Starving Liberal Artistry

   Toward a LIBERAL ART/ liberal arts Curriculum
 
Dear Colleagues,
 
I’ve always loved the use of “toward” as a title in the various
professional articles put out for publication  rights and the
possibility of feedback and discussion and argument (which
is why we publish—to perish the thought and maybe it’ll
resurrection got to die to be born again, so to speak,  and a
good time had by all.    )
 
“Toward Frontiers Yet Unknown,” for example  Toward,
for crying out loud. Unknown, for crying out loud.  Turn it
up—the toward-ness and the unknown-ness. Just playing
with the notion of Core and GEN-ED as maybe representing
an appropriately  radical (and incommensurate) split in our
currently half-fast overall program: two realms diametrically
and antithetically opposed so as to provide for the ongoing
possibility of  “emerging phenomenon and values” among
us and our students.
 
Conservatory values on the one hand.
Academy values on the other.
 
And how they might Just Get Along: that would be  the liberal art.
 
Composing values, on the one hand;
Consuming values on the other.
 
& can they Just Get Along?  That would be the liberal art.
 
Knowing what We’re Doing on the one hand, NOT—on the other.
Can we do justice to both and still Get Along? That would be
liberal art.
 
Triumph of the Human Spirit on the one hand.
The Horror! The Horror, on the other.
Just Getting Along?  I’m asking.
 
Some Toward-ness & Unknowing-ness here follows
(Please don’t assess and  evaluate with Being There
and Knowing standards)
 
                              Liberal Art
 
            Pursuit of Knowing & Intellective/Affective                    
                           freedom riding, say
                  (a house divided can stand it)
                     /                                   \
CORE                                                GENERAL EDUCATION
 
We know Not                                  We know What We’re Doing (expert)  
What we DO: us                                                 /            \
Clods of Unknowing                      Disciplines                Electives
 
(Indirect Transformations)                       (Direct Transmissions)
 
Eurekics:  Pedagogies
for I Got IT! I Get IT!
Discovery Channeling
      
Misanthropics:
 
Toward growing a shared sense of human inadequacy,
not cynical, not condemnatory: just descriptive as if we
all know how  our humanism cuts both ways, the damage
done  to the whole regardless (damaged and damaging
if we do & don’t do): that’s just a “given” (it’s the denial
and cover up  that generates the psychic toxic waste &
thickens  the bozone level): we’re damned, damnit—or if
you can’t stand those terms; “vulnerable,” then,  “wounded”
 for crying out loud—terms more acceptable to a post-literate,
neo-oral, wellness-addicted pursuit of knowledge and
intellectual freedom constituency.
 
NO?
 
You don’t like this description?  Turn it up then.
Give me your antithesis. We’ll polarize,
characterize: put IT in play. Or what’s
a college for
 
‘The opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth…
Ah, I see we are headed toward PARADOX,” says Neils Bohr”
“We must be making progress.”
 
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
A variant from Thoreau.  “That damned human race” says
Twain.  And so it goes.   Progressivism.
Making our home in the ambiguities.
 
Starving Liberal Artistry.

xxxooo, Sam