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

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

David,

  Pirsig no doubt overstates it. He did believe that his teaching load 
contributed to his going insane--probably left him with a bad taste.

SUNY Brockport had a policy that required all the teachers there to teach 
some freshman comp. The head of the philosophy department hated it.

I wonder if kids are writing less, or just different. If texting is writing, 
then they are doing an awful lot of it.

  Bob



----- Original Message -----
From: "Beck,  David A" <dabeck AT iupui.edu>
Date: Monday, October 13, 2008 20:35
Subject: Re: [percy-l] College Essays
To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org


> 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" <:
> 
> > 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 <
> > Date: Saturday, October 11, 2008 16:04
> > Subject: Re: [percy-l] College Essays
> > To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
> > <
> >
> >
> >> >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
> > --
> > 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
> >
> 
> 
> 
> --
> 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