Behold the wisdom and bravery of the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
www.mediaite.com/media/tv/rep...
@mkirschenbaum.bsky.social
Critical tech and literary/cultural AI. Also cats, letterpress printing, and tabletop gaming. Professor of English at UVA (Commonwealth chair upon approval). Speaking for myself as a private citizen here. Being rude will get you blocked.
Behold the wisdom and bravery of the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
www.mediaite.com/media/tv/rep...
If that bingo card gets updated any more times I’m gonna wear a hole right through
05.03.2026 20:18 — 👍 28 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 0Like pulling teeth, I tell ya
05.03.2026 19:32 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0CNN headline: “Iran war spreads as European nations drawn further in”
I have a very vivid memory of a family member telling me they were voting for Trump in 2024 because they were afraid Biden was looking to start World War III
05.03.2026 18:51 — 👍 8 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0I know why Kristi Noem SHOULD be fired, but why is she being fired
05.03.2026 18:33 — 👍 7 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0Dining out with a reservation is now an excruciation of reminders and confirmations before the meal, and incessant nagging for “feedback” afterwards.
05.03.2026 18:31 — 👍 9 🔁 1 💬 4 📌 0Weird how this keeps happening! www.miamiherald.com/news/politic...
05.03.2026 12:59 — 👍 2622 🔁 609 💬 47 📌 64To be sure. But we can’t just wave away the structural truth of “even if only a small percentage.” The power imbalance is hugely consequential!
05.03.2026 14:40 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Yesterday, I received a project assessment/problem fix plan that was created with AI. It's a mash-up of generic text and excerpts from tech blogs, some of which are, amazingly, applicable.
It's exactly the sort of commodity writing that MK is taking about.
Here works best for me, thank you
05.03.2026 14:26 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0But to the extent we are all creatures of neoliberal institutions, yada yada, it’s the same argument—
05.03.2026 14:26 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0We live in the world of what Michel de Certeau called the scriptural economy. Writing and capital are inextricably linked. That has been my position since pretty much day one. It is not intended as a salutary diagnosis.
05.03.2026 14:24 — 👍 25 🔁 6 💬 2 📌 0👆. In the abstract for something I just wrote, I appended: “This is not intended as a salutary diagnosis.”
05.03.2026 14:22 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Some of the other replies I’ve received are illuminating. The assumption/expectation in their workplace is that people will just use a model.
05.03.2026 14:20 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0We live in the world of what Michel de Certeau called the scriptural economy. Writing and capital are inextricably linked. This has been my position since pretty much day one.
05.03.2026 14:17 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
I fear I’m already lost.
And no, of course not every academic believes this. But every time the category error gets made, it’s an academic who does it.
I was honored to be asked!
05.03.2026 13:49 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0I am genuinely looking forward to our conversation!
05.03.2026 13:43 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0You should have kept that chapter in the book. :-)
05.03.2026 13:34 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0For me, it’s not “we” with the agency here, it’s capital. I just wrote a longish piece on this for Social Research I’d love to send you before it’s out, if I may.
05.03.2026 13:32 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Exactly. I’m not saying this is a salutary state of affairs. I am saying it’s the way of the world.
05.03.2026 13:29 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Right. I call it transactional writing, following Deborah Brandt. What gets missed over and over in these discussions is that it’s by far (volumetrically) the most common form of writing in the world.
05.03.2026 13:28 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
I hereby declare Kirschenbaum’s law:
Thinking that every discussion of writing is a discussion of student writing is a category error only academics make.
I am a big John Warner fan, and his recent book is the first one I recommend to colleagues. But I am not talking about student writing or teaching writing here. Thinking that every discussion of writing is a discussion of student writing is a category error only academics make.
05.03.2026 13:16 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0💅
05.03.2026 04:01 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0It’s likely because it’s late and it’s been a long day, but I apologize, I’m just not following that.
05.03.2026 04:00 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Congratulations: your experience of writing is *qualitatively different* from the vast majority of what gets written, which is so dreary and workaday that the courts have repeatedly ruled the authors of such work are not authors but employees, nor can they claim copyright or profit from said work.
05.03.2026 03:47 — 👍 20 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0When you sit down to write an essay or a long overdue email to a friend or even a snappy post for this website, you relish the feeling of the words at the tips of your fingers, tumbling into place like the tumblers in a safe. We say “it clicks”for a reason, right? It’s unique and it’s you, right? —>
05.03.2026 03:47 — 👍 25 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0Most people don’t win prizes for their writing, nor do they aspire to such. That writing is or should be that is itself a historically and culturally conditioned view of what writing is.
05.03.2026 03:38 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0This is the needed corrective to the new round of "when humans write it's like music, every word carefully chosen and precisely placed" which is simply not the reality for most people and situations. Much of writing is a tedious task that we have to slog through to simply keep our job/day/etc going.
05.03.2026 02:34 — 👍 46 🔁 6 💬 4 📌 3