a few answers
Scottie Bowman (bowman@mail.indigo.ie)
Fri, 06 Nov 1998 09:08:53 +0000
When Martin said to himself: `...To think that I'm actually
being PAID to sit around and talk about books and poetry
with these great people - I'd gladly do it for free..', he was
unwittingly admitting there was something rather phoney about
the whole setup.
Chatting about books is something civilised people do over
a dinner table, over a few drinks, or even through the medium
of a mailing list. The profession of teachers is one of
the shameful professions - like that of social workers, of bank
robbers or of psychiatrists - attracting, by its nature, the very
last people who should be practising it & existing - like the others
- for the benefit of the practitioners rather than their clients.
The gain for a teacher is a captive audience of impressionable minds
(almost certainly over-impressionable if it's an English class...)
that he is paid - modestly but reliably - to fill up with his own
private & neurotic preoccupations, using as his pretext & piggy-back
work by elementally more gifted & harder working people.
Leaving aside Diego's distaste for my particular sense of humour -
his own is not immediately apparent - I assure him that my advice
to Nicola was completely serious. I really do think that university
courses in English are (like most non-technical instruction) a
complete waste of time. It so happens that Ted Hugh's example
was peculiarly topical but that doesn't detract from its relevance.
He was speaking & acting for many of us, & especially those who
long to write & enjoy living English - not just regurgitate it in
dreary dollops for the benefit of other prisoners in the academic
galley.
My congratulations to Paul for having ruffled - at last - Jim's
Christian forbearance. How refreshing to find a healthy fuck off
behind all those jovial heh, heh, hehs.... It hasn't been seen
before - certainly not in my time on the list.
Except, Matt, that I don't really have time for the hammer,
the thongs & the 8 inch nails, are you really serious in your plea
for urbane, intelligent conversation ? Doesn't your heart sink when
you open yet another earnest disquisition on the Australian Post
Structuralist view of Cosmic Blandness ? I must admit mine only
really quickens when I open one of Dr Kosusko's little packages
& recognise the glint of the stiletto or hear the distant plonk when
one of my own pebbles reaches the bottom of the well. Art &
the lively consideration of art stops being serious the moment
respectful solemnity appears on the scene.
Scottie B.