Time for a Change

Shorter, Sharper...and maybe Snarkier

I posted my first Rant on Substack well over a year ago, on 24 February 2023.  (A date which will live in infamy?)  Since that first post, I’ve put up nearly 50 more.  Most of these have been involved pieces of analytical writing ranging from 3,000 to 4,000 words.  That’s a lot of analytic words.  I soon realized that churning out one of these Rants every week was a bit much.  So I went to a schedule of posting one every two weeks.  That helped—but it was still a lot, especially when I have other writing projects going at the same time.

So I’ve decided it’s time for a change.

I’ve always had this silly idea—probably stupid, really—that it would be possible to popularize serious cultural and critical theory.  That is, make these ideas accessible and exciting to the general reader and the wider public because the theories are so damn interesting and useful.

Yeah, I know.  Pipe dream.  This is, after all, America.  Land of the Consumer, Home of the Credit Card Debtor.

Except for you exceptionally intelligent, brilliant, engaged, marvelous, and thoroughly genius subscribers to Rant Against the Regime (yes, I’m looking at you), no one seems to give much of a shit about unpacking “our social moment.”  The phrase itself seems to baffle folk no end.

Oh, well.

The problem is that I am a professional academic by training and a believer in basic fairness by the nurture of the very nice parents I had.  This sad combination of circumstances has driven me—against all reason—to attempt my mad scheme of bringing Theory to the Masses!!!

And ye shall know Theory, and Theory shall make you free!

As an academic, I’m committed to the idea that opinions need to be grounded in real circumstances and therefore able to be defended in the Marketplace of Ideas.  That means you better have sound arguments and solid evidence to support your points of view.  If you don’t, well, you really should consider changing your opinions.

As a lifelong believer in basic fairness, when I see the absence of it, well, that pretty much drives me crazy.  Not that I’ve ever done enough about it.  Oh, I’ve driven myself crazy taking on any number of professional academic disputes during my career.  Contrary to popular belief, inside academia there’s a constant stream of basic unfairness taking place.  But I’ve yet to mount a police barricade waving a tattered flag reading Basic Fairness or Bust!

Who knows?  Maybe after the 2024 elections I’ll get my chance.

Basic Fairness or Bust! (no pun intended…)

In lieu of doing anything truly useful, then, what I’ve been doing is Ranting on Substack.  You know: CHANGING THE WORLD...

Mine is a noble and not entirely needless cause.  I’m sure you’ve noticed, too, that “our social moment” very much lacks reality-based opinions as well as basic fairness.  Not only are those items in short supply, but the few are under attack.

Of particular concern to me is how a certain political faction, who shall go nameless, is looking to ban from American education, pre-K through college, such notions as verifiable history, critical thinking, academic freedom, and the Marketplace of Ideas.  Well, as you can imagine, as a professional academic and basic fairness enthusiast, nothing pisses me off more than someone trying to dumb-down a classroom.

In this case, dumbed-down to the point where you’d be saving time and money by just giving your students a prefrontal lobotomy.

Yet herein lies the problem with my Substack: with my Rants I’ve been trying to fight this educational war.

That is to say, I’ve been writing my Rants as though they were a combination of my college classroom and pieces of bona fide academic argumentation.  They are neither.

Just as I constructed the daily sequence of my class lessons, I’ve presented to you a cumulative sequence of Rants—and expected you to follow them closely and remember, as we go, all the subject matter being presented.  Just as I go about my academic writing, I’ve been careful to provide in my Rants all the necessary ingredients of thesis-theory-evidence that go into making a viable argument.

I’ve done all this work out of respect for you, dear subscriber.  But I’ve also come to accept what I really knew all along.

Substack is the wrong place to be doing all these things.

As a reader, you likely come to Substack (as do I as a Substack reader) for a tasty tidbit of (how best to say this?) knowledge-entertainment.  And there is certainly nothing wrong with that.  Over my morning coffee I’m not looking for a sequential lecture series where I’m obliged to take notes.

So, no more.

From here on out my Rants will be shorter (under 1,000 words, say), more off-the-cuff, less fixated on explaining cultural theory, and—if all goes well—wry AF.

I won’t be abandoning the idea of explaining and applying a bit of cultural theory as I go.  But these posts will become less of a classroom discussion/academic essay into contemporary social structure and more of a jaunty outing into our social moment.

Something to make you say to yourself over your morning coffee: Wow, I never thought of it like that.

COMING IN TWO WEEKS: no clue yet...it will be a game-time decision

AND DON’T FORGET...

Read some provocative fiction.  Check out and subscribe to my other Substack newsletter, 2084 Quartet at:

While you’re at it, read some provocative social commentary.  Check out and subscribe to this absolute Substack gem as well: