I've been trying to pay attention, to see if this whole "snapped" thing is going to take. Have I crossed some threshold, or is this more of a momentary lapse of obsession? I'm not depressed, which would be a red flag (depression tends to interfere with things like sober, rational judgment and honest and accurate self-appraisal). In fact, I'm more relaxed and happy in general, tempted to use phrases like, "I'm just really in a good place right now," though I do have my dignity to maintain. I'm busy, but not terribly anxious. Life seems charmed but not particularly magical. I have a hard time believing in a theistic god and almost as hard a time believing in nothing. In other words, I seem to be myself.
If I'm really more of a liberal than a cutting-edge radical, this is due not so much to the things I can't take literally and my distaste for metaphysical speculation -- that's part of it, of course -- but to my suspicion that religion, if it is to have any value, must serve the common good. That there is some broader, if somewhat nebulous, notion of the Good, the Beautiful and the True that is not the purview of any particular religion or ideology and against which any such manifestation might be measured in some way. That sounds hopeless Platonic, but it's all I've got. The thing that is galling, I think, even to really open-minded, social justice-oriented radical types, is that I don't think my religion -- or yours, or anybody else's -- gets to decide what the common good is.
Look, I'm not kowtowing to the spectre of objectivity. I just think we collectively have a notion of something beyond ourselves that no one of us -- and no group of us -- can lay claim to, and that it is both the possibility of this larger perspective and our failure to fully apprehend it that ought to keep us humble. And so it's not just that I'm skeptical or cynical or too full of myself or that I fancy myself too smart for God (though I am guilty of all of these things from time to time), but also that I believe in something else, in some greater possibility, in something always frustratingly beyond our grasp but tantalizingly within our reach.
The circumstances of my life conspire against any plans I might have to go apostate. I've tried this before, thinking it was the honest and honorable thing to do, and it doesn't work out so well. I think the truth -- and I really don't mean this in quite the cynical way it sounds -- is that my Christian friends don't want me to be honest. They want me to be, maybe even need me to be, that quirky musical guy they see on stage from time to time, banging away on his "protestant guitar" and leading them in songs of comfort and affirmation. They're willing to live with the brooding intellectual side of me as long as they get those songs. I'm no Rich Mullins, but if you were paying attention at all you know that the evangelical world put up with a lot from Mullins -- he was definitely a misfit -- because they loved his music.
I'm telling the tale, so I have the prerogative of casting myself as the guy who breaks free from Plato's cave and sees the clear light of day. Call me uncharitable, but that's what it feels like. And I know what happens when you rush back in to tell the others what you've seen. It's not pretty. They're not ready for that.
There's a kind of postmodern cop-out that says there is no clear light of day, no outside to the cave, just an endless labyrinth of more caves, none closer to the light than any others. So learn to love your own cave, or find another if you must, but give up any notion of outside. The light is an illusion, and any claims to see it are just manifestations of your own arrogance and hubris.
This is a bunch of crap.
Please: I get the whole postmodern thing. The landscape has changed -- I don't deny that. And I like the changes. I know the real definition of "deconstruction." I drink lattes. I use the word "narrate" a lot. I think it's cool that the scenes in Pulp Fiction are out of order. I read Douglas Coupland, and I've used the word pastiche in an academic paper. I have pomo street cred. But I'm also something of a dissenter: all narratives are not created equal. Some are life-affirming; some are dangerous. And we get to decide which is which, we have to decide. If there are no inherent, objective criteria then we make them up, and if what we made up doesn't seem to be working we make different stuff up. This is our lot. We can't just give up and say to hell with it.
Maybe Plato's allegory is too simple; there's not just a cave and the light. There are lots of caves, and some of them spill out into what is probably an infinite regress of larger caverns. Maybe we never reach the light. But some are bigger than others. Some people have an expansive, embracing view of the world. Others have a narrow, constricting view of the world. Some of them want to foist their narrow, constricted view on everyone. Some of these people are from Alaska.
If I've snapped, it's not because I'm a defective believer. It's because I see more than I ever used to, and I've been seeing it for a long time, and it's not going away. I've got a goddamned bigger cave, and I like it. I'm thinking about roasting some marshmallows. You can come.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Pigs Fly
I've gone and done it. I've registered to vote. When I emailed a friend of mine with the news, he wrote back, "Funny. I didn't realize hell had frozen over." He has a point; I've ranged from apathetic to virulently anti-voting since 1992, which is the last time I remember going to the polls. At that time I was ridiculously conservative, even a Rush Limbaugh fan. When the election results indicated a Clinton victory, my hyper-conservative friends and I actually toasted one another with grape Kool-Aid. It was meant as a joke.
By registering, especially with the purpose of voting the way I plan to, I become a statistic twice over: I'm part of a shifting evangelical voting pattern but also one of many "younger" voters venturing to the polls for the first time -- or in my case, for the first time in a long time. One can challenge whether I really qualify as either an evangelical or a younger voter, but even if I don't get to be a statistic -- it's not really a path to fortune and glory anyway -- this is a pretty big change in my world.
It's not that I've gone soft. I'm not really swayed by the messianic pretensions of either candidate, though such posturing makes a certain amount of sense. A hearty stew of politics and religion is the sociological norm, actually, and since neither the Rapture nor the Age of Aquarius are forthcoming, we might have to make do with politics.
I mean sure, any minute now the sky might crack open and the Lord descend upon us, or the planets might align and bring the dawn of a new era of peace and harmony, or a glorious revolution might usher in a workers' paradise -- but just in case, maybe we should hunker down and try to help ourselves out.
The tool we've worked out for this is -- brace yourselves for the epiphany here -- democracy. I know, I know, everybody already gets this except me. I'm a slow study. But I did get it, at least a little bit. At one point I might have told you that I abstained from voting because I don't actually believe in modern democracy. It's a flawed system -- the worst form of government there is, Churchill famously quipped, except for all the others. It doesn't really deliver on its promises to secure freedom and liberty, at least not completely.
On November 5, we'll still have some version of this flawed system. I won't say it doesn't matter who is president -- I think it mattered a lot, say, to civilians in Fallujah -- but Republicans and Democrats are really duking it out over a pretty small piece of ideological real estate. If you want something else, you're kind of stuck.
Or I might have suggested that our true allegiance is to the Kingdom of God, by which I would somewhat ironically mean that our attention should be on creating a new social order in the shell of the old, resisting empire in the name of the Prince of Peace, seeking love and harmony with a perpetually deferred eschatological vision as our guidepost. There's some good stuff there. But to really take that seriously is to live it out in concrete terms.
I don't know that anybody's really figured out what that looks like, but even the most laudable experiments require a resolve and a holy foolishness I can't muster. A friend of mine is one of the most genuine examples of this that I can think of. He's the real deal, and a sharp cookie to boot, but his house church seems too cultish to me.
The best of such thinking, some of which is associated with the "emerging" church, is not merely quietistic in the sense of cloistering themselves off and seeking purity, but calls for active engagement in works of mercy and justice, getting their hands dirty in the grit and grime of our fallen world. This is noble work, and we desperately need this kind of local-level mobilization. But beyond "think globally, act locally," we also need people acting globally, people in and of the system, and as much as I recognize the poverty of simply writing a check or checking a ballot box so that other people can do the work, I'd like to think there's a balance -- at least for some of us -- between middle-class suburban detachment and grassroots urban activism.
Anyway, I think I'm tired of pretending I'm not an American. I know the dangers of ethnocentrism and I'm well-versed in the ironies of our claim to this particular patch of land, but at the end of the day, I live here. And right now, democracy's all we've got. Jesus is not coming back to rescue us, harmonic convergence is not right around the corner, civilization is not going to collapse and allow us all to go feral.
