Anarchy: In
Love
For those not in love:
there’s LAW,
to rule
to regulate
to rectify.
there’s LAW,
to rule
to regulate
to rectify.
William Gass
AMATEUR: for
the love
of it.
PROFESSIONAL: for the money
(credit, grade, reward).
My students—all of them lovers.
Amateurs. They come to my classes
for the love of it—love of literature,
love of language, love
of Learning,
love of Life of
the Mind.
And so I don’t rectify, regulate, or
rule because
it’s all
love love love
Anarchy is what it is. No forcing the
issue. Always pure possibility &
potential—potency, power--and who
knows what measurable outcomes
will emerge?. Nobody.
will emerge?. Nobody.
CHAOS – from Indo European gheu
:
“gap,”.”chasm,”
“yawn,”
“chaos.”
"The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference."
ReplyDeleteEllie Wiesel
(-from my newest Bavarian ev. luth. state church hymnal. p. 1083. Picked it up in my hometown last time I was there. Beautiful book full of pictures and poems and sayings beside the hymns.)
http://www.amazon.com/Evangelisches-Gesangbuch-Gottesdienst-Gebet-Glaube/dp/3583121007/ref=cm_cr-mr-title
I am finding, though, that the "professional" discussion about discourse, somehow makes things "indifferent". A professional liability, perhaps, that can't be circumvented, at times. The "shock and awe", as the Clark whom we know says, just like the American methodistic stoking of the religious feelings, similarly--whether professional or amateurish--just don't seem to feed the spirit or the internal motivation, i.e. a real passion.
Yes, love & hate - 2 sides of the same coin. Opposing on the one hand, but united on the other. To be "beyond" love & hate (good & evil) is for me what is characterized by Paul in Corintheans. Nobless Oblige is another term for it. Beyond indifference too.
ReplyDeleteThere's always a gap and tension between intellect and affect. What feeds my spirit is my ongoing antagonism to institutionalization and scripted cautious protocol. Risky business and I never succeed--but I love it. . .
There is always institutionalization. When two people fall wildly in love, they decide to stay together and--here we go--we have an institution. They would like to have harmony not antagonism, and this harmony is discribed by Paul's love. It also includes a lot of suffering of each other and that is also described. It may be near impossible to achieve, but that's what we try for. But seeing how we are, we never quite accomplish it, so we are always as on the way. Settled down but not. Saved but making salvation firm...
ReplyDeleteAlways institution, yes - and institutionalism too. Always the spirit nailed down for convenience and convention's sake. Alway law. Any my spirit thrives to the degree I am antagonistic and not merely conforming. My vocation.
ReplyDeleteAlways law, and semper accusat. Never done.
ReplyDeleteDo you prefer the Latin for "always accusing" (the satanic) than "always accusing"? Are you quoting Luther on me, or some other doctrine?
ReplyDeleteIt is part of the historic discussion. We can go with "always accusing" and lose the context somewhat.
ReplyDeleteIt is and has been a big deal over the centuries whether or not we can actually do that what we ought to do and even that what we want to do. People have come to different answers and separated out according to them. I think it matters.
The law says, “Do this,” and it is never done. Grace says, “believe in this,” and everything is already done.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe jump the notion (satanism) beyond it's traditional context to "enliven" it. I can't do what I want and ought. What I do (my litany) is always a rip-off and crime against the whole. This is description It only becomes judgment when denied and covered.
ReplyDeleteThat's the side of grace that may be evident after the terrible-swift sword side is realized, and even then the notion of believe-in-thins and it's already is easily reduced to my terms of desire and not the whole cosmic picture.
ReplyDeleteThe accused is guilty whether he has covered it or not.
ReplyDeleteSo I find this law at work: "When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Romans 7: 21-25.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt, but his anguish is compounded if he's covering it.
ReplyDeleteSays St. Paul, pharisee of pharisees, as according to the law blameless (so to speak).
ReplyDeleteI prefer my description--because it's my own and makes my sense and is derived from experience and introspection and not just pre-wrapped and off the shelf.
ReplyDeleteI must confess, I am sitting at the computer not doing what I ought nor what I intended--and should try to remedy the situation, lest the institutions which I serve are thereby undermined or neglected.
ReplyDeleteDamned if you do and Damned if you don't Walk on eggs or walk on water. Mission impossible either way. What a relief.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/09/alberta-art-college-instructor-fired-after-student-slaughters-chicken-as-public-art/
ReplyDeleteCollege instructor fired.
Political correctness?
ReplyDelete"Art, and its institutions, are expressions of critical thinking, and are the lifeblood of our civilization,” he said.
ReplyDelete“As an instructor, Gord embodied this type of thinking, challenging his students to explore their environment in an intellectual and critical way.”
This is more the kind of demonstration I grew up with. What do you think would happen if someone tried either on your campus?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2321997/The-hills-alive-sound-folk-music-Villagers-tiny-Catholic-corner-Germany-celebrate-Ascension-Day-costume-song.html
We slaughter pigs. Pretty pictures. Postcard-like. We have nothing here that would ever look like this.
ReplyDeleteWhat if someone tried to process a crucifix?
