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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

I drank the critical theory koolaid.


For our last LHA1803Y class of the term, we had a potluck in the class. I had fun putting together drinks:

Positivist koolaid: your standard red koolaid. People will disagree what the red is supposed to be -- cherry? strawberry? "red"? You grew up with it and remember it nostalgically but don't really want to have some now that you've had more grown up drinks.

Postpositivist koolaid: it's the same red koolaid as the positivist koolaid, but your drink comes garnished with a lemon slice.

Critical theory koolaid: the praxis of the sweet-yet-sour lemonade of theory with the harsh reality of ginger ale. While some would point out this is not actually "koolaid", they're missing the point. Drinking it makes you feel a little better about yourself.

Postmodernist "koolaid": there is no such thing as "koolaid", nor the little umbrella that your drink is garnished with. After all, "koolaid" exists only through discourse and is socially constructed. A Foucaultian archaeological analysis indicates that the discourse originates through a combination of cranberry juice and tonic water, its bitterness a nod to Nietzsche -- and the fact that the drink is an acquired taste that is generally seen as unpalatable without gin.

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