On Facebook (where my perishable
publications end up) a former grad
gently chided me for my seemingly glib
treatment of Empathy & Compassion
in yesterday’s response to John Brock’s
article “Beyond Critical Thinking”
(Wesleyan’s president, Michael Roth)
All we need is love.
A colleague in my office the preceding
day urged the same message. It’s true.
Without which, I am sounding brass
& gong show. I can speak with tons
of angles. Prophesize & fathom mysteries,
move mountains & complete service
projects, surrender my body to flames…
yet without love: clanging ass.
Damnit.
Empathy & Compassion: what Auguste
Dupin demonstrates as he “reads the
mind” of Minister D, that blackmailer!
(Where was the purloined letter?
Plain sight on the coffee table )
If I could walk in the moccasins of my
opponents,
friends,
enemies,
significant others,
colleagues,
students,
administrators,
offspring,
Glen Beck & Keith Olberman,
Sarah & Barack …read their minds,
feel their feelings: I’d be a better person.
Without which gift, capability, skill, practice,
patience, patho-logic, liberal art:
forget about it.
Critical thinking?
But insufficient. What Michael Roth is talking
about? Gives John Brock pause? Motivates
Jeanne Summer’s transformation project?
Something like this. Any one can improve
my terms. Say it pretty. The more Ways of
Talking it the better. Yes? All we need is love.
That is all we need.
That is all we need.
(Need we argue?)
xxxooo, Sam
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