I lament the loss of the video rental store.
If you want to watch a movie nowadays, you have to resort to various on-line film databases (like Netflix, Hulu, Daily Motion, Amazon Instant Play, etc.). The problem with this approach, however, is that the variety and quality of the films available in these venues is generally quite poor and quite limited.
You might also go to your public library, which usually has a similarly limited selection, particularly when compared to the likes of the Blockbusters of yesteryear.
You might also rely on RedBox, but the problems here are manifold:
1. Redbox privileges the new, the trendy, the more-recent-than-the-so-2-weeks-ago. In this way, Redbox is the byproduct and expression of democracy, which intentionally blinds itself to all but the most extremely contemporary present. Redbox effectively invites amnesia of anything that is not of the highest presentist strain. Movies that came out more than six months ago will not appear in Redbox, ancient relics of a forgotten time when Blackberry had not even reinvented itself yet, relegated so quickly to the dustbin of history.
Also, Redbox seems to specialize in movies with animal protagonists.
In tandem with the loss of the video rental store has come the loss of the knowledgeable video store geek. I miss you, knowledgeable video store geek! Your demise comes at a heavy price. Gone are the days when your expertise led me quickly and excitedly to explore, upon your recommendation, further films which I may never have otherwise considered. The breadth of your knowledge and your passion for cinema now have no worthy venue. Today, your talent is forced into the shadows, relegated to the realm of anonymous Amazon reviews, an indignity so unbefitting your unique gifts.
Some may write off this view of the past as mere nostalgia, as naive "golden-age thinking" (yes, I saw Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris-- got it from Redbox) that fetishizes history and unfailingly locates utopia in the distant past. All true paradises are lost paradises, after all.
Yet we subscribe too credulously to the facile rhetoric of teleology. "Forward!" the politicians say. Are we always moving forward? Are there not also stops, false starts, regressions, redundancies in our history? Is there never any backsliding in the forward march of time? It was easier ten years ago for me to find the movie I wanted than it is today. Is this progress? Are there not abilities, possibilities, knowledge that get lost from one generation to the next? Were there not multiple apostasies? Do we really know all the things our ancestors knew?
So please do not misunderstand my longing for the snows of yesteryear as mere maudlin tripe. It is inscribed in a recognition that sometimes things get lost, that apostasy requires restoration, that one day all things shall be revealed. This is, for me, the lesson of the fall of the American video rental store.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Thoughts On A Rally
It may seem anti-climactic or untimely to write now about a Romney-Ryan rally I attended a few weeks ago, but I'm beginning not to care about the timeliness of my utterances. Timeliness is a strange value of democracies; Alexis de Tocqueville said as much in his Democracy in America and he was right about nearly everything. Democracies are mired in the present and subscribe to the primacy of the now; the past, no matter how ever-present, is rarely with us when our impulses are democratic. Technology, with its Twitter feeds and Facebook status updates, only increases the presentist turn. Stars and celebrities are made and forgotten within the 24-hour news cycle. So please forgive me as I demonstrate my utter indifference to the question of timeliness and continue with my supposedly already-outdated story unabashed.
I have the good fortune of living in a swing state. Politicians of all stripes visit my state, and sometimes my town, in the hopes of gaining those votes that matter most. I had a brief chat with Sen. Rick Santorum last week, after he signed my older son's sticker and before he patted my younger son's head and called him "Buddy." Within ten minutes of my conversation with this erstwhile (and possibly future) presidential candidate, I had chatted with the state Attorney General (who's running for governor), my representative in the U.S. House, and my state senator (who's running for Attorney General). And a few weeks before that, Tagg Romney was standing outside my office, in front of a big bus, and I got to shake his hand and have a chat.
We had a little French exchange, reminding me of another French exchange I had at a Republican rally in Iowa the night that Sarah Palin accepted the party's nomination for Vice-President. For all of the Republicans' Francophobia, I sure seem to keep finding the Francophile ones at these things. I think Jefferson would be proud. Maybe.
Anyway, the Romney-Ryan rally was interesting from the start. It took us three hours to make the 35-minute drive because of how backed up the traffic was on the unsuspecting highway. CNN reported an attendance of "over 4000"; the local paper estimated attendance was "over 6000." Politico probably had it closest when they later listed the attendance at 10,000. Part of the draw was the supportive music of Trey Atkins that preceded the main event, as well as the surprise visit and endorsement of the President and Vice-President of the National Rifle Association, who came across as inarticulate and out of the mainstream, a lethal combination.
