I was awake in the night, trying to put in words what I think I've finally understood this week. I believe that the sum of a lecture, several conversations on a search committee, and a sudden sense that the wind has changed, add up to this; the intellectual attacks that began as attempts to show us and to challenge the structures of knowledge have resulted among many young people in a deep distrust of experts and expertise, a distrust which one might--whimsically, possibly-- compare to the Reformation; when one has only glimmerings of understanding, but much faith, the first comforting thought is that these are your very own glimmerings rather than those of a bishop or priest or other expert. And the second comfort comes from a community vernacular vocabulary; priests and literati talk in one language, those with new understanding find their way in their own language. But here the comparison breaks down because in the Reformation people were, I think, working towards precision. In the new way of thinking precision is linked with expertise and the bad old ways. Thus people can say, "I'm interested in the challenge of diversity of media which I intend to use in specific ways to cross-fertilize," and have others nod in response, not because the sentence means precisely anything but because included in there are "diversity," "cross-fertllize" "interested," "challenge." Following such an utterance, the goal of further conversation is not to strip flab away until the core--or possibly nothing--is revealed; the goal is to build co-operatively an approximate understanding, or at least to reach for general emotional satisfaction and the constantly desired state of goodwill, that city on a hill.
Among such young people, there is agreement that standard patterns of knowledge are outdated. Instead of staking out a chunk of archive or other material, coming to know it well and discerning patterns in its information, the new move is surreal, by which I mean it borrows from the surrealists--you take (appropriate) something from an arena and put it beside (juxtapose it with) something from a different arena, thus "changing the space." Though this is primarily an art move, I don't think it is exclusively so. We avoid the gaze, substitute the glimpse, the flash, the "ah-hah" moment. Instead of grinding or droning on, laboring the point, we get on, get things done, applaud, move on. We neither insist on arguing nor see good reason to try, because "everyone is diverse in their views," and argument leads to offense. We either agree, or we accept that "there are many valid opinions." And thus we go on working together, as someone said, "synonymously."
Don't laugh now. Anyone can make a mistake. Language is untrustworthy and a set of structures that have oppressions built in. Meaning comes from repetition and struggle, emerges like figures walking out of fog and in snow.
The freedom that these people claim is a pioneer's or an explorer's freedom, the right to cross disciplinary boundaries to see new sights, to make discoveries. In the "live and let live" spirit, I was content to wait and see what they bring back, expecting little, but willing to be surprised. But while they have been off foraging, they have developed a culture all of their own and like Puritans, they assume that we'll all convert sooner or later. This could yet be bad.
David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
