& Colleagues Across the Curriculum,
If you are a clarity-addict (& I don't blame
you if you are) the following effort to keep
in play what I was trying to say in class
about the doubleness of our words and
images & communication
{Emerson: Everything has two handles}
may certainly "confuse the issue"--and that's
either Just Right--if you are in LIBERAL ART
mode--or nothing put a nuisance, if you are in
liberal arts mode.
I trust you can tell the difference. Not that
there's anything wrong with either, providing
they don't interfere with each other..
(Feel free to consider, ignore, punch reply
or reply to all if you want to sustain the
converse-action. This is what I call our
Courses w/o Borders capability. A mutant
of classroom and home-schooling, say.)
Talking out of 3 sides of
the mouth at once
I sent out a piece earlier urging the benefit
of speaking out of 3 sides of the mouth at
once—not just one side (which we naturally
prefer) or 2 sides:.which contra-dict and
irritate:but 3 sides where our points and
counter points are playful allies in making a
larger (“whole-istic”) re-presentation.
Wouldn’t that be awesome?
As it is, when I speak out of only one side, I do
criminal injustice to the OTHER and the REST
of the whole that I’m talking about. Talking
about Patriarchs & Heroes say, as if they were
only represented by loin-girding frontier-
exploring: a stereotype that eclipses the stay-at-
home heroism of conservation and good
management & manners—not to mention the
heroic pilgrimages in the Kingdom Within
and recurring
Land terrors and tribulations..
Diabolical deconstruction of systems and
sanctuaries can’t easily be described as
simultaneously offering angelic reconstruction,
enlarged edification. and expanded habitats
without confusing our common
sense bias
as inimical unworthy opponents unless I can
talk out of three sides of my mouth at once &
assure that all is well and all is well and all
manner of things is well. .
Opposites attract, yes?
And opposition is essential to good con-verse.
Unless I’m in a getRdone conversation and then
opposition might be felt as nuisance & distraction.
And that makes good sense.
We’ve always got some kind of
stimulus bill to pass.
We can get away with proper murder if we can
speak out of 3 sides of our mouth at once:
thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis.
“Do I contradict myself?" asks Whitman; "I am large,
I contain multitudes.” And Emerson: “a foolish
consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Imagine a context where what makes sense is putting
half-baked and always inadequate representations in
play like the bear that goes over the mountain to see
what he could see: us being all on the same page
together agreeably to disagree in our coverage of foreign
policy or the difference between patriarchs and matriarchs,
founding fathers and environmentalism, science and art
and other fundamental foe-dichotomies and the whole
idea is to slip slide around with our terms & images so
we can whistle in the dark and delight in our musings.
Until some wise guy,
mean as a skunk, says:
well, what exactly do
you mean by patriarch?
hero? foreign? science?
Art? And I mean exactly!
xxxooo, Sam
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