There's no getting out of this. If, as humans, we are all too often our own worst enemy, we are ever and always our own best hope. In a few weeks Americans will choose someone to represent that hope. It might be a small and symbolic thing, or a profoundly important thing. I'm never sure.
By registering, especially with the purpose of voting the way I plan to, I become a statistic twice over: I'm part of a shifting evangelical voting pattern but also one of many "younger" voters venturing to the polls for the first time -- or in my case, for the first time in a long time. One can challenge whether I really qualify as either an evangelical or a younger voter, but even if I don't get to be a statistic -- it's not really a path to fortune and glory anyway -- this is a pretty big change in my world.
It's not that I've gone soft. I'm not really swayed by the messianic pretensions of either candidate, though such posturing makes a certain amount of sense. A hearty stew of politics and religion is the sociological norm, actually, and since neither the Rapture nor the Age of Aquarius are forthcoming, we might have to make do with politics.
I mean sure, any minute now the sky might crack open and the Lord descend upon us, or the planets might align and bring the dawn of a new era of peace and harmony, or a glorious revolution might usher in a workers' paradise -- but just in case, maybe we should hunker down and try to help ourselves out.
The tool we've worked out for this is -- brace yourselves for the epiphany here -- democracy. I know, I know, everybody already gets this except me. I'm a slow study. But I did get it, at least a little bit. At one point I might have told you that I abstained from voting because I don't actually believe in modern democracy. It's a flawed system -- the worst form of government there is, Churchill famously quipped, except for all the others. It doesn't really deliver on its promises to secure freedom and liberty, at least not completely.
On November 5, we'll still have some version of this flawed system. I won't say it doesn't matter who is president -- I think it mattered a lot, say, to civilians in Fallujah -- but Republicans and Democrats are really duking it out over a pretty small piece of ideological real estate. If you want something else, you're kind of stuck.
Or I might have suggested that our true allegiance is to the Kingdom of God, by which I would somewhat ironically mean that our attention should be on creating a new social order in the shell of the old, resisting empire in the name of the Prince of Peace, seeking love and harmony with a perpetually deferred eschatological vision as our guidepost. There's some good stuff there. But to really take that seriously is to live it out in concrete terms.
I don't know that anybody's really figured out what that looks like, but even the most laudable experiments require a resolve and a holy foolishness I can't muster. A friend of mine is one of the most genuine examples of this that I can think of. He's the real deal, and a sharp cookie to boot, but his house church seems too cultish to me.
The best of such thinking, some of which is associated with the "emerging" church, is not merely quietistic in the sense of cloistering themselves off and seeking purity, but calls for active engagement in works of mercy and justice, getting their hands dirty in the grit and grime of our fallen world. This is noble work, and we desperately need this kind of local-level mobilization. But beyond "think globally, act locally," we also need people acting globally, people in and of the system, and as much as I recognize the poverty of simply writing a check or checking a ballot box so that other people can do the work, I'd like to think there's a balance -- at least for some of us -- between middle-class suburban detachment and grassroots urban activism.
Anyway, I think I'm tired of pretending I'm not an American. I know the dangers of ethnocentrism and I'm well-versed in the ironies of our claim to this particular patch of land, but at the end of the day, I live here. And right now, democracy's all we've got. Jesus is not coming back to rescue us, harmonic convergence is not right around the corner, civilization is not going to collapse and allow us all to go feral.
There's no getting out of this. If, as humans, we are all too often our own worst enemy, we are ever and always our own best hope. In a few weeks Americans will choose someone to represent that hope. It might be a small and symbolic thing, or a profoundly important thing. I'm never sure.
