Turning points / father figures

The past week has seen a relatively widespread blogomatic disavowing of Badiou: too clinical, abstract, sterile, pristine. Starting with a post by Alex Williams here, that led to a support, support, support, meta-analysis of the discussion, rejection of initial post, mitigating commentary on initial post, thoughtful constructive answer to initial post (by Dominic ‘the only badiouvian in the village’):

It isn’t as a systematic philosopher that Badiou turns out to be a useful ally here, but as a trenchant opponent of Sarkozyism whose conjunctural analysis identifies the need to nominate and defend particular “points” against the disorientation of electoral politics and the imposition of managerial necessity.

Am no philosopher, but certainly agree with much of the unhappiness about Badiou, but having said that I must say I found the following comment by InfiniteThought to this post hilariously entertaining:

Could philosophy boys be any sadder? Thinking that a philosopher can solve your minor weeny ego worries is as twattish as chucking their books down and flouncing off in a huff when they say something you don’t like. As for the group-think element of this…it’s all horrifically playground. Don’t people have slightly more complex thoughts than ‘I love it! It’s my thing!’ or ‘I hate it! Urg, get rid of it!’ It’s homosocial record-collecting for boys who are smart enough to understand bits of Kant and Hegel but not nearly smart enough to understand themselves or the groups they belong to.