On Reading Books (almost) Too Late

I am in the thick of three books right now (four, if you include the Jack Vance collection I’m reading on my Kindle) . . . two of which I am working through very slowly because they are so incredibly helpful. They make me sad, though, because I wish I had read them years ago:

After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre

The Classical Trivium by Marshall McLuhan

The latter one would have made my doctoral thesis 100% better. It contains a wealth of information that would have allowed me to properly situate the arguments I was intuiting but not fully knowing how to explore.

The former one also explains much about what I have been thinking and experiencing; I suppose, like Willard’s book The Divine Conspiracy, it is a volume that is coming along at the time I am ready for it. . . but I mourn the years lost when I might have been so much better off for having tasted its wisdom.

SACSBS Vol. 2

The dust has begun to settle from the first few days after the big announcement. Our interim chancellor, an energetic and incredibly capable man, has said publically that this is the worst week he’s experienced in his 30+ years in higher ed.

Our college dean sent around an email with some preliminary explanations/talking points. I quote two specific passages below:

We have held 2 Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP) workshops and attendance was good but not excellent. We also held the fall workshop on assessment. But many faculty have expressed reluctance to take the necessary steps.

[…]

The second thing is that we need to get on board the assessment train. As workshops come up about assessment, we need to participate. As we are asked to work to find test questions, papers, and assignments that can be used to measure learning objectives, we need to do so.

I understand that she is correct in her description of the importance of the new assessment buzzword—not because it’s actually important in real life, but because from a bureaucratic standpoint, it’s the criterion du jour and thus has real effects. "Accrediting organizations are under pressure from the Department of Education to demonstrate that they are holding schools accountable and so we must show our work."

That said, I am mystified by this repeated insistence that “workshops” are like a magical elixir that can help solve the problem. When has anyone in any business ever found that “workshops” are useful except for the managers who use them to show “attention” and the speakers who get compensated for them? If this is a real concern requiring real action, then I need to see something more serious than insisting on workshops. Otherwise it sounds like what it is — bureaucratic make-work to give everyone in the administrative chain a reason to exist.

In which Piers is finding the language

Roger Scruton:

‘I agree there is a paucity of conservative thought. It is partly the effect of the dominance of the left. If you come out as a conservative in a university context, you will find yourself very much on the margins. But my main explanation of this is that conservative thought is difficult. It doesn’t consist of providing fashionable slogans or messages of hope and marching into the future with clenched fists and all the things that automatically get a following. It consists in careful, sceptical rumination on the near-impossibility of human existence in the first place.’

In Fools, Frauds and Firebrands Scruton attacks the left idea of thought for a cause, ‘politics with a GOAL’. By contrast, he tells me, ‘Conservatives are by their nature people who are trying to defend and maintain existence without a cause’. Simply to keep things as they are? ‘We obviously all want to change things, but recognising that human life is an end in itself and not a means to replace itself with something else. And defending institutions and compromises is a very difficult and unexciting thing. But nevertheless it’s the truth.’

. . .

‘My view’, says Scruton, ‘is that what’s underlying all of this is a kind of nihilistic vision that masks itself as a moving toward the enlightened future, but never pauses to describe what that society will be like. It simply loses itself in negatives about the existing things – institutional relations like marriage, for instance – but never asks itself if those existing things are actually part of what human beings are. Always in Zizek there’s an assumption of the right to dismiss them as standing in the way of something else, but that something else turns out to be Nothing.’

We agree to disagree about his suggestion of there being a dreadful left continuum from the French revolution to today (me being not only a fan of past revolutions but an old historical materialist who believes in seeing things in their specific contexts). However, his book does acknowledge that something important has changed about leftwing thinking: ‘Liberation and social justice have been bureaucratised.’

‘Whatever we think about the revolutions’, he says, ‘the original slogan of the French Revolution – liberté, égalité, fraternité – was just a slogan, and nobody troubled to ask themselves whether liberté and égalité were compatible in practice. Really the subsequent history has been an illustration of that conflict between them.

‘But these great ideals, for which people did fight and die, were changed under the pressure of 20th-century politics into bureaucratic processes, that are constantly equalising, constantly passing little bits of legislation to ensure that anybody is not discriminating, not standing out, not learning something that puts them in a higher category than anybody else. And, likewise, liberté has been bureaucratised in the sense that it doesn’t any more represent the freedom of people to break out, to do the thing that they really want to do. Rather it’s conceived as a form of empowerment – the state gives you this in the form of vouchers or privileges, privileges, for example, that you might have as a gay, or a woman, or an ethnic minority. So in all these ways, both those ideals have ceased to be ideals and become the property of the state, to distribute among people according to the fashion of the day.’

Monday Update, probation edition

The dominant conversation topic this past week: the decision of SACS to slap a “probation” on this campus. Lots of hand-wringing and arm-waving has transpired, but it isn’t entirely unexpected. I look forward to chronicling the further developments and responses of our leadership.

Grades have been turned in and I got few to no complaints. I got a few questions. It seems that either I give grades that are too high or I give the impression that they are not up for discussion after they’ve been assigned.

Now that the semester is done, I turn my attention to some things that need to be done at the office and at the house; it’s a sad truth that as the semester reaches roughly the 2/3 point, it becomes very hard, not to say impossible, to stay on top of all the stuff. A certain amount of disorder arises.

I also have studying and writing I need to do, but it’s awfully hard to resist the call of the nap. I have tried to remember to stay busy rather than passive; it has helped.

SACSBS, Volume 1

A campus email from the interim chancellor today highlights results of our recent SACS accreditation process. And lo and behold! We have been put on “probation pending corrective actions they wish us to address.” The predictable will result: many much more committee! filing of reports! redoubling of efforts! flagellations of the guilty!

It will be painful this coming year.

I have no doubt that this is the result of some leadership problems (and how) that we have suffered in recent years. But I also have no doubt that part of the raison d’être of the accrediting agency is to provide work for us to do so that we can look busy and file reports and provide them with more work and more power and so on.

I consider it as part of the creeping and inexorable bureaucratization that has generally throttled the intellectual life of colleges nationwide, and as such is utter BS. Hence the title of the post, and the start of a new series of posts on this blog.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 50

My Number One Son has never complained about his eyesight, yet it seems that on his most recent screening at school they caught something . . . and so he visited the optometrist yesterday and lo and behold, he needs glasses. No suprise there, really. We expected it before now.

It happens that he is ever more tweeny, so the prospect of wearing glasses makes him a bit nervous: “I’m worried that I’ll look funny.” In my attempt to assure him that he won’t look funny at all, I took off MY glasses to show him that we look more or less the same either way. Well, he didn’t buy it: “naw, Dad, you look funny . . . you’ve got these bag thingies under your eyes. It makes you look OLD.”

