downpour: caffeine and carbs

for pouring down the schoolish-bookish things on my mind; not developed or interesting, but sort of necessary mental precipitation.  The caffeine is still coursing around my body, after all.

Because that's what I need for end-of-the-year marathon grading: caffeine to keep my mind alert for mornings and late nights, and carbs to keep my body full so I can focus.  And now it's done.  I power through because I can't focus on much else but grading during this period (I twice left the oven on.  TWICE!  I'm so focused on grading that when I'm doing something else, I'm thinking about grading, and then I rush away from that something else to be able to return to grading.  It's best for everybody if I just focus and finish so that I can move on--the obsessive-compulsive tendencies and all), and I'm big on fresh, new beginnings, which summer always offers.

Wise Structure

In my comp class, I made a change and assigned the difficult research paper as the penultimate assignment.  This moved the intensely difficult grading a bit earlier in the semester, so that final grading was a lot smoother.  But there was another surprising effect that may be more important.  In the past I've assigned the most difficult paper last, and recently plagiarism has been a major problem.  It has been a far smaller problem this semester.  I surmise that the stress and time constraints at the very end of the semester make plagiarism on a difficult assignment more likely, and that moving the difficult assignment just a month earlier greatly reduces this temptation.  I think I will keep this in mind when planning future courses.

Return of Health

In the last month and a half I've been far too lax on the mostly veganism (still eating loads of fruits and vegetables, just adding too much cheese and chocolate, too); the start of summer will find me returning to a mostly vegan lifestyle.  I'll also get to return to a more consistent walking schedule; things have been a little too hectic lately (my wife had our second child two weeks ago), but now that the semester is over I should be able to take at least one arbitrary walk per day, and hopefully two to four. 

Enthusiasm

Of course I'll take a few days off, but I am super excited to start preparing for next fall's classes.  I'm remaking a gen ed lit course and a freshman comp course with new texts, and I'm really optimistic and energized about the process.

Summer Reading

I'll probably be reading a lot of poetry this summer; I'd want to for fun of course, but since I'm creating a new lit syllabus for fall, every poem I read could be a poem I teach, too.  I also hope to read a lot of drama, non-fiction, and short stories, probably staying away from novels for a little while.

Work Space

Another task for summer is to create a good home work space.  I grade papers on a card table, and carry other school materials around to wherever I am in the house.  I want to get a desk and start organizing my materials so that I have a good, clean work space.  A clean well-lighted place, if you will.

Ends and Means

a contrapuntal essay

The problem of using "ends justify the means" logic to defend torture is that virtually every war criminal believes some threat is strong enough, or some perceived "good" important enough, that the atrocity committed is justified.

At Reason, Jim Henley shreds the utilitarian argument for torture (via The Edge of the American West, where dana does a good job exposing the "ticking timebomb" scenario as a fantasy for "thought experiments," not a real situation for the real world). Henley presents the familiar "you have a terrorist in custody who knows where a bomb is hidden, and many innocent lives are at stake" scenario. But Henley twists the hypothetical's rules:

"But you’re also sure this particular terrorist is a pervert! And he tells you that if you’ll rape your own child in front of him, he’ll tell you exactly where the bomb is and how to disarm it. And you’re sure that he will, because your intelligence is that good in exactly that way."

Henley then exposes

"the real misdirection of the ticking bomb scenario. It’s always presented as a 'What would you do?' dilemma, but in truth it has nothing to do with you. The proper question is: 'What should we allow officials embedded in the security bureaucracy to do with impunity? What shall we let their bosses order without legal repercussion?'"

I'm reminded of John Howard Yoder's What Would You Do?, where Yoder exposes some of the assumptions within the "If a violent person is attacking your family, wouldn't you use violence to stop him?" question? Conflating some of Yoder's ideas with some of my own, here are some assumptions inherent to that question.

One assumption: Your violent defense will be successful. If a violent person (presumably armed) is attacking my family, why on earth would I assume that I could violently defend them? My attempt would likely fail, and quite possibly make things worse.

