Okay as much as I dunk on academia one thing I really need you all to take from me right now is this: you can read The Problematic Theory Book. you should, fundamentally, always, read the fucking source. You do not have to approach the source context-less, but you should be prepared to read it and make a genuine attempt to comprehend what the argument is without resorting to performatively dunking on it (yes, I get a bit silly with it when I liveblog, but I do actually do my best to understand what's being said. I don't like it when queer theory is bad? I thought it was supposed to help people). If you can't make a genuine effort to comprehend the text, then if the text truly has bad takes, you won't be able to adequately argue against why Thing Bad besides "well thing bad!!" you need to be able to construct a fucking argument. You need to be able to create a framework your worldview is built on. You need clarity of mind.
Another thing ALSO alongside this is sometimes you will read The Problematic Theory Book and you will see things that you agree with. You will see analysis in there that has potential. This is actually super normal and something people do in academia is that they identify these nuggets of Actually Good / Potential Filled Takes and they try to expand upon them. Salvaging the potential of Problematic Theory Book does not mean that you implicitly agree with Problematic Theory Book in its original entirety. It means you saw someone going somewhere, saw them swerve into a fucking tree, and went to yourself, "okay, well, they were on the highway before this, so let me try and see if I can steer the car in the right direction. Let me see if I can try and use the work they laid the foundations for and build something actually revolutionary upon it, or otherwise use it for my own, better, more intentionally progressive and inclusive theory."
Like, that's actually one thing that academia does that is good. you have to be in conversation with past work and you have to be able to see when an author was saying some shit that had potential, and identify where they fucked up and where they might've had something, and then build on it. you can't reinvent Ur-Theory from base principles in a vacuum and expect it to be good. you can't create theory that is Morally Pure Only Based On Works You've Deemed Morally Pure because that too is a vacuum, and at that point you're treating theory and like, science, as a fucking religion. It's not a religion. You are not going to go to hell if Judith Butler or Andrea Dworkin or bell hooks or Kimberlé Crenshaw, like, breathe on you the wrong way. You can read people who you fully disagree with, understand that at some points they may have been cooking, understand that at other points they were Absolutely Not Fucking Cooking, and try to see what you can take from their work and how you can create something that is NOT a recreation of the original fucking thing but, like, your own new thing that attempts to address real world issues. stop being afraid of The Big Evil Bad Book or suggesting that people shouldn't fucking read books. read the fucking book. engage. be an academic about it, goddamnit.
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