P. J. O'Rourke excoriates a ludicrous press release by 103 Nobel laureates at the Atlantic Monthly online.
Such Nobel silliness reminds me of the indecipherable blather that frequently issues forth from the halls of academia, for example:
The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.
This prize-winning entry from the Philosophy and Literature Bad Writing Contest was written by Judith Butler, professor of rhetoric and comparative literature at none other than the University of California at Berkeley.
What Next? Good Writing Contest: If for some reason you actually know what professor Butler is saying, send me an e-mail entry with your plain English definition. The entrant with the clearest explanation will win a free copy of David McCullough's biography of John Adams (which I first mentioned yesterday). Rules: (1) I alone will judge all contest entries, and (2) my decision will be final. The deadline for entries is May 31st. Good luck!
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