Live a Question - Any Question

Words, images, and the delay of perception and awareness.

2012-03-03T08:29:00.002-08:00

Much of what I've been reading in Zen and the Art of Motocylcle Maintance and in the Guidebook to Zen... revolves around this idea of pre-conscious awareness. Pirsig calls his Quality the leading edge of the train. (In his view, the classisist views the train as made of various compartments wihc ties to an analytical view, while the romanitic views the train as a whole.) My thinking here regards the verbal and visual analysis of perception.

The gestalt psychologists value the whole over the individual part. Additionally, they define the whole as the structure or form. Reading this last night with Kristen, it occurred to me that the visual image is able to be processed--or made available to awareness--as part and whole at the same time. Think of those famous gestaltic images of the vase/face.

There are at least two images available to human-organized perception: There is the two faces in white or the vase in black. (I say "at least" because I have also heard argued, though form where escapes me at this moment, that the third images is the unreconciled switching between the images. I'm thinking this is akin to Magritte's "The Treachery of Images." In the in-between we are aware that we are seeing neither a vase nor faces but an assemblage of color and shape.)

Going back to gestalt and Pirsig, the mind is capable of seeing the two (three?) images--from a human perception of time, of course--simultaneously.

Contrast this with an essay or paragraph. The thinking progresses with each semi-completed thought or sentence; the perception occurs word by word. In a verbal text, there is a consideral time lag between perception of the individual words and the sense of meaning of the passage as a whole. Additionally, it seems that the verbal text is more ameniable to "slicing" (to use Pirsig's analogy) as it can be divided by word, by clause, by sentence, by paragraph, and then by all the various reader-responses/understandings that border/fall between the textual structures just mentioned.

It is hard for me to imagine the vertigo of perception occurring with a verbal text. The perception of the face/vase occurs in the same "place" in the individual and can occur at very nearly the same time. Personally speaking, (or is that phenomenologically speaking"?) I do not "feel" the flow of words and the assemblage of meaning in the same "place" or at the same "time".

Which leave me wondering, as a person personally and psycho-metrically identified as a "verbal" thinker, what am I missing? To see the "whole", to get to what analogically feels to me like the paragraph or page-level understanding, must I process the parts in a verbal/linguistic manner first? Finally, is the brevity of Zen koans, Taoist aphorisms, and other eastern verbal statements in part an attempt to shorten the verbal processing time? Are the koans, for example, similar in intent as the gestaltic optical illusions?

Diversity and education

2012-02-07T13:47:00.000-08:00

This is a modified version of the post I submitted for my Current Trends in English Education course. I've been reading my third book from my list--The Passion of the Western Mind--and I thought it was pertinent to the purposes to this blog. (Whatever those are...)

I still find the idea of “diversity” to be a poorly worded concept with which to indoctrinate (critical perspective indeed!) future/current teachers. My inner sophist argues that what is diverse is what provides the most freedom, pleasure, stainless-steel appliances for the most people. In other words, be nice, be tolerant, be open-minded—except to those who are not. Then my inner Socrates (who’s the pompous one, not me for claiming I have an inner Socrates, honest!) screams back, How dare you teach diversity and tolerance when you do not also proclaim an ideal of truth, beauty, and the American/UN/trans-national-corporate way! Though Socrates and the sophist each have valid points, I find it obvious that we live in the sophist’s world. We use a common-sense language to communicate and outline what the world is—but heaven forbid anyone challenge us in our assumptions. We get this blank-faced “huh?” kind of look, like we’re conversing with a Martian when someone asks “but why should we tolerate, or embrace, every kind of person? Even the stupid? How about the fascist?”

In many ways it seems that we maintain a shallow understanding, a tenuous grasp of reality (lower case ‘r’) with which we plod along. When faced with the question of telos, of goal, of meaning, of transcendent, in-your-face, Capital ‘R’ reality—as in “you’re telling me all this stuff about all these different viewpoints, but what’s The Truth?”—we blink hard. Our eyes hurt. Our pride hurts. We glimpse a giant sucking void overpowering in its depth and in its normally unbeknownst proximity. We, in the year 2012, live in the world of the sophist. Thus the surface, the oblique lines of thought and perception that keep one out of the singularity of One Final Truth, of even thinking about it seriously, is where we, working within the discourses of our society, are comfortable.

So let’s wed Socrates and the sophist (as the sophist was most likely male—patriarchic Greek society and all—the wedding will have to take place in Massachusetts). Let’s make a compelling argument for the goals of “diversity” while also stepping back and finding a logically defensible core. Wrapping together our awareness of media and our context as educators in a post-critical world, we can say it this way: We’ve taught a dozen different viewpoints, now let us now construct a viewpoint to rule them all.