Touche, son.

In which Piers has a sore hand

Since the summer I have been battling a strange malady on the knuckle of my right index finger. It started when I was pulling weeds by the hundreds: a sharp pain when I made the pincer gesture with my thumb and forefinger & put a bit of pressure on it. After six months of pretty predictable pain from writing, or carrying things, or pulling weeds, etc., I have been to two different doctors to look into the matter. In both cases the x-ray and physical examination have been inconclusive. It’s strange: it doesn’t happen to the point where it is constant or debilitating, but it is regular to the point where I began to wonder if arthritis was the cause. So far, no indication. Fingers crossed. It may be just part of getting older.

The triathlete and I joke about the time after I broke my hand in Chapel Hill — the fateful Fall when I had to take my doctoral exams one-handed — when I started to have some shooting pains up the back of my right hand and into my forearm. I went into the doctor at Student Health, got an x-ray, and his comment upon looking at the x-ray, with a friendly smirk: “sore hand.” (he also cackled when I presented with a back rash and a swollen lymph node in my groin: “it’s shingles!” he laughed. I miss that doctor)

Monday Update: A Sad Tale's Best for Winter* Edition

I tried to restart my blogging this Fall, just as the doors blew off the year and just as the great majority of things in my various worlds began to look ominous indeed:

• The Triathlete and I are in marriage counseling. Yes, it is my fault.
• Number One Son has brought home numerous bad grades recently, as in the D to F category.
• Little Red is showing signs of some significant anxiety trouble.
• We have completely outgrown our house but are absolutely not ready to move or even begin the process of moving.
• This is the first holiday season since Honey passed away.
• The entire world of academia has apparently lost its collective shit.
• We are facing institutional failure at every conceivable level.
• My department is shrinking and the disarray from previous and current campus administrators remains intractable.
• My students are, on average, declining in both ability and motivation, and I’m not sure what I can do to help.
• I fell so deep into a well of passivity that climbing out of it is painful for my entire family.

I have seldom been this discouraged when not outright afflicted by the Black Dog, so there’s a lot of gut-check going on. I am having to make some hard choices about what I’m changing in my life, and I am preparing for hard roads ahead.

(*regarding the post title: check out its source in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, a play about coming to terms with the weight of experience and choice)

Contemplating a coming collapse

Upon observing a truly disheartening week for higher education (to say nothing about the disarray where I work):

Dreher (emphasis mine):

I would invite journalists, academics, and professional class people to think about what this little campus p.c. revolution so many of you are embracing says to the huge number of people outside your narrow circles of privilege. Houellebecq is speaking to you. You are waging a culture war on the people who are not like you. They know you hate them, and are pulling the ladders up behind you. When the university system collapses — as it will, because we cannot afford it — do you really think they are going to give a damn? Do you really think that they will, in the end, have any more concern for free speech, fair play, and other classically liberal values than you have shown? Here’s a hint: there are a lot more of them than there are of you. And sooner or later, some rough beast is going to come along and inspire them to vote.

"Weary of that flight"

Hee entred well, by vertuous parts,
Got up and thriv'd with honest arts :
He purchas'd friends, and fame, and honours then,
And had his noble name advanc'd with men :
But weary of that flight,
Hee stoop'd in all mens sight
To sordid flatteries, acts of strife,
And sunke in that dead sea of life,
So deep, as he did then death's waters sup ;
But that the Corke of Title buoy'd him up.

It is easy to start well. It is much harder to finish well. I taught this poem the other day as a companion piece to “To Penshurst,” and found myself exercised at myself because I seem to be slipping professionally, spiritually, emotionally, physically. It’s more than just the time of year or the time of semester. It’s also the stage in my life where I’m not sure I’m up to the task.

I tell my students that the hardest thing isn’t the rare act of heroism in a crisis — it’s the getting up every day and doing your job, being a person of integrity, even when the weight of years begins to make your legs shake and your back ache.

Goe now, and tell out dayes summ'd up with feares,
And make them yeares ;
Produce thy masse of miseries on the Stage,
To swell thine age ;
Repeat of things a throng,
To shew thou hast beene long,
Not liv'd ; for life doth her great actions spell,
By what was done and wrought
In season, and so brought
To light : her measures are, how well
Each syllabe answer'd, and was form'd, how faire ;
These make the lines of life, and that's her aire.

Monday Update, October Hangover Edition

With the end of October comes the end of what the Triathelete calls the long slog that starts during the Soybean Festival and doesn’t really end until we’ve sorted the Halloween candy. In most years, the Pig Pickin takes up two weeks in the middle of October and really taps us out. This year we were better prepared than we usually are, but then the end of October gloominess set in earlier than we anticipated so we couldn’t have the event. Now we just have the several weeks before the St Jude Marathon Weekend in Memphis.

The children really enjoyed Halloween, of course. We trick-or-treated in the rain, but they had so much fun it didn’t really matter. Lefty was particularly sweet, having the time of his life shouting out TRICK OR TREAT and THANKYOUHAPPYHALLOWEEN and then announcing what kind of candy he got. It’s fun to watch him do all that, and really fun to remember doing that myself when I was a first grader in the Garden Hills neighborhood in Atlanta.

I say “children,” but of course we are on the cusp of having a tween at my house. Number One goes from child to teen and back again, spending more time with headphones on and being generally secretive. But then this morning he was getting ready for school and singing a nonsense song at the top of his lungs in that high piping voice of his.

I’m going to miss that voice, just like I’m going to miss the husky grunt of Little Red and him scrubbing his bristly hair against me.

I make time for all these things from my boys, because I know they won’t be little boys forever.

Shoe Appreciation Post

Clarks Desert Boots, beeswax, brand new on the left and four (or five) years old on the right. Good for just about every occasion. The old ones are still going strong (they started out looking like the pair on the left), but I got a good deal on the new ones. I have an even older pair in taupe suede that I’m still wearing.

In the department of False Alarms, we have--

ANNNNND, just like that, no more problem. I’ll bet the behind the scenes communications would be fun to read.

Seriously, I’m grateful to both entities for being willing to reach some sort of agreement. I rely on this subscription for basically all my research such as it is.

Well, there goes a major perk

In which the demands of the market and the demands of scholarship collide. This won’t hurt people at the more wealthy institutions, but for those of us at the small ones, it’s a major blow.

A Tale of the Canceled Pig Pickin

And so the time of year came in which we would carve the swine, and roast it, and feast our friends, and give thanks for the coming autumn. For 18 years I did just that, both in Chapel Hill (helping the honorable WT) and here in NWTN, and never once were we rained out or otherwise interrupted. Until this past Friday, when the rain set in and would not quit. And so, despite the lamentations of our children, we were forced to cancel our Tenth Annual Hawks Road Hawg Roast.

