warrants mention: None – and I mean none – of these anti-neoliberals writes intelligibly. It’s as if there’s a contest underway for who can mash together multiple syllables into the greatest number of made-up words that are then strung together into convoluted sentences that defy the understanding of anyone not completely tripped out on acid.
The “scholars” who wrote these papers and abstracts are self-parodying.