Romney seemed more charismatic in person than on television, something I had observed when I saw him speak to a group of doctors in Iowa in 2007, though his physical movements and speaking rhythms still came across as somewhat awkward. Here is a man who I think would have benefitted from music lessons growing up. I've found that people who sing or play instruments (or even who just listen to a lot of good music) make better writers and speakers because they have an increased sense of rhythm, cadence, and pacing. Some dance lessons or organized sports might have helped with the physical awkwardness as well. But I can imagine what the media (or the Republican primary process, or the Democratic Party) would have done with a presidential candidate with dance lessons in his closet.
Ryan also spoke, but I don't have much to say about him. He came across as the nerdy policy wonk that he is, which I think is a good thing. I want people in office who know how to sit in an office and work out real problems as they sit and think and analyze.
But for me, the most interesting part of the evening happened after the rally was over. As the crowd dispersed and people began heading back to their cars, some police officers stopped us and created a thruway for the candidates and their security detail to pass through with their armored vehicles. This annoyed a number of people in the audience, since it kept them waiting for some extra twenty minutes before they could move freely back to their cars. The police officers were insistent, however, since it was the policy and practice of the armored vehicles to zip through the open pathway created in the crowd without stopping or slowing down, since to stop or slow down would represent a potential security risk for the candidates and their detail. Any person found in the open path would promptly be run over, and so it was of the utmost importance to keep the pathway free of people.
One young man didn't much care for the officers' instructions and loudly proclaimed that the rhetoric of freedom that he had just heard at the rally somehow stood in contrast to the officers' restrictive regulations. After a few moments' hesitation, he finally made a run for it, crossing the forbidden zone of the open pathway, and ran off before the police officers had even realized what had happened. One offficer, however, finally realized what had happened and chased the suspect down, and the next time I saw that guy he was in handcuffs.
The handcuffs probably didn't feel much like freedom, and neither does the criminal record that this young man now has attached to his name, I imagine. It probably wouldn't have felt very freeing if his violation of an officer's order had led to him or someone else being injured, maimed, or killed after being run over by a train of armored SUV's. The freedom that thinks only of itself, and only of its immediate wants, is no freedom at all. Such freedom is mere license, or licentiousness, which are words and concepts deceptively close to freedom and yet are only counterfeit versions of it (much like libertinism). Sometimes people are no more enslaved than at the moment they utter the words "Now I am free."
I have the good fortune of living in a swing state. Politicians of all stripes visit my state, and sometimes my town, in the hopes of gaining those votes that matter most. I had a brief chat with Sen. Rick Santorum last week, after he signed my older son's sticker and before he patted my younger son's head and called him "Buddy." Within ten minutes of my conversation with this erstwhile (and possibly future) presidential candidate, I had chatted with the state Attorney General (who's running for governor), my representative in the U.S. House, and my state senator (who's running for Attorney General). And a few weeks before that, Tagg Romney was standing outside my office, in front of a big bus, and I got to shake his hand and have a chat.
We had a little French exchange, reminding me of another French exchange I had at a Republican rally in Iowa the night that Sarah Palin accepted the party's nomination for Vice-President. For all of the Republicans' Francophobia, I sure seem to keep finding the Francophile ones at these things. I think Jefferson would be proud. Maybe.
Anyway, the Romney-Ryan rally was interesting from the start. It took us three hours to make the 35-minute drive because of how backed up the traffic was on the unsuspecting highway. CNN reported an attendance of "over 4000"; the local paper estimated attendance was "over 6000." Politico probably had it closest when they later listed the attendance at 10,000. Part of the draw was the supportive music of Trey Atkins that preceded the main event, as well as the surprise visit and endorsement of the President and Vice-President of the National Rifle Association, who came across as inarticulate and out of the mainstream, a lethal combination.
Romney seemed more charismatic in person than on television, something I had observed when I saw him speak to a group of doctors in Iowa in 2007, though his physical movements and speaking rhythms still came across as somewhat awkward. Here is a man who I think would have benefitted from music lessons growing up. I've found that people who sing or play instruments (or even who just listen to a lot of good music) make better writers and speakers because they have an increased sense of rhythm, cadence, and pacing. Some dance lessons or organized sports might have helped with the physical awkwardness as well. But I can imagine what the media (or the Republican primary process, or the Democratic Party) would have done with a presidential candidate with dance lessons in his closet.
Ryan also spoke, but I don't have much to say about him. He came across as the nerdy policy wonk that he is, which I think is a good thing. I want people in office who know how to sit in an office and work out real problems as they sit and think and analyze.
