Enthusiasm-puncturing academics breed more grey vampires through belittled students
Evidence
But I see motivating students, passing on enthusiasm, as the first and most important task of a teacher. (Which isn’t to say that one has to blindly encourage everything a student says or writes; far from it.) That’s why I would say that one of the most despicable figures in the academic bestiary is the Troll-Master: the figure who feeds on the crushed enthusiasm of belittled students. The easiest way to win a cheap kind of respect is by adopting a nothing-can-impress-me hyper-critical stance, doused in cool weltweltschmerz, finding fault everywhere handing out praise and encouragement only very rarely; it’s a transparent tactic, but one that works surprisingly well, and not only on jejune students, but also on very accomplished people, even those who have written a number of books. … Often, the Troll-Master’s own intellectual project will be mediocre and/or suspended — it’s clear that all their libidinal energy is tied up in enslaving students into neurotic servitude. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2446
Categorization
- SEED: The Troll-Master archetype is a reusable figure for analysis of pedagogy and management culture’s depressive hazing of newcomers.
- XREF: connects to: Denying student experience provokes its aggressive assertion in class. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 175; Grey vampires feed on others’ enthusiasm while denying they are vampires — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2444; Studying as drudgery rather than adventure diminishes actual capacity (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Grey vampires pose as neutrality to avoid refutable claims
#expands(0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2447 - Studying as drudgery rather than adventure diminishes actual capacity
#expands(0.75)