ReplyDeleteThrough the meat grinder might be ok? To lift up high and walk behind?
ReplyDeletehttps://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRQFQQ_aMfpq5fm-2wcipfZAEo74S9LROfVyZJyRcdq1u1VuRGcEA
ReplyDeleteIf you are wondering whether we are "a religious" campus.
We are not. Called the most liberal in the country by Newsweek last fall. To compare us to Luthern campuses here and abroad is incommensurate. Not even close.
I knew it was not religious but has a very different flavor. But you did not answer my questions.
ReplyDeleteWhat would happen if some Catholic students decided to process a crucifix and / or started putting up pro-life (anti-abortion) pictures. And what if a professor put them up to it. There is another question.
ReplyDeleteI didn't take them as serious: more rhetorical. I don't know what would happen Maybe you could makes your question more specific and pointed: what exactly is it that you want to know? How it responds to diversity? Not that well. But it like to think it does.
ReplyDeleteWhat's your point?
My point probably is that there is a double standard alive among the liberal artiste anarchist types.
ReplyDeleteDidn''t see your question before my last response. We've had kids stand up and run a kiosk for pro-life. We'd have no trouble with a prof putting them up to it, though our students aren't easily "put up to stuff" by the profs.
ReplyDeleteWhat would happen if today, on Ascension Day, a number of your Christian students would assemble outside to sing and pray, like millions are doing in many places, demonstratively. What would happen?
ReplyDeleteLot's of pro-life kids in this country are being banned. Lawyers are standing up to help them get their rights.
ReplyDeleteYes, no doubt. Maybe triple or more--but not in terms of what you've been proposing. (Do you hang with single-standard folk? .People of single-mind and integrity? )
ReplyDeleteI reckon.
ReplyDeleteMost here are Pro Choice--so there's no liklihood of what you are proposing.
ReplyDeleteOr, else they have already all been brow-beaten into submission to the norm.
ReplyDeleteYeah--that would explain it. Rest assured--in your own righteousness, you poor thing: from the start NBL - nothing but Lutheran and all else is suspect and inadequate.
ReplyDeleteq.e.d.
ReplyDeleteAm I wrong is sensing an ongoing "accusatory" (literally, satanic) tone and attitude behind all your questioning?. A probing to expose what you see as the limits and shortcomings and inadequacies.behind your "what would happen" questions: killing chickens, processing crosses, prayer vigils for Pro Life, brow-beaten submission. (What do you mean by g.e.d.?).
ReplyDeleteWhat if it were a accusatory. Is it not the very thing you love? And are the questions not relevant or topical?
ReplyDeleteQ.E.D. Quod erat demonstrandum. I learned that from the grade 7 geometry teacher.
True. More to be gained by being accused than validated, that's for sure. Just pointing it out. I think you claimed of me that "there is no satisfying you," some time ago. The questions would be relevant, maybe, if they were genuine inquiry .But as mere rhetoric for probing the, in you mind, inadequacy and shortcoming. Let me just acknowledge: Warren Wilson and it's values won;t correspond to you and yours and various Concordia values no matter how yoiu put the questions.
ReplyDeleteYou are side-stepping the issues because there is a size-able Christian community in America and no doubt worth mentioning also on your campus, probably more so than in Canada, as a whole. So, if that community decided to oppose another opinion (peacefully) or some form or "anarchy", what would happen? Would they be allowed to speak, or would they be name-called, categorized, ... the way you like to do to me?
ReplyDeleteSide-step, hop, skip, jumb--terrified at the strength of you onslaught and what it might do to my belief and bias system. People have always (in the same sects) proposed and opposed what ever it current. Most of the community here would be against pro-life but it wouldn't upend the environement. Of course, allowed to speak.I might name-call and castigate my faculty on a lot off issues. The Pro Life - Choice isn't one of them. Hasn't come up. Tell me what you'd like to expose about our liberal environmental bias and I'll just confess it and save you the trouble of your implicit categorizing and name calling. We don't believe like you.
ReplyDeleteWow, it's my "implicit" name-calling vs. your overt. There's a tail-pinning.
ReplyDeleteTail-pinning but of cousre we both know--blind mans' bluff--that'is't impossible actually to pin the tail on the donkey. It's the effort that counts, the journey is the destination. Once the tactics are exposed it's possibly a new game altogether--but still: no donkey will allow the tail be pinned on his donkey-ass. Homeland security upber alles.
ReplyDeleteSomeone quoted someone, don't know whom. It delighted my homeland security, in any case.
ReplyDelete“Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though because of powerful intellectual propaganda they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright.”
Be good to know who's saying this, and where he/she stands--grinding whatever ax. We both know we're all conformists. And some of us delight in the unbearable brightness of our being. Not so wildly individualistic if we identify our selves with xtianity or some other belief that advocate unselfishness and self-denial.
ReplyDeleteCriticizing others is like shooting fish in a barrel, throwing stones at a barn door from inside. A piece of cake. Shortcomings and inconsistencies and discrepancies and generally unrecognized hypocracies galore--faults, flaws, and failings. Satanic! Got to love it--or else deny and cover up. Be a goodie for crying out loud.
ReplyDelete