Subject: Re: Beaver Coats Cloaking Section Men on the Web
From: Suzanne Morine (suzannem@dimensional.com)
Date: Sun Nov 25 2001 - 17:44:11 GMT
At 02:53 PM 11/20/2001 +0800, Will wrote:
>[..] I delivered "Tutoring/Teaching: How Thin the Post-Process Membrane"
>[..] Lane's focus on and greed for literary recognition reminds me more of
>the current book/web hustlers who lack scholarly values but hope to "tap
>the market" and make some bucks. In other words, today's section men
>aren't even doing the literary work, they're just tuned into fame and
>greed. Although my paper was boring and unnecessary in terms of world
>piece or ending disease, I did accomplish a fair amount of ideas and
>placed them neatly in a practice-theory paradigm that may be useful for
>other writing teachers. [..] yesterday's section man is today's scholar,
>and today's scholar is almost angelic because we're rare birds and because
>we've been overtaken by shallow webheads. [..]
>
>http://www.southernct.edu/~hochman/willz.html
I think the overwhelming number of sites I visit (aside from my job hunting
research) are not for profit sites. I took a look at your page and there
are links galore to other pages you have made, so you really have not been
overtaken by the web, for profit or otherwise, in your scholarly pursuits.
I guess you're speaking more emotionally, here. At any rate, you should
post the "Tutoring/Teaching: How Thin the Post-Process Membrane" paper. I
mean, why leave it at begrudging the Lanes of the world and their shallow
web sites full of ads and products? (And, my gosh, I hope you didn't
include me in that group of web section men -- my Catcher site does have
ads but I don't get a cent from them -- they're just the burden geocities
exact for the benefit of free web space.)
In short, do put the paper online and send us the URL.
To venture into a tangent, I read a review of a book, "Mind the Gap:
Hierarchies, Health, and Human Evolution," by Richard Wilkinson. He
proposes that people are less stressed in more egalitarian, less stratified
societies, that we instinctively search faces for a gesture of belonging
and we worry about our place and security in our world. He presents
evidence that the wider the gap between the very high ranking (Bill Gates,
George W. Bush) and the very low ranking (the poor, and globally, say, the
women in burkas), the worse off the health of the entire population. It
makes sense to me that this would also be an instinctive thing because the
poor would have greater resentment in a highly stratified society but the
well off will have more reason to fear the poor. Also, I can see that the
well off could feel, in fear, an impulse to keep down the poor, thus
widening the gap more. Or maybe it's not so much instinctive as a sense of
how the world works.
Well, this theory has been on my mind. And it always bothered me that
Franny complains about the section men. She's wanting to put them down,
they're wanting to be the first and last word on Turgenev. It's all about
status for Franny, too. Oh my god, who is a section man, who is not. God, I
hope I'm not.. Let's not get carried away by denigrating or honored labels.
Me, I actually tend to like to hear what earnest, half educated wits have
to say. Mark Twain, Janeane Garofalo. Hey, here's one for ya: Anne
Frank!!!! Yet I also like some very educated people, such as Carl Jung
(well, his autobiography was my speed). Ah, an egalitarian idea comes to
mind: everyone who is doing what they like, earnestly in their own way, has
something worthwhile to contribute to the mix. We needn't give in to our
instincts on status. So post your paper if you have it on the computer. I'm
not saying I'll read it (it looks like Greek to me) but someone will read
it and appreciate it.
Suzanne
P.S. Another half educated wit is Holden Caulfield! :-)
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