Slideshow for the nineteenth lecture in my summer course, English 10, "Introduction to Literary Studies: Deception, Dishonesty, Bullshit." http://patrickbrianmooney.nfshost.com/~patrick/ta/m15/

1. Lecture 19: NU MISH
BOOT ZUP KO
PATRICK MOONEY, M.A.
ENGLISH 10, SUMMER SESSION A
22 JULY 2015

2. Some
questions
about
Scocca
● What does Scocca mean by
“smarm”?
● italicized questions at
bottom of p. 4.: how are
they smarmy?
● What does Scocca mean by
“snark”?
● How are these two things
related?

3. Further questions
● What’s wrong with “positive-only” book
reviews? What do we expect from book
reviews?
● How does Scocca use the actual text of tweets
as evidence? How does this advance his
argument? (pp. 6-7)
● How were both participants in the 2012 election
“smarmy”? What effect does this have on
political debate? (pp. 9-10)
● How is the demand for “niceness” and “respect”
different from the search for actual truth?

4. “
”
Looking again at “Resolution
and Independence” ...
His words came feebly, from a feeble chest
Yet each in solemn order followed each,
With something of a lofty utterance drest;
Choice word, and measured phrase; above the reach
Of ordinary men; a stately speech!
Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use,
Religious men, who give to God and Man their dues.
(stanza XIV)

5. Result: caught in this quadruple system of
interpellation as subjects, of subjection to
the Subject, of universal recognition and
absolute guarantee, the subjects “work,” the
“work by themselves” in the vast majority of
cases, with the exception of the “bad
subjects” who on occasion provoke the
intervention of one of the detachments of
the (repressive) State apparatus. But the vast
majority of (good) subjects work all right “all
by themselves,” i.e. by ideology (whose
concrete forms are realized in the
Ideological State Apparatuses). (Althusser
1271)

6. Cui bonum?
But I was thinking of a plan
To die one’s whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen. (lines 17-20)
But I was thinking of a way
To feed oneself on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter. (lines 33-36)

7. I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai Bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health. (lines 57-64)