Another assumption: A violent defense is your only option. Could I consider sacrificing myself to save my family? Could I try mount a distraction to allow my family to escape? Could I try talking to the person?

Another assumption: This hypothetical can be used to justify a large-scale war. That's absurd. Even assuming you are using this hypothetical to justify a defensive war, the more accurate hypothetical would be "If a violent person were running through a crowd to try and hurt your family, would you throw a grenade into the crowd to stop the person?"

Literature offers exploration of ends and means, too.

In John Fowles' The Magus, Conchis is ordered by a Nazi to bludgeon a man to death; if he doesn't, a whole crowd of innocent people will be executed. As Conchis approaches the man, the man speaks the word "eleutheria," the Greek word for freedom. Conchis sees in this Nazi resister "every freedom, from the very worst to the very best." He sees that:

"I was the only person left in that square who had the freedom left to choose, and that the annunciation and defence of that freedom was more important than common sense, self-preservation, yes, than my own life, than the lives of the eighty hostages."

In The Magus, Fowles presents an existentialist dilemma: Conchis rejects utilitarian reasoning in order to assert his own "freedom."

I've written about utilitarianism in Graham Greene's The Quiet American before. Fowler finds Pyle's utilitarianism abhorrent. Pyle is willing to sacrifice many lives to his value of democracy; he sees these lives as acceptable "means" to achieve an "end." In order to stop Pyle, Fowler contributes to Pyle's death: in other words, Fowler is willing to view Pyle as an means, too. He weighs Pyle's life against the lives that Pyle would be responsible for taking in the future, and makes a utilitarian decision. Of course, the fact that Fowler and Pyle are rivals for the same woman complicates the simplicity of this decision.

Literature also offers us an example of the ethical way to respond to torture and following orders. In King Lear, while the sadistic Cornwall is poking out the eyes of Gloucester, one of his servants objects, trying to make his master stop. From his lowly position, this is an act of disobedience. But he sees an atrocity being committed, and attempts to intervene rather than be complicit. He is unable to help Gloucester, and he is killed for his troubles; perhaps, however, he saves his soul. And if I were ever to direct King Lear (I'd like to imagine the twists of chance and life that would lead that to happen, but I can't), I know how my production would have Gloucester appear during this scene:

image from Wikipedia

(This is closer to what I would like my contrapuntal writing to be. Instead of a unified, developed thesis, one idea leads to a somewhat related idea and so on, finding unexpected connections and not developing a point in a systematic direction, but exploring it in a flexible way. I'm not where I want to be with it, but I'm getting there).

Addendum

--this post grows out of a frustration with seeing "It works" used as a justification for torture, as if the effectiveness of great cruelty justifies great cruelty (or, if you prefer, you can replace "cruelty" with ILLEGAL ACTS). If you are trying to stop a window salesman from knocking on your door once a month, kicking him in the stomach is cruel (and illegal) regardless of whether "it works."

--perhaps I should explain: I would not use images of Abu Ghraib in a production of King Lear to try and make a political point (which would be both incoherent and obvious). It would be an aesthetic choice to connect with the audience. It would be an attempt to make the cruelty of the scene (and play) familiar to the audience, rather than distant.

Environmentalism and Religion: "the child is father of the man"

a contrapuntal essay

"It is understandable that Luther could have found this preoccupation [with personal self-acceptance] in the apostolic message since it was his own question. [...] It was also perfectly natural for a John Wesley, a Kierkegaard, or today for an existentialist or a conservative evangelical reader to make the same assumption and find the same message--for all of these are in their variegated ways children of Luther, still asking the same question of personal guilt and righteousness."

--John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus

In some strains of Christianity, you may find a human-centered chauvinist attitude toward the natural world.  The thinking seems to go that since humans are the pinnacle of creation, the rest of the created world exists for whatever humans wish to use it for.  There is, then, a divinely sanctioned human "dominion" over the rest of creation (this way of thinking may be opposed by the concept of "stewardship"--essentially the idea that God made all of creation for himself, and humans are caretakers.  In this way of thinking, nature has transcendent purpose, and humans have a moral obligation to care for creation.  I commend the concept of "stewardship" for finding in nature if not "inherent" value, then a value wholly separate from humankind's utilitarian use of it).

