Commodified Intelligence

And naturally, as soon as I add two quasi-intellectual feeds to this page, I see this article on MetaFilter. Normally I'd let this article speak for itself, but I really think it bears reading--it says a lot about the way current-era readers, writers, and would-be intellectuals operate.

I know I've done this--I have things on my to-read shelf (PIMP PIMP) that are definitely there just as much to see what all the hype is about as to actually experience what those texts have to say. And certainly I didn't enter or exit grad school with any specific desire except to get more education and duck the vagaries of real life for a little longer. I want to believe I'm above this kind of behavior, but really I'm probably just as much in the gutter and happen to be looking at the stars.*

I do have to say though, the gratuitous Foucault reference takes a little of the stuffing out of Balgobin's argument.

*hat-tip to Oscar Wilde and the science teacher who put the quote on his blackboard