Ironically, the postmodern position regarding diversity must put the focus back on the individual. Sure he's crated/created in a cultural context, sure language determines some of his thoughts, sure others around him wield political, economic, and social power, but by the very essence of being an individual, he has a quiet place within himself from which he can contemplate and consider before he acts. Let us not forget that he has a viewpoint upon the world no one else can utilize, no one else can see.

To free the individual from determinism, from laughing at what his tribe has always laughed at, from expressing himself in the ways of his tribe, he must be made aware he is part of a tribe, and that he has a free choice as to whether or not to stay. He must be shown the edges of his world and taught how to move beyond them, if he wishes to. Only when the individual comes to see the disconnect between the ways his tribe views reality, the ways other tribes have viewed reality, and the ways in which one could view reality, is he truly free to choose how he will see reality.

Diversity is choice writ large, the individual free to pick and choose his concepts, feelings, and outlook from the world around him. After all, the Latin root of intelligence is 'to choose'. True diversity, a singular, contextually relevant and contextually informed viewpoint comes only to the individual, not to groups of people.

Shared Reading

2012-01-30T17:09:00.000-08:00

Kristen and I have been trying to create a new tradition: shared reading. We pick an article, essay, or even book, load it onto the iPad--thanks David and Kathy!-- and read it aloud to each other while commenting upon it. Being the pseudo-researcher that I am, I've been attempting to find information on others who do this same process -- how they do it, tips, best types of reading material, etc. All I've been able to find is reading aloud for adults reading to children.

Which leds me to a question: why is reading such an individual activity now? As this New York Times article mentions, at one time reading was about as social an activity as one could have. (An interesting sub-note: the article also hints at the rapid consumerization -- privatization -- of media interaction.)

I can think of few other ways of interacting with a partner that promotes as much growth and thought. Even with our few short sessions sharing our readings, it's been obvious that we are better understanding the text, filling in each other's gaps in understanding. With more complicated texts, such as journal articles and other conceptually complex material, the participants have to reconcile their own understanding with that of the author's words while also being challenged or questioned by the other participant. The shared quest to find meaning in dense texts, in our experience, leads both participants closer together in their thinking. It's also been a lot of fun.

Making Light (lite?) of Rick Ross

2012-01-16T07:15:00.000-08:00

From The New York Times:

Give Mr. Ross credit: he hears the best in other rappers, and sometimes pilfers it for himself. He’s become an omnivore, his own repertory growing with his success, which isn’t always how things work. With clusters of meaty verses and throbbing, moody production, “Rich Forever” is almost on par with his last two solo albums, “Deeper Than Rap” and “Teflon Don” (Maybach Music/Slip-N-Slide/Def Jam), both great. In just a few years he’s become a real bear of a rapper. Powerful, indignant, protective: that’s how a bear feels, and that’s how Mr. Ross sounds, as if nothing could possibly derail him, and everyone who walks with him will be safe.

What a great example of of diction control. Look back at the picture, then re-read the paragraph for food, eating, and animal references. This is why I read the Times.

White Noise

2012-01-15T13:12:00.000-08:00

Jack Gladney, the protagonist of White Noise by Don Delillo, is an educator who apparently does not educate. Wearing dark robes and thickly tinted sunglasses even for inside lectures, Gladney mocks himself and the profession he serves throughout the narrative. The preeminent scholar of Hitler studies, a field he admits to conjuring up on a whim, Gladney professes at "The-College-on-the-Hill," a small liberal-arts college somewhere in the midwest. Despite his job title, from his first person viewpoint in the novel , the reader never encounters him interacting with any of his students. In fact, the closest the novel comes to providing an interaction is when Gladney visits and lends his professional authority to another "professor" at the college, Murry. Gladney and Murry spend this solitary didactic scene waxing philosophical; Murry lectures on Elvis -- his connection to his mother, his connection with death, his belief in the occult -- while Gladney interjects with comments that seem to relate Elvis to Hitler. Gladney and Murray's dance serves to elevate Elvis by the sheer weight of the comparison with Hitler.

The entire edifice of education is mocked throughout the novel. Mrs. Gladney -- Jack's fourth or fifth wife -- teaches a class on correct posture and the other professors at The-College-on-the-Hill teach courses in crass pop culture. No learning seems to take place at all in the novel, and in fact, the type of knowledge Gladney's children and step-children reflect is simply memorized factoid piled on top of de-contextualized information. Whole pages are spent explicating the ever more fracturing lies of conversation that take the family from questions of animal types to the population sizes of marginally important countries.

One example: Gladney's son offers five dollars to anyone in the car who can name the population of Bolivia, give or take 50,000. His sister's response: Bolivians.