This religious human-centered attitude toward the environment actually eases into secular human-centered attitudes toward the environment (or do these secular views emerge from the religious thought?).  In one business-friendly strain, what matters is human benefit, and if the environment is damaged for the economic interests of humans (or corporations, or governments), so be it--what matters is human use.  Another strain can suggest that humans, as the most advanced species, have an inherent right to use the lower species for whatever purposes humans want.  As Harold Herzog writes in "Human Morality and Animal Research: Confessions and Quandaries," "Research with animals is based on the premise that a 'superior' species has the right to breed, kidnap, or kill members of 'lesser' species for the advancement of knowledge."

I think it possible that these secular arguments about human use of nature (including animals) may develop from the same historical strain as Christianity's arguments about human use of nature (including animals).  The child may be father to the man.

One might think that "Environmentalism" is an alternative, or a corrective, or in opposition to, a religious-based human-centered attitude toward the environment.  But this is not always the case.  It seems to me that some (I won't say many) environmentalists maintain human-centered chauvinist attitudes toward the natural world.  Some environmentalists view the natural world as worth protecting and preserving--so that humans can continue to use it.  What environmentalists? Environmentalists that eat meat.

If you claim to be an environmentalist but still think animals can be killed for your pleasure, then whom are you really trying to save the environment for?  You're not trying to save the environment for the animals (you probably don't see inherent value in the animal, if you are willing to eat it for your pleasure).  And you probably don't see inherent value in the natural world outside of human use.  Environmentalism can maintain this chauvinism, can still see humankind in a power-relationship over the natural world.  Secular environmentalists can still believe in human "dominion" over the rest of the natural world, can still see humans in a position of control, capable of using any part of the natural world (including animals) for our own purposes.  It is worth preserving the environment, not for its inherent value, but for its value to humans.

The child is father of the man.

Carol Ann Duffy: poet laureate of Britain

I adore Duffy's collection The World's Wife, and am pleased to see her receive such an honor.

(NY Times).

Poetry in Life

The first lines of poetry I spoke to my new son were from William Wordsworth: "My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky."

How you know you are an English teacher nearing the end of a term

When you stop grading papers in order to prep for class, and it feels like "taking a break."

downpour: blogging helps improve my teaching.

If this blog is a  journal of what I'm reading and thinking about, then that helps my teaching.  With my comp students, I promote the value of informal prewriting exercises: forcing ourselves to work out our thoughts in writing certainly allows us to articulate our thoughts, but also allows us sharper clarity of thought.  By making an effort to write about literature and ideas, I'm clarifying and articulating my own thoughts.  Since a lot of my reading is for class, writing my thoughts certainly sharpens my teaching.  Furthermore, in the past year I read The French Lieutenant's Woman and The Namesake for pleasure, not directly for academic work.  I also blogged about some of my thoughts about reading these works.  Now I'm planning on teaching them in a lit course next fall--suddenly the extended time not just reading these books, but thinking about them and writing about them, perhaps contributed to my decision to include them, and certainly helps me prepare to teach them.

But it's not just the writing on this blog that helps me, but the reading.  I regularly check most of the links on the side.  That means I'm constantly learning about what books people are reading, what people think about particular books, how people are experiencing reading, current issues in literature, current issues in academia, how other teachers are approaching their work, contemporary theoretical issues, contemporary academic topics, etc. etc. etc.  Using these links as my regular reading list keeps me informed on subjects relevant to my teaching, as well as ideas that can be incorporated into my teaching.

Or is this what I try tell myself?