We stood in the rain and watched the boys play soccer instead.

Monday Update, Preparing for October Events Edition

We are preparing for birthday party #11 for Number One Son. He wants a sleepover. That is not a possibility in our little house unless we have a BACKYARD CAMPING SLEEPOVER! Which seems like a bonus for the boys but actually is just a measure to keep them from destroying our house.

Little Red went to the eye doctor — we were thinking that he would need glasses, based on some of his recent behavior, but as it turns out he just has a mild astigmatism that doesn’t need any treatment yet.

Soccer games continue every Saturday. There have been some wins and some losses — alas, there have been more losses than wins for Little Red’s team, which has a kind but inexperienced coach. Though when Little Red plays defender, he might as well be called The Eraser. He’s better off not having to run during the game (!)

The children are on Fall Break this week from Monday through Wednesday. We’re trying to keep Number One doing his work, and trying to get the children to do some chores. Funny how it’s hard to make that happen.

On not giving credit for good intentions

Unless one is hiding under a rock, it’s impossible to be working in higher ed without running into the burgeoning TITLE IX Industry. We recently faced our own little adventure with “consultants” who came and “trained” us in our role as “mandatory reporters” of “sexual misconduct” . . . not reporters to the police, mind you, but to our campus’s designated TITLE IX COORDINATOR (who I know, and who is an honest man, and who is in the job on an interim basis).

It was an experience remarkably incoherent and Orwellian all at the same time. Some of my colleagues were subjected to an emotionally harrowing testimonial of a “rape” that took place more than two decades ago (!) Some of my colleagues were subjected to a presenter who purported to give advice and coherent definitions, and whose examples included one student looking at another’s ankles (!), and whose advice included allowing a student to opt out of the entire class if he/she/xe/zhe feels too “challenged” by the material. I was in the group that was subjected to a young man whose statements included things like the following:

• “You need to invite people to step outside their comfort box."
• “Students need to know correct policies and procedures to make good decisions.”
• “Tell a troubled student that ‘I’m not going away; I want to have a conversation with you.’"

Ye gods.

I am not convinced that the “problem” being presented to us is anything more than a remarkably brazen power grab on the part of unaccountable government bureaucrats and the academic-administrator power bloc. But even assuming that there is an actual problem with campus rape culture (again, something that has not been demonstrated by any honest measure), my campus has shown that it is unserious about the situation by promulgating a legally binding document that shows essentially no provisions for due process and by hiring consultants (reportedly at $50K) who demonstrably couldn’t find their (or anyone else’s) asses with both hands. The faculty at this institution may not have a University of Chicago pedigree, I’ll admit, but we deserve a serious approach. We have not yet seen one.

How Dante Can Save Your Life

Last night, there was a guest speaker at my institution—Rod Dreher, a conservative journalist. This time around he is speaking in support of his recently published How Dante Can Save Your Life. I am always glad to attend and support an event devoted to a great poem.

As it turns out, most of his talk was autobiographical—focusing on how he, a non-specialist, non-academic, non-fiction reader, found a way out of his own dark wood by reading a poem he never expected to enjoy.

As his talk went on, his descriptions of depression resonated with me. And then he talked about being at his father’s death bed (a mere month ago). It was deeply moving, and if you were listening you could hear him making the implicit argument that these old poems (the things people like me work so hard to preserve and teach) can have a value to any reader ready to approach them.

That kind of advice is the best advice we humanists can give to a public adrift.

I also wept. I miss my dear Mother in Law.

Adventures with Students, Vol. 54

From today’s feedback from my English 250 class, where I did my usual bit on Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier:

I really enjoyed this story because the way you dumbed it down, essentially enough for us all to understand the most important parts.

Gee. I can see it now on my updated resume:

“job skills: dumbing it down"

We have a new policy!

my institution has gotten with the times and promulgated an impossibly broad Sexual Abuse/Dating Violence/Badthink policy, and has mandated formal training for all faculty—no exceptions.

I read the document. In a 60 page document, this is the only mention of Due Process, which is never explicitly defined:

the “may” is the weasel-word that means, “tough luck, suckers.” And you know this because they never spell out what they mean beyond this (though they go into great detail about what the complainant can expect).

I eagerly await the lawsuits.

Professional Check-up

so, ten years in, how am I doing?

actually, it’s more like sixteen years.

it’s impossible, I guess, to spend a decade and more doing things a certain way without falling into certain patterns, i.e., ruts--

I have no pedagogical method except going in and doing what I do. I wave my arms and yell, enthusing about a set of things in what I hope is an intelligent manner. I try to be encouraging and yet also rigorous. It requires a huge amount of energy and effort. If I ever get to where I cannot stride around and make jokes, etc., I’m not going to do well.

I try to be welcoming and accessible to my students without inviting the familiarity that ends in contempt.

As I get older and they get younger, I have to try even harder to keep my own opinions and general curmudgeonliness from getting in the way. For instance, I see young men in particular for whom I feel some pity . . . I want them to embrace my own silly & archaic brand of Roman/Ben Jonsonesque stoicism . . . even as I know that I’ve always been that way and can hardly expect others to do the same.

I do have the conviction that studying literature is about filling your brain with “stuff,” and the only way to be a learned person is to read everything you can. I do believe that I’m not teaching to shape anyone ideologically, but I am hoping to convince them that the opportunity of free will and choice is a blessing and a burden, one not to be abandoned or ignored.

I read an article by Cary Saul Morson and commented on it earlier this year . . . and in it he asserts that he reads to his classes from their selections precisely because by doing so he can model an intelligent reader’s “voicing” of the parts. I have to admit that, given the examples I had in grad school from Professors S., and G., and especially B., I agree. It’s what I do . . . I have been gently mocked for using different voices while I read, and yet, I think it helps them. They are so uncomfortable reading stuff like this.

The students here like me. I am comfortable in front of the classroom and have the reputation of a tough but fair and inspiring instructor.

This is year eleven. I fear the rut.

Um, I'm taking the Bartleby option

In today’s inbox:

Faculty/Staff Title IX Training

Sexual Misconduct, Relationship Violence, and Stalking Policy and Procedure – REQUIRED TRAINING

Please choose one of the following sessions to attend:

Monday, September 21, 11:00 – 11:45 a.m.
Monday, September 21, 2:00 – 2:45 p.m.
Tuesday, September 22, 10:00 – 10:45 a.m.
Tuesday, September 22, 2:00 – 2:45 p.m.
All sessions will be held in Watkins Auditorium in the University Center.

Who is required to attend?
Training is required for all Faculty, Exempt Staff, Non-Exempt Staff who supervise, Graduate Teaching Assistants, Supervisors, GAs/Others serving as Academic Advisors. Training will fully explain the Sexual Misconduct, Relationship Violence, and Stalking Policy and Procedure and provide clarification of your responsibilities as a Mandatory Reporter.

