Ceridwen Bush on Ceridwen Bush: artsifying a political economy essay
Editor’s note: I recently asked a group of Kaleidoscope writers what they had been reading, seeing or listening to for our What’s On the Menu Instagram series. Ceridwen responded with: “is there a slightly less esoteric way I could do a ‘what am I reading’ that’s just how I’ve spent maybe 40 hours staring at my own essay?” I thought it was a hilarious idea, and this is the result. Enjoy Ceridwen’s trip into her own head.
Ceridwen is studying political economy (by pretending to understand maths) and deletes more words than she writes. Recently, she was assigned a fairly uncomplicated task: “choose a seminar question from weeks 1-6 and write a 2000-word essay in response”. Nonetheless, she double-dropped postmodernism and spent 15 days in a spiral ruminating on “how economic ideas matter”.
She often talks of “artsifying the sciences”, and decided to overinflate the already complex subject of “economic ideas” to the highest level of pompous academia. The essay opens with a flaming, pretentious red flag:
Designated an 'ideational turn', a school of thought has emerged that elevates the role of ideas in human history - ideas are not just relevant social constructions but crucial driving forces. (Bush, para. 1)
In the spirit of artsifying and overinflating, she has chosen to title the essay ‘Rummaging the Dustbin: the limitations of ideation and advances of pluralism’. Nothing like splashing a bit of metaphor on the dry terrain of political economy. Ceridwen digs right through that dustbin, complaining the whole time, despite personally signing herself up for it. In the words of Slavoj Žižek, patron saint of the pretentious:
I already am eating from the trash can all the time. The name of this trash can is ideology.
Her partner said she has “great vocabulary”, but feedback on her other works has opted to call Ceridwen's unhinged access to a thesaurus “obtuse”. Even the latter description is particularly lenient, considering that she actively prioritises “storytelling” as part of the essay-writing process. This time, the story was vaguely “how idea-peddling economists are just postmodernists who haven't read Foucault but also postmodernism isn't all that bad”. Predictably, a labyrinth of identifying, defending and criticising postmodernism is ridiculous and convoluted.
Ceridwen has a much loved and very useful degree in English Literature. This is absolutely where it all went wrong for her but does clarify some of the outlandish decisions she made in this essay. For example, a first draft included dramatic references to the 1962 play by Edward Albee, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? These were cut because the essay actually made less sense than the play does.
Her Bachelor of Arts (English Literature) testamur had the sick satisfaction of watching her quote Baudrillard. Its overpriced frame was frothing at the mouth as she dared to summarise semiotic theories:
Consider Baudrillard's effectual ‘state of total illusion’ as a transitory concept between the constructive ability of ideas and their ability to exist as ‘things’. (Baudrillard, 1995, p. 121 cited in Bush, para. 9)
If that quote makes very little sense to you, don't stress. It means exactly what you think it does, which is that reading anything by Baudrillard is not worth your time.
When not under the watchful eye of her Literature degree, she was seen writing in pubs, stating a need for “a change of scenery”. The beer likely helped speed up the brain rotting process of defining whatever the fuck an “ideational canon” is.
Who's afraid of Ceridwen's final grade?
I am George, I am.
Image by Ceridwen Bush
This article was generously donated by Ceridwen. She thanks Kaleidoscope (and you) for indulging her in this therapeutic exercise.
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