Actually, it was always a mixture of both. I think that's what caused K-Punk's 'Dope Smoking Dads' paroxysm.
They all went Badiou.
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I can't find time to read Shakespeare so how on earth do people find time to read these French theorists?
I suppose they're academics, it's their full time job to read Lacan or whoever.
There is something intoxicating about it, it's a climbing frame for the brain. And perhaps the fact that so few people understand it is part of that intoxication. Being privy to secret, arcane knowledge. I figure it must be something like this because realistically how much influence does any of it have on the outside world? Perhaps it creeps in via osmosis.