But for me, the most interesting part of the evening happened after the rally was over. As the crowd dispersed and people began heading back to their cars, some police officers stopped us and created a thruway for the candidates and their security detail to pass through with their armored vehicles. This annoyed a number of people in the audience, since it kept them waiting for some extra twenty minutes before they could move freely back to their cars. The police officers were insistent, however, since it was the policy and practice of the armored vehicles to zip through the open pathway created in the crowd without stopping or slowing down, since to stop or slow down would represent a potential security risk for the candidates and their detail. Any person found in the open path would promptly be run over, and so it was of the utmost importance to keep the pathway free of people.
One young man didn't much care for the officers' instructions and loudly proclaimed that the rhetoric of freedom that he had just heard at the rally somehow stood in contrast to the officers' restrictive regulations. After a few moments' hesitation, he finally made a run for it, crossing the forbidden zone of the open pathway, and ran off before the police officers had even realized what had happened. One offficer, however, finally realized what had happened and chased the suspect down, and the next time I saw that guy he was in handcuffs.
The handcuffs probably didn't feel much like freedom, and neither does the criminal record that this young man now has attached to his name, I imagine. It probably wouldn't have felt very freeing if his violation of an officer's order had led to him or someone else being injured, maimed, or killed after being run over by a train of armored SUV's. The freedom that thinks only of itself, and only of its immediate wants, is no freedom at all. Such freedom is mere license, or licentiousness, which are words and concepts deceptively close to freedom and yet are only counterfeit versions of it (much like libertinism). Sometimes people are no more enslaved than at the moment they utter the words "Now I am free."
Monday, November 7, 2011
What A Library Is
A place for coffee and pastries, for pizza nights, dance parties, and flash mobs.
A free DVD rental service, an iTunes listening station, an e-mail portal.
A commons for all kinds of social traffic.
A student union building.
A club where people get together, and a place where they break-up.
A place to study, when all the quiet of your room is making it hard to concentrate.
Where you get your photocopies, and the latest gossip.
Where they hold your hand until you figure out that all roads do not lead to JSTOR.
Where, after first exploring the more reliable resources of the local Barnes and Noble or Borders, you finally go, as a last resort, to get some books.
A free DVD rental service, an iTunes listening station, an e-mail portal.
A commons for all kinds of social traffic.
A student union building.
A club where people get together, and a place where they break-up.
A place to study, when all the quiet of your room is making it hard to concentrate.
Where you get your photocopies, and the latest gossip.
Where they hold your hand until you figure out that all roads do not lead to JSTOR.
Where, after first exploring the more reliable resources of the local Barnes and Noble or Borders, you finally go, as a last resort, to get some books.
Monday, October 24, 2011
This I Know
A year and half ago, I sat at dinner during a job interview for a French teaching position in Upstate New York. The main interviewer, a man I came to like and in some ways even to respect in the coming months (I got the job) made a disparaging remark about the Book of Mormon (clearly he was not aware of my religious affiliation). I desperately needed this job (I had a wife, three kids) and so I didn't feel sufficiently empowered at that moment to mention that I was in fact, a Latter-day Saint myself and thus to dispel whatever false notions he may have had about us.
For all of the ensuing year as I worked with this colleague (he was my boss) I always longed for the opportunity to disabuse him of some of his notions. I even prayed for opportunities to bring up my faith so that I could set the record straight. But after one whole year, after a year's worth of discussions, and jokes, and pleasant conversations on all kinds of topics, I got another job in another state and ended up leaving everything I wanted to say about my faith to him unsaid.
There was the time I had my Book of Mormon prominently displayed on my desk, when he came in to talk to me. I noticed his eyes glance down at it several times throughout our conversation. But that didn't count. I should have opened my mouth. I should not have feared. I should have spoken up, even if my voice shook.
That experience still haunts me. It has caused me to think of something Elder Henry B. Eyring, one of the presiding elders and Apostle of my church, once said in General Conference:
"Years ago I worked for a man in California. He hired me; he was kind to me; he seemed to regard me highly. I may have been the only Latter-day Saint he ever knew well. I don’t know all the reasons I found to wait for a better moment to talk with him about the gospel. I just remember my feeling of sorrow when I learned, after he had retired and I lived far away, that he and his wife had been killed in a late-night drive to their home in Carmel, California. He loved his wife. He loved his children. He had loved his parents. He loved his grandchildren, and he will love their children and will want to be with them forever.
Now, I don’t know how the crowds will be handled in the world to come. But I suppose that I will meet him, that he will look into my eyes, and that I will see in them the question: “Hal, you knew. Why didn’t you tell me?”
There are some important things that I know are true. I hope the lines of people coming up to me in heaven, wanting to know why I didn't tell them what I knew when it could have helped them, will be short. And yet I already know that my former boss will be in that line.
