Subject: RE: Just an item of interest
From: Diego M. Dell'Era (dellerad@sinectis.com.ar)
Date: Thu Jun 27 2002 - 23:07:11 EDT
"Cripes, I know this is an extremely sensitive
congregation. But THAT sensitive?"
Recently, the TSE list has been discussing the
topic of sensitive students. A contributor quoted
the diatribe of a grumpy character in P. Roth's novel:
"(...) that dopey culture. Yap, yap, yap. Part of this
generation that is proud of its shallowness. The sincere
performance is everything. Sincere and empty, totally
empty. The sincerity that goes in all directions. The
sincerity that is worse than falseness, and the innocence
that is worse than corruption. All the rapacity hidden
under the sincerity. And under the lingo. This wonderful
language they all have--that they appear to believe--about
their 'lack of self worth', all the while what they actually
believe is that they are entitled to everything. Their
shamelessness they call lovingness, and the ruthlessness
is camouflaged as 'lost self esteem'. Hitler lacked self
esteem too. That was his problem. It's a con these kids
have going. The hyperdramatization of the pettiest emotions.
Relationship. My relationship. Clarify my relationship. They
open their mouths and they send me up the wall. Their whole
language is a summation of the stupidity of the last forty years.
Closure. There's one. My students cannot stay in that place
where thinking must occur. Closure! They fix on the
conventionalized narrative, with its beginning, middle, and
end -- every experience, no matter how ambiguous, no matter
how knotty or misterious, must lend itself to this normalizing,
conventionalizing, anchorman cliché. Any kid who says
'closure' I flunk. They want closure, there's their closure."
Saludos,
Diego D.
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