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On what “burn it all down” really means, where it comes from, and why the predominant reactions to Sarah Bond’s original tweet from academics are willfully ignorant and reactionary. Thread.
Talk of “burning it all down” is not new nor aimed at nihilism. It's a standard phrase in abolitionist scholarship, aimed at dismantling structures that at best treat decolonization as an intellectual debate, and at worst enact state-sanctioned death.
In academia, I, like Sarah Bond, take “burning it all down” thus to mean addressing that white supremacy, casualization, and sexual violence are not aberrations, but business as usual in academia, such that a radical restructuring is required.
.@Eidolon (rip) published an editorial on “burning it all down” in 2019. “Bound to infuriate Boomers,” this kind of rhetoric is “a challenge to imagine how, if you had a blank slate, you’d go about solving big problems in creative, radical ways.”
At AIASCS 2018, @platanoclassics urged against defending the field, calling instead “for this contemporary configuration of Classics to die, so that it might be born into a new life.” Merely waiting out the storm is "not only unethical but
Talk of “burning it all down” is not new nor aimed at nihilism. It's a standard phrase in abolitionist scholarship, aimed at dismantling structures that at best treat decolonization as an intellectual debate, and at worst enact state-sanctioned death.
In academia, I, like Sarah Bond, take “burning it all down” thus to mean addressing that white supremacy, casualization, and sexual violence are not aberrations, but business as usual in academia, such that a radical restructuring is required.
You can care about certain scholars, students, material culture, and texts within a field and still want that field to be dismantled and burned so that those elements can be truly saved & white supremacy can be smothered.
— Dr. Sarah Bond (@SarahEBond) January 23, 2021
.@Eidolon (rip) published an editorial on “burning it all down” in 2019. “Bound to infuriate Boomers,” this kind of rhetoric is “a challenge to imagine how, if you had a blank slate, you’d go about solving big problems in creative, radical ways.”
At AIASCS 2018, @platanoclassics urged against defending the field, calling instead “for this contemporary configuration of Classics to die, so that it might be born into a new life.” Merely waiting out the storm is "not only unethical but
"Fifty-nine percent of those polled said they believed China will become more powerful than the U.S. within 10 years" - https://t.co/3vN4I1TjwP ... I hate to break it to you but it already is in many areas.
When I published this work (originally from 2015) - https://t.co/GYOItA3StZ - I did tend to get a lot of pushback from US folk when presenting it.
Six years later, less so.
I expect China to start to tackle inequality this year. It's the Achilles heel of the West. We have no response, nor Governments with the required skill, strategy or practice to respond.
We will ultimately face a more advanced, more wealthy and more equal society ...
... as that example of what "is possible" / "good looks like" shift to the East, we will face a painful shift as we question our own values including our kind of democracy. But in reality, the problem is not with our values but our shockingly poor standards of leadership.
X : Is this because of Trump?
Me : No, this has been going on since the 1990s. There has been no effective counterplay to the long game that Deng Xiaoping started. Just hubris, arrogance and exceptionalism with annual Economist articles on "How China will fall".
When I published this work (originally from 2015) - https://t.co/GYOItA3StZ - I did tend to get a lot of pushback from US folk when presenting it.
Six years later, less so.
Though advantage does not immediately translate to leadership, I suspect many underestimate China in the cloud - pic.twitter.com/TXIPk9TE5u
— Simon Wardley (@swardley) January 22, 2016
I expect China to start to tackle inequality this year. It's the Achilles heel of the West. We have no response, nor Governments with the required skill, strategy or practice to respond.
We will ultimately face a more advanced, more wealthy and more equal society ...
... as that example of what "is possible" / "good looks like" shift to the East, we will face a painful shift as we question our own values including our kind of democracy. But in reality, the problem is not with our values but our shockingly poor standards of leadership.
X : Is this because of Trump?
Me : No, this has been going on since the 1990s. There has been no effective counterplay to the long game that Deng Xiaoping started. Just hubris, arrogance and exceptionalism with annual Economist articles on "How China will fall".
