But Do you LOVE Me (in moderaton? or excessively?)

Dear Colleagues Across the Curriculum

Pedagogery & The Liberal Art

Tell all the truth
but tell it slant
success in circuit[ry]
lies…E.D.

Faux Feedback
(because forced)



DO YOU LOVE ME?

Can you see how that
question doesn’t work?

There is a realm of
communication where
If I Have to Ask:
Forget About It!

Ask & I shall receive
somewhere in the ball
park at least but not
really what I lack,
want, need, desire.

“Yes” don't satisfy.
“No”—neither; of
course not.

Do you love me?
Don’t answer that
terrible question.
Monstrous!

SIMILARLY in the business of liberal art
(not to be confused with liberal arts): I yield
to temptation, EXPLAINING my madness;
saying what it is I’m doing, engineering,
scheming, manipulating my meta hodus &
it falls into the same category: collapsing,
conflating & confusing a possible issue
because it destroys the guess-what environ-
mentalism needed to frame, nourish, grow a
liberal artist.

GET IT?
(Eureka)

Have to tear the plastic off the
strawberry patches, rip-off the
cover-ups: kindergarten variety
apocalyptic

What I’m saying right be-here-now
can’t actually be said without screwing
up what I’m attempting to bring off:
talking about it without actually talking
about it without giving away the trick,
slight of hand—joke.

A man walks into the
Rolls Royce showroom,
kicks some tires and
inquires: “How much
do you charge for one
of these deals?”

How’m I doing? Ruins it to ask and yet
I do I do and if I can’t be at home with
paradox & contra addiction I should stick
to liberal arts for crying out loud and don’t
be bothering my petty little mind with
liberal art.
***
Moderation
Balance
Rationality




X-treme
Slip Slidding
Precarious Irrationality

Choose your Magistery.
(No myn can serve 2)

Environmentalism

Not trees and rivers, grass and snail-darters,
global warming and warnings way beyond
my interest or ability to acknowledge or
appreciate although I can fake it when
necessary. Somewhat. How ‘bout
that polar melt down!

Etc.

More locally: what kind of Context (shared
environ-mentality) might encourage uncovering
the cover-up that allows me to pretend I’m a
scholar of the leisure-time lollard variety: diller
& dollar just right for parlor when actually I am
an industrialized insti-tuitionalist trying to take
care of business, get ahead, job done, cover
ground, take the money and run, not that there’s
anything wrong with that to be honest.

And on the other side of the desk: like me, students
seemingly neither stunned nor stupid enough to
want to get in the GAME of Games say, but
pretend & take the credit and then sum & can’t
be blamed for our desire to play the game-at-hand,
the only one in town: involuntary CourseWork
Program & Service Project check it out & call it
college.

A colleague & I were discussing Ali’s Video (Kansas
State You Tube dramatic sampling: a vision of students
today)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

And it was like, well: nothing new in Kansas ho hum
students at odds (“from beginnings of time”) with cost
of text books not read, classes unattended, starving children
in Africa, laptops costing more than a year’s income, the
questionable relevance of assignments & paper work: ongoing
Gordian knot double bind between institutionalized doctors of
philosophy & industrialized docents docile & determined to do
what’s necessary having made their “decision for college” some
time in the 8^th grade, maybe —or 9^th walking home from school
kicking a can, autumn leaves filling the gutters, and it comes to
them bolt of blue: YES, I WILL go to college: conscious life-
changing turning-point tipping the balance from slip-slidding
madding crowd irrationality to a moderate life of Rationality and
the practice of Liberal Arts….

And we were wondering: how does THIS (do I have to spell
THIS out?) get addressed? Tacit conspiracy not to talk about
it or go ahead & talk in terms of a Hire-Educational-Ease
Graduation-Speak Sound hath no fury like someone meeting
a publication quota & no offense made none taken & on the
other hand Rant Rage & over statement guaranteed to generate
ignore-ance if not defense & rhino-hide impenetrability like
B.B.wolf's at the door & the three little pigs not sufficiently
procrustean to muster the mixed meta force needed to cut and
stretch and fit it all into the terms of their sustain ability.

A faux dichotomy? Moderation on the one hand:.
Precarious Irrationality on the other? O.K. Turn them
both up, then. Put them into sustained PLAY & a
good time had by all so as to see
what it reveals.



xxxooo, Presbyter