Dialectical Masturbation

Dear AmLit students and Humanists,
Dialecticians and Colleagues Across
the Curriculum

(Stalwart Pioneers Series)

Dialectical Masturbation
 
Is there such a thing? it was asked.
in Survey of American Literature
this morning.
 
And is IT a good thing, or not?.
 
Right here: an example of the crucial
difference between
   DESCRIBE Mode (“aesthetic”)
on the one hand and
    JUDGE Mode (“ethic”)
on the other.
 
As a description of, say, the practice of
performing “dialectic” on oneself—sealed
off in a room, say, or maybe walking the
trails solo and wondering about some
opposition, some conflict of interest,
some double bind one was “caught in”
(damnit, it hurts), some on-the-one-hand
but then on-the-other-hand, some to-be
or not to-be torn between two lovers,
agonizing over a rock and a hard place :
a di-lemma for heaven’s sakes, and there
I am all by myself  carrying this agon (y)
of schizophrenic division, ME: a house
(ecos) divided, say, and not happy about
it.
 
Isn’t it not only all right but GOOD to indulge
one’s self it some dialectic— putting  those
oppositions in play, polarizing and turning up
the difference—letting the two teams wrestle
and wrangle, and fight-club IT out without either
winning or losing but sustaining the struggle until
ohh myy god hmmmmm ooooooooooo:  an
emerging phenomena: a synthesis over-riding the
thesis/antithesis but not diminishing them for crying
out loud (that would be dialogical, say, not p
properly dia-bolical):a small apocalypse and 
revelation and one goes home with a solution
in hand, so to speak.
 
How can that not be good?
 
On the other hand: in Judge Mode (“my damned
moral sense prevailing) and responding critically
to the word “masturbation” (assuming  you are a
child of the 50’s and not 90’s), well then that sounds
like dubious activity—dialectical  masturbation.
 
IN fact, tie that word on to any activity, musical
masturbation, political masturbation,  poetical
masturbation, masturbatory cooking,  masturbatory
jogging or horse-back riding it automatically
suggests something sinister and unpleasant and
socially unacceptable sounding so that when the
question was asked this morning…
 
Is there such a thing as Dialectical Masturbation
 
I confess I immediately took it as a slur against my
beloved Dialectic and so had to wash off the terms,
hose them down, purify so as to be able to use/abuse
them in ways not already clouded with culture connotation
 
And so it goes.
 
Something like THAT: words! Can’t live withem
can’t live withoutem. It's a language problem.
It's a language game. Nail and be nailed. School
and be Schooled. Play and Be Played
 
I’ve just  been practicing what I preach  and let
that be a lesson to you and I hope it was good
for you because it was good for me.
 
xxxooo, Sam