My daily horoscope is telling me I should have a word with Ian for neither following what is going on, nor contributing to the course of events here other than ostentatiously dusting his high hung rules and regulations. Although it must be said that Molly’s dreams of pink love wonderfully antagonize his fading “stop it”-cries. What do you think? They’ve got their minds elsewhere, too?
On 3 Sep., 06:10, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > I sort of scanned you BB. There feels to be some kind of rage being > expressed. I sort of rage against the world - it doesn't have much in > it I want. I would like a lot of things to change, my guess being > they will in some future I won't have a human part in. All that's > left really is to wonder whether there is something worth having a go > at now, some means perhaps for us to be able to make more informed > decisions being my bag - wondering if there is some means by which we > can get information to work for us instead of just being another > commodity. All the books can seem pretty worthless in the current > freezing moral climate - weirdly a book by Saul Bellow (The Dean's > December) I bought but never read says a lot of this - I know its > content from discussions with others about the circumstances in which > I had it and never got to read it, which peculiarly was in Bucharest > in the Soviet times where part of the book is set. The theme, in a > way, is that the Chicago of the free world was as bent as the > Bucharest of the Soviet days. > Most of the discussion in here has been done before and usually > 'better' in the academic world - but as Bellow pointed out this is a > corrupt world too. I used to wonder if my rile as an academic was to > read so that my students didn't have to go through the agonies of > discovering it's all pretty much been said by inevitably smarter, > faster guns, to somehow get over that they didn't have just to be > members of the church listening to my sermons - that they idea was > something else - maybe that I could put over my reading so that they > could make use of the work I had done to grow something else, tend the > ground, improve it, use the produce, build anew for themselves without > having to reinvent the wheel. I have been disappointed - education > has become the ultimate commodity, qualifications worn like smart > clothes. > There is work similar to your attempt above - Veblen, Lukacs - many > others writing on fetish and the inequalities of education, the lack > of education as an aim in itself and the bullying nature of Bildung. > Management has been my field and this is a classic area of wheel re- > invention and bullshit with fashion posing as new ideas. Weber and > others pointed to the evils of bureaucracy a century ago, yet it can > seem all we have done is found ways to increase bureaucracy at the > expense of freedoms we could have shared. > My grandson (11) hasn't read much - his mates have no clue about > reading in the sense I do. They get better quicker on video games > than I do. I recently explained puberty to them and they derided the > basic biology as fantasy, a somewhat offensive response if I chose to > be offended - they are still clueless as to what a biologist might be, > let alone to the idea that I might once have studied at university. > My father ( a headmaster despite leaving school at 13 to be a Bookies > runner) was once derided as a queer because he could read. Students > in my classes have often discussed whether it is appropriate to read > critical material as telling the truth at work is akin to writing a > suicide note. Much, in fact, is written about this. One group, > concerned about swearing at work (concerned it was a major part of > normal life and yet barred by workplace rules), were surprised to > discover a number of learned articles about this that conclude it is > wrong to summarily ban it. One woman commented 'fuck me Neil, you > know some shit' - with the class joyously refraining this was the best > offer I'd had all day. I replied, that in the dismal context of my > life, it was the best for several years. The ultimate point (this was > a class on research methods well bored with ogives and frequency > distributions) was that if you learn to dig about (generally > electronically) you can find stuff on almost anything and codge > together a report for your masters. We adjourned to the pub to watch > football, the class educated enough to know a couple of pints would > stop me showing them how to use excel to produce a histogram rather > than a bar chart. > I guess if the point is to know more about epistemology, then the > Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (free on line) is much more > magnificent than this group. I am about to codge together an > apparently learned article (broadly on Darwin) from this source for my > masters (to get me a trip to Porto). I would broadly say I learn more > from Ian, Slip, Gruff, Molly and others here and can put up with the > odd jibe - perhaps from Francis - that I would not make much of a > priest given I did take up the offer from the mature student (perhaps > I am a future Bishop of Galway?) - buck up BB and work out we > generally only score points in here for a giggle and share such > erudition as we have in this spirit. > > On 2 Sep, 16:33, Ian Pollard <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hi BB, > > > It is a fundamental principle of this group that other members should not be > > viewed as potential converts (or, in your analogy, "customers"). We're a > > sounding-board for ideas. > > >http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye/web/posting-guidelines > > > Ian --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. 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