"The balance has to shift to affirmative methods: techniques which embrace their own inventiveness and are not afraid to own up to the fact that they add (if so meagerly) to reality. There is a certain hubris to the notion that a mere academic writer is actually inventing. But the hubris there is tempered by the evident self-modesty of the returns. So why not hang up the academic hat of critical self-consciousness, set aside the intemperate arrogance of debunking-- and enjoy? If you don't enjoy concepts and writing and don't feel that when you write you are adding to the world, if only the enjoyment itself, and that by adding that ounce of positive experience to the world you are affirming it, celebrating its potential, tending its growth in however small a way, however really abstractly-- well, just hang it up" (13).
--Brian Massumi, Parables for the Virtual
