The Rundown with Levi Bryant

UPDATE: Please note that since this episode Levi and I have come to a mutual understanding. Part of the conflict here was due to both the awkward nature of online communication and inconsideration of the other on both our parts. - Dec 2011 -

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Ok, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with Levi Bryant? Can anyone tell me? Please. I can only assume that he has a personal dislike for my style or irreverence or my criticisms, or all of the above. First he implies that I'm a nut-whig hate-monster, and now he loses his toupee over some remarks I made in relation to a post by Chris Vitale at Networkologies?

I have got to say that I have read many of his posts and comments from way back and I have detected a constant theme with this guy: he overreacts a lot and assumes way too much about people – causing undue emotions and alienating many. It shows a lot about this guy’s character that he is willing to publicly tell people to ‘go fuck themselves’. If we're gonna call them as we see them, then I would suggest that there are as many bloggers who think Bryant is a douche-bag as there are those that worship him – I hope he understands this. And, for the record, I would never respond to such emotional nonsense if it wasn’t for the overt rudeness of Bryant's latest spasm.

The most recent example of Levi gone nuclear follows:

Vitale’s remarks mirror remarks I’ve seen addressed to OOO in other settings. “What does OOO have to say about race, class, and gender?” I confess that I find such questions a bit irritating, not because I think we shouldn’t be concerned with these things, but because I think they’re conflating different levels and areas of inquiry. We find a similar line of criticism over at Archive Fire, building on Vitale’s criticisms. Michael writes:

I want to briefly address his specific question with regards to ‘queering speculative realism’.

Overall, I believe we will begin to see a lot more diversity creep into the general thrust of Speculative Realism (SR) when it begins to get picked up by artists, radicals and other non-institutional intellectuals. That is to say, the issue of queering and engendering diversity is more a problem with institutionalized intellectuality as such than with SR specifically. Academia in general is still very much a white-boys club. The issues of privilege, access and univocally – and even aesthetic-ideological preference and distinctions – are deep class issues at the heart of Western society and deeply embedded within our institutional education systems. And I don’t think we can expect SR to diversify and become overtly political if it remains entangled in the academic/blogging/philosophy assemblage.

In less words, we can’t expect SR to treat the symptom without its adherents (for lack of a better word) first, or also attacking the root causes of a much larger dis-ease at the core of their disciplines. SR will simply perpetuate the problems existent within the institutions that SR thinkers and bloggers are entangled with. Again, diversity will come when SR is ‘contaminated’ from outside the academy and taken up by non-philosophical modes of intellectuality.

All I can do is sigh with respect to comments like these. On the one hand, we have Vitale suggesting that SR is heterosexist, masculinist, classist, and subtly racist because it hasn’t made issues of gender, sex, class, and race the central focus of its work, while on the other hand we have Michael suggesting that SR is an ivory tower discourse because it’s been developed by, well, philosophers.

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t read any mention of Bryant or Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) in any of my comments. Am I missing something? Let’s break it down slowly for Levi shall we? My comments brought up the following 3 claims:

1. As Speculative Realism (SR) develops and expands outside of institutional philosophy, as I hope it does, we would expect to see a lot more people of more diverse backgrounds, perspectives, ethnicities, genders and socioeconomic statuses become involved. 

2. That Universities at the higher levels, broadly, are populated and managed by white males of predominantly affluent backgrounds. And this pre-domination has very obvious effects on the ‘culture’ of high level academics. And because SR is currently perpetuated mostly by people who exist within the University setting it will necessarily reflect this “culture”. 

3. Therefore if SR is to become more diverse (see comment 1) it will have to move out of the blogosphere, beyond insider academic conferences (see comment 2) and into non-institutional settings.

Now, again, I detect no mention of Bryant or his sacred OOO in any of these points, let alone an attack on him as a person. My comments, if anything, were directed more at the academy than any particular ‘speculative realist’. Levi might consider himself the core proprietor and shinning start of SR but quite frankly, he is not. So what justification would he possibly have for feeling insulted and reacting with such public distain? Who knows - who cares?

But let me take each point separately.

First of all, #1 indicates a belief that as SR becomes engaged by people outside the academy it will diversify. That’s a fairly unobtrusive claim in my opinion. Basically all I’m saying here is that if SR is mainly a project of white male philosophers (and as far as I can tell it is) it will cease to be such when it starts to flourish among non-academics and intellectuals doing something other than philosophy. Again, pretty straight-forward, and undirected at any person or brand of ontology in particular.

My second point suggests that the top philosophy departments in the world are populated mostly by Caucasian males. Is this not true? Are there philosophy departments in the U.S, England, France, Germany, and Australia with tenured professors proportionately representing the world’s many gender and ethnic populations? What are the annual incomes of the parents of most philosophy grad students as compared to the rest of the population?

If #2 offends Bryant let me join him in being offended, but not because there was any suggestion that any of these white-males are bad people, or don’t deserve to be where they are, but because SOCIETY is such that diversity within elites academics seems to be severely lacking. And if Bryant wants to cry foul against me, perhaps he should get his highly inflated head out of his ass and take a stroll through Princeton, Oxford, Warwick, Dundee, etc. and look around. I know it is shocking for you to find this out Levi, but there are REAL class issues in the world.