As I am writing these thoughts without benefit of the book (I turned it in to the library earlier) I will conclude with I thought was the most profound insight Gladney receives in the novel. Bleeding from a gun shot wound, Gladney visits a Catholic-run hospital expecting to find some reaffirming message from the nuns and priest. Referring to Jesus, he is surprised to hear the nun explain with contempt that none of the Lord's workers at the hospital believe in God, they only act that way to help those who do not believe to have something to fall back upon. That someone believes in God, the supernatural, transcendence, Gladney discovers, is what allows those devoid of faith in anything to continue on. Gladney's education at the close of the book forces him to lose even that last shred of faith -- not in a super-human goodness, but in members of humanity who believe. He is untethered form all belief at this point. The apocalypse the novel keeps referring to, of chemical spills, toxic airborne events, and digital disintegration, becomes realized for him as a total loss of faith in faith itself.

He can go back to being a sham teacher with his thick sunglasses and black robes because it is all a sham, it's all white noise, sound and fury signifying nothing.

Advice from your elders

2012-01-12T10:50:00.001-08:00

"As Dr. Pillemer summarized the elders’ view, 'Travel is so rewarding that it should take precedence over other things younger people spend money on.' Create a bucket list now and start whittling it down. "

From The New York Times

On the process of learning...

2012-01-11T03:16:00.001-08:00

"Much learning is like a poor man counting another's treasures without a penny of his own."

--Introducing Buddha, p. 61

Prospective Booklist

2012-01-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

Following John and my agreement to read 15 books this year, I've compiled a possible/probable list:

White Noise -- Delillo (finished yesterday)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance -- Pirsig
Catch 22 -- Heller
The Crying of Lot 49 -- Pynchon
Being and Time -- Heidegger
The Sound and the Fury -- Falkner
Bhagavad Gita
Discipline and Punish -- Foucault
Building A Bridge To the 18th Century -- Postman
Time Quake -- Vonnegut
The Passion of the Western Mind -- Tarnas

Obviously this is not 15 books. John and I agreed to read a few of the same books so I'm leaving room. Of course, there is always time to change a few books; any suggestions?

Reinvigorated

2012-01-04T11:49:00.000-08:00

Inspired by a new year, peer-pressured by my good friend John, I've reopened this blog space. Sadly, my perfectionism kept me from writing often in this blog. Will it be a concept blog? A media blog? A personal blog? What if my students stumbled upon this thing?

But then the words of Dr. Sara Kajder rang in my ears: she wants to see English teachers and graduate students with an online presence, even at the risk of offending someone, somewhere, somehow. (Her exact phrase was, "I'm much more concerned with finding nothing about you online than find photos of an overly ambitious Friday night.") Besides, how can I teach writing if I am not willing to put myself out there and explore ideas?

Thus Live a Question take two (three? or four, maybe?).

The goal is 500 words per week. My personal goal is to cover concepts--distilling what I believe to be important ideas into digestible bits--and provide media reviews and analysis. This latter goal will be supported by John and my second goal of reading 15 books this year.

Save reality?

2009-11-27T12:10:00.001-08:00

Education and America's future

2008-04-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

From a New York Times op-ed article:

Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life — either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.

A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.

In the Common Core survey, nearly 20 percent of respondents did not know who the U.S. fought in World War II. Eleven percent thought that Dwight Eisenhower was the president forced from office by the Watergate scandal. Another 11 percent thought it was Harry Truman.

Language and Thought

2008-04-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

Does a specific language affect the way an individual perceives his world? Does reality determine the way language functions?

Language helps us learn novel categories, and it licenses our unusual ability to operate on an abstract plane, Dr. Lupyan said. The problem is that after a category has been learned, it can distort the memory of specific objects, getting between us and the rest of the nonabstract world.
from The New York Times

Nexus of Evil

2008-04-12T17:47:00.001-07:00

Written in chalk on a blackboard above a basket of bagged-coffee in the Starbucks at Sarasota Square Mall:

Support the Troops,
Buy Them a Bag of Coffee

Boys in education

2008-03-02T23:24:00.000-08:00

From The New York Times Magazine:

Nationwide, boys are nearly twice as likely as girls to be suspended, and more likely to drop out of high school than girls (65 percent of boys complete high school in four years; 72 percent of girls do). Boys make up two-thirds of special-education students. They are 1.5 times more likely to be held back a grade and 2.5 times more likely to be given diagnoses of A.D.H.D.

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2008-02-02T01:01:00.000-08:00

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The View from the Center of the Universe

2007-10-06T07:24:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading "The View from the Center of the Universe." Whoah! I have always been interested in pop-astrophysics, cosmology and sci-fi but I haven't read anything on the subject in years.

I've never read anything like this book, a combination of interesting and easy-to-read science and self-help inspiration.

