My Courses are a JOKE

Dear American Literati, Readers in Humanities,
Dialog & Dialecticians, and Colleagues Across the
Curriculum (Courses W/O Borders Series)

    Environ Mentalism: Prelude to Spring Studies      

In life we make progress by conflict and in mental
life by argument and disputation.... There must be
confrontation  and opposition, in order that sparks
 must be kindled.
 
Only an open conflict of ideas and principles can
produce any clarity.  Argument is essential for its
own sake. (Karl Popper)
 
Even if all were agreed on an essential proposition,
it would  be essential to give an ear to the one
 person who does not.  J.S. Mill
 
            My Courses are a JOKE
 
Not for everyone
but then: you may not be for everyone, too.
 
If “smart” and “knowledge” are defined in terms
of having “information” then anyone with a laptop
or smart phone is as smart as the smartest kid in class.
 
Need we argue?
 
It's not what I know that counts any more,
but whether I can put it in PLAY.
 
                      Prelude  I
 
(literally: foreplay, before the play as opposed to
 interlude & post lude; from LUDIC:  “play,”
“game,”--ludicrous as opposed to  illusion &
deluded: out-of-it, not in game, not  playful).
 
My courses are a joke:  wasting  time.
    l
  
               jocular                                 serious
 
LUDIC  attributes (characterizations) are virtues
 in my mind—qualities and distinctions I  would
turn-up so as to separate them from the Serious:
you know: courses that are no  joke nor do they
aim (as mine do) to waste time..
 
   “SCHOOL: from Latin :  schola - “leisure”
            “scholar” – of the leisure class.
 
My courses and OPC (other peole's courses)
are  incommensurate.
 
* Play & Work
* Fooling Around & Getting-R-Done
* Doing IT for Love or for Money
* for Curiosity or for Credit
 
Different value sets and   hostile  Pete  Player and
 Wanda Worker won't Just Get Along in the same
room. On the same committee or Task Force..
 
IF governed &   regulated, if you can relate the 2 without
 measuring, assessing , & evaluating either  in the terms
 of the other (because they're INCOMMENSURATE))
THEN, they complement each other.
 
Imagine: evaluating “play” in terms of “work done”.
Imagine: assessing a “joke” in terms of clarity,
correctness, consistency, and  coherence.
  
Waste of time in the worst sense..
      
              Thanks to the “ANARCHY” characterizing
                ½ of each of my class periods (which I
              divide into first half, called “Life of Mind”
                 & second half: “Life of Body  Politic) :
                               CHAOS
               is present & welcome as  well as
                               RANDOM--
              two of the 3  sources of Innovation
               normally blocked and filtered by
                               ORDER
           & his dominant pair of dimes driving our
          agenda and getRdone task-force addictions.
 
These 3 (of which only 1/3 is welcome in “serious” courses):
                     are the Mothers of Invention                           
                                     Chaos
           :           (gap, chasm, abyss, yawn)
      R A N D O M (running, flow) <----> order (weave, web)
 
Triad of triads—though when we're being serious and no joke:
*  we privilege order,
*  deny random, and
*  cover-up chaos best we can,
a rip-off & crime against the whole dynamic &
a  moving violation against the holy, don't you agree?
Need we argue? .  .
 
Or  you don't get it, maybe? (The joke?).   Hit reply or, better,
 reply to all.  We could put IT in play even before school starts up

(This is one of a series of 3. Blame the snow fall: Expect 2 more
enviorn-mental diatribes.: aimed to provoke consideration re
over-all attitude and outlook--framework for literary study.)

Best, Sam Scoville