Trainer information: Katie Koestner with Campus Outreach Services - Katie is a national expert and has been a leader in the movement to end sexual violence since she took her own solo stand as the first survivor of date rape to speak out nationally at age 18. Subsequently, she has appeared on nearly 50 national television programs and spoken at more than 3000 college and school campuses. She assisted the U.S. Department of Education in developing and providing programs to women in high-risk communities. Her testimony on Capitol Hill was instrumental in the passage of federal student safety legislation.
Two team members from Campus Outreach Services will assist with the trainings.

Oh boy! National Expert! First Survivor! Television Programs! Testimony on Capitol Hill! Team Members to Assist!

I’m sure this is a lucrative business for Campus Outreach Services, and I’m happy for Ms. Koestner, but I wonder why we need an outside consultant to come read powerpoint slides to us. I wonder why we need to pay whatever is required to have Ms. Koestner come read powerpoint slides to us. I wonder why faculty cannot be trusted to read a document for themselves, seeing as they are professionals in knowledge fields, after all.

I will believe it’s a financial crisis when the people telling me it’s a financial crisis act like it’s a financial crisis.

And yes, I know what this is. It is 100% CYA. Calling it a “Training” is a stretch for even the most credulous. I just wish they would be honest about what is actually happening here: they have to demonstrate that they have made everyone attend a training so that lawyers etc. don’t get involved. Or any more involved.

Bonus: will the utterly bogus “1 in 5” statistic get trotted out? You bet. How soon? I’m thinking within the first 3 minutes.

Seriously taking the Bartleby option.

"Vindictive Protectiveness"

"Therapy often involves talking yourself down from the idea that each of your emotional responses represents something true or important."

An important new article at The Atlantic — I know, stop laughing - discusses how the campus atmosphere in the US right now has major consequences for freedom of speech, liberty of consicence, and mental health.

I disagree with the authors’ too-kind characterization of speech control as motivated by laudable and compassionate impulses that have gotten out of hand. I think instead that speech and thought control are totalitarian in their genesis, so it should surprise absolutely no one when they are applied in destructive ways. BUT, the general tenor of the article is accurate and welcome, and couched in the kind of language that makes the points in an unobtrusive and “objective” way. And because it is being published in a faux-highbrow publication like The Atlantic, at least some people (the sort who take NPR seriously too) will take it seriously.

The list of recommendations at the end of the article are particularly useful, especially the first one, which calls for the de-escalation of the DOE’s currently insane application of the term “harassment.” Alas, despite the well-modulated and undoubtedly useful thoughts of Lukianoff and Haidt, the perverse incentive structure of the 21st Century campus will stymie any meaningful reform.

Men make plans; God laughs.

“But some will say, Whence has this fellow got the arrogance which he displays and these supercilious looks? I have not yet so much gravity as befits a philosopher; for I do not yet feel confidence in what I have learned and in what I have assented to. I still fear my own weakness. Let me get confidence and then you shall see a countenance such as I ought to have and an attitude such as I ought to have; then I will show to you the statue, when it is perfected, when it is polished.”

Excerpt From: Epictetus. “A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/fM8jE.l

Which way: Horace or Juvenal?

Thus life is indifferent: the use is not indifferent. When any man then tells you that these things also are indifferent, do not become negligent; and when a man invites you to be careful (about such things), do not become abject and struck with admiration of material things. And it is good for you to know your own preparation and power, that in those matters where you have not been prepared, you may keep quiet, and not be vexed, if others have the advantage over you.

—Epictetus

There is an argument to be made (but not in the space of this forum) that a satirist is an idealist/romantic/conservative who finds himself confronting knaves and fools where he hoped to find saints and heroes. When one finds that the world is made of brass, and one finds that one’s expectations are dashed, what is there to do if one is not willing to succumb to indifference or worse? You confront the wrong! Attack!

I find myself tending toward Juvenal . . . but the problem is that his approach leads to some pretty harsh reprisals. When I see years’ worth of fecklessness coming home to roost, and consider how it affects people and institutions I care about, it’s difficult to keep my trap shut. I’m just irascible enough to not be able to pull off Horace’s gentle but piercing judgments. And so—-I guess I know how much my righteous indignation is worth.

So I try to take the advice of the Stoic instead.

SLO-mo

I am currently listening to a committee of my department colleagues work to develop a list of properly formatted SLO’s (Student Learning Objectives) so that we may meet SACS and other administrative mandates. We have even been given a book by the new Title III office to help us properly phrase the SLO’s so that they use appropriate action verbs and what-not.

It is no doubt quite useful to talk about why we are teaching what we teach, and what we hope to accomplish. Useful merely to us, though, and mainly for the sake of meeting the demands of the bloated academic-administrative class.

The same class responsible for this kind of nonsense, and for this, and for this.

In which Piers examines his moral formation

But if thou think, trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warned thou seemest,
Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more;
Go in thy native innocence, relie
On what thou hast of virtue, summon all,
For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine.

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.

Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.

I wonder what it says about me that a good portion of my moral reasoning is filtered through the words of John Milton.

Laurence J. Peter, Vindicated

This article has been making the rounds recently, and it speaks to the greatest problem facing institutions of higher ed in this country.

It’s no secret that any educational institution is a bloated mess; the layers of regulatory oversight and legal ass-covering are so manifold and intertwined that they are impenetrable to the average citizen. Which is how these institutions get away with it; the layers upon layers of administration seem professional and competent because their actions are generally filtered through a dense screen of verbiage.

Still, a report like the one above has the virtue of highlighting unfortunate realities so that they are hard to ignore (as has been the case with other recent revelations in the news). I could cite several examples from the two institutions I’ve been most recently affiliated with, but that seems like piling on at this point.

In which Piers Observes Institutional Disarray, Part Two

A few weeks ago I reported on a distressing matter of faculty and curriculum governance on my campus — how a specific department was attempting to use a bit of bureaucratic paperwork hocus-pocus to circumvent a decision handed down by the faculty senate on my campus. I won’t repeat all the specifics.

Yesterday I found out that when the matter was brought to the provost for review, he essentially shrugged and said that the department and college in question (the department of Criminal Justice, housed in the College of Education, Health, and Behavioral Sciences) appeared to have found a loophole that made their request technically valid. Disappointing to say the least, and probably further driving a wedge of distrust between units on this campus.

