Dictionary of Received Ideas

The following text was written by McKenzie Wark, an Australian academic who had the following text for a while on his Macquarie University site. Both he and the original webpage are now gone as he has been working in the United States for the past 7 years. (For those interested in more information his current personal website is: http://www.ludiccrew.org/wark/)

In any case, we thought the text had continued relevance and is still likely to cause a chuckle or two...

The Dictionary of Recieved Ideas (Third Edition)
by McKenzie Wark

affirmative action: any practice whereby the underprivileged get into school through privileged treatment, which is disgraceful. As opposed to the practice whereby the privileged get in through privileged treatment, which apparently is not.

alterity: a bit of the other.

analytic philosophy: branch of the theory of knowledge that tries to achieve a consistent theory of thought by abolishing those aspects of thought that are inconsistent.

anthropology: tourism -- made tax deductible.

architecture: formerly modern, which everybody hated. Now postmodern, which nobody likes.

agency: term used in sociology for 'doing words' (i.e. verbs). As opposed to structures (i.e. nouns). Hence the structure-agency problem (i.e. the difficulty sociologists have stringing readable sentences together).

appropriation: (in art). Plagiarists who, knowing that they are bound to get caught nicking ideas from the small stock of art history they understand, own up to it in advance.

art: anything an artists says is art, is art.

artist: anyone who makes art as an artist.

art criticism: explaining why something is art because an artist made it, and why an artist is an artist because they make art. Not as easy as it looks.

author: dead, but still pocketing the royalties.

author-function: the pocketing of the royalties.

Bell curve: theory which scientifically proves that stupidity and moral turpitude in middle class white people can be caused by faulty genetics.

Benjamin, Walter: liked smoking hash and shopping.

Bennett, William: thought that America needed a Book of Virtues -- after serving in Republican cabinets.

Barthes, Roland: run over by a laundry van.

books: form of interior decoration used to line shelves in colourful patterns. Make sure you get ones the right size.

communicative action: the rather irritating person assigned to every class who won't shut up.

canon: books so famous no-one read them, and now obscure that Literature professors are paid to have read them.

conference: where some people go to give papers that have been competitively reviewed -- and other people go to score.

conservatives: intellectuals who defend a past they haven't mastered.

cultural literacy: knowing what books you should have read so that you don't have to.

culture: a good thing. Everybody should have at least one.

critical theory: the defence of left wing shibboleths by means of the proof that reality does not conform to them.

criticism: the production of books by means of books alone. Textual Onanism.

critics (cultural): go to work to watch television and go home to read books.

critics (literary): go to work to read books and go home to watch television.

cyberculture: the revenge of computer geeks -- that people who have a life now think geeks have more fun.

deconstruction: puns -- about puns.

democracy: used to mean a form of power where all the people rule through their political representatives. Now a form of power where some of the people rule through their sales representatives.

desire: found reading books, apparently.

difference: be in favour of it -- like everybody else.

discipline: the maintenance of a professional boundary defining the limits of whatever it is a group of academics are arguing about the definition of.

discourse: words.

discursive: more words.

discursivity: the wordiness of words.

economics: theorists who hold that the best way to allocate resources is to have a free market in everything, except economists.

ecriture: (from the French) writing which not even its author understands.

empirical evidence: gossip.

enlightenment: the irrational belief in the supreme and unchallengeable power of reason.

essentialism: no one is quite sure what, in essence, it is, but it makes an excellent insult.

eternal return: Brady Bunch reruns.

faculties: bunches of scholars quartered together because they have lost them.

feminism: more dignified term for nagging.

footnotes: a form of fetishism, involving the coveting of small, well crafted appendages. Common perversion amongst scholars.

Foucault, Michel: dead French leather queen.

Frankfurt school: thought that Benny Goodman signalled the end of civilisation as we know it.

free speech: be passionately for it, so long as it is used only by fellow conservatives.

Freud, Sigmund: took too much coke and had a very strange way of chatting up interesting women.

funding: the one constant in the universe according to all theories across the humanities is that while nobody can quite define what this substance is, there is always too great a quantity of it being given to someone else.

globalisation: scholars with frequent flyer programs.

graduate school: not so much being trained into how to do the job of an academic, as being trained out of ever holding any job at all.

Habermas, Jurgen: so firm a believer in "communicative action" that he writes at least five books a year.

history: Is traditionally divided into two periods: BT and AT, or Before Television and After Television.

humanities, the: indispensable. No one knows exactly to what.

identity: its not what you know; its who you are -- and once you know that, you no longer have the identity you thought you had, but at least you have a theory about it.

ideology: a delusion other people suffer from.

imperialism: the power maintained over poor countries by shooting at them with gunships. Made obsolete by power maintained over poor countries by lending them money.

