Ironic to start this thread considering that we’re going to have commencement this week at my uni… but I was recently at a fancy pants university giving a talk. At the end of the talk there was a Q&A/discussion bit, and one of the student commenters said something pithy… and then I heard a smattering of finger snaps.
What the hell? This isn’t a poetry reading! I understood that the snappers were affirming the speaker, but hell, a head nod, soft “uh-huhs,” or even saying “I agree with George” is light years better than the snapping stuff. It was a moment like in that Seinfeld when Elaine notices everyone is using cutlery to eat candy bars and she says, “what is wrong with you all?”
I thought it was pretentious as all get out.
Another affectation I’ve noticed is the phrase “check your privilege.” While I typically support any consideration of one’s privilege, it’s incredibly pretentious and annoying. It reeks of a “gotcha” phrase that’s designed as a dig or riposte, rather than an invitation to actually explore how privilege colors one’s understanding of the world. Some kid at Princeton wrote an essay that’s become the right’s rallying cry of late, and while I think he misses the point about maleness and Whiteness generally, I have some sympathy for what it must feel like to have some jackass utter that phrase.
For that, I recall Lawrence from Office Space’s response about what the response is to “got a case of the Mondays”:
“I believe you’d get your ass kicked.”
I’m sure there are many others - curious what other folks have heard in academic spaces, or in spaces otherwise trending toward pretension that grate like nails on a chalkboard…
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered the finger snapping except if someone is jokingly being sassy, and definitely not in an academic setting.
I guess it depends in what context “check your privilege” is being used. That Princeton guy is an idiot, but if someone responded “check your privilege” every time a white male spoke up about something, that would get old pretty fast. I believe that people should be aware of the advantages they just happened to be born with and realize that others may not have those, but on the other hand, it’s not like being born into certain circumstances is anything anyone can control.
My pet peeves: There’s actually a thread about this. People in academic positions with PhDs being addressed as doctor in social settings. I think in a university setting that may be ok, but I found it a little pretentious that my English teacher junior year of high school went by Doctor His Name. He was a great guy and all, but a lot of the teachers had done post grad work or were working on PhDs and it was no big deal- they went by Mr. and Ms.
And since you brought up Q&As, I guess this isn’t necessarily an academic thing, but it drives me nuts when every single person begins their question with “I love your work with [fill in the blank with whatever the person came here to talk about]” I saw this at a Q&A session for a web series. That’s great to compliment the director, but I think it’s a little silly for every person to tell him how much they love it before asking their question. Why else would you be here?? I don’t think people go to Q&As about shows that they hate.
Those who stratify presumed intelligence based on degrees earned, where from, and GPA, if known. Since one of the most intelligent, best educated, and flat out best human beings I’ve ever known had a high school diploma from a graduating class of 22, I’ve long known that degrees don’t mean much in terms of behaviors or knowledge. My father had a doctorate in electrical engineering, and had NO social skills and many prejudices, level of education being one of them. Being proud of his scientific abilities didn’t make me want to hang around him much.
I’ve no idea what the finger snapping is about. I went to one of those fancy pants universities, a very long time ago. We didn’t do that, then. Keep in mind, Nixon was president;)
Maybe better in the other thread, but I’ve posted this before: I had a freshman-year English professor who absolutely insisted on being called “Dr. Wassername.” The first time I visited her office, I saw her Ph.D. proudly framed on the wall… from one of those non-colleges where teachers spend about three months to get a barely-accredited degree to bump them on the salary steps. (Most have the grace to hide them in the drawer after that, but not her… I dropped her class the next week.)
She was also the one who went on and on about a person’s reading repertoire. Pronounced “repertory.”
My brother was a member of a college fraternity which I wont name whose members used snapping fingers as a show of respect or agreement. He used to do this at home as well, much to my annoyance. The finger snappers in the OP may be frat members.
I would not consider a high school classroom a social setting. Administrators who have a dubious Ed.d, are always referred to as “Dr.”; given that, I tend to feel that teachers with the Ph.d ought not to feel like that’s not a big deal. I did know a guy who put “M.Ed” after his name, which I found not so much pretentious as clueless: the fact that he thought it would inspire respect showed how unsophisticated he was.
The problem with the “Check your privilege” thing is that it shuts down the discussion by defining who is allowed to speak, and it’s designed to put the other person on the defensive.