The ramifications of this request and its implementation are, as I see it:

1. The department in question (the Department of Criminal Justice) now has an official catalog description of its course requirements that it will never actually enforce - and they are deliberately choosing to do so.
2. The chairperson of this department has, in his capacity as chairperson of a department and as president of the faculty senate during the period of this controversy, deliberately circumvented and even ignored the express will of the very governance body over which he has had the executive position. There is also evidence that he personally pressured individuals in his department to “get with the program.”
3. This faculty senate president has circumvented these rules and decisions—-and, I would argue, general professional ethics--with the collusion and assistance of both the chairperson of the Undergraduate Council, i.e., the faculty body with the authority to approve curriculum change requests (a woman who has also served on the UT Board of Trustees and who now also holds an administrative position); the newly elevated dean of the College of Education, Health, and Behavioral Sciences; and the university registrar.
4. Most significantly, this has now set the precedent that any department facing difficulty in meeting basic curricular requirements that the faculty as a whole have agreed upon may point to Criminal Justice as an example of how to secretly change degree requirements without going through the channels of review outlined in the Faculty Handbook.
5. The college in question is aware that its reputation across campus is . . . troubled. This only reinforces the opinions of its critics.

You know an institution has lost its way when most of the alleged professionals involved in a deeply questionable decision both hide the decision from the rest of the institution and then, when questioned, retreat into the language of bureaucratic obfuscation.

In which Piers explains his avoidance of the Twitter and the Facebook

This is no Jeremiad; it is the product of a good deal of sober reflection on the nature of mass media, and specifically mass electronic media, in reference to the rhetorical and social effects it has. I have spent several years studying a print controversy that erupted in the 1580s in England, and have as a result developed a keen interest in the relationship between means of publication and tone of publication. In the specific case I am studying, the self-consciously popular and open format of pamphleteering led to a freedom of language that many observers found troubling. Many conflicts in the era hinge partially on competing analyses of the discourse and decorum involved in the format and matter under discussion.

The parallels to our current media environment are striking; we have a still-young means of publication (i.e. the largely unfiltered self-expression on which platforms like Twitter and Facebook are ostensibly founded), and we are lacking in many cases the mental furniture necessary to make balanced judgments about the best ways to use it, and we lack the experience and distance necessary for true analysis of the outcomes.

I have tended to be a near-absolutist in terms of giving people unfettered access to means of self-expression and its products. But that extends only so far as government and administrative entities are involved; my admiration of Milton’s position in Areopagitica remains. This says nothing, however, about the social and personal costs involved in the recent phenomenon of Twitter rage-mobs or personal and professional destruction meted out to people based on news stories that tend to be only partial in truth and murky in motivation. What’s worse is that these movements tend to be self-reinforcing and impervious to reasoned critique as tribal identification replaces actual discourse. I understand that social media platforms can be used for desirable ends, but in practice the reasonable and useful voices are all too frequently drowned out. I also recognize that in saying so I betray my age and general philosophical bent.

I choose to not participate both because I’m not clever enough to respond in pithy, useful ways, and because it does my general sunny disposition no good. I’m better off if I just focus on my family and my work.

"You're a putrescent mass, a walking vomit."

I signed this petition.

I’m not Canadian, so this doesn’t strike immediately close to home, but I’m not so optimistic that I don’t see the possibility of similar BS happening here. I have watched too many of my academic friends (and remember, these are the teachers of the supposed leadership class of tomorrow, which means that their opinions have an effect) decide that freedom of expression isn’t all that important. They decide this, of course, according to double-secret criteria that they themselves have formulated for the comfort of their own cherished ideas (or feelings; in many cases there’s very little rational “idea" involved), and in the comfort of their positions of authority and cultural ascendancy.

I have come to the point where I’m not willing to soft-pedal my disgust anymore. There are far too many people who would rather not make a fuss — a reaction this introvert understands — but in doing so acquiesce to evil. That’s right: evil. There’s no other word for thought police whether on campus or in Canada or in North Korea. Barking savagery and bureaucraticized evil deserves to be named for what it is.

Orwell and Huxley weren’t right about everything, but they at least wished to defend liberty of conscience - which I will continue to fight for as an absolute.

Adventures in Higher Ed, continued

A list of acronyms found in an email sent to all university faculty yesterday:

SLO

USDOE

CENS

CHFA

SACSCOC

RSVP

I am actually surprised it didn’t include QEP.

The Buried Giant

I have enjoyed Mr Ishiguro’s previous novels — Never Let Me Go broke my heart - and have appreciated his carefully crafted prose. I have also appreciated his attention to memory and its permutations. Both Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day are about how one reconstructs and reviews the events of one’s past, though the discussion of the art of memory is somehow above or behind the plot material. This novel brings the memory question to the forefront and makes it almost the entirety of the plot. In doing so, he does two things that make the book particularly subtle: he gives away almost nothing directly, making us earn the knowledge we gain about what has transpired; and he weaves the characters’ concerns about their memories with their concerns about what they might mean in terms of forgiveness. Is forgetting — actually not being able to recall what has gone before — necessary for peace and forgiveness, either at the personal or societal level? It is a challenging question, and Ishiguro addresses it carefully, albeit through the indirectness of a historical, almost mythic fiction. Which makes the book a slow, understated read, requiring patience and care. He doesn’t write lengthy books, but it should take a while to read them.

Calling Red Forman

There is an article piece of agitprop that appeared in a national publication a few days ago. I do not think it signifies much of anything, despite its lurid subject matter (i.e., a person claiming that his acquiescence to an open marriage arrangement with his spouse has made him more of a complete feminist). I am not linking to the article in question because I in fact think it is essentially of a piece with those “letters” to publications like Penthouse Forum. So why am I writing about it? Because it contained this phrase:

“coping with the withering drudgery of child-rearing."

There’s a long point to be made about this claim that “child-rearing,” also known as “being a parent,” is “withering drudgery.” It is a claim that is explicitly or implicitly made quite frequently, and I think it ought to be called out as the merde that it is. I don’t write long polemical pieces here, but I will only say that if you can’t tell the difference between the (hard) labor of love that is parenting on the one hand, and work that is “withering drudgery,” working in a call center for Dell tech support for instance, you have a tiny, shriveled soul — and I pity both you and your children for your ingratitude, blindness, and selfishness.

I am fairly certain that those who find parenting to be mere drudgery are the sort that expect unalloyed pleasure and comfort at every turn. It’s no wonder that they find themselves disappointed…and no wonder that they blame the wrong people for what appears to be a grand betrayal.

My wife and I work awfully hard at being good parents, and yes, it is hard work. There are nights we feel defeated and cross-eyed weary. But my lord, parenting is about as far from drudgery as it is possible to be. Just this last week, we had countless pratfalls, doors left open, strobed light switches, shower snafus, wrestling matches, songs made up, arguments about electronic devices, gales of laughter while driving go-karts, and little bodies invading our bed in the wee hours. This is not even close to drudgery — it’s the imperfect, rough stuff of life. It is certainly tiring, and we are neither perfect nor heroic, so we don’t always react as we should. At the very least, however, we do not mistake our lives as having been given to us for our own comfort or caprices.

