A series of interviews with literary agents about their pastimes in the current edition of Poets & Writers has convinced me college educators have stuffed everyone's head with baloney.
I arrived at this conclusion when one of the agents, self-described as "passionate about creating spaces for those from historically marginalized communities," mentioned she was using her free time to ponder whether or not "to cling to one's own marginalization."
Another, self-described as "queer," said she was using her free time to study the "rise of the feminist anachronistic costume drama."
A third, self-described as an avid foodie, mentioned that she was using her free time to "exchange tweets with a BIPOC travel blogger" while she studied "decolonizing veganism."
WTF?
These are bright, educated, well versed people.
Why do they think and speak in these patently silly terms, leftover scraps from French philosopher Michel Foucault's lunch?
Teachers are to blame—and what conservatives call the "absence of intellectual pluralism" in colleges.
Teachers have allowed '70s-era jargon to substitute for thought, and identity for virtue.
Ask yourself: before you can "decolonize" veganism, you have to "colonize" it in the first place.
But how do you do that?
Do you sail a ship full of conquistadors to the New World and take over a vegan coop by storm? Do you loot and pillage the kale section and enslave all the stock boys? Do you seize all the kale, repackage it as Swanson's Cheesy Spinach, and ship it back to Spain? Do you cite divine rights to justify all this?
Possibly.
I had a logic teacher in college, a Brit, whose Cambridge training prohibited him from ever telling a student that his or her comment in class was inane.
He'd just listen politely, smile, and reply, "Possibly."
After a couple of weeks in his course, you understood he was saying, "That's utter nonsense!"
While I have nothing but admiration for queers, feminists, vegans, BIPOC, and literary agents, I cringe whenever I hear one of them say she wants to "decolonize" something or "open a space for the marginalized" (lest we be "uncritical" and "non-inclusive").
A voice inside me—with a British accent—says, "Possibly."
Because, no matter how thin you slice it, it’s still baloney.
