Oh Martin, your prose abounds with pith (“Open Letter to President Roth,” April 4, 2008, Volume CXLIII, Number 37), and yet—I’m incredulous.
You certainly picked up an education in your evidently well-spent time here at Wesleyan, and not a moment too late in the modernity game! True, the trite tides of overly enthusiastic leftist elitism (God, I miss Eisenhower) have swept up and torn asunder the mighty foundations of what was once a classic liberal arts education. But, having been demolished, shall we continue to trust the edifice’s cornerstones of edification enough to tether our delicate young minds to their sinking dispositions? Doesn’t their relative, well, renunciation, offer at least a counter argument to your insatiable vindictive? But, I go too far—I’d like to hear both sides speak, of course.
I, too, lament the loss of some knowledge, some set of standards on which I could hang my silver-tongued hat. And I’m too young to even know the good ol’ days! And, while I’ll never have Ivy League land to laude (or lambaste), these illogical lanes and untended alleyways that zigzag to North College sure would have been a memorable path to pace as I recollected my time spent and misspent here in the last four years. It does take awhile to move forward through such confusion.
Hell, maybe if I had actually learned something I might be able to pick apart President Roth’s senior thesis! God knows I was capable of profoundly original thought at only 22 years of age—I never felt the need to rely on the hackneyed expressions of an ideological mass, nor have I ever had a penchant to rely on the opposing mass’s mumble to articulate an opponent’s position on the matter. In the name of knowledge, we cannot let the loudest speak for everyone.
These diversity debutants have certainly got a few things wrong, and those of them who insist upon the utmost veridicality of their immense meta-narratives have twice wronged the impressionable masses. You have a point: mandatory cross-dressing is pretty drastic. Boy, it sure is difficult not to be excessively passionate about divisive issues, isn’t it? Too bad. So much is lost to the myopic.
Of course, it was one of the classics who so rightly said, “The mark of an educated mind is the ability to entertain a thought without accepting it.” But wait — we certainly can’t listen to anything Aristotle might have said: he was nothing but a novice, dissenting blindly against the thoughts imparted on him by his tutor, that masterful author of authoritarianism. Wouldn’t want to put all our eggs in the new guy’s basket; he should have listened to Plato. Experience knows best, and curiosity killed the sophomoric!
Aristotle had his own proposals to pass on to his contemptuous contemporaries: one was to divide theory and praxis. Yes, praxis, that boring old practicality, forever engaged in action, change, and (shall I say it?) progress. Not that I am accusing you of ignorance! I’m sure you’re well aware that there’s eupraxia and dyspraxia, given your clear inclination for the latter.
An educated mind knows that picking a side and engaging in fisticuffs is for fundamentalists (though it is fun). An educated mind might manifest the hyperbole of modernity’s binary, that line in the sand that sets you and my alma mater so ardently at odds with each other. Too bad my education has been dreadful; I guess I’ll have to wait for an Indiana Wesleyan student to find a way to navigate these twisted trails we face here at our own humble Wesleyan. I knew I should have been a religion major…or at least classics.
Not that I am defending Mr. Bigwig Roth. If he were so buddy-buddy with Foucault you’d think he’d have the perspective to perceive the co-production of power and knowledge (read: formality and fashion). I guess it’s tough to sniff out suppression, but honestly! It’s quite obvious: I for one thought MoCon was a panopticon since the day I arrived.
Agreed: Wesleyan goes too far. But to pretend like we’ve witnessed a fall from Eden is, again, to twice wrong our empty little heads. At least paradise had the acumen to admit women, if only to kick them out again.
Leave a Reply