Irigaray, Luce: wrote a feminist poetics based on lesbian sexuality. Much read by people who want to score with feminist philosophy students.

internet: a virtual tea-room.

intertextuality: see plagiarism.

irony: is the wetnurse of history.

Jameson, Fred: got lost in a Los Angeles hotel. Wrote a book about it.

jouissance: useful French term for adding a veneer of respectability to scholarly discussions of sex.

journalism: writing it is a good way to prevent colleagues from over-estimating your intelligence.

Lacan, Jacques: tied knots in bits of string.

Levi-Strauss: wrote the structuralist cookbook.

liberalism: (in the United States) term of abuse used by the right against the left. (In the UK and Australia) term of abuse used by the left against the right.

library: where books go to die.

logocentrism: talking too much.

literature: books that one absolutely must read for compelling reasons nobody can quite figure out other than that one absolutely must read them.

marginal: try to be marginal. If you are white, anglo-saxon and protestant, try at the very least to be gay.

markets: are always free. Except when they are there to exert market discipline.

methodology: pretending you know what you're doing.

modernism: old hat. Be against it.

multiculturalism: talk about how nice the food is.

neo-conservatives: conservatives volunteer theories that fit with rich people's self interest. Neo-conservatives are similar but demand to get paid. The latter are mostly proteges of the former.

Nietzsche, Fred: did philosophy with a hammer. A pioneer of mechanical engineering.

novels: pretend to have read them.

Oedipus: had a thing about his mother.

performance art: never work with children, animals or performance artists.

penis envy: the theory that women want what they haven't got because they haven't got what they want, and men want what they haven't got because they've got what they have.

philosophy: necessary qualification for taxi driving.

photocopying: ancient ritual practice, said to be descended from Tibetan prayer wheels, by which the wisdom of books can be magically transferred into one's head by exposing them, a page at a time, to the light.

political: the personal is the political. The political is also very personal -- be sure to gossip in the staff tea room about one's rivals.

political correctness: dignified bitching.

polysemy: something to do with having many meanings, only nobody is quite sure which meanings it means.

postcolonialism: a good way to get on in London, New York and Chicago if you are from the sticks.

postmodernism: more books about buildings and food.

post-history: nobody knows what happened because everybody watches too much television.

poststructuralism: marketing category for books that defy categories.

psychoanalysis: where nothing is true -- except the exaggerations.

queer: what people you meet at conferences calls themselves when they are not exactly straight, gay, lesbian or bisexual, but desperate.

queer theory: luscious bout of decadence designed to show that gay studies is a cabal run by a bunch of closet straights.

radicalism: the promotion of revolutionary agitation, become revolutionary agitation for promotion.

rationalism: the belief in reason.

reality: abolished by postmodernism. Ignore.

research assistance: photocopying.

Routledge: the Rupert Murdoch of the scholarly book trade.

scholarly journals: the ones where bad writing is dignified by being scrutinised closely, before being published, by at least three bad writers.

seduction: like desire, only less boring.

semiotics: linguists slumming.

simulacra: semiotics disappearing up its own orifi.

sociology: formerly fashionable discipline now noted, like most formerly fashionable disciplines, for its earnest hostility to fashions.

Spivak, Gayatri: opposes the colonial structure of discourse by enduring its benefits.

strategic essentialism: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

structure: any word in sociology that has solidified into jargon.

structuralism: one of those things which only ever existed in the first place so that it might be prefixed with a 'post'.

subject, the: use instead of 'person' - sounds less humanist.

supervisor: the staff member who is personally designated, on every occasion at which you need help with your thesis, to be out of town.

tenure: comes from ruminating on every inch of your field for so long and so well that they put you out to pasture.

text: say instead of book. Sounds more serious.

theory: used to find things in novels that aren't there.

thesis: instrument of torture so refined that the sufferer is obliged to torture themselves by making it.

think tank: a group of thinkers -- paid not to.

totalitarianism: theory held by conservatives which proves that the Soviet Union cannot collapse.

truth: its all relative, isn't it?

unconscious: that part of your brain that is secretly in love with Kramer from Seinfeld.

virtual reality: an afternoon class after a four vodka lunch.

What you need to know - your rights as a casual!

It's that time of the semester again when many casual and sessional academic staff ask us questions about their employment conditions. Most commonly the questions asked refer to what duties they can and cannot be expected to perform as part of their teaching hour payment and how marking payments should be worked out.

