Dear Colleagues,
Service
“He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to them
useless and selfish, but he who gives himself partially to them is
pronounced benefactor and philanthropist.”
Thoreau. “Civil Disobedience.”
Ok : I know there’s not much likelihood we’ll set the place
“on fire” intellectually, it’s just a manner of speaking and
audacious hope. I never met any one who was quite on fire
–“how could I have looked him in the eye?”
Seizing a metaphor instead of just going-with-it: an act of
violence to normal conversational velocity, like stopping
Dr. K in the middle of expostulation and asking —“No,
seriously, Frank: what DO you mean by citizen?
Citizenship? Representation? The actual
political science in Plato’s Republic?
A metaphor’s an indeterminate improvised explosive
device: it’ll knock talk off its track unless there’s a
context for tweaking terms of discourse. Go with
conversational flow or STOP, LOOK, & UNPACK
the terms of talk. Can’t assess motive power & means
simultaneously —process or product: choose your master.
Can you imagine a course more interested in HOW it was
talking than in WHAT?
Unless there’s a framework for it, mutually built up,
a collaboration: shared edifice for wheeling & dealing
AND Stop on a Dime too, makes no never mind where
the goal isn’t so much to get something done…
(cover ground, fix a flaw,
green
environ-mentalisms:
smoking areas, binge
& purge addictions,
compulsive exercise
& over-jogging, anxiety
& panic & varieties of
learning disorders,
textual harassments…
pressing needs & sores
we have always with us)
…but rather to edify, sustain converse: keep IT
in play for play’s sake. Practicing Liberal Art, where
the media is both MESSAGE & massage & not just the
message; and HOW we talk about something—anything—
IS as significant to us as WHAT we’re talking about. What
a difference THAT difference would be: a difference that
makes a difference.
Except for cultural lag: technically, technologically, &
theoretically, nothing prevents us from ongoing wholesome
e-forum engagement of this liberal art kind, cultivating
genial Life of the Mind (local food) with no injustice to
Life of the Body Politic and its spring exercise programs,
new street lamps, trail surveys, break service-project-trips,
general plant maintenance and plans for advancement: all
the bottom-level demands of Mazlow’s hierarchy of ongoing
needs..
Firing up loose & informal spontaneous Cerebral-Affective
Engagement: back & forth like a Gladfelter ping pong, the
play of ideas hacky-sacking pearls of disciplinary organization:
the Directional Navigational Algorithms our major programs
protect and promulgate—a consummation devoutly desired,
mixed meta force not with standing: us just fooling with our
intellective equipment here muddle-buttfarming & bricolating
like anything: this ain’t yr-old-myn’s work program & service
get-R-done agenda as usual going on here…
If the Fired-Up Intellective & Affective Holy Smokes
walking-on-water metaphor don’t cut it, maybe Milk from
Contented Cows: cud chewing cerebral afternoon’s delight
because-we-LOVE-IT: spirit & spin-off from such rumination
impacting Retention & Assessment Issues; virtual e-Fields of
Dreams for future hard-copy publications and the Jensen 3rd
floor trophy case. Could it hurt?
Perishable publications: a fertile field for the imperishable--
the village idiocy it takes to raise the children; seriously, our
stunning inexhaustible shared resource of common sense
stupidity prerequisite for leisure time (schola) and liberal art
always close at hand: what…? what the…? what the hay…?
Local food for thought. .
Anyone can wonder what-it-is that blocks free trade & exchange
of non-instrumental noggin notions (not easy in classrooms either,
ratcheting-up decent argos-argument of the edifying kind) and
prevents Collaborative Genius (an environment that encourages
failure, one that suspects clarity!).
I suspect the more I campaign for this, the less it’s likely to happen
& yet I do it: an unpostponed joy. Addict, damnit. Powerless to
prevent it. My service project & smoking tent. Monstrous!
I need help. Seriously. Or what’s a colleague for? Someone
might share the vision--if not the terms and images.
It's possible.
xxxooo, Sam
No comments:
Post a Comment