Marxist Reading

In "Going Boom" at bookforum, Walter Benn Michaels has, I believe, some strong insights.  My main problem with the essay is the assumption that it is the duty of literature (or literary criticism, or literary study, or simply reading) to explore and expose the problems of the free market.  First, aren't there better areas of inquiry more suited to this project?  Economics, Journalism, Political Science--it seems there are fields that would do a much better job with that project than writers of literature.  Second, I'm skeptical that more novels like American Psycho or more television shows like The Wire are really going to foster anything like a revolution or reform of the free market system.

But it seems Michaels also views the primary concern of human beings as our material conditions, and thus what we read should reflect that concern.  I think, given that much of our lives is devoted to those material conditions, that when we read we perhaps should devote our attention to "something else," whether that be pleasure, or spiritual fulfillment, or self-knowledge, or personal growth, or intellectual curiosity, or any of many, many human concerns that are not about the economic system. I might agree with Harold Bloom when he writes, "Do not attempt to improve your neighbor or your neighborhood by what or how you read. Self-improvement is a large enough project for your mind and spirit." 

(via Dissent)

downpour: some things I'm teaching

Avoiding Staleness

I'm very excited that next fall, I'll be including John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman and Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake in my gen ed lit syllabus. I feel like including these novels makes the course my own. I'm also not assigning any books that feature poetry; instead, I'll be creating my own poetry reading list through digital attachments and online links. And I'm also changing texts for my comp class, again simply because I feel the old text was getting stale and dated. This certainly adds work to the summer, but I think it is well worth it. I want to be energized by what I teach, and think I'll do a better job teaching it if I am.

Milgram/Zimbardo

In "Obedience," Ian Parker writes "It's hard not to think of Stanley Milgram in another set of circumstances--to imagine the careers he did not have in films or in the theatre," and quotes from Milgram from a letter: "I should not be here, but in Greece shooting films under a Mediterranean sun, hopping about in a small boat from one Aegean isle to the next."

I find this remarkably unsurprising, and think the same thought could apply to Philip Zimbardo and his Stanford Prison Experiment (for some reason, in my imagination Zimbardo appears like the "impresario" artist at the end of The French Lieutenant's Woman). Parker and Zimbardo are psychologists that appear to view themselves as something like artists. And perhaps, from Freud on forward, it is psychology with an artistic bent that most frequently forces its way into the popular imagination.

On the Commodification of Peace

At We Have Mixed Feelings About Sven Sundgaard, a mostly silly blog where I sometimes examine consumer life, I discuss the consumer fashion appeal of the Peace Symbol.

Torture

Using "the end justifies the means" logic leads to an obvious problem. If you believe nefarious means can be justified by a desired end, then you would be willing to use nearly any means to achieve ends you deem very important, and you will use absolutely any means to achieve ends you deem absolutely necessary. But if you do so, the only thing that separates you (whom you consider good) from your enemy (whom you consider evil) is the desirability, nobility, morality, goodness of the ends. Horrible atrocities have been perpetrated by those that believed so strongly their ends were just/right/desirable that they were willing to kill to achieve those ends.

In history there have been those (such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi) who believed their moral superiority to their enemies must exist in the means, not just the ends. John Howard Yoder's understanding of Christ in The Politics of Jesus also suggests a leader (with social/political ends) who insisted on using a moral means.

Religion does not provide a clear direction. Too often religious motivations have led humans to murderous means to achieve the ends they view their religion demands. And sometimes it is religion that leads humans to recognize a moral demand, a "higher law," which extends beyond the desirability of the end that humans have in view. So religion can lead humans to treat other humans as "means" to be used for transcendent purposes, but religion can also insist on transcendent purposes which forbid certain evil means to achieve human ends.

There is little doubt that torture denies the dignity of the one being tortured. Torture insists that the tortured person is simply a means, a means to be used to achieve the torturer's end. The tortured person does not have inherent value; the value of the tortured person is only his/her value to the torturer. Humans distort, limit, and deny each others' inherent dignity all the time, but violence is perhaps the most intentional, outright, egregious denial.

"Trifles" as a metaphor for canon formation

Those in power get to determine what matters, what is important, what is worth time and exploration, as well as what is less significant, not important, "trifling."