Post-Vacation

Back from our biennial trip to Florida, having stayed a week at a comfortable and spacious rental house right on the beach. Thanks to my dad for arranging it . . . he saves money like crazy for these family gatherings, and we are so grateful for it. My children love it more and more the older they get, and as a bonus this time Number One Son got to drive the go-karts at the amusement park. The weather was great, the waves were great, the bike riding was great (except the morning we got stuck in a rainstorm) . . . and the company was great. It’s good to have the whole family together when we can manage it.

Upon reflection, I realize that my father was awfully good about taking us places when we were growing up. Living overseas had something to do with it, of course, but the effort involved in getting three children and baggage into the little cars we drove in the Philippines makes my eyes water to think about it . . . and that’s with me driving a Honda Odyssey. Dad took us to beach resorts, to mountain resorts, on dive trips, through western Europe, to Singapore, to Indonesia, to Hawaii, to Disney World (when I was 5!), and Washington DC, and Pennsylvania, and even nowadays that we are settled we have had weeklong vacations in Chattanooga, the Outer Banks, the Smokies, and on the Gulf Coast thanks to his love for doing these kinds of trips. And always thanks to careful saving and planning . . . it’s not like we have ever been possessed of great material wealth.

I need to remember how much we have enjoyed and treasured those experiences, and be ready to do the same for my children. I’m more of a bookworm and homebody than he is, but I’ll do my best.

Strange Trails

Lord Huron’s second effort.

If you like reverb-laden alt-americana, and storytelling songs, this one isn’t to be passed up. I enjoyed the atmospherics of their first recording, but I actually enjoy this one more - the songs are more varied in tempo and instrumentation. As a bonus, the visual component of the project is fascinating too . . . just watch the videos and you’ll see what I mean.

On Taking My Job Seriously

I have long held the position that academics who complain about the state of the profession, and about public attitudes toward the profession, find it too easy to demonize and demean state legislators and demagogues who single out the ivory tower for criticism. They do so, I think, because they fail to look critically at themselves and their own blind spots.

Anyway, this essay is one of several I've seen recently that attempt to apply a measure of self-critique to the humanities in general and the teaching of literature specifically. Professor Morson's methodological critique is apt, I think. When my colleagues bemoan the shrinking class sizes and FTE's and what not, and look for administrative solutions, they are addressing only part of the problem, and in a way that does not in fact speak to students.

It would be a mistake, too, to suggest that it's merely some kind of adjustment in "pedagogy" in the abstract that can make literature classes vital again. Prof. Morson's emphasis on compassion and the engagement with moral and ethical problems is likely to help, yes. I would add what one of my professors at UNC said recently--that in learning to navigate the allusive, metaphorical, and rhetorical features of the best literary works, students enrich their minds in ways that they never could in other ways--and never would unless guided in the experience with the help of a committed and passionate teacher. The passion of the professor for the material she teaches (that I teach) is the most lasting legacy she (I) can offer.

This is why Prof. Morson ends on this note, and I'm glad to see that I'm not the only person who tries this approach (down to the reading out loud to the students part, which may be a topic I need to return to):

Because literature is about diverse points of view, I teach by impersonation. I never tell students what I think about the issues the book raises, but what the author thinks. If I comment on some recent event or issue, students will be hearing what Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, not I, would say about it. One can also impersonate the novel’s characters. What would Ivan Karamazov say about our moral arguments? How could we profit from the wisdom Dorothea Brooke acquires? Can one translate their wisdom into a real dialogue about moral questions that concern us—or about moral questions that we were unaware are important but in light of what we have learned turn out to be so? Authors and characters offer a diversity of voices and points of view on the world from which we can benefit.

Such impersonation demands absorbing the author’s perspective so thoroughly that one can think from within it, and then “draw dotted lines” from her concerns to ours. Students hear the author’s voice and sense the rhythms of her thought, and then, when they go back to the book, read it from that perspective. Instead of just seeing words, they hear a voice.

It is therefore crucial to read passages aloud, with the students silently reading along. Students should sense they are learning how to bring a novel to life. “So this is why people get so much out of Tolstoy!”

At that point, students will not have to take the author’s greatness on faith. They will sense that greatness and sense themselves as capable of doing so. Neither will they have to accept the teacher’s interpretation without seeing how it was arrived at or what other interpretation might be possible. No one will have to persuade them why Wikipedia won’t do.

Seveneves

I am an unabashed Neal Stephenson fan; his books are the ones I always pre-order as soon as I hear about them, and I’ve tried to sell all my reading friends and family on his fiction. This latest novel is his most ambitious by far - maybe not in terms of the high-concept setting as was the case with Anathem, but definitely in terms of the general plot and the technological problems the book is discussing (i.e., the Earth is essentially destroyed by a centuries-long “bolide” shower; a remnant of humanity in orbit around the Earth returns five millenia later). I read it as part of his involvement in the Hieroglyph Project; the first two-thirds of the novel reads much like his contribution to the volume of stories and essays.

One has to have a certain amount of patience to read a novel of this kind of ambition; it’s certainly not for everyone. I wouldn’t classify it as one of Mr. Stephenson’s best novels, either (that’s a toss up between Cryptonomicon and The Diamond Age as far as I’m concerned, with Anathem a close second) . . . though it is so ambitious and suggestive that it may prove to be his most influential. He has stated in interviews that he tried to leave the reader wanting more, and certainly that’s the case here. I could read several novels set in this universe. My guess is, though, that he’s already thinking about a different set of scientific/historical/technological issues and thus his next novel will be a far cry from this one.

Inside Out

This is an unusually insightful film, beautifully rendered. I don’t know what my children saw in it, though Number One Son said that it was the best movie ever, and Little Red wants to see it a third time. I am an emotional movie-watcher, sometimes embarrassingly so, and sure enough I cried at several points.

The development at the end of the film, where the new Core Memories are shown as being multicolored, is brilliant — and all the more so for being understated in how it is revealed. That’s the point behind the story, that growing up destroys those islands within us even as it replaces them with far richer rewards. We don’t get to experience it without cost, though. What a humane and compassionate way to present that truth!

I also appreciated the inclusion of Frank Oz and Dave Goelz voicing minor characters, seeing as the main characters are presented looking very much like muppets—and of course the credit sequence is brilliant.

This is why the best “children’s” productions are the ones that speak to the adults just as much as the youngsters. This is why we watch Pixar films.

“HOW WE SHOULD STRUGGLE WITH CIRCUMSTANCES.

It is circumstances (difficulties) which show what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. For what purpose? you may say. Why, that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat. In my opinion no man has had a more profitable difficulty than you have had, if you choose to make use of it as an athlete would deal with a young antagonist.

