Revenge of the Intellect

"And if longing seizes you for sailing the stormy seas
when the Pleiades flee mighty Orion
and plunge into the misty deep
and all the gusty winds are raging,
then do not keep your ship on the wine-dark sea
but, as I bid you, remember to work the land."
(Hesiod: Works and Days 618-23)

APOLOGIA

MUCH madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense: the starkest madness.

’T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.

Assent, and you are sane;
Demur ,—you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
(Emily D.)

I factor-in, invite & welcome much that’s
banished as misfortune in sanitary classrooms

Indeterminacy Uncertainty Stochastic Process
Muddle & Mess Constellational Confusion
& Chaos as well as Random-to-Order
Ratios & Unpredictable Improvident
Free Play and Loose Ends.

Daemons appropriately suppressed in normal
course-load-bearing classrooms where Order
reigns & nurtures Clarity Uber Alles so as to
get r done, cover ground, meet objectives,
take the credit and run.

To characterize and mythologize (twice told tale):

Carla Constellation (sidereal: of the stars)

Abe Arrow-of-Purpose

Imagine Carla and Abe bumping into each other
(at the cross-roads, of course); they repair to
Another Roadside Attraction and drink beer
till cops come to establish liability..

Opposites-attract.
They get married.

Who’s boss? Upper hand? Wears the pants?
Dominant Aphrodisiac?

Carla Constellation?
Abe Arrow-of-Purpose?

What’s the Chance of lasting hap-iness?
Divorce?

Monster Novel here.
And movie.

*********

Talking about Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers,
Germaine Greer says men like big ideas and
write books of explanation. Women are more
into writing books of understanding

"There is no answer to everything, and only a
deluded male would spend his life
trying to find it."

Women are too sensible to write such broad-
sweep theses. "They are more interested
in under-standing than explaining, in
describing rather than accounting for."

A student came in yesterday to ask "what’s
the point of HONORS? I like talking about
literature but not researching it—looking stuff
up to see what other people say. I may drop
Honors for a minor in creative writing:
what do you think?"

I was thinking need I make my academics
stronge? More or less challenging? engaging?
How? More readings? more quizzes & papers?
Stringent rigor. Raise the bar. Pedagogical
questions.

Ratcheting up for excellence in
these days of economic
distress and uncertainty. .

Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.
Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the
world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the
world - in order to set up a shadow world of
“meanings.”

Real art has the capacity to make us nervous.
By reducing the work of art to its content
and then interpreting that, one tames the
work of art. Interpretation makes art
manageable, comformable.
(Susan Sontag, “Against Interpretation”)