Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

["Beck, David A" <dabeck AT iupui.edu>]

Bob,

Maybe it is because I have stack of freshman comp portfolios leering at 
me, I tend to agree with Pirsig. I know my "creative" writing has 
diminished to near nothing. I somewhat jokingly tell my students, 
"Those who can't make it as fulltime writers, teach writing." (I 
remember Jackson Browne's lyrics about the Pretender "who started out 
so young and strong/Only to surrender.")

In our defense, I do think, however, that freshman comp does teach more 
than writing: i.e. critical thinking and evaluation of sources. But, 
believe me, the reason I teach writing is because freshman comp is the 
only way to keep a job here. My favorite class to teach is Sin and 
Redemption in Fiction. In order to keep that gig, I teach writing. 
Freshman comp is the money-maker. ALL freshman have to take it. The 
second half (of freshman comp) is a little more rewarding (some of them 
can actually fog a mirror).

Well, back to the pile. Wish me well!

-David


Quoting "Eckert, Robert G SPC MIL USA FORSCOM" <robert.g.eckert AT us.army.mil>:

> List
>
> This exchange has made me think of Pirsig in ZMM:
>
> "The school was what could euphemistically be called a "teaching
> college." At a teaching college you teach and you teach and you teach
> with no time for research, no time for contemplation, no time for
> participation in outside affairs. Just teach and teach and teach
> until your mind grows dull and your creativity vanishes and you
> become an automaton saying the same dull things over and over to
> endless waves of innocent students who cannot understand why you are
> so dull, lose respect and fan this disrespect out into the community.
> The reason you teach and you teach and you teach is that this is a
> very clever way of running a college on the cheap while giving a
> false appearance of genuine education." (Part II, Ch 13)
>
> Bob Eckert
>
>
> PS
>
> Cash, or gold?
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Wade Riddick <wriddick AT usa.net>
> Date: Saturday, October 11, 2008 16:04
> Subject: Re: [percy-l] College Essays
> To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
> <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>
>
> > >Peter and Rhonda,
> > >
> > >I too sympathize. I normally stagger my assignments, but I messed up
> > >with my cut and past job on my syllabi. All four classes turned in
> > >their work this week!
> >
> > If I could chime in my two cents, the decline in reading and
> > writing that's
> > occurred in American society across the last fifty years has had a
> > verydeep and detrimental effect on our collective capacity for
> > independent,critical thought.  As life and our understanding of it
> > grows increasingly
> > complex, it's all-the-more crucial that we hone our analytical
> > skills; I
> > don't know how we do that if it's not writing and grading essays and
> > tossing around ideas in seminars.  Instead of investing in the
> > developmentof these faculties, a variety of political choices has
> > made teaching this
> > sort of reflection more expensive and out-of-reach for the average
> > citizen.
> > If you or your students doubt the benefits, then let me simply say
> > this.  I
> > doubt I would be alive today if I didn't have a degree in English and
> > graduate classes in microeconomics and statistics under my belt.  The
> > amount of bullshit that masquerades for scientific truth in
> > medicine today
> > is truly staggering - and deadly.  I didn't just encounter potentially
> > fatal misinformation from one doctor; I got it from almost every
> > corner.
> > For example, I brought in research published in scientific
> > journals linking
> > gut bacteria loss to autoimmunity and one gastroenterologist told
> > me he
> > didn't "believe" it - as if personal "belief" is supposed to be a
> > measureof scientific proof1 - and then he referred me to the local
> > doctor who had
> > first pointed me to the theory saying, "She has a good reputation with
> > problem cases like yours."
> >
> > I understood instantly from game theory that he was relying on a
> > reputational effect as a cognitive short-cut for his decision-
> > making.  But
> > he didn't need to.  All he had to do was stay current with the
> > literatureonce he got out of medical school - you know, do what
> > he's required to do
> > by law.  He believed Dr. Cave could help me because she had a
> > "reputation"for helping problem patients no one else could deal
> > with.  What was she
> > using?  Magic?  In his mind, what was her "reputation" supposed to
> > be based
> > on?
> >
> > In a competitive marketplace, economically useful information is
> > supposedto be disseminated.  If a doctor does something better
> > than you do and
> > you're in competition with him, you're supposed to study what he
> > does.  How
> > does that information travel?  The only source of new information
> > for the
> > average doctor these days seems to come from drug company reps who
> > haveeconomic incentives to skew their spiel.  And if it's not
> > covered by a
> > patent, they have no incentive to discuss it.
> >
> > If you haven't been trained to spot subtle lies, you can't get a
> > clear view
> > of reality and you can't help your patients.  It's like
> > deconstruction.How do you understand what's not being said?  How
> > do you understand the gap
> > between what is said and the underlying reality those symbols are
> > supposedto represent?  How many doctors get the kind of liberal
> > arts education we
> > did?  For that matter, take a look at the stock market slide and ask
> > yourself how many businessmen could benefit from a few history
> > classes.
> > Our economy brims with specialists who know very little about reality
> > outside their increasingly narrow field.  They cannot integrate
> > what they
> > know with information from even closely related fields - even when
> > livesdepend on it.  The result is a comedy (or tragedy) of
> > ironies.  You see
> > this when a rheumatologist tells patients to eat foods that make their
> > inflammation worse because he thinks of it as a "nutritional"
> > problem and
> > that's beneath him.2  You see this "semiotic bubble" when the
> > executivesrunning A.I.G. and listening to their investment
> > products division didn't
> > understand the basics of forensic accounting, fraud and Ponzi
> > schemes (or
> > worse; perhaps they did).
> >
> > It's easy for the sign to drift away from the signified.  Perhaps
> > we all
> > need a little shock every once in a while to prick the inflated
> > bubble and
> > shake loose the light - or, as Albert Gore, Sr., put it, "Defeat
> > may serve
> > as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out."
> >
> > Having said that, when I consider the current socioeconomic and
> > technological trends, I can't help but worry that our capacity for
> > independent thought and collective judgment is in decline.
> > Perhaps this
> > upcoming political realignment will prove me wrong or at least
> > reset the
> > clock.  I certainly hope so.
> >
> > If the medical examples don't stir your soul or bother your
> > students then
> > consider this: I've been in cash for several years now.  Like Warren
> > Buffet, Paul Krugman and a lot of other contemporary critics of our
> > capitalism, I knew our economy was tied together with bubblegum and
> > shoestring and Bush was running short on shoestring.
> >
> > Wade Riddick
> >
> > 1.  I think T.S. Kuhn would say it is and I would agree with him; but
> > that's entirely the problem.  We don't train people to understand that
> > their grasp on rationality is essentially a "belief" that we need to
> > constantly question in light of new evidence - particularly in the
> > sciences.  Yet as we need more of this as scientific knowledge
> > multiplies,we're getting less of this.
> >
> > 2.  It's not a bad choice economically since it does make the patient
> > sicker which then sends them running back to the rheumatologist
> > for more
> > medicine.  Of course, it's hard to construe this as good behavior
> > in the
> > context of the Hippocratic oath.  For another example of bad medicine,
> > consider how many rheumatologists think it's acceptable to
> > prescribe COX-2
> > inhibitors like celebrex to arthritis patients despite the fact
> > that it
> > makes autoimmunity worse and degrades the formation of new
> > collagen in
> > joints.
> >
> >
> > --
> > An archive of all list discussion is available at
> > https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/percy-l/
> >
> > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
> --
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>
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