Notes From: Epictetus. “A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion.” iBooks.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/fM8jE.l

The Idea of a University

Useful Knowledge then, I grant, has done its work; and Liberal Knowledge as certainly has not done its work,—that is, supposing, as the objectors assume, its direct end, like Religious Knowledge, is to make men better; but this I will not for an instant allow, and, unless I allow it, those objectors have said nothing to the purpose. I admit, rather I maintain, what they have been urging, for I consider Knowledge to have its end in itself. For all its friends, or its enemies, may say, I insist upon it, that it is as real a mistake to burden it with virtue or religion as with the mechanical arts. Its direct business is not to steel the soul against temptation or to console it in affliction, any more than to set the loom in motion, or to direct the steam carriage; be it ever so much the means or the condition of both material and moral advancement, still, taken by and in itself, it as little mends our hearts as it improves our temporal circumstances. And if its eulogists claim for it such a power, they commit the very same kind of encroachment on a province not their own as the political economist who should maintain that his science educated him for casuistry or diplomacy. Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentlemen, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life;—these are the connatural qualities of a large knowledge; they are the objects of a University; I am advocating, I shall illustrate and insist upon them; but still, I repeat, they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness, they may attach to the man of the world, to the profligate, to the heartless,—pleasant, alas, and attractive as he shows when decked out in them. Taken by themselves, they do but seem to be what they are not; they look like virtue at a distance, but they are detected by close observers, and on the long run; and hence it is that they are popularly accused of pretence and hypocrisy, not, I repeat, from their own fault, but because their professors and their admirers persist in taking them for what they are not, and are officious in arrogating for them a praise to which they have no claim. Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man.

—John Henry Newman (1852)

In which Piers Observes Institutional Disarray

What happens when a professional degree program in our college of Education, Health, and Behavioral Sciences finds that its students can barely manage the language requirements outlined in the university catalog? The difficulty is putting some of these students in a bind because their time to degree, retention, and financial aid numbers are all affected when they have to spend several semesters satisfying the foreign language requirement.

The astute reader will note the flavor of language I am reduced to here: that of the higher ed administrator reflecting on student outcomes.

So how is this issue dealt with? One might expect, for instance, that the department in question do some collaborative work with the persons responsible for foreign language instruction. One might also expect them to look at entrance requirements for their degree program, or perhaps even to request a curricular adjustment through the usual and appropriate channels by which such adjustments are usually made (in this case, through curriculum revision requests that are examined by multiple administrative and faculty committees before being approved by the full Faculty Senate).

This department in question did in fact take the final option. They requested that all language requirements be waived, period. Their request was voted down in a meeting of the Faculty Senate. I was present at the meeting and it was a pretty hot conversation at points (including, alas, the times when I was speaking). Faced with this setback, the department in question attempted to resubmit the same request again, whereupon it was turned back because Robert’s Rules of Order do not allow for denied motions to simply be resubmitted.

Today I find out that this double denial (which, I may add, might legitimately cause one to question one’s course of action in the usual course of life) led the department in question to simply request a “Course Substition” (which we use frequently for students who are transferring credits, for instance) that was administratively granted by their dean and then by the office of student records . . . to apply to all of their students and for all university catalog versions. They then simply started officially (but quietly) advising their students to just not take foreign language classes. This came to the attention of our colleagues in the foreign languages division of our department only by accident . . . someone let it slip.

Now the issue is being addressed by our dean to the provost, and I imagine that it will get very interesting. If I am in his shoes, I call the responsible parties in and absolutely read them the riot act. But that’s probably why career advancement for me is a lost cause.

labor omnia vicit improbus

Nec tamen, haec cum sint hominumque boumque labores
versando terram experti, nimil improbus anser
Strymoniaeque grues et amaris intiba fibris
officiunt aut umbra nocet. pater ipse colendi
haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusque per artem
movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda,
nec torpere gravi passus sua regna veterno.
(Virgil, Georgics, Book 1.118-124)

I have developed a schedule this summer wherein every Wednesday I do the mowing and other necessary yard work inasmuch as I can get to it. It often seems zenlike in its completion — not because it creates in me a sense of peace, but because the act itself has to be the reward for all the lasting good it does. What I mowed two days ago will look untended by Sunday. The weeds will continue their inexorable march into the flower beds, and we will spray and hoe and pull and trim and dig to the best of our abilities, and the grass and the flower beds and the shrubberies will all require more of the very same treatment before we’ve managed to catch a breath.
Virgil says that the gods gave us agricultural labor to keep us from torpor, from sinking in laziness. I guess he must be right about that one.

Adventures with Students, Vol. 53

On Motivation

Every couple of years I am asked to serve on the faculty for the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Humanities, an annual event at my institution wherein some of the brightest rising HS seniors come to campus to take college humanities courses and engage in other “nerd camp” type activities. It has a long history here and I am glad to be a part of it when my turn comes around.

I find that the greatest difference between these HS students and my average college students is that this group is extraordinarily motivated to study and to learn. Even when they are overwhelmed or at least unpleasantly surprised by the pace and the intensity of the work, they attack what’s in front of them. It is as if, mirabile dictu, they value the experience of academic work not just for the credit it will get them, but for its own sake.

Lost in all the yammering about “what shall become of the humanities? How shall we make them relevant” is the most honest truth about it: the experience of learning is worthwhile most of all for its own sake. Grappling with Hobbes, for instance, or the assertions of an american anthropologist from the early part of the 20th century, needs no argument for its relevance—not if one actually cares about learning.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 49

General parental updates:

1. Number One Son has continued his running this past month. He ran an obstacle course/mud run with The Triathlete over the weekend and was just as proud as could be. He has managed to score some sweet new running shoes in the bargain too (we did not pay retail for those, no way).
2. Little league has dragged to a halt recently due to all the rain. Little Red has managed one game in two weeks, I think, and Lefty’s schedule hasn’t been much better. There has been some notice of whether or not a certain little girl has been a spectator at Little Red’s games, though he insists that he doesn’t care whether she is there or not (though he asks every inning). He went to her softball game the other night —- only to see Ms. A, his beloved first grade teacher. So he says.
3. Now that the children are all out of school we have a bit of schedule-jostling to do. Number One Son can come to campus with me, but he’s not really old enough to silently occupy himself. . . he tends to break into song, wiggle all over the room, ask for food every 15 minutes, that sort of thing. Needless to say, I’ve opted to just sit with him at home even at the expense of my own work.
4. We are discovering that Lefty is SUPER DUPER talkative if given a chance. The last couple of times Grammie has been here to visit, he has chattered her ear off, obviously enjoying every moment. It may have to do with having an appreciative audience that he doesn’t have to compete for . . . she is very accommodating and asks lots of questions.
   
