Liberal Art (It's not for every one)

Dear Colleagues Across the Curriculum
On Both Sides of the Desk.

Liberal Art

The name of the game but could
any of you say what-it-is?

(Not to be collapsed, conflated,
or confused with The Liberal Arts—
your majors and disciplines and
instrumental career vocations and
callings: to be an environmentalist,
a social worker, chemist,marine
biologist, literary critic, creative
non-fiction writer, political scientist
doctor, lawyer, candle stick maker...)
.
3 examples of Liberal Art
Almost Going On in our Cave recently.

1) R____ slammed her hand on the table
and announced THIS IS ALL BULLSHIT
in reference to the Talk Going On at that point.

2) W____ posting me in full view to tell me
I probably have it wrong, with my estimation
of the structure and organization of our Stupid
Club; and then again: taking issue with my use
of Thoreau as model for thinking about Charity
and Doing Good.

3) Especially: M___& C___ : their small
confrontation re the point & counterpoint
over contribution to the homeless: C__ saying
how come everything I say you got to
mess with and M__ saying: huh? What?

Beautiful. All 3: right there—the origins of the
almost practice of Liberal Art.

Sustainable Converse-Action

-Converse-Action that Cares about Itself

-Converse-Action for the Sake of Converse Action

-Dia-Lectic: Talk that Talks Across (dia) Itself:

-Talk that Talks about Itself Talking even as it Talks
about Whatever (homeless, groupers, camp, recycling
physics, chemistry, biology, religion…)

-Talk that Factors in the WAYS the Talk is Going ON
as it’s Going On (the operating metaphors & their assets
and liabilities, the underlying, hidden and controlling
assumptions, the arrow-of-purpose & intentionality as
well as the digressions & transgressions,…terms and
determinations, tone and register, the clarity-to-confusion
ratios, noise to news…etc.

AKA: Conflict.
“Without Contraries Is No Progress
William Blake
“The Marriage of Heaven & Hell”

Bring it on.

To practice dialectic (liberal art): you've got to love the enemy,
invite him into the kitchen, bring her into the living room —
not cellar or attic. And this is not piety, but practicality
if you intend to be a player.

thesis<---->antithesis => synthesis

Got to keep the opposites in play (in game, agon) and let neither
win or lose. (Not a matter of voting) Expect small apocalypses,
new configurations, and revelation: a 3rd term than embraces
the opposites without diminishing them or annhilating one or
the other. A magnificent obsession.

NOTE: This has nothing to do with mitochondria, Russia,
and Alaska or the Economy and the Big 3 automakers
not facts & figures, statistics & data or what you
know. But with how you put IT in play. Need we argue?

Liberal Art is an x-treme sport and life-long practice,
a conscious schizophrenia-going-on: a practice, juggling
(if not balancing) the bottom-line called Text (token topic)
and the Delivery System called the Media (Context: us-talking)
—and both text and context, topic and ways of talking =
the liberal art content at any point. .

You can see how awkward this practice is, before it gets graceful—
if it ever does. And how there needs be a SHARED FRAME
of Minding in order to Do IT. (And that Frame of Minding can not
be forced or imposed, damnit--my inner hitler groans and writhes;
probably a mystery, an edification--how it comes about.
You got any ideas?) .

You can maybe see how “just right” R’s and W’s and M&C’s
“moves” were. IT can go both ways, of course
(depending how it’s FRAMED):
an agon or an agony.

Can you tell the difference (agon/agony?)
The relationship? Need we argue?
(Of course. Of course: we must
—or what’s a college for?)

Best, Sam (Coursing Without Borders)