So I want to testify now of things I know to be true. These are the kinds of things I would probably be more comfortable discussing in private, in person, but I feel a responsibility to share what I know. I also feel a love for God, and for the Gospel, and for my fellow mortal travelers which motivates me to speak so openly.
I know there is a God. He is our Heavenly Father and he loves all of us, His children, perfectly. I have felt his love and his presence in my life since I was a child, and He continues to be with me and to bless me in my adult life. He hears and answers my prayers; He always has and I do not doubt that He will continue to do so for as long as I live.
I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is my Savior and Redeemer, my Lord and my God. Through his great atoning sacrifice, and through obedience to the laws and ordinances of His Gospel, all mankind can return to live with Him and with our Heavenly Father forever, which is eternal life. It is through Christ that we can be forgiven from sin, that we can feel the burden of sin lifted and become whole again. It is through the majestic and incomprehensible power of his love and his atonement that we can overcome not only sin, but burdens and afflictions of all kinds. This is something I have learned from reading Isaiah 53, and from reading Alma 7 in the Book of Mormon.
"And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflications and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to he flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities." (Alma 7:11-12)
I have felt the healing power of the atonement of Christ in my life, sometimes in very powerful ways. It is true, as Alma says, that the Lord knows how to "succor" his people. "Succor" comes from a medieval French word which means "to run to." I have felt my Savior run to me many times in my life. This is how I know that Christ lives and that he is my personal Savior. My relationship with Him is personal. I am proud to belong to the church that bears his name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Some of my Christian friends think this diminishes the importance of the Bible in my life. It does not; in fact, for me, it only enhances the miracle and power of the Bible in my life. I know that the Bible is the word of God. I read both books and draw tremendous strength from doing so. Not only is my life as a father, a husband, a professional, and everything else that I am strengthened when I strive to live by the principles of these two God-given books of sacred scripture, but I can feel God's love and the presence of the Holy Spirit when I read these books. This is why I read from them daily, both alone and with my family. I am grateful for parents and for a faith that have taught me the importance of nourishing myself daily by reading from the good Word of God.
I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He translated the Book of Mormon from ancient records, by the power of God. I know this for myself because I have read its pages and pondered its message. I have prayed to know for myself if it is true, and God has answered my prayers many times over. Joseph Smith was the instrument whereby Christ restored his church and gospel to the earth in their fulness.
There is a prophet on the earth today, and Twelve Apostles, just as existed in Christ's church during his mortal ministry. You can learn all about it at www.mormon.org.
I know that families can be together forever. The family unit is eternal. Through sacred ordinances performed in God's temples, families can be united for eternity. The bonds of affection that exist between husband and wife, between parent and child, are sacred and holy and are intended to endure forever. Heaven would not be heaven without my wife by my side, nor without my children, parents, and other family members. The family is ordained of God.
There are many other things I might say, but these seem to me the most important.
I bear my personal witness that these things are true.
For all of the ensuing year as I worked with this colleague (he was my boss) I always longed for the opportunity to disabuse him of some of his notions. I even prayed for opportunities to bring up my faith so that I could set the record straight. But after one whole year, after a year's worth of discussions, and jokes, and pleasant conversations on all kinds of topics, I got another job in another state and ended up leaving everything I wanted to say about my faith to him unsaid.
There was the time I had my Book of Mormon prominently displayed on my desk, when he came in to talk to me. I noticed his eyes glance down at it several times throughout our conversation. But that didn't count. I should have opened my mouth. I should not have feared. I should have spoken up, even if my voice shook.
That experience still haunts me. It has caused me to think of something Elder Henry B. Eyring, one of the presiding elders and Apostle of my church, once said in General Conference:
"Years ago I worked for a man in California. He hired me; he was kind to me; he seemed to regard me highly. I may have been the only Latter-day Saint he ever knew well. I don’t know all the reasons I found to wait for a better moment to talk with him about the gospel. I just remember my feeling of sorrow when I learned, after he had retired and I lived far away, that he and his wife had been killed in a late-night drive to their home in Carmel, California. He loved his wife. He loved his children. He had loved his parents. He loved his grandchildren, and he will love their children and will want to be with them forever.
Now, I don’t know how the crowds will be handled in the world to come. But I suppose that I will meet him, that he will look into my eyes, and that I will see in them the question: “Hal, you knew. Why didn’t you tell me?”
There are some important things that I know are true. I hope the lines of people coming up to me in heaven, wanting to know why I didn't tell them what I knew when it could have helped them, will be short. And yet I already know that my former boss will be in that line.
