"Useful Scholarship" - Commentary by Tony Seton

Useful Scholarship

Has academia lost its way? Sure it has, and the latest example is a recent conference at Yale University where 18 alleged scholars met to discuss Michael Jackson and the sexual, racial and artistic aspects of his life and music.

Jackson is an interesting figure in our culture to be sure but I wonder with all that is going on in our world today if he is worth a conference. Apparently the guy who organized it thinks so. Jackson, he said, "in many ways is the black male crossover artist of the 20th century." He added, "He has grown up in front of us, so we have a great investment in him, even though some people today may find his image disturbing."

Disturbing doesn’t begin to describe it. Jackson appears to have a penchant for young boys and has spent millions trying to make himself look less black and more white. I’m not a shrink, but both of these issues seem to paint him as something of a cuckoo.

Said one of the conference goers, Jackson has "contributed to the national discussion of race and gender." Well, yeah, race and gender are certainly important topics, but to focus attention on a fruit-loop who is somewhere in between on both issues hardly seems like a practical route to finding useful information.

And isn’t that the purpose of scholarship to learn about our society rather than to waste time on perverted aberrations? What of value could we possibly learn studying a black male crossover artist, whatever that might be? More to the point, does it really matter when so many of both genders and many races in our society are turning obese numbing out their brains watching the idiot box, for example?

I’m not a racist or a homophobe but I think we squander too many intellectual resources studying boutique issues rather than what matters in the real world.

Besides Molly Ivins has already bottom-lined this one, saying, "When a poor, black boy like Michael Jackson can grow up to be a rich, white woman who marries Elvis Presley's daughter, you know we live in a great nation."

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.