But what GOOD is a Liberalart(s) Education?

Divided We Stand
United We Roll

I'm wary of labeling one "creative mode"
and the other "consumer mode"—
good for argument's sake but
it's not so simple, wouldn't
you say?

And "consumer mode" is nice and
provocative, but maybe gets us
arguing unproductively

I might almost as easily agree with
someone who argued that, "No, what
we need to do is identify the similarities
between doing fine arts and doing humanites."

I'd like to find out. Yrs, Graham

We could go either way: similarities on the one
hand, differences on the other. The challenge
might be that we let neither similarities nor
differences eclipse each other: don’t want
Sameness contaminating the Differences.

Or Differences occluding the SAMES.

(This happens “politically,” right?—which is
why we have to have Diversity Programs to
encourage proliferation of difference without
threatening (or losing sight of ) the over all
shared identity. And vice versa: don't want
identity & integrity homogenizing the varieties
of our aesthetic experiences.)

Let creating/consuming be the “minimal pair” we might
could use/abuse foreground similarities/differences:
the creating-to-consuming ratios in ARTS, say—in
contrast to the creating-to-composing ratios in
HUMANITIES.

A way of talking about IT is all. Juggling. Not nailing it down.

Let “consumer mode” (assuming we will characterize it)
be as happy a camper and as essential as “creator mode”
(assuming we can share characterization)--ignoring if we
can whatever stigma both words carry.

IT –whatever it is—is always more complicated than
we can represent. So maybe we can proceed—reduce
and simplify to what may be seen as root & fundamental
aspects, values, qualities of (in this case): ARTS on the
one hand and HUMANITIES on the other hand—knowing
our thinking is always a violence against “the whole”--a
crime of fashioning & modeling & representing.

For the sake of argument I don't mind overstating and
understating, contradicting, mixing metaphors and making
whatever mess, margin of error and room for play it takes
to maybe work up some shared clarity.

(Emerging phenomenon, some biologists like to call it,
evolution of some collaborative genius, edification,
loose thought: we can always get up-tight later—revise,
reform, tidy up the overstatement, un-mix the meta-force.
figure out the thread, cover up the muddle, nail down a
thesis—turn it in to Dr. Bradshaw for preliminary
assessment before revision & shipping to Don Ray
to convert into Zoomerang and overall collegiate
participation and polling and argument.

The DIFFERENCES and SIMILARITY of the
academic/work/service components in HUMANITIES
on the one hand & the academic/work/service components
of the ARTS on the other hand—no longer to be ignorantly
collapsed, conflated, or confused unawares— because of
course we will collapse, conflate, and confuse IT ALL as
we go about our individual business & Get R Done agenda.
How could it be otherwise? Plenty of Margin of error &
Rooms for play. Thank god.

Consider:
VARIANTS on the SAME cerebral/affective THEME
(they just look different—at first glance; diversity—is all )

Process vs Product
Pedagogy vs Discipline
Confusion vs Clarity
Muddle vs Tidy
Sinister vs Adroit
Media vs Message
Out of Control vs NOT
Imagination vs Knowledge
Conservatory Values vs Academy Values
Upside Down Flamingo Croquet vs Hard Balls & Mallets
Cloud of Unknowing vs.Syllabi-Driven Aims & Objectives
Liberal ART vs liberal arts (Making Mode vs Give&Taking Mode)
a liberal arts education vs. what'll we tell the parents its GOOD for?.

Any body who doesn’t see the family resemblance,
raise your hand. We can argue. Or what's a
college for?
.
xxxooo, Sam