An amusing article in the WSJ.

In post-modern fashion we should ask ourselves who benefits from peddling theory? What power is being served? Why, it's obviously the professors who peddle it. In my po-mo book, the author argues towards the end that Postmodernism is a seizing of power by academics over the authors they study. The professor (critic) retains power through "deconstructing" the art he encounters, and thereby controlling it. But to what extent is "deconstruction" a construction? And more specifically, to what extent is it a construction designed to justify the existence of an English department?

To sit through a pedagogy class (as I have) is to experience what I call the "eternal justification." The justification of reading literature, that is. The truth is that art no more needs a justification than life does, and I can assure you that no justification exists for life or art in any case. I often think of writing a book someday, and calling it "The Non-uses of Literature."