But this time, I want in on it.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
On Being a Fascist
I've landed a spot at the local university teaching English 101. It's basically grunt work -- I'm teaching a 12-hour load, and as a "full-time temporary instructor" I'm barely a notch above grad assistant -- but I'm happy to be here. There's a lot to like about being in the English department. The halls smell vaguely of books and literary aspirations, and the workroom has a nearly endless supply of red pens. Among my fellow newbies are two poets (we hired poets, for God's sake; how cool is that?), and one of my colleagues is teaching a class on Harry Potter. For a confessed library junkie and would-be writer, this is nirvana.
I have a shared office and a meager salary, but a few weeks ago I was a temporary custodian in the dorm down the street, and just having an office and a salary is a step up from the underemployed gypsy I've been for the past three years. And my tendency to proofread and analyze any text that crosses my path is downgraded from OCD to occupational hazard. Yes, there's a lot to like.
I taught writing last year as a grad assistant, at a different university where I'm still working on that elusive PhD. The appointment caught me off guard -- I'm an American Studies major, not Rhetoric and Composition, or even English -- and even though I found the teaching part enjoyable, I didn't like the departmental politics, or maybe I just didn't like the department. The writing department was an entity unto itself, and the rest of us, the American Studies types along with the regular English majors, were treated like bastard stepchildren. Mostly I didn't like the director, a life-sucking harpy who seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time telling us how innovative she was.
She also had a strange pet peeve about the word "on." She bristled, for some reason, at the time-honored use of "on" to refer to a topic, such as "my paper is on Shakespeare's use of foreshadowing," insisting that a paper is not on a topic, but about a topic. "I've been known to begin class standing on my desk," she would tell us, reveling in her cleverness, "and then explain that I'm standing on my desk; this essay is about..." which made me want to come to the next training session and shred my assignment, distributing the detritus throughout the room. "My paper is strewn about the room," I would say. "It's on the use of prepositions as spatial metaphors."
Or the training session where I learned that adherence to the conventions of standard English was not "in the rubric." One could evaluate a student's grasp of punctuation and spelling, but not grade it. This struck me as batty. Ditto the mock-grading exercise where I gave our hypothetical student poor marks for not following the assignment. No, I was gently scolded, we must not punish the student for taking risks. Risk-taking, I countered, implies some sort of gambit for actually improving the paper. It also implies the possibility of failure; if there are no consequences, it's not really a risk. It's just being different. I might as well have called for the extermination of the Jews. One of my fellow fascists would later overhear a Rhet/Comp GA complaining about the "conservative element" upholding the "hegemony of standard English."
So I have been pleased to find ample evidence, in the rubric and master syllabus, that the things I championed -- things like grammar, punctuation, and following assignments -- are duly upheld. People freely use "on" in reference to topics, and so far I have not heard the phrase "hegemony of standard English." I'm all for playing fast and loose with the rules for rhetorical effect -- once we know them. It's like jazz; as free and unstructured as it sounds, it is usually the fruit of a rather strict discipline of practice and a comprehensive, if often intuitive, grasp of the harmonic complexities. You can't just play random crap and call it bebop, at least not if you want to be taken seriously.
I've held my first round of classes and even given my first assignment. It's mostly to confirm placement, and to give me a feel for the work I need to do with the class. The students have to write an in-class essay, either about someone who has influenced them or an important decision. I get back plenty of the usual fare: material that confirms, in content and in facility, that yes, they're fresh out of high school. The exceptional writers have already tested out and the struggling writers have been placed in a more basic class, so what I'm left with is mostly a collection of B and C students, which is fine with me. There are still a few gems, and a few clunkers.
There are also some surprises, not the least of which is my own capacity to be moved by their stories. One student wrote inspiringly of his younger brother, who overcame some sort of congenital disadvantage to become a star football player. Another wrote such a glowing report of her father's influence that I commented, "I hope someday my daughter writes an essay like this one!" -- complete with exclamation point (I'm very stingy with my exclamation points). Maybe I'm not as jaded or cynical as I thought, or maybe being jaded and cynical is just getting old.
