Pay attention. You will be tested.

The kind of organ which the telephone duplicates, replaces, or protects may itself be subject to multiple displacements (psychoanalysis has argued convincingly for the symbolic exchangeability of anus and ear, for instance).

When we are seeking the essence of “tree,” we have to beome aware that That which pervades every tree, as tree, is not itself a tree that can be encountered among all the other trees.

Ooh, wait, this one’s a doozy:

We ordinarily take “that which is” to be whatever is in being. For the “is” is asserted of what is in being. But now everything has turned about. Insight does not name any discerning examination [Einsicht] into what is in being that we conduct for ourselves; insight [Einblick] as in-flashing [Einblitz] is the disclosing coming-to-pass of the constellation of the turning within the coming to presence of Being itself, and that within the epoch of Enframing. That which is, is in no way that which is in being. For the “it is” and the “is” are accorded to what is in being only inasmuch as what is in being is appealed to in respect to its Being. In the “is,” “Being” is uttered: that which “is,” in the sense that it constitutes the Being of what is in being, is Being.

I don’t have time to go into it right now but sometime soon I’m going to write something good about grad school. The above doesn’t even slice the surface of the giant duality that is the simultaneous awe/appreciation and digust/rejection involved in approaching theoretical writing like this. Occasionally, I’ll read something and feel exalted, like I’ve just arrived at the precise point of what someone was trying to say. (The certainty floats away by my next regularly scheduled snack.) Other times I sit there, reading a sentence for the fifth time and trying not to count the number of times words like “epistemological,” “hermeneutical,” and “synecdoche” appear on a page. Then I wonder why it has to be that way when everyone knows there are easier ways to say things. Then I wonder if anyone I go to school with can tell that I still have no clue what hermeneutics are. It’s too late to ask! I’m too far gone.

Here’s a picture of a list James wrote out last year for some more loathsome examples of the “quota words” — things that people in class sprinkle into their comments as if they need to meet a I’m A Total Academic Bastard quota. With a lot of these clowns I actually wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t know what the words meant, either. At least I don’t say mine out loud. If you’re wondering, yes, that does say “Judith Butler,” and we never gave James enough credit for the hilarity of that.

If you look really hard and can read his loopy printing, you’ll also notice “hermeneutical” on there as well. It was so embarrassing — we were sitting around shouting out words to be included on the Do Not Say list (we’re really cool) and I had to just fake like I knew what it meant. You should have seen me. I probably did the overcompensatory “Oh, yeah, of course, hermeneutical…” face that just does not work on me at all. They all totally knew.

You’re still here? You should have realized you were being Punk’d like 500 words ago.