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The oppressive weight of intellectual isolation. . .
I am an anxious person by nature. . .
People are apt after being around me for a while to say something like, "You're from here?"—meaning the South. And I have to say that I am. I am a son of the deep and disturbing South. . .South Carolina. . .
Recently I sat socializing with professors from my university and I recounted the story of my showcase lesson I taught when being interviewed for the position I now hold. After my lesson I was given an interesting piece of advice: "You may not want to say to your students that you are a Marxist. . ." And this was a nearly hushed moment of caution. . .
I have posted this before, but when Joe Kincheloe and I had our first phone conversation, he exaclimed something like, "Well, you are from the South, aren't you!" And unlike the puzzled questions I often get, Joe's was a warm, embracing confirmation that he and I shared many things—one of which was our Southern heritage. . .and another was being unlike in many ways the people of our home. . .
It is a daunting thing to question, it is an abnxious moment to challenge, it is a solitary act to speak openly about that which has remained unspoken. . .
In my moments of fear and anxiety (and they are many), I hear Joe's voice. . .and I trust. . .to write is to speak is to act. . .
Over the past several months I have faced a type of coporeal loss of Joe Kincheloe, George Carlin, and Kurt Vonnegut. . .but have come to terms with those moments not truly being anything akin to losses. . .for I have gained so much from what they have contributed that will last forever. . .
I shouldn't tell anyone I am an agnostic either, but like Vonnegut, I'd like to take this moment to say, God Bless Them All. . .peace. . .paul thomas
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Youth, dissent and the university.
As a youth growing up in Victoria Australia, I've been privileged in many ways of free expression. However, raised Catholic, with sternly religious Grandparents on my mother's side, questioning authority was, and still is, something which I had to fight against. Indeed, when I was first caught reading Dawkins by my grandmother, there was "hell to pay". When i started listening to Marilyn Manson (like all good little 21st century rebellious youths) there was a veritable "moral" uproar. When I started listening (and reciting) George Carlin - it was the final straw. For my extended family at least - there are explicit taboo topics when I am present; a sad state of affairs for myself, but one I work hard to breach without offense.
With regards to ideology in University structures, it is something I am highly curious about as I imagine I will myself eventually work at one time or another in such an institution. Simultaneously, where I am currently studying, there have been systemic encroachments upon lecturers and tutors who hold contrary opinions to the University's neoliberal informed bureaucracy, in terms of how tertiary education is to be taught, per se.
In your experiences, above which you touched upon, how pervasive have anti-critical/marxist ideologies been? In what ways have they operated? Does it manifest, as you intimated above, in the form of social-taboo-boundaries or are there institutional mechanisms which actively seek to curtail and marginalise?
Nonetheless, as you have already said, a toast of respect to the passing of Joe Kincheloe.
regards,
di-a.
The intellectual/economic tension of higher education
di-a. . .I don't excuse but I do understand that universities are also businesses, and since many universities are marketing themselves to affluent/conservative families, there are subtle and even hushed efforts to manage both a conservative customer base and a centrist/liberal academia (although the critical edge of that academia is actually far smaller than I believe people recognize). . .the result is that terms such as "Marxist," and other terminology and ideology associated (usually inaccurately), are not overtly banned but allowed to work quietly as if those ideologies do not create tension for a students-as-consumers approach to commodifying higher education. . .This tension is parallel, in my view, to the disfunctional marriage of Christianity and capitalism in the U. S.. . .where people live as if these two ideologies do not conflict with each other. . .plt
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