[lit-ideas] Re: On thinking synonymously
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 20:41:55 -0800
David Ritchie writes:
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knowledge are outdated.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.
I've been teaching two courses this fall. One, Senior Symposium, is a course
open only to seniors for which the requirements are that students read the
weekly book and come prepared to discuss it. The assigned books are a motley,
ranging from Sebald's Austerlitz, to Sexing the Body, by Anne Fausto-Sterling,
which is by no means as pomo as it sounds. (The book overcomes its title and
requires some knowledge of biology to understand.) There were, as it turned
out, three biology majors in the conference I was in, and their discussion of
the book's claims relied on what I would call 'facts' about human anatomy and
human genetics. No glimpses, flashes, or ah-hah moments (except on my part).
When we discussed a book of essays by American Indians on Indians' encounters
with Lewis and Clark, post-colonialism, imperialism, and racial injustice were
not the dominant themse--in fact, they hardly came up in the
discussion; again,
a concern for 'facts,' taken straight, not 'glimpsed' was predominant.
The other course is an upper-division course in Wittgenstein, which one of my
colleagues and I teach together. There are six philosophy seniors, two MALS
graduate students, one sophomore, one linguistics senior, and two auditors. We
read the Tractatus, almost line by line, spent a three hour session on
the Blue
Book, did a slow reading of the Investigations--last night we spent nearly the
entire time on §258, and will finish up next Tuesday, with Saul Kripke's book
on Wittgenstein on rules and private language. We've been like archeologists
trying to reconstruct a civilization from a few potsherds and a partial
footprint. In other words, the students assume not only that it's fun messing
about in books but that there is somewhere a fact of the matter about what the
books and the mind behind the books are saying.
This is my recent sample of young minds at work. It's obviously skewed by the
nature of the subject-matter, especially in the Wittgenstein course
(although I
can easily imagine a trendy, Multi-media, multi-disciplined, undisciplined
course on Wittgenstein), and no doubt by the nature of Reed itself. But
I don't
really want to compare student types (art vs. philosophy, e.g.) but toss out
another observation: the students in my recent experience are one or maybe two
academic generations down from that which learned that there was never,
really,
any fact of the matter; that the exploitation of Sherpas was the most
important
thing to be learned from studying the history of Himalyan climbs, and so on.
Those from the earlier generations (in Academia) who were somehow liberated by
the thought that there could be no fact of the matter, are now in some
departments the teachers, for better or worse, of the students I've just
described. I'd give some particular examples of student dissatisfaction with,
or at least restlessness in the face of, the notion that because views are
diverse, 'argument leads to offense,' but these posts are open to the world,
and prudence counsels that I not.
What David sees as a trend, or as a new Anti-Enlightenment, may turn out to be
not the leading edge but the hoots of a vanishing owl.
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."
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 was what we thought in the late '60s and early '70s. I've cut my
hair since
then. There's hope.
Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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