5. We are also about to enter into summer camp and day camp season, right as baseball season wraps up. Good timing, and good to have them occupied with things other than Minecraft.

Hands Down Winner

In an earlier post, I wrote that I was reviewing several books as part of this year’s Hugo Award voting packet. I have enjoyed most of the selections very much and find myself in a bit of a quandary as far as the novel selection is concerned. If, however, the above book were eligible this year, there would be no contest. I picked this up thanks to my Kindle Paperwhite (I am a late adopter, but I have to say that it is a fantastic little device…and makes it embarrassingly easy to buy new reading material). It is a brilliant example of hard science fiction, and would easily emerge as the best of this past year (it was a 2011 self-published volume at first, which is why it doesn’t qualify for the award). . . still, with a movie deal in the works, it looks like Mr. Weir is getting plenty of notice. Good for him.

In which Piers keeps up the Effort

Doing my level best this month to catch up on some writing that I’ve been leaving on the back burner for several months. I’ve looked at some previous stuff — things I don’t remember writing, but apparently are the result of the end stages of the sabbatical I had in 2014.

Everyone who does writing for a living says that the steady and incremental approach is best — that the thing is to steadily keep at it every day. That has proven to be beyond what my schedule or my discipline will allow. I’m not giving up yet, though.

A Wealth of Reading

Yesterday the voting packet for the Hugo Awards was made available for supporting and attending members of the 2015 Worldcon. I would not have normally paid any attention except for the recent hullaballoo surrounding award nominations . . . and my fairly muted reactions to recent winners of the novel award (for example, Ms. Leckie’s book, which swept awards last year but I found better in its conception than its execution. Likewise with Jo Walton’s book). Just doing my part to send recognition where I think it is deserved.

As a result, I am reading as many of the nominated items as I can. Meanwhile, other books have arrived on my doorstep, notably the newest Ishiguro and Stephenson novels. I would be tearing into the Stephenson one at this second if I didn’t feel obligated to give the awards packet a thorough perusal.

All this is to say nothing of my continued wrestling with Elizabethan church history and many of the pamphlets that mark the decades of the 1580’s and 90’s.

Thinking Long Term Part Two

From today’s reading, a reminder from long ago much to the same purpose I was writing yesterday:

First, needful it is that he which desireth to excel in this gift of oratory, and longeth to prove an eloquent man, must naturally have a wit and an aptness thereunto: then must he to his book, and learn to be well stored with knowledge, that he may be able to minister matter for all causes necessary. The which when he hath got plentifully, he must use much exercise, both in writing, and also in speaking. For though he have a wit and learning together, yet shall they both little avail without much practice. What maketh the lawyer to have such utterance? Practice. What maketh the preacher to speak so roundly? Practice. Yea, what maketh women go so fast away with their words? Marry, practice, I warrant you. Therefore in all faculties diligent practice and earnest exercise are the only things that make men prove excellent. --Thomas Wilson, The Art of Rhetoric (1553)

Thinking Long Term

Writing—serious writing of the academic sort—probably does more to focus my mind on metaphysical issues than anything else. I imagine it’s because I’m avoiding the hard work of actually putting useful words down in an essay form. Writing is also a discipline, however, that forces me to think in terms of small increments and long time-lines. Needless to say, it’s uncomfortable. I have interesting material to work on, and I’m putting in the time, and I’m learning a ton of stuff. Also, it rubs very much against the general cultural grain to have a task that works on a timeline of months rather than days or hours.

Without veering too far into the realm of generalized and, frankly, not-too-useful cultural maundering, I recognize that my children and I live in a time where having to wait for results (of a Google search, a YouTube buffer, or a Netflix loading screen) seems almost intolerable. We can do so many things so quickly, and we want that immediacy to translate to every aspect of our lives. Part of wisdom is recognizing that very few things worth having in life actually work quickly. I think of the time involved in learning to play baseball (so intricate the movements and permutations of each time the ball is put in play); the patient practice that makes a guitarist able to fly through his chords; or the easy pace of Triathlete as she runs, developed over about 17 years’ worth of running shoes.

I can certainly accept and appreciate such things in my own career…the rub is how to prepare my children for their inevitable confrontation with the same hard reality.

The Return of a Two-Wheeled Object of Desire

With the end of the spring semester and the arrival of the warmer weather comes the biking season for me, and this year is already special because it features the re-introduction of a fine machine:

The Raleigh Record Ace. It is no specialty bike, or a custom made race machine (Speedvagen is just a pipe dream for me). It’s just a really pretty steel bike that keeps it simple, that matches my ability level, and that I could upgrade with new parts from time to time. It also happens to be within the realm of financial possibility.

To be fair, it doesn’t match the glory of the 2011 version, but I would still proudly ride it.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 48

In which we see the beginning of the end of childhood for Number One Son, but also give thanks that he has not quite finished with it yet.

Over the weekend, Number One Son got to attend two birthday parties…a sleepover at one on Friday night, and then a party at Sky Zone on Saturday. He came home from both of them just a ball of ten year old energy and overstimulation. Fine, fine, we can deal with that as long as it’s the happy kind of thing. And at this age, there’s a lot of that happy kind of thing because the self-consciousness really hasn’t set in yet.

Later that evening, after the children have been put in bed and as The Triathlete and I are watching our nightly episode of Psych, in comes Number One in the “I’m sleepwalking” attitude (which he totally was doing, in fact), collapses headfirst into the blue recliner, and goes right back to sleep. I noticed an instructive similarity:

Library Fun for the Summer

I recently read Emily St. John Mandel’s end-of-the-world novel Station Eleven. I was lured in by the blurb premise that the novel is about a traveling troupe of Shakespeare actors in the wake of a deadly pandemic. As it turns out, the novel doesn’t really do much with the Shakespeare angle, but it is an effective piece of work. One of the interesting little set-pieces in the story is the way a group of survivors sets up a museum of sorts for relics of the world gone by: electronic devices, for instance.

And that got me thinking: of what use could a person such as myself be in an apocalypse? What service could I provide? I’m a professional bookworm! So, if I look at my view every afternoon this month...

...there’s my answer. What kinds of books would I retrieve and try to preserve if things began to go sideways? What in a moderately sized library would be worth saving?

• Shakespeare
• Milton
• Dante
• Homer
• Virgil

…the literary figures add up quickly. But say we had to choose things that are not poetry or humanities in general? What would we need to squirrel away? I immediately think of more technical, practical volumes to remind us of how to do things that we now take for granted:

• Mathematics texts
• Physics texts
• Manuals for horticulture and animal husbandry
• Manuals for building structures and roads
• Books for identifying plants
• Medical texts

I’m sure I’m missing something. There are also several categories of things we could utterly do without. That’ll have to wait for another entry in Library Fun For The Summer!