Collaborative Genius (Everthing Converges)

EVERYTHING THAT CONVERGES MUST RISE

Liberal Art

I tell my First Year Seminarians: everything that
happens in this class room is local food for thought.
The course is about US: us, the course-takers!

Note: all courses are essentially the same—what
ever the token content: syllabi-driven, we proffer
texts and textual harassment, written work of
various kinds and length, quizzes & examinations
to encourage co-operation, presentations, posters
maybe, and grades to assess and motivate.

We teach COURSE:

Students learn COURSE-ness:
COURSE is the MEDIA: the deep grammatical
structure of institutionalized education— it's
permeating amniotic fluid-drive eclipsed (if not
occluded) by token topic subject-object
matter.

It’s the MEDIA: always the hidden MESSAGE.

In my so-called courses, COURSE is fore-grounded
& us-the-course-takers = the topic. What’s normally
CONTEXT for study, becomes the text: Us-in-
Relationship, the covered agenda somewhat
exposing some emperor's bare but.

Like, say, Narcissus fascinated at what he thinks is
OTHER-ness suddenly aware—clued in that it’s
HIMSELF he’s been studying: holy smokes,
that’s ME-in-the-mirror.

Always was of course: the COURSE (us-in- relationship)
is media & message of hire education, even as we are
raised to think it’s This or That—token topics, content,
subject-matter.

We are the Course:
Us-in-Relationship!
Need we argue?

Here's one of my operating & controlling metaphors



LOOK, each time you come in to class, pretend you are
Jane Goodall studying the monkeys. You are in Scientist
Mode, watching for patterns; or you are in Artist Mode—
chiaroscuro: catching the play of light and shadow that
makes every move unique as we chatter and groom.

It's ALL GOOD from a Jane Goodall standpoint: “All
monkey business,” says Jane, “and I'm here to make
sense of it.” No false moves. All monkey-mind,
Monkeying around. Very interesting!



On the other hand, we’re a monkey too, yes? Each
with our individual more or less unique monkey agenda.
Some of what happens to me-as-monkey is good, some
not so good, some: pure waste of my monkey time.
That’s how I evaluate my COURSE. Assess in my
monkey terms.

Jane Goodall mode;
Monkey Business mode.
2 distinct modes, true​?

And it would be a shame to collapse either into the other.
Jane's got an entirely different value system than a monkey
& monkeys.

And vice versa:

And so the idea is to keep the two modes polarized—
separate but equal; other wise the terms and values of
one contaminate the values of the other.

Jane (Jane-o-centric) will Janize the monkey business.
And Monkey’s (monkey-centric) will make a monkey
out of Jane.

Do you see the problem here? It’s called
incommensurate-ness.
The measurement of One phenomenon in the terms
and metric systems of Another.Something of a
double-bind we’re caught in.
(How to get out is Liberal Art.)

Now: the hardest characterization of all and most important
because it aims to address the Incommensurate Problem:

Jane G + monkey too


Talking about a mode that's neither Jane nor not Jane
and neither monkey nor not monkey but a synthesis of
both that serves as mediator, regulator, separator, joiner
(Hermes, Mercury, Jesus, Tricksters, Joker, Clown,
Crow, Coyote, Devil at the Crossroads ...various mythic
embodimental manifestations of this third mode.)



Or just imagine the yin-yanger (S) almost invisible between
yin and yang yet defining the relationship like Temperature
expresses ratios and relationships between hot and cold.
That's what I'm trying to conjure here.

JG+Mtoo
Jane monkeys

Something like that. These 3—and the greatest of these is
JG+Mtoo. You got a problem with my triad? Improve my
terms and images but try to maintain the distinctions and
differentiations. It’ll help set the frame for the possibility
of dialectical practice aka: liberal art--what emerges,
rises up: when unlike things converge.

xxxooo, Presbyter