So I want to testify now of things I know to be true. These are the kinds of things I would probably be more comfortable discussing in private, in person, but I feel a responsibility to share what I know. I also feel a love for God, and for the Gospel, and for my fellow mortal travelers which motivates me to speak so openly.
I know there is a God. He is our Heavenly Father and he loves all of us, His children, perfectly. I have felt his love and his presence in my life since I was a child, and He continues to be with me and to bless me in my adult life. He hears and answers my prayers; He always has and I do not doubt that He will continue to do so for as long as I live.
I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is my Savior and Redeemer, my Lord and my God. Through his great atoning sacrifice, and through obedience to the laws and ordinances of His Gospel, all mankind can return to live with Him and with our Heavenly Father forever, which is eternal life. It is through Christ that we can be forgiven from sin, that we can feel the burden of sin lifted and become whole again. It is through the majestic and incomprehensible power of his love and his atonement that we can overcome not only sin, but burdens and afflictions of all kinds. This is something I have learned from reading Isaiah 53, and from reading Alma 7 in the Book of Mormon.
"And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflications and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to he flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities." (Alma 7:11-12)
I have felt the healing power of the atonement of Christ in my life, sometimes in very powerful ways. It is true, as Alma says, that the Lord knows how to "succor" his people. "Succor" comes from a medieval French word which means "to run to." I have felt my Savior run to me many times in my life. This is how I know that Christ lives and that he is my personal Savior. My relationship with Him is personal. I am proud to belong to the church that bears his name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Some of my Christian friends think this diminishes the importance of the Bible in my life. It does not; in fact, for me, it only enhances the miracle and power of the Bible in my life. I know that the Bible is the word of God. I read both books and draw tremendous strength from doing so. Not only is my life as a father, a husband, a professional, and everything else that I am strengthened when I strive to live by the principles of these two God-given books of sacred scripture, but I can feel God's love and the presence of the Holy Spirit when I read these books. This is why I read from them daily, both alone and with my family. I am grateful for parents and for a faith that have taught me the importance of nourishing myself daily by reading from the good Word of God.
I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He translated the Book of Mormon from ancient records, by the power of God. I know this for myself because I have read its pages and pondered its message. I have prayed to know for myself if it is true, and God has answered my prayers many times over. Joseph Smith was the instrument whereby Christ restored his church and gospel to the earth in their fulness.
There is a prophet on the earth today, and Twelve Apostles, just as existed in Christ's church during his mortal ministry. You can learn all about it at www.mormon.org.
I know that families can be together forever. The family unit is eternal. Through sacred ordinances performed in God's temples, families can be united for eternity. The bonds of affection that exist between husband and wife, between parent and child, are sacred and holy and are intended to endure forever. Heaven would not be heaven without my wife by my side, nor without my children, parents, and other family members. The family is ordained of God.
There are many other things I might say, but these seem to me the most important.
I bear my personal witness that these things are true.
Monday, October 3, 2011
The Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Today's Would-Be Students
I shuddered as I recently saw the new student dorms being built in places like the University of North Texas and North Carolina State University.
(see them here: http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/22/living/dorm-rooms/index.html)
I say shudder, though I didn't actually physically tremble so much as I seethed with moral indignation and outrage, two emotions well-internalized after years of higher education training therein. You see, as you get more and more education, the more you are supposed to shudder and feel outrage as beings lesser than yourself make decisions that you in your infiniter wisdom would never have made. But that is a topic for consideration another time, and a matter of private repentance for me to consider, well, in private.
I am still legitimately troubled, though, by this latest attempt to draw "students" to these desperately pandering universities. Adolescents they may draw, but true students probably not. Universities are now becoming, in the wise words of Mark Edmundsen, "retirement spread[s] for the young," with all of the country-club amenities that a young person who has never worked for them could want.
And why shouldn't universities provide these things? Thanks to decades of thorough corporatization, the American University (Inc.) after all has now long been in the business of providing customer satisfaction for its many eager clients. Who cares about the integrity of the product? It's what the focus groups say the students want, so let's give it to them, and at ever-increasing prices. If they want Economics Lite, or Diet Physics, or watered-down history and literature offerings, then let us give it to them. With the vast student loan and Pell Grant programs, we'll even have American taxpayers (and two-thirds of Americans never graduate from college, so think of who exactly is paying for much of this) underwrite the cost for all those climbing walls, those tanning salons, those flat screen tv's, those luxuriating campus dining halls. We may have to cut professors' salaries and increase tuition rates so that all but a few may attend this great carnaval of learning we have created, this confused circus of curricula we have constructed, but, hey, the customers are happy, so let's keep forging ahead. Bring on the monster stadium, multiply the army of invading bureaucrats, throw endless money into the pit of losing sports teams. That is what the customers want, and we will give it to them.
