My Courses Suck: You Got a Problem with That?

Dear Dialecticals, Humanists, American Literati and Colleagues
Across the Curriculum re some method behind my badness.    

                            ALMA MATRIX

 (a metalogue, in the style of my hero Gregory Bateson )

  

Daughter: Daddy, how come this course sucks?

Father: Oh, I like this class…

Daughter: No I didn’t say “class,” I said “course”: there’s a 

difference.

Father: Yeah,  of course:  “course” refers to a higher level of 

logical type: a class is  a  sub-collective member of a course—

a matter of specific and  generic: easy to  conflate the two.

Father: Descriptively all my  courses suck.  Some of  my classes 

do, too:  us leaning in to Alma Matrix for nourishment and not just 

naturalization.

Daughter: What are you saying?

Father: Well, “suck” is a “feminine” notion and derives from 

 Indo European: dhei-. ”to suck” —“female,” “fetus,”  “fecund,” 

“ felix,” “felicity” (happy: felix natividad): happy nativity ,happy

the 11 yr old still feeding from the source in Denny’s.. Happy
all of us sucklings swimming in  the matrix, our  ongoing alma 

mater so to  speak. How does this jovial word “suck”  lose

it’s genial connotation and become pejorative?

Daughter. . Oh, Daddy: you know.

                  Nature abhors a vacuum.  

Daughter: But we’ve drifted off topic, as usual—fooling  with

the words instead of paying attention to sentences. How come 

this course sucks?.

Father: Well, as I said: all my courses suck in the sense that

that they don’t maintain the standard chaos-filters of task and

purpose and covering ground and getting some WHERE that 

shape & edit the normal  random-to-order  ratios for nailing

down what’s  useful & what’s useless, what’s timely and what’s

a waste, what you got to do for a decent grade etc: what you 

can call clarity, consistence, &coherence.   Without standards
like these (that the players can accept or reject) the whole  

deal pretty much sucks, yes?

    

 A  vacuum  draining our structure and infra-structure: exciting 

at first, maybe,but ultimately demoralizing if  we  don’t re-create 

our own game.

Daughter: Isn’t this when you start flashing your arrow  of

 purpose and mandala of  all-at-once-ness  to  provide visual-aid 

accentuating the difference  that makes a difference between  the 

values of  aim, purpose, &  goal, on the one hand and the values

of constellation of possibility (potency: power) on the other hand;

and how obvious it is  that they can’t Just Get Along:  arrow  and

mandala.  Any fool can see that.

     POTENTIAL (POWER: Potency)                                                              

              
         PURPOSE (impotence)            

                                            

                                                     

Father:  Yes: And PURPOSE (“impotency”)is our dominant paradigm.

“Power” literally  means posse: possibility; potential. A potentate has 

the power. When he USES it: it’s an impotency. The same way  a 

WORD  (like “power” say) has infinite potential. Drop it into a 

sentence and it’s confined to a specific syntax and purpose

and loses its Potency  and becomes (as it were) 

IMPOTENT.

Daughter: It depends on which LEVEL of logical type you are

operating on, Daddy. Most would say a Word gains power in a  

sentence—not impotency.

Father: Sure most would. That’s the Common Sense. I’m not

knocking the Common   Sense: it rules. Dominates. The Arrow

of Purpose  Uber Alles—eclipsing if not occluding all the REST 

that’s possible and potent.

   

Common utilitarian getRdone purposive practical sense determines

what’s possible/ impossible (right/wrong, correct/ incorrect) sucks

off and blanks-out the larger POSSIBILITIES that always float, 

hover, permeate.

     

Look: if I’m determined to drive to San Francisco, Duluth is 

an impossibility.

Daughter: Not a logical impossibility, Daddy.

Father: No, an illogical impossibility, which may be more impossible 

than a logical one. “Logic and Sermons never convince,” says 

Walt Whitman.We’re going to San Francisco. I’ve made up my mind.

