My life, overanalyzed part II

Well, ash found the previous post tantillizingly fascinating - I'm not sure whether it was the original event, the completely silly raconteuring, or the implied critique of structuralsim that piqued her interest. So we'll deal with all three... kind of.

I'm not inclined to go into the gory details, but the original incident involved a decision made by the E-Board when I was president that left an impression of something shady going on behind the scenes - and in retrospect, I can see how what happened could leave that impression (all of which speaks to the importance of a well-defined process, open meetings, accountability, etc.). What happened after that, well, accusations were hurled, feelings were hurt, etc., etc., but the situation was resolved, (most) ruffled feathers were smoothed over, and I think most were happy with the outcome, including the acknowledgment that things could have been done differently. Sorry to be so obtuse about the facts (the readers who were involved in this little fracas will probably know what I'm talking about), but there's little to be gained rehashing the details on this here blog. Over e-mail or a phone call is a different story...

So basically, it was a bad political decision that got resolved rather amicably (at least for me), no harm done. This incident, however, was not an epic struggle between the forces of revolutionary labor against conservative anti-unionists bent on destroying our union. Nor was it a gang rumble between the GTFs of two academic departments (although West Side Story with this cast of characters would be pretty sweet). Some people thought what we did was unfair. I can see how they thought that. Was there some passive-aggressiveness going on? Sure. Did people get a little bent out of shape? Absolutely. Will future academics be combing through any paper trail and interviewing participants to shed light on this watershed moment in the class struggle? Hardly. Well, I hope not at least - if this was a watershed moment in the class struggle, I think it's pretty safe to say we're all fucked.

Which is all to say that when I heard this story recounted in this fashion, it sounded completely foreign to me. And even within a structuralist framework, it sounded completely off-base. And it got me to thinking that structuralism can't take into account the fact that sometimes people do stupid things, and other people have stupid responses to these stupid things, and that none of this stupidity is related in any way to the Grand Narrative of History - which some of my dear readers will deny even exists - and the forces which determine our lives.

And why bother retelling it this way? The academic "analysis" certainly doesn't add any understanding to what occurred. It doesn't even make for a good story. And while I would like to think that some of the things in which I've participated in my life are worthy of fitting within a structuralist narrative, this particular incident wasn't.

Well, that was quite a bit of navel-gazing for the evening. Everything's clear as mud now, right?