Courses Without Borders Series

Greening

Are some epistemologies better
than others? Some world-views,
weltanschauungs, cultures,
convenient conventions, habits
& habitats, environ-mentalities,
atmospheres better than others?

Over all attitudes? Outlooks?
Sustain Abilities? Some Ways
of Living: Ways of Maintaining
the Vital Heat better than other ways?

Ways of Talking? Ways of Walking?
Ways of Talking about Ways of
Walking?

Ways of Gnoring & following our
Gnosis; Ways of Ignoring &
following our Bliss. Some Ways
better than other Ways for living
on earth?

I’m asking.

Good Ways. Bad Ways. Not-so-Good
Ways. Worse Ways. Excellent Ways,
Mundane Ways, Trivial Ways &
Worst of all Ways make no mistake!

Who’s to say? My students say: who’s
to say which ways are BEST? It all
depends, they admonish—on this &
that: all relative they say by which
they don’t mean relatives & related
kin, kind & all in the family; but
rather it’s all relative, Sam,
and not absolute,
damnit.

But this is our job, yes?
To say which ways are BEST!
which are awful, which are functional
which dysfunctional: especially during
these days of rabid change & environ-
mental crisis, global warnings & the
breakdown of family values & doubtful
success of home land securities systems

Noblesse Oblige

Right now I hear Dong Ping humming
in the next office: HAP-y! We argue quite
wonderfully on a regular basis about what’s
BEST. How else figure IT out for crying
out loud & what’s a colleague for? The
back&forth’s what counts: in school-mode
there is no east & west: no good guys bad
guys north or south.

Church & State modes: sure!
Bad Guys Galore!

Jane Goodalls (both of us) studying
monkeys & the monkey business and
it’s all good. (Can you imagine Jane
scolding the monkeys? Bad monkey!
Bad monkey! Imposing her jovial
Apollonian point of view? Of
course not. School Mode
uber alles!

Sometimes, we admit it: we’re
monkeys, too. Makes it more difficult,
damnit, the whole risky business: juggling
our Ways of Talking & Walking, our Out
Looks, Attitudes, Biases & Belief Systems,
Prejudices & Convictions: factoring them
in. It’s awesome & getting better all the
time.