'Fat Studies' Go to College

[Lorizael]

I just don't get the obsession is all. Like I try to imagine what thoughts are going through your head and fail. "Man, I just can't STAND that some people are okay with being fat. How do I deal with this problem? Should I worry about my own problems and choices instead? No, that's obviously ridiculous. Clearly, the only solution is to ridicule others and make them feel bad about their lives, because that is scientifically proven to be the best way to make people think I'm right."

[giblets]

You're baffled that someone would talk about something that doesn't directly involve them?

[Proteus_MST]

"I tried to join a fat activist group, and I was rejected because I was not of size," she remembers. The movement was gaining momentum...

Heh.

Surely a lot of momentum due to the fact that it is a rather large mass movement

[Lorizael]

You're baffled that someone would talk about something that doesn't directly involve them?

No, I just don't get why you have such strong feelings about the subject. I mean, this isn't the first time you've posted about fat people being stupid. Did a fat guy rob you, like what happened with BK?

[Lorizael]

*fat guy in denial

[giblets]

Obviously it's unreasonable to talk about obesity when the US (and other English-speaking countries, and Mexico) have an obesity "epidemic". My bad. Let's all stick to talking about Ukraine or stupid Republican candidates who have no chance of getting nominated or whatever.

[Lorizael]

That gets back to you caring so much about this problem that you think the solution is mockery. Still doesn't make sense.

[Elok]

The problem as I see it is not that it's right or acceptable to mock fat people (mocking people for purely personal failings should be considered gauche regardless of one's politics), but that this is just the latest in a long line of politicized identities people have chosen to pick a fight over. Women's studies, black studies, and all the other thingummies have been around for decades, and I don't believe they've provided any meaningful benefit to women, blacks, etc. They give people a socially legitimate excuse for having chips on their shoulders, let parasites siphon funding away from legitimate academics so they can spew tendentious nonsense, and provide our country with a regular supply of college grads with no meaningful job skills. Talking about Derrida and the image of the fat booty as The Other will not actually improve anyone's life, health or happiness.

[loinburger]

Yeah, this seems more like the sort of thing to be handled by a therapist or support group or whatever, not by an academic

[Aeson]

College seems like a place a future therapist might find themselves.

[loinburger]

Granted, I just spent enough time around college to develop a minor to moderate bias against college

[Lorizael]

The problem as I see it is not that it's right or acceptable to mock fat people (mocking people for purely personal failings should be considered gauche regardless of one's politics), but that this is just the latest in a long line of politicized identities people have chosen to pick a fight over. Women's studies, black studies, and all the other thingummies have been around for decades, and I don't believe they've provided any meaningful benefit to women, blacks, etc. They give people a socially legitimate excuse for having chips on their shoulders, let parasites siphon funding away from legitimate academics so they can spew tendentious nonsense, and provide our country with a regular supply of college grads with no meaningful job skills. Talking about Derrida and the image of the fat booty as The Other will not actually improve anyone's life, health or happiness.

In two days I'll be picking classes for the spring semester, and whenever my eyes scan over a Women's Studies course or anything like that, it takes an effort to stop them from rolling. I get this attitude. There's no way I would waste my time in college with this stuff. But I recognize that others do, and as much as I might like to be able to dismiss the identities of others casually, I've come around to the idea that doing so doesn't really benefit me or anyone else. Expression is important, and the more ways we have of expressing ourselves, the better. If that means some people explore their identity through the lens of race, or gender, or body image, then so be it. That's not how I choose to express myself, but I get that my mode of expression is not the end all be all of expression (I don't wear fashionable clothes or makeup or jewelry or have piercings or tattoos, either, nor am I good at public speaking or sports or painting or... well... a lot of things, really).

Yeah, maybe we shouldn't waste money meant for an academic institution on this stuff, but there are also English degrees and MFAs and the like, which people also think are pretty useless, but I doubt most people think we shouldn't have them at all.

[giblets]

At least English departments don't exist for the purpose of promoting a particular political ideology.

[Lorizael]

Not aware of the Fat <--> ******* political spectrum.

[Elok]

At least English departments don't exist for the purpose of promoting a particular political ideology.

Nowadays, English departments exist to promote a variety of different political ideologies, most of them bat**** insane and leftist. PoMo has infiltrated all of the liberal arts. The best you can say for it is that they still feel a vague obligation to pretend it's still about Shakespeare or Hemingway or what-have-you.