There are other bright spots, too. Just the other day a student came up to me after class. "I just want you to know I like your style," he said, shaking my hand. "I thought I was going to hate this class, but your sense humor keeps me interested and I think I might just like it."
Who says nobody likes a kiss-ass?
I have a shared office and a meager salary, but a few weeks ago I was a temporary custodian in the dorm down the street, and just having an office and a salary is a step up from the underemployed gypsy I've been for the past three years. And my tendency to proofread and analyze any text that crosses my path is downgraded from OCD to occupational hazard. Yes, there's a lot to like.
I taught writing last year as a grad assistant, at a different university where I'm still working on that elusive PhD. The appointment caught me off guard -- I'm an American Studies major, not Rhetoric and Composition, or even English -- and even though I found the teaching part enjoyable, I didn't like the departmental politics, or maybe I just didn't like the department. The writing department was an entity unto itself, and the rest of us, the American Studies types along with the regular English majors, were treated like bastard stepchildren. Mostly I didn't like the director, a life-sucking harpy who seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time telling us how innovative she was.
She also had a strange pet peeve about the word "on." She bristled, for some reason, at the time-honored use of "on" to refer to a topic, such as "my paper is on Shakespeare's use of foreshadowing," insisting that a paper is not on a topic, but about a topic. "I've been known to begin class standing on my desk," she would tell us, reveling in her cleverness, "and then explain that I'm standing on my desk; this essay is about..." which made me want to come to the next training session and shred my assignment, distributing the detritus throughout the room. "My paper is strewn about the room," I would say. "It's on the use of prepositions as spatial metaphors."
Or the training session where I learned that adherence to the conventions of standard English was not "in the rubric." One could evaluate a student's grasp of punctuation and spelling, but not grade it. This struck me as batty. Ditto the mock-grading exercise where I gave our hypothetical student poor marks for not following the assignment. No, I was gently scolded, we must not punish the student for taking risks. Risk-taking, I countered, implies some sort of gambit for actually improving the paper. It also implies the possibility of failure; if there are no consequences, it's not really a risk. It's just being different. I might as well have called for the extermination of the Jews. One of my fellow fascists would later overhear a Rhet/Comp GA complaining about the "conservative element" upholding the "hegemony of standard English."
So I have been pleased to find ample evidence, in the rubric and master syllabus, that the things I championed -- things like grammar, punctuation, and following assignments -- are duly upheld. People freely use "on" in reference to topics, and so far I have not heard the phrase "hegemony of standard English." I'm all for playing fast and loose with the rules for rhetorical effect -- once we know them. It's like jazz; as free and unstructured as it sounds, it is usually the fruit of a rather strict discipline of practice and a comprehensive, if often intuitive, grasp of the harmonic complexities. You can't just play random crap and call it bebop, at least not if you want to be taken seriously.
I've held my first round of classes and even given my first assignment. It's mostly to confirm placement, and to give me a feel for the work I need to do with the class. The students have to write an in-class essay, either about someone who has influenced them or an important decision. I get back plenty of the usual fare: material that confirms, in content and in facility, that yes, they're fresh out of high school. The exceptional writers have already tested out and the struggling writers have been placed in a more basic class, so what I'm left with is mostly a collection of B and C students, which is fine with me. There are still a few gems, and a few clunkers.
There are also some surprises, not the least of which is my own capacity to be moved by their stories. One student wrote inspiringly of his younger brother, who overcame some sort of congenital disadvantage to become a star football player. Another wrote such a glowing report of her father's influence that I commented, "I hope someday my daughter writes an essay like this one!" -- complete with exclamation point (I'm very stingy with my exclamation points). Maybe I'm not as jaded or cynical as I thought, or maybe being jaded and cynical is just getting old.
There are other bright spots, too. Just the other day a student came up to me after class. "I just want you to know I like your style," he said, shaking my hand. "I thought I was going to hate this class, but your sense humor keeps me interested and I think I might just like it."
Who says nobody likes a kiss-ass?
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