And since shopping is what they like, let's have them "shop" for courses, too. (Note: some students actually use the term "shopping for classes" and Princeton even has an offical "shopping period" when students can do said "shopping"-- this is language that speaks volumes). The courses that don't do well in this free-market forum, well, we'll just have to mold them according to the focus groups, or else get rid of them altogether. Little matter if students actually need some of these courses as an integral part of their education-- the product must suit the consumer, and what the consumer wants unfortunately often has little to do with education.
So what does the consumer want? I recently attended a roundtable for faculty members, where six students described what they liked about attending the university. They were explicitly told not to mention "it will help me to get a job," which made me very interested in what else they might have to say. Half of them basically still said that college would help them get a job, and the other half basically said that they liked having four years of a transition period before adulthood. No mention of education, broadening horizons, developing critical thinking skills, learning. Many (most?) do not come to college for those kinds of things. They come for the rite of passage, for entrance to the middle class, to enter softly into adulthood, to get a better-paying job.
But why?
Because we are a bourgeois nation, and that is what bourgeois nations do. I have been recently re-reading with my students one of my favorite plays, Moliere's "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" i.e. "The Bourgeois Gentleman" or the middle-class gentleman, an ironic, nonsensical title inasmuch as gentlemen are noble and therefore not bourgeois, or middle class. Most English translations render it "The Would-Be Gentleman." The story concerns a well-to-do merchant whose money, he hopes, will allow him to purchase a new social status for himself. He is the stereotypical buffoon of "new money," the arriviste and social climber who hopes that his money will somehow magically buy him the taste, attitudes, and experiences that will give him easy access to the upper class or nobility. He is, of course, mercilessly ridiculed throughout the play, inasmuch as Moliere recognized that there are some things that money just can't buy. The bourgeois, you see, knows the price of everything and the value of nothing because to him, the value is the price (channeling Nibley here). To have and to be are near-synonymous to those whose petty possessions are life itself.
Most of our college classrooms are veritably overflowing with the bourgeois spirit. Monsieur Jourdain, Moliere's protagonist in the play, hires tutors to teach him, but he does not want to learn what they have to teach. He wants to be taught only what interests him, and unfortunately only elementary spelling and superficial writing skills interest him. He does not want his tutors to question the existing structures he has created for himself, to introduce him to new structures or ways of looking at the world. His interest in learning is not even for the joy of learning itself, or for the opportunity to learn new things, or to learn old things in a new way, or to enrich his mind and thus his experience with the world. He simply wants wants to be seen as learned, to wear all the superficial trappings of educated finery without too much of the substance of it. He wants status. He wants position. He wants to seem and appear rather than to be.
Our corporate university model, which gives the student only what s/he wants, operates much in the same way. Like Jourdain, undergraduates pay exorbitant amounts of money to be taught what they want to be taught, not what they ought to be taught. And thanks to the customer satisfaction surveys/student evaluations to which faculty members are beholden, professors with any hope of tenure, renewal, or even a workable classroom atmosphere take note of what the students want and say they need. Like Jourdain, so many of our students want a college degree because it is seen as some kind of entrance ticket to the middle class, to a social status, and not primarily because of how their education can help to enrich their world view. Students and their parents, as we have seen, are often more than eager to pay enormous amounts of money for this kind of social status.
Only when America ceases to be a bourgeois nation, only when we willingly leave off the status-driven life, can the situation change. Learning must be pursued for reasons more eternally significant and ultimately transcendent than mere mortal, myopic, petty social ambition.
(see them here: http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/22/living/dorm-rooms/index.html)
I say shudder, though I didn't actually physically tremble so much as I seethed with moral indignation and outrage, two emotions well-internalized after years of higher education training therein. You see, as you get more and more education, the more you are supposed to shudder and feel outrage as beings lesser than yourself make decisions that you in your infiniter wisdom would never have made. But that is a topic for consideration another time, and a matter of private repentance for me to consider, well, in private.
I am still legitimately troubled, though, by this latest attempt to draw "students" to these desperately pandering universities. Adolescents they may draw, but true students probably not. Universities are now becoming, in the wise words of Mark Edmundsen, "retirement spread[s] for the young," with all of the country-club amenities that a young person who has never worked for them could want.
