Domestic Violence

Dear American Literati, Humans,
Dialecticians, and Colleagues Across
the Curriculum.

 St Valentine: A priest of Rome who was
 imprisoned for succoring persecuted
Christians He became a convert himself
and although he restored the sight of
his jailer's blind daughter, he was
martyred by being clubbed to death,
February 14, 269  (Benet's, The Reader's
Encyclopedia.)

     “The Violent Bear IT away”
             (Matthew 10:12)

      "Do not suppose that I have
    come to bring peace to the earth.
      I did not come to bring peace,
        but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)
 
One of you asks, last class: "Don’t
we teach our children to be victims
when we admonish them to not fight
back?
 
Can you DOUBT the value of
non-resistance—double it: see
both sides, the positive and the
negative?
 
Or—no doubt: simply see and
affirm the positive. Or—no doubt:
simply see and affirm the negative.
 
No doubt?  Or doubt full?
What’s the difference?
the relationship?
Liabilities?
Benefits. 
 
Are you an optimistic doubter:
seeing double, on the one hand
& on the other?
 
Are you a pessimistic doubter:
dismissing the whole enterprise
as deceiving.
 
WORD         C
 
A word cuts a chunk of “the whole”
& clarifies some [“this”] within its
confines and occludes all  the rest
not included in its lucid clarification

A WORD is somewhat attention
efficient at the cost of  massive
ongoing attention
deficits.
 
Every WORD = an act of
domestic violence. Do you have
a problem with that?  A sense
of obligation?  Debt?  Angst?
Guilt?  
 
I would turn up and put in play what
you already know: that language is
double-edged and inadequate: can’t
live with it and can’t live without it.
It’ll get us to the moon, sure, but
not necessarily sustain a significant
relationship, marriage, or home-
sweet-home.
 
Domestic Violence.
Of course. Manners
of speaking. Ignorance
and Confusion, my Ph
degreed not with standing. .

Exposing inadequacy & double-ness,
concealed denial, hidden assumptions
& controlling metaphors, gut-wrenching
& biased connotations & possibly  some
winking glance at the cultural web work
that work us for  good &  for ill: that’s
my perverse and dia-bolical delight I call
Liberal Art. Need we argue?
 
It’s empowering to put IT in play: our
thinking and our representing that does
both service & disservice: sets us free
and ties us up in Gordian knots & double
binds and it takes a violence to bears us
away.
 
As opposed to merely stuck in fixing
floods & earthquakes, ongoing inequities
& discrepancies & tears & fears of all the
years, not that there’s anything wrong with
THAT. Like sucking the ocean dry with
a straw.
 
Holes in the roof of my habits and habitats
and much too soaking wet to fix while
raining, while ranting:  I got to be
tending my attention efficiency
to the domestic mess in
kitchen & living room.
 
And when the sun’s out,
no problem, no violence
to be bearing away..
 

xxxooo, Sam