Keeping the faith, not jumping ship

This much is clear--Ramage isn't going to let up with his relentless testing of our collective patience. I guess I'm okay with that. The more I read, the more intellectual/jerk-ish I feel. My mind can easily picture some Harvard undergrad scratching raw the skin under his eyes because he's got to get an A on his next paper, but this Ramage fellow refuses to just spell it out. Not that I understand any of this better than anyone else, but reading on a "learned" level does tend to pump the ego (besides, we all know Kutztown ain't no Harvard).

All the griping and bitching aside, I do follow what the man's trying to say. Identity is an endlessly complex thing which, to further complicate the matter, grows and changes with every additional second you're alive. Maybe frilly words piled on top of one another in impossibly complex sentences is the only way to describe such a beast. But I doubt it. Ramage, though, through all his intellectual windbagging, sticks to a fairly simple paradigm for making his arguments. To wit: point and example. His examples are easily the clearest part of his writing because they usually deal with concrete, tangible things. I'll come back to this in a second. His real problem is how he goes about making his points. They're buried. A diamond under a stack of mattresses. To find this gem--which in the end you know will be unbelievably anti-climactic--you've got to have an almost masochistic zeal to dig through the refuse of Ramage's mind. Years of high-pressure schooling and intense thought about how rhetoric relates to the real world have culminated in this single diamond. A truly fine and noble piece of work. Problem is, our man then goes ahead and garnishes it with the Titanic (impressive to look at, but basically useless junk).

Selah.

But his examples, on the other hand, are the real flesh of his writing (I promise I won't harp on just his writing...what he actually says is pretty good stuff, too), though they aren't without their wonks either. Harley Davidsons and Rocky and Bullwinkle. Frankly, I thought his whole Dykes on Bikes/corporate biker rant was hilarious. Right on the money, but goddamn hilarious. I got the distinct impression that he knew more about Moose and Skvirel than he did about motorcycles, though.

As for what he has to say about identity, yeah, he seems to have a fairly firm grasp of it. I can't say I ever came across a spot where I disagreed with what he was presenting. He has obviously put a huge amount of effort and thought into constructing a sentient argument with no major holes of logic, lapses in continuity or breaks in feel-good groovy vibe. So when I read it and follow what he's suggesting perfectly, I have no problem surrendering the fact that he might actually be right. Besides, I'm in no position to argue with him. I don't care enough to put up a real fight.

Minimum Wrage