And finally, #3 is an easy one. In order for SR to spread, it will have to “translate” its messages viz. a variety of mediums. This is a fairly innocuous suggestion. But somehow Bryant feels that is was a direct attack on him and his comrades? I just don’t get it.

NO WHERE do I blame Bryant or anyone else specifically for perpetuating racism or sexism or snobbery or academic conservatism!!! In fact, if Bryant actually took the time to inquire further or ask me to qualify my comments I would have said I believe that of the SR philosophers out there HE and Bogost (and perhaps Harman as well) are actually making some strong advances with brining SR thinking to the mainstream, through blogging and the like, whereas the other SR theorists seem to be disconnected entirely from the mainstream. But Bryant didn’t ask for clarification did he? He didn't open a dialogue or offer a counter-argument. He just launches into a hissy-fit about the glories of his own blogging efforts and OOO's supposed openness.

So, again, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? You’d think that a guy as prolific and intelligent as Bryant would have more control over his emotions and respect for divergent opinions.

But his tirade continues:

With respect to Michael’s remarks, I think this is more a personal issue for him (he’s hinted at such things quite a few times in discussions with him), rather than something that reflects reality.

First of all, I have had little “discussion” with Bryant at all. My few attempts at opening a dialogue with this guy have ended in his standard claims to be misunderstood or with non-responses. And secondly, I don’t think it’s just an issue with me, as Nietzsche, for example, and many other philosophers have had similar reservations about institutional philosophy.

Further, does he honestly believe that my appraisal of academia has no basis in reality? Wow. Ok. Refer to comments about large head in ass. He continues:

First, Michael should reflect that many of us enjoy relatively insignificant and marginalized positions within the academy. I, for example, am a professor at a two year school where I have neither graduate students nor students majoring in philosophy. I am not tenured but work on contract with the possibility of my position being terminated at any time for any reason. I teach only intro level courses.

The relevance of this comment escapes me. Once again, where in my comments did I say that he was a pampered rockstar? I only ever referred to demographic and class issues at the level of institutions – and the possible influences such issues might have on the future of SR generally (and not specifically OOO). I don’t give a rat's tail if he holds a chair in Continental Cow-Tipping at the prestigious Corporate Sponsor University, the institutions of which he is a part (however marginally so) are still what they are. But, again, in no way were my comments directed at the character (or lack thereof in Levi’s case) or the commitments of specific people.

Moreover, if Michael would actually bother to read my blog he would discover that one of its most long running themes is a critique of the academy.

It’s true, Levi does rail against academic machinations. Or at least he starts to, then removes his over-reactions hyperbolic rants later on. But, again, Bryant confuses my statements about academia and the potential structural limitations of SR broadly for an attack on him personally. All I can say at this point is that I hope his confusion lifts in the future.

Finally, if I find Michael’s remarks particularly egregious and insulting, then this is because OOO is among the most open philosophical movements that’s ever existed. On the one hand, OOO has generated a large inter-disciplinary interest from people both inside and outside the academy. Not only has OOO drawn interest from rhetoricians, anthropologists, media theorists, literary theorists, biologists, and even a handful of physicists, it has also drawn the interest of artists, activists, feminists, and so on.

Cool. I’m glad to hear that OOO is leading the charge! Sweet. But, wait… If Bryant is saying that OOO is now diversifying as it expands outside the academy and into different domains then isn’t he arguing my point for me? If OOO is going about initiating the kind of expansion and diversification I was advocated for then I will happily join Bryant in his acclaim. Where he seems to get his knickers in a knot, however, is where I seem to suggest that SPECULATIVE REALISM (not OOO per se) has yet to make substantial inroads into the mainstream. Again, if Levi wants to anoint himself as the crown prince of SR then so be it, but, from where I stand, OOO is only one subset of SR and therefore NOT the main focus of my original comments. (Not everything is about YOU Levi) Alas, it continues:

 Michael can go fuck himself with his suggestion that somehow we’re trapped within the ivory tower walls of the academy, ignoring anyone who is outside the academy or from another discipline. I, at least, interact with such people every day.

So, seeing as I have never once suggested that Bryant or anyone else is “trapped” within the ivory walls of the academy, or that SR individuals purposely ignore people from other disciplines, but instead simply commented on potential systemic level issues, it is now quite obvious that Bryant in not interested in dialogue at all, or even asking clarifying questions - but rather contents himself with picking public fights with strangers and slapping around straw-bloggers. Fantastic.

I’d love to get in a real debate, as opposed to a bitch-fest, someday about class and gender issues in philosophy and acadmia generally with Bryant, but I will assume that he is not interested. He has better fish to not fry.

Fortunately that kind of debate is left to Chris Vitale – who responded to Levi in detail here and here.

Instead, allow me to give Levi the last word on this matter, and let readers decide for themselves who is the more ‘combative and disdainful' among us:

Michael can go fuck himself…

Very classy indeed.