is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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a joke without a punch line.

exhibit 'A' in the case of "my occasional love of making jokes that are only for me": once, during my first year of teaching at john jay college, as i was giving a lecture on something or other in my "ethics and law" course, something malfunctioned with some sort of technology and as i was fixing it i said, "i am just a simple cave man. i fell into some ice and later got thawed out by your scientists. my primitive mind is confused and frightened by your technology," and then went on with my lecture. of course, i was referencing phil hartman's brilliant unfrozen caveman lawyer skits from SNL in the late 1980s. and most of my students at john jay were probably infants at the time, so there's no way anyone's going to get the reference. i've made that joke, or ones like it, many times in classroom situations. i'm guessing most students just file it under teacher-weirdness. but it sure did make me happy. anyway, surprise-surprise, after class that day one youngish guy, on his way out of class, said, "nice unfrozen caveman lawyer reference." ha! it is good to know that, though phil hartman is dead, long live phil hartman. i miss him.

there are many exhibits i could enter into evidence here, of humor that is only for me. but the second-most-often-used one is when i say something in a meeting or seminar like: "i have two points to make here: A)[insert content] and 2): [more stuff to say.]" for instance: "i have two points to make here: A) the temporality of the social contract is not a linear temporality. a state of nature isn't a past we once had and then left behind. it is a thought experiment validating a certain way of conceiving how to justify coercive law. and 2) because of that, it doesn't make sense to argue that international relations are a state of nature, unless you also want to admit that you are trying to justify treating international relations as if they placed no ethical demands on us. and even if that is what you want to argue, it is disingenuous to frame it as a question of the state of nature rather than international legal realism or realpolitik."

what's funny here is the use of a) and 2). anyone listening closely might think i absent-mindedly forgot what system of ordering i was using. and then they might feel superior to me. but my own secret joke will be to make fun of anyone who would feel superior for that reason. it's a strange kind of joke that never needs to be told, because i don't care if the person who feels superior ever knows that it is a joke. it's my own tiny academic theater of the absurd. it helps me counter the world-denying quasi-nihilist feeling i sometimes get when i'm in a room full of people talking about ideas but lacking perspective on the larger world.

i am not saying that every academic conversation is like that. but some are.

i am also not saying that every conversation, academic or other, that focuses only on ideas and leaves out the larger world for a space of time is a bad or world-denying or nihilist kind of thing. idealism has its place, and it is an important place, in the aspiration we all share (despite our many differences) to make the world into something better than what it now is.

but sometimes some styles of seriousness just are funny to me. i can't help it.

12:11 p.m. - August 23, 2009
tk - 2009-08-24 16:09:42
Ha! I do the same thing, but I use "1" and "B." I'm always strangely disappointed when no one comments on it.
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js - 2009-08-24 19:24:41
ha! we are HILARIOUS.
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