And why shouldn't universities provide these things? Thanks to decades of thorough corporatization, the American University (Inc.) after all has now long been in the business of providing customer satisfaction for its many eager clients. Who cares about the integrity of the product? It's what the focus groups say the students want, so let's give it to them, and at ever-increasing prices. If they want Economics Lite, or Diet Physics, or watered-down history and literature offerings, then let us give it to them. With the vast student loan and Pell Grant programs, we'll even have American taxpayers (and two-thirds of Americans never graduate from college, so think of who exactly is paying for much of this) underwrite the cost for all those climbing walls, those tanning salons, those flat screen tv's, those luxuriating campus dining halls. We may have to cut professors' salaries and increase tuition rates so that all but a few may attend this great carnaval of learning we have created, this confused circus of curricula we have constructed, but, hey, the customers are happy, so let's keep forging ahead. Bring on the monster stadium, multiply the army of invading bureaucrats, throw endless money into the pit of losing sports teams. That is what the customers want, and we will give it to them.
And since shopping is what they like, let's have them "shop" for courses, too. (Note: some students actually use the term "shopping for classes" and Princeton even has an offical "shopping period" when students can do said "shopping"-- this is language that speaks volumes). The courses that don't do well in this free-market forum, well, we'll just have to mold them according to the focus groups, or else get rid of them altogether. Little matter if students actually need some of these courses as an integral part of their education-- the product must suit the consumer, and what the consumer wants unfortunately often has little to do with education.
So what does the consumer want? I recently attended a roundtable for faculty members, where six students described what they liked about attending the university. They were explicitly told not to mention "it will help me to get a job," which made me very interested in what else they might have to say. Half of them basically still said that college would help them get a job, and the other half basically said that they liked having four years of a transition period before adulthood. No mention of education, broadening horizons, developing critical thinking skills, learning. Many (most?) do not come to college for those kinds of things. They come for the rite of passage, for entrance to the middle class, to enter softly into adulthood, to get a better-paying job.
But why?
Because we are a bourgeois nation, and that is what bourgeois nations do. I have been recently re-reading with my students one of my favorite plays, Moliere's "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" i.e. "The Bourgeois Gentleman" or the middle-class gentleman, an ironic, nonsensical title inasmuch as gentlemen are noble and therefore not bourgeois, or middle class. Most English translations render it "The Would-Be Gentleman." The story concerns a well-to-do merchant whose money, he hopes, will allow him to purchase a new social status for himself. He is the stereotypical buffoon of "new money," the arriviste and social climber who hopes that his money will somehow magically buy him the taste, attitudes, and experiences that will give him easy access to the upper class or nobility. He is, of course, mercilessly ridiculed throughout the play, inasmuch as Moliere recognized that there are some things that money just can't buy. The bourgeois, you see, knows the price of everything and the value of nothing because to him, the value is the price (channeling Nibley here). To have and to be are near-synonymous to those whose petty possessions are life itself.
Most of our college classrooms are veritably overflowing with the bourgeois spirit. Monsieur Jourdain, Moliere's protagonist in the play, hires tutors to teach him, but he does not want to learn what they have to teach. He wants to be taught only what interests him, and unfortunately only elementary spelling and superficial writing skills interest him. He does not want his tutors to question the existing structures he has created for himself, to introduce him to new structures or ways of looking at the world. His interest in learning is not even for the joy of learning itself, or for the opportunity to learn new things, or to learn old things in a new way, or to enrich his mind and thus his experience with the world. He simply wants wants to be seen as learned, to wear all the superficial trappings of educated finery without too much of the substance of it. He wants status. He wants position. He wants to seem and appear rather than to be.
Our corporate university model, which gives the student only what s/he wants, operates much in the same way. Like Jourdain, undergraduates pay exorbitant amounts of money to be taught what they want to be taught, not what they ought to be taught. And thanks to the customer satisfaction surveys/student evaluations to which faculty members are beholden, professors with any hope of tenure, renewal, or even a workable classroom atmosphere take note of what the students want and say they need. Like Jourdain, so many of our students want a college degree because it is seen as some kind of entrance ticket to the middle class, to a social status, and not primarily because of how their education can help to enrich their world view. Students and their parents, as we have seen, are often more than eager to pay enormous amounts of money for this kind of social status.
Only when America ceases to be a bourgeois nation, only when we willingly leave off the status-driven life, can the situation change. Learning must be pursued for reasons more eternally significant and ultimately transcendent than mere mortal, myopic, petty social ambition.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Why Foreign Languages Matter
On the superficial level, the matter is quite simple. Foreign languages allow us to communicate with other people. This has significant impact on trade, diplomacy, war, humanitarianism, technology, and a host of other areas.
And that, really, should be enough.