To the bigger issue, I think it’s a double-edged sword. I have a student right now who is just brilliant, easily one of the most brilliant people I have ever met, and basically no one noticed because he worries about coming across as pretentious. What do you say when you are 17 and something genuinely reminds you of one of your favorite scenes in Gravity’s Rainbow? He got shut out of all the colleges that really would have loved to have him because he over corrected on his essays, a hold over from 12 years of trying not to look like a dick. So while pretension can certainly stop the discussion, fear of pretension can as well. I don’t know what the answer is to that.
I’ve encountered the finger snapping at a comics convention during a panel discussion. It didn’t bother me – I like how it signifies support, without being as disruptive as applause. With clapping, the speaker will have to stop until the noise dies down; with snapping, they can just smile and continue. In certain contexts, this is better than the interruption, even a supportive interruption.
How international was the audience at this university? I ask because in my own experience with speaking in different countries, I’ve noticed that “applause” can take different forms. In Germany, for instance, people tend to knock their knuckles on their desks instead of clapping their hands. When I’ve attended conferences in Germany with attendees from all over the world, frequently the audience will spontaneously move toward one type of applause or the other - everybody clapping or everybody knocking - without any spoken decision being made. It’s possible that this particular university had a small number of “snappers”, and the whole thing got taken up by the community without any kind of deliberate effort.
Part of me agrees with Kaio - it’s a pretty benign and low-key show of support. However, I tend to dislike shows of support during Q&A; it turns the process into a popularity contest. If there’s something I want to find out from the speaker, I’m going to ask the question whether you think it’s pithy or not.
When I was in grad school/post-doc, the affectation that grated me the most was when people name-dropped and did so in such a way as to imply that OF COURSE you know how important this person is. And if you don’t know, you’re embarrassingly lame…so don’t you dare ask the obvious question!!
I had teachers in elementary school, middle school, and high school who were called “Dr.” and I have no problem with this. If you do the work and earn the degree, then you earn the right to go by the title in a professional setting.
A subset of college students say that kind of thing. Or some variations of that theme like that your statement “reeks” with or is “dripping” with privilege and it’s become increasingly common among some areas of the web. The subset of college students I typically hear talking about privilege are those taking gender studies courses and it’s a word I see used a lot in online spaces with a heavy feminist presence.
Now I’m actually a big fan of privilege theory because I think it’s a useful lens through which we can examine race, gender, and class relationships within society. While W.E.B. Dubois didn’t coin the word privilege I think he was one of the first scholars to look at the advantages of being white rather than simply focusing on the disadvantages of being black. This idea was later refined and become known as white privilege back in the 60s or early 70s.
But privilege was never meant to be used as a club to batter your opponents with during discussion. When I hear someone say “check your privilege” what I’m hearing is “Neither your opinions or your input is welcome here.”
Sometimes. But in those cases telling someone to check their privilege is a piss poor way to talk to them about the subject. Especially since nobody is born knowing about privilege. Even people who went to a university may know nothing about privilege because a lot of classes simply don’t deal with the subject. Getting mad at someone who doesn’t know about privilege as an academic theory is demonstrating their own privilege blindness. And in my experience simply having a different opinion is enough for someone to tell you you’re dripping with privilege.
But there’s another reason privilege is being used so often beyond being bashing people you disagree with. It’s a great way to let everyone else know that you belong to the club. It’s a great way to broadcast that you are familiar with the language, cool, and therefore should be accepted.
While I agree being college educated will expose you to the term “privilege”, I believe most people acknowledge being: white, male, Christian, straight, and able-bodied makes life a whole lot easier.
It is however an excellent way to try to win a debate without actually having to present evidence or rebut arguments. For students between the ages of 18 and 25, winning the debate is often more important than actually exchanging ideas.
If you think the snapping is silly, just be glad you haven’t experienced a room full of jazz hands – it wouldn’t seem out of place in a megachurch full of writhing Jesuslove. And then right after that, people start going “bang bang bang bang” at you with their fingers indicating they want to directly respond to you. In leftist organizing, there’s an entire subculture of hand gestures that you’re supposed to use to indicate some sort of agreement, disagreement, or various levels of “I want to talk, but it can wait / should happen soon because it’s meant to clarify something / I MUST ADDRESS YOU NOW!!!”
They’re supposed to be less distracting and let the speaker keep on talking without interruption, but in actual use they’re obnoxious as hell, all the more so because they were designed to intentionally disrupt the speaker-audience hierarchy and make conversations more inclusive, but it just breeds chaos and silliness, IMO.