   

Daughter: No wonder  some guys have commitment phobia. 

Sucks all the possibilities out in  committing to a specific choice, 

aim, purpose, goal.

                                         &&&&&&&&

Daughter: Is that why your courses suck, Daddy?

Father: No. They suck in the Common Sense. Possibilities over whelm:

too much potency and power. damnit.  Chaos invited in on a daily basis

No clear task. No forced gun-to-the-head  No filters dictating good & 

evil, right or wrong, A;s from B's from C's from D's. That sucks.

Daughter: Or is that sucking in the Uncommon Sense: creating a vacuum 

by annihilating the agenda. Lower purpose abandoned for the higher

Purpose of Having-No-Purpose: that’s got to suck big time—hap-ily 

or un-hapily: depending on how ANYONE frames it?.

Father:  “suck” as in nurture (feminine: felix, felicitas); “suck” as in

vacuum: exhausting the insides of some system—physical or psychical. 

clean sweep, nirvana (literally: blows, ventilates). Descriptively: that’s

what suck does.  Add on yr judgment—whether you like it or not

 and it  becomes complicated.

     

THIS COURSE SUCKS- yes, it does in fact. (describe mode). 

Yea or Boo? (assess mode: love it/hate it)  That’s a course of 

another collar.    

Daughter: But Daddy, I don’t think you’re explaining WHY :
1) why do your courses suck?  And
2) sometimes your classes? And

3) maybe even a particular real-time class-going-on-in-the

 Be Here Now. Sucks.

Father: You want an Explanation? An Interpretation? 

A Reason-Why? a Because & Affect? A blamation. 

Scapegoat  that will stand for CAUSE,  and address

clearly the Difference between SUCK/NOT SUCK

on the one hand, and then on the other hand apply it to

Courses & Classes in general &  a class-in-real-time

specifically  so that you can understand—and maybe 

regulate—the levels and instances of suck-itude: suck 

sucking suck-fully in describe mode (aesthetics) as well

as in assess mode (ethic)?

Daughter, Yes, please. I want to know why and how.

Father: Suck on the one hand; Not Suck on the other.

You’d think it’d be as easy as describing on and off, 

open and closed. Pregnant and Not.

    

Linguistics and Information theorists have a beautiful trick 

they play for determining MEANING (significance)which 

they define as a difference that makes a Difference.

Daughter: Stupid definition: Meaning is sunsets and 

mockingbirds and ice cream and hugs and all the stuff

we want and live for, stuff that does not suck in the

pejorative sense: good stuff that makes life meaningful.

Father:  So if something sucks, it’s got no meaning? 

You break a leg and that’s not significant?  Meaning full? 

Only positive, smiley-face, not-sucking stuff has meaning for you?

Daughter: You’re playing games again, Daddy.  

You know what I mean.  

Father: hmmm – I know what you mean about the meaning 

of meaning.  And I’m just quibbling to make meaning mean 

more (or less) than just  

    Yeah I know what you  mean right now

     in real-time: we’re getting along,

     covering ground, building up some

     conversational velocity,

say: and now I’m  being a jerk and messing with the meaning

of meaning; it’s like throwing a monkey wrench into the 

converse-action machine.

Daughter: what you talking bout? Daddy.

Father: Never mind. You say tomato, I say tomahto: there's a

difference that don't make a difference, true?  You say bit and

I say bet;  I say bitter and you say better: differences that make

a difference.  Semantic significance carried in the physical

difference between  a  high-frontal vowel  /i/ and a

mid-frontal vowel /e/.

     

Linguists call this Minimal Pairing: isolate a single difference 

 in two systems that are otherwise the same:. 

/set/sit

can/kin

sap/sip

eating bread & grape juice/consuming the body of christ;
boxing/fighting...Etc.

The single difference is the difference which makes the difference

between the two systems.  Hence: meaningful. Significant.   

