dialectic at work and at home

Dear American Literati, Students
of Dialectic, & Colleagues Across
the Curriculum

(Courses W/O Borders & so you can
Let it Snow Let It Snow Let it Snow
not with standing road conditions,
classroom activity or not makes no
never mind.)

Dialectic

“I can’t think of anything more
trivial than the speed of light. Quarks,
quasars—big bangs, black holes—
who gives a shit? If knowledge isn’t
self-knowledge, it isn’t doing much,
mate. Is the universe expanding? Is it
contracting? Is it standing on one
leg and singing, ”When Father Painted
the Parlor”? Leave me out. I can
expand the universe without you.”
Tom Stoppard, Arcadia

Let me give you a decent image
for MARRIAGE and then maybe
the rapid rise in divorce since the
50’s and also in China will make
good common sense:

Take two cats
Tie their tails together.
Toss them over a clothes line.
And watch them scratch their
underbellies to shreds.

I defy you to come up with a better image.

NOW: If this excruciation is framed as
just right, a crucible for crying out loud:
perfect for the evolution of any pair of
individuals toward a relationship beyond
the small box & bubble of ego-purposive
consciousness— well, then it’s a shame
it’s gone out of style as sacramental.

ON the other hand: if viewed as a horror!
The horror! – no ones ought to go thru such
agon(y) to get smart and smarter, better and
good: well, then: good riddance—marriage is
a medievalism.

It depends on how IT is FRAMED, how the
culture casts IT: the convention we swim in:
pain is good, must be doing something right;
pain is evil: must be doing something wrong.

ITs an environmental issue,
a sustainability issue: how we
are framed to view pain.
Convention.
Convenience
Cultural Relativity.

Think of the individual off to work, expert even
genius at what he or she does: quantum physicist,
stock car driver, professor of Celtic literature,
pharmacist. river guide, film maker, movie star,
kindergarten teacher

Now think of him or her at home in relationship,
significant others arguing over who took out the
trash last, did the dishes and other domestic issues
like that.

Two different territories, yes?
Or “economies” as Gary Hawkins calls them.
Incommensurate. Expertise at Work counts for
nothing at home, true? Need we argue?

Separate the two realms.
Polarize. Characterize.

HomoAtWork on the one Hand.
HomoHomeDepot on the other hand.
Can you tell the difference? Differentiate?
Do not collapse, conflate, or confuse and
then maybe the relationship between might
emerge, a small apocalypse, epiphanic:
a revelation. Some holy smokes.