Unfortunately a great deal of variation exists in the practice between departments, let alone faculties. This results in some casual academics getting a better deal than others (actually more like the case of bad vs even worse!) To ensure that the NTEU can tackle some of this issues we need :

(a) your membership!
We have a hard time negotiating with the university on behalf of groups who are not our members.

(b) information!
We need you to tell us what is going on in your departments in regards to working conditions so we can work out ways of improving individual and collective situations of the casual workforce in the university.

(c) your participation!
We need casual workers to become active in the union in order be part of, as well as draw on, the strength of the collective which has helped us win better conditions in the past.

The following is an extract from the first issue of Connect, an NTEU Victorian Division publication for all casual and sessional staff.

Come in and get a copy of Connect at the Branch office or download a pdf version from the NTEU Victorian Division website


Letter of Appointment

All employees should receive a letter of appointment prior to commencement of work. Your letter of appointment must stipulate the type of employment (e.g. casual) and the terms of engagement in relation to:

• the duties required
• the number of hours required
• the rate of pay for each class of duty required
• a statement that any additional duties required during the semester will be paid for
  
• other main conditions of employment (including the identity of the employer, and the documentary, or other recorded source, from which such conditions derive)
• reporting relationships that apply

You must receive your letter of appointment before you start work.

Preparation, Marking, Consultation

The expectation in relation to preparation, marking and consultation should not extend beyond the number of hours assumed in the rates of pay. It is significant to note that teaching casuals are only required to undertake "reasonably contemporaneous" marking and student consultation. Hence, casual tutors or lecturers who mark exams and assignments due in the assessment periods should be paid seperately for these. Similarly, student consultation does not extend to an allocation of consultation time that is not reasonably contemporanoeus with the class. Sitting in on lectures, marking papers for other staff, and attending demonstrators' meetings are all activities you should be paid seperately for.

This issues of 'extra duties' associated with teaching is a common problem area for casual staff. Through getting involved in the union you can work together with other staff facing similar problems.

John Howard at the Pearly Gates

One day John Howard drops dead. (Stop cheering and read on.)

He arrives at the Pearly Gates, to be told by St Peter: "We seldom see a Liberal, so we're not sure what to do with you."

"No problem", says Howard. "Just let me in, I'm a good Christian."

But St Peter tells him it's not that simple. Under God's new HEAVEN CHOICES policy, Howard must spend one day in hell and one day in heaven before choosing where he'll live for eternity.

And with that, St Peter rings the bell, an elevator arrives, and down Howard goes, non-stop, to hell. However, when the doors open Howard finds himself on a lush golf course. The sun is shining, the day is perfect, and standing in front of a beautiful clubhouse is Bob Menzies, Billy McMahon, Billy Hughes, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Frank and Kerry Packer, Bob Askin, Bob Santamaria, and many more. They all run to hug him and talk about the old times they had getting rich. They play a round of golf, have a lot of laughs, dine in the club on lobster and champagne, and are having such a good time that, before Howard realises, it's time to go.

Back in heaven, St Peter takes him inside where, for 24 hours, Howard hangs out with a bunch of ordinary, good-natured people who enjoy each other's company, eat simply, talk about things other than money and treat each other
decently. Not a broken promise or short-arse joke among them, but what Howard notices most is that he doesn't see anybody he knows. The day over, Howard tells St Peter: "Heaven has been delightful but I really think I belong in hell with my friends."

So back into the elevator and down he goes, only this time when the doors open he's surrounded by endless scorched earth covered with smog and filth, while all his friends are chained together in rags and are filling black drums with toxic waste. The Devil appears.

"I don't understand," stammers Howard. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a clubhouse and I ate lobster and drank champagne with all my friends. We lazed around and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland and everybody is miserable!"

The Devil puts an arm around him, smiling, and says silkily: "Yesterday we were campaigning. Today you voted for us!"

Farewell to Karen

Last week with great sadness we farewelled Karen , an NTEU staff member who has helped a great number of members with their difficulties over the years.

Karen has taken up a secondment opportunity at the La Trobe branch for the next six months and we are all looking forward to having her back at the end of that time. We have received many lovely emails in the office from members talking about how much she is appreciated and how greatly she will be missed.

I can attest to the fact that it is impossible to go to lunch with Karen without at least 3 members coming up to Karen to thank her for helping them and to have a chat, and she always remembered everyone's name and circumstances and showed genuine interest in how they were going.

There will be many who will panic at the sight of Karen's empty desk, but we hope that this will be a temporary disaster. Flowers and chocolates can be directed to the La Trobe branch in case you want to help us persuade Karen that she really cannot live without the Monash members!