The greater part of what my [colleagues] call good...

The greater part of what my [colleagues]

call good I believe in my soul to be bad,

and if I repent of anything, it is very likely

to be my good behavior. What demon

possessed me that I behaved so well?

(Thoreau, overstating, surely.)

What my colleagues call good:

the study of texts (textual harassment)

as if the text (any text) were what counted.

What I call good:

the study of contexts (contextual harassment)

as if the context (the environment, the

surrounding readers studying texts )

is what counts. .

Can you tell the difference?

Between text & context?

The relationship?

(It’s an environmentalism.)

"How can he remember well his ignorance—

which his growth requires--who has so often

to use his knowledge?" (Henry again)

What my colleagues call bad:

ignorance and confusion,

contradiction and paradox

ambiguity and doubt,

uncertainty and

unpredictability,

I call good: exposing it, turning it all UP, putting it

(what? what the? what the hell?) IN PLAY as resource:

ignorance et al which our growth requires.

Can you tell the difference? Between ignorance

exposed as asset & ignorance covered up as liability?

The relationship? (An environmental attitude,

entertaining the play between liberal art & liberal arts.

between fooling with ideas & covering ground, between

positioning & velocity: cultivating our garden & local

food or move on down, move on down the road….)

Uncover. Expose. Love the emperor: his naked butt

AND his new clothes, Like building an ice cream parlor

in hell with no injustice to hot or cold, dumb & dumber,

smart & smarter: all in the family, kin & kind & see

how-it-is they just get along..

We talk “Academics.”

But walk Take-the-Credit-&-Run. (TC&R)

“Academics” is like, say. rugby, skiing, kayaking, learning

guitar or piano, painting, poem-izing—you know: something

anyone does for the love of it.

TC&R is like required gym, compulsory music, first year

composition. .Get R done & out of the way & move on

down the road., cover ground. Hate it now but you’ll love

us for it in retrospect.’.

TC&R rules: the dominant paradigm.

But we talk AS-IF we were stunned stupid,

studying for the Love of IT.

(Can’t help myself. Obsessed. My mathematics.

My sociology. My biochemistry. My history of

the Chinese Red Army. My 18^th c. literature and

the Age of Reasons Why. Eat sleep & dream it like

my cousin practicing guitar till his fingers bled.

Compulsive as jogging. An addiction:

My Academics.)

TC&R : Brown Gnosis makes good common

sense. No one loves an obsession,

compulsion, addiction.

Balance, we say.

Moderation.

..