"The View..." is written by Joel R. Primack, a cosmologist who worked on the 'cold dark matter' theory, and Nancy Ellen Abrams, a lawyer and poet of sorts. The pair explain that humans have lost sight of our own importance because of the empty, meaningless universe of Newton and the dark humor/world view of existentialism. We've fallen from Atlas upholding the universe to an ironic and cynical post-modernism.

The book presents new developments in cosmology in an understandable and readable format. It then promotes the creation of a world/universe-centering philosophy. For example humans are embedded in the middle of all possible sizes of entities in the universe. We are made of stardust, the rarest of all matter in the universe and the amount of variables that had to be just so to get you here, reading these very words, is staggering.

The insights I got out of this book:

The future and past already exist but because the speed of light is so slow, reletive to the size of the universe, it's not in Earth's time cone yet/anymore.

The universe is not all the pictures of galaxies and stars "out there." The universe is us, is Earth, is our cells and the not-so-empty space in between the atoms of our bodies.

The book even has something to say about discipline and the attempt to do anything:

"...a theory is like a house: you can rarely find its problems and limitations-or its promising secret passageways-unless your willing to move in with all your furniture."
TheView from the Center of the Universe,
P. 180

The book ends with ways the new scientific view of the universe reflects implications for our own generation.

All I want for Christmas...

2007-10-02T07:06:00.000-07:00

I told Kristen I want an OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) for Christmas. In case you haven't been paying attention, check this out.

Yes, I know the computers are designed for thrid-world children, but for two weeks in November, U.S. residents can purchase two laptops for $399. One laptop is yours to keep and the other goes to a less fortunate child.

Why do I want one? Let me count the ways:

Open source software/operating system
No moving parts or hard drive, uses flash memory
can be converted into high-visibility E-book mode
the mission - eventually put laptops in the hands of every child. Change the education industry. Help children teach each other.

Check out the YouTube videos:
Inside OLPC video 1
Inside OLPC video 2 - Not applications, activities
Inside OLPC video 3 - Mesh Networking

(Click to see full size image)

Interesting quote

2007-09-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times Sunday Book Review:

The dialectic of creativity and reality-testing has taken us far beyond other animals and can take us farther. The next step is to dump our most natural and mistaken metaphor — education as the filling of empty minds — and recognize that we learn by extrapolating, testing, modifying and recombining mental models of the world.

Thoughts on a life and a name.

2007-09-17T19:06:00.001-07:00

Author James Oliver Rigney, Jr. died yesterday after a year and a half battle with cardiac amyloidosis. Rigney, a.k.a Robert Jordan, wrote the Wheel of Time series as well as many other books.

I used to joke with Kristen and my dad that my only goal in life was to become more famous than my published doppleganger. I never read his books, but I did play a Wheel of Time role playing game a few years back.

Hearing about his death made me feel strange. It must be the combo of him being my life's benchmark and the similar name.

Perhaps I am getting old. It's very sobering, thinking about this man, his life, his battle with a terminal disease and the family he leaves behind.

Web 2.0

2007-09-17T18:53:00.000-07:00

The Wedding

2007-07-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

7/7/07

Click here for a picture album taken by the Rigneys

Bloggers and conflicts of interest

2007-06-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

A new trend is emerging. Individuals are expressing ideas and creating content on a new medium that can conceivably reach all of mankind. But there are bumps in the path of obliterating media barriers.

29 year old Jesse Morrison, a film video and journalism major at the University of Memphis and a projectionist for the Malco Theater chain in Memphis, Tennessee was fired after he wrote an early review of ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’ for the website Ain’t It Cool News.
From a Monsters & Critics story

I can understand part of why the movie theater fired him. He disparaged their products, and that might affect the bottom line. But this sounds like a short sighted move from the theater and movie industry.

It's true the reviewer, as an employee of a movie theater, is not independent. But in an ever more connected world, who is? How many reviewers in newspapers are connected with major media outlets?

The reviewer said the Silver Surfer movie sucks. Well, GASP! Who'd have guessed another big budget super hero movie would not hold up to criticism. Anyone see Dare Devil, Hulk, Ghost Rider or the Fantastic Four?

Best Buy, Target and other online retailers post reviews for their customers, on their own site even. You could almost call it an added value. They even post really bad reviews.

As Dave Carlson said, the Internet is a gun pointed at the head of every middle man. The free flow of information, content, comment and criticism is more than an economic problem/reality but the very fabric of our Marketplace of Ideas.

Some current rights owners will undoubtedly be disturbed. Perhaps content producers (movie studios, publishers, pop acts) will learn to quit releasing crap.

More fun quotes about free speech:

John F. Kennedy: "We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is afraid of its people."

Noam Chomsky: “Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”

Swedish file sharers: "The Pirate Bay itself has one political opinion - share your files, your culture. It's about technology that gives you your freedom."