RE: this is a tragic situation now the comedy

Stumbling is often just what it is.
John

Is it, even without a reader?
Daniel

Despite the listings and the syllabi and the course plans and the lectures
and the notes and the assigned texts and all the rest, despite all the
planning and the curriculum decisions and the core and major requirements,
despite it all, students stumble on ideas, thoughts, passages, images,
fragments, novels, poems, essays, moments that resonate, that move them,
that provoke them, and suddenly, sometimes after days and weeks of sitting
in the back, eyes half closed, wondering what time it is, wondering if the
girl sitting in front of them has noticed them, wondering what they're going
to do this weekend, suddenly, they are alive. Suddenly they recognize
somewhere a thought they've had or a moment they've experienced or an idea
they've wondered about or a provocation they can't resist. And they care.
And they speak. And they read. And they learn.
John

Yes, yet with all these gas molecules bumping about there still are syllabi,
plans, lectures, testing, and policy. Oh, or am I all wrong and you profs
are as superfluous as you claim?
Daniel

And then all your stupid talk of liberals and conservatives and your
nonsense about brainwashing and discrimination and conspiracies is instantly
made irrelevant. A discussion takes place. A thought occurs. And I go
home smiling.
John

John has a thought that occurs, absurdity tumbling into absurdity and
somehow that absurd thought is superior relevant, more so than say thoughts
and talk of liberals and conservatives, discrimination. John, the
arbitrator of Omlor world has thus decreed, it has been posted, let it be
so. Wow, so much for criticism, John pushes the right button and a smile
come rolling down the shoot. What if the discussion is about how bankrupt
the material that you have chosen in the syllabi is? Is there a go home
with a smile then? Oh, they aren't bankrupt? Hey, thoughts occur, how are
we to know which ones are worthy of learned discussion and smiles?
Daniel

The rest, Daniel, is pettiness and squabbling and not worth my time.
John

The critic characterizes the criticism of his field as pettiness and
squabbling, do smiles change your designation John? What if you have
indigestion? It's funny but you have just characterized much of Humanities.
Daniel
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Received on Tue Sep 30 10:29:44 2003