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.