FREE
PLAY as maybe a Shared
Metaphor for the Fine Art & Humanities
Division
At FAH lunch years ago, several of us considered the
notion of FAILURE as “a source of cultural energy”
the encouraging of which could be a common goal
in our work—one that is both “subversive” and yet
complementary to the
whole.
I’ve quoted Keith Sawyer (his study of collaborative
genius) many times, his
acknowledging that the
encouragement of failure and a shared suspicion of
“clarity” is necessary to an environment of shared
creativity. (And cultivation of “resilience” a word
soon to be replacing “sustainability.”)
Bullshit Detecting
Might be The Way of approaching what We mean
(our shared sense) of The Liberal Art (not to be
collapsed, conflated, confused with the liberal arts
which h constitute our majors and minors and
disciplines and inter-disciplines: the rigor of applied
and instrumental education,
vocationalism)
To the extent we realize we inescapably contribute
to this always emerging phenomena – rising up
daily like mist, smog,
a cloud of unknowing
generating our collective bozone layer—toxic, if
denied; intoxicating if acknowledged as necessary
and part of the process of resilience. That’s what
I’m wondering about.
To know I contribute to the bullshit rising up and
maybe how and in what ways and especially the
un-avoidability of my ongoing contribution seems
to me a monumental knowing—
and knowing how-
it-is-&-why doesn’t
diminish my participation but
moves me toward being
an informed as opposed
to an uninformed bullshit-er; no cover up, no denial.
Can’t. How could I claim to be a liberal artist—but
no bullshitter.
You might well say, well, Sam: what do you mean
by bullshit? (A
student walked from my class into
another a couple years backs and asked “Well,
Sir, what do you mean by Environmental?”
Collapsing the class & momentarily demoralizing
aims, purposes, and assessable outcomes.
.
Awful. Awesome.
There THAT right there! the liberal art business:
origins always originating like original spin.
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