So there's a difference between a difference that doesn't make 

a difference, and  a difference does make a difference.

3 different kinds of  difference—yes?

Daughter: that's a lot of difference in the word  difference, Daddy. 

And you are using the same word to carry radically “different” 

differences of meaning.      Isn't that a problem--when you  

define something in terms of itself, calling meaning a

 meaning in terms of a difference that makes a difference?

  

 Loopy? Circular?

Father: It's called a tautology—a rose is a rose is a rose, said

Gertrude Stein. I couldn't sleep   last night because of “dormitive

dysfunction” (sleep disorder) . Tautology: defines something  in 

it's own terms, or variation of the same term disguised so as to

sound significant:

I hate my  body. Oh, that's because you got dysmorphia 

(body antagonism).

My legs jitter because I have R.L.S (restless legs syndrome).  

You aren't paying attention to me because you have A.D.D  

These are diagnoses and explanation and because-alities that

add no  information but sound as  if they do. Sort of like 

PLACEBO's We are tricked into thinking  a significant
significance when in fact there is only a significance that 

doesn't have any significance (except in the :mind.)

Daughter: What's a placebo, Daddy.

Father, Well, literally it means I PLEASE in Latin, and it's the first

word of the Last Rites  in the Catholic ceremony for the dying. 

:I please the Lord in  the Land of the Living.

But in medical science a placebo is an empty pill—one that has

no potency or use or curative quality: a sugar pill, say. But if you

take one under doctor's orders—and assume it will heal you, it can.

Daughter: how?

Father: Tricks the Conscious mind. Conscious Mind thinks it will

help—so IT does.  Showing what mind can do over body if it

THINKS it's being rational and scientific.

Daughter: you mean Mind, if it doesn't KNOW it's minding-over-

matter, can actually mind-over- matter, but if it does know it: it can't? .

Father. Yes. Unconscious Mind is able to do stuff Conscious Mind 

can't. I'm not even going to try and untangle THAT for now. You can,

and bring it up in psychology class. Or better:just think about it your

own self. Here, take this pill—blue or red makes no  never mind. 

Now THINK.  

Daughter: how did we get from why does this course suck to 

differences that do and  don't make a difference, tautological

definition and placebo?  

Father: that's the nature of live, unscripted conversation: it wanders, 

it wonders  (Note: a minimal pair: o/a is the difference that makes a 

difference between wondering and wandering.).

Live converse constellates as opposed to arrow-of-purpose move-

on-down-the road & get some WHERE: dead and deadly.  .

Both kinds of conversation suck in the pejorative sense but also in the

descriptivesense. If you're a practical myn of purpose, “live” converse

feels like spiraling up your own rear end.  Sucks.  If you prefer loose 

play and open-ended inquiry: on-task talk feels like necrophiladelphia. 

Sucks

Daughter: well why can't the 2 Just Get Along.?

Father: Exactly. It sucks that they can't. If we aimed a gun at them: would

that do it? My courses by the way are exactly like all the other courses: 

syllabi. textual assignments,papers to write, class meetings and discussion, 

journals, in some cases final exam.

 A Course is a Course is a Course: all the same--me and Dong Ping, 

Jeff (the Jolly) Jeff (the Serious) and John Brock, and David Bradshaw,

Katherine Burleson, Ali Climo: yes? Need we argue?  more same than 

difference, yes?

There's one difference, however, that  separates my course from all the

other courses. A difference that really makes a difference. A significant

difference and might be the reason why, explanation, interpretation,

because & affect, scapegoat, blamationthat generates the suck-i-tude 

in all my courses.

Daughter: Tell me why, Daddy; That's what I asked in the first place.

Father. I can't tell you. It would ruin the joke.

A man walks into the Rolls Royce Showroom,

starts kicking the tires & asks the salesman: 

what do one of these babies cost anyway.   

“My dear man, “ says the sales person.' 

“If you have to ask, you can't afford IT. “