But there is a deeper level still. When we learn a foreign language (or if we really want to be radical and subversive, several foreign languages) we open up our minds to new experiences, new conceptions, and new vistas of understanding. Learning a foreign language is not merely a matter of learning what sounds to make and in what order to make them so that we can say exactly what we would say in our own tongue. No: when we learn to speak a foreign language, we actually learn to say new things, things that could not even be conceived of through the prism/prison of our native tongue, things that widen our perspective and expand our horizons.
I will illustrate with a simple example. I have known French people who find it funny that we say sometimes that it is "raining cats and dogs," and admittedly, it is a somewhat amusing image, unless you are a person for the ethical treatment of animals, in which case it is horrifying. The French equivalent is "it is raining cords." I distinctly remember a rainy day in New Jersey when I looked out the neo-gothic windows and suddenly, to my astonishment, actually SAW cords of rain pouring down upon the verdant lawn below. It was through language, through specific French words and images unknown and inaccessible to me before, that I was suddenly able to see something that had always been there, but that I had lacked the linguistic-- and hence mental-- capacity or imagination to discern, plain though it was.
Of course, whether you see cords or various domestic animals coming down out of the sky is hardly the point, and I can't say my life is much richer for having seen "cords" of water descending from the heavens. The point is that new vocabularies and grammars give us access to realities never before envisioned. This is why we must not be the prisoners of one language only, for we would thus be limited in the scope and breadth of our imaginations as well as in our capacity to encounter and navigate the new. At the heart of a meaningful education lies the ability to engage with newness, to navigate ably new experiences. Our world is constantly changing and the ability to adapt our minds and ourselves to novel situations and conditions is vital. When we learn foreign languages, we realize that we can no longer simply place our new experiences in ready-made, preconceived mental categories by which we organize the world; we learn that we must create new boxes into which to fit the inevitable newness of the experiential worlds we are constantly discovering, and that some boxes must be significantly altered or even done away with altogether if we are to negotiate newness with any clarity or discernment. This is how learning foreign languages gives us a second chance at life; it tells us that there is a different way, that not everything must be as we have always assumed or taken for granted. It opens us up to new ways of thinking, challenging the very structures underlying our thoughts and our understanding of the world. It dares us to reconsider our organizing principles and even calls us to repentance, reminding us that other, newly discovered worlds of thought are lurking out there, and that sometimes the old thought patterns and world conceptions simply will not do, or at least that these could stand some enrichment.
So yes, while our performance on the cocktail circuit may seem enhanced by occasional references to foreign speech, while our friends may marvel at the linguistic variety of our bookshelves, and while women may swoon at the sound of the exotic idiom, these are mere distractions from the main or central purpose of foreign language study.
Foreign languages, with the possibility for new and varied experience that they bring, are, in fact, at the very heart of what it means to be human.
And that, really, should be enough.
But there is a deeper level still. When we learn a foreign language (or if we really want to be radical and subversive, several foreign languages) we open up our minds to new experiences, new conceptions, and new vistas of understanding. Learning a foreign language is not merely a matter of learning what sounds to make and in what order to make them so that we can say exactly what we would say in our own tongue. No: when we learn to speak a foreign language, we actually learn to say new things, things that could not even be conceived of through the prism/prison of our native tongue, things that widen our perspective and expand our horizons.
I will illustrate with a simple example. I have known French people who find it funny that we say sometimes that it is "raining cats and dogs," and admittedly, it is a somewhat amusing image, unless you are a person for the ethical treatment of animals, in which case it is horrifying. The French equivalent is "it is raining cords." I distinctly remember a rainy day in New Jersey when I looked out the neo-gothic windows and suddenly, to my astonishment, actually SAW cords of rain pouring down upon the verdant lawn below. It was through language, through specific French words and images unknown and inaccessible to me before, that I was suddenly able to see something that had always been there, but that I had lacked the linguistic-- and hence mental-- capacity or imagination to discern, plain though it was.
Of course, whether you see cords or various domestic animals coming down out of the sky is hardly the point, and I can't say my life is much richer for having seen "cords" of water descending from the heavens. The point is that new vocabularies and grammars give us access to realities never before envisioned. This is why we must not be the prisoners of one language only, for we would thus be limited in the scope and breadth of our imaginations as well as in our capacity to encounter and navigate the new. At the heart of a meaningful education lies the ability to engage with newness, to navigate ably new experiences. Our world is constantly changing and the ability to adapt our minds and ourselves to novel situations and conditions is vital. When we learn foreign languages, we realize that we can no longer simply place our new experiences in ready-made, preconceived mental categories by which we organize the world; we learn that we must create new boxes into which to fit the inevitable newness of the experiential worlds we are constantly discovering, and that some boxes must be significantly altered or even done away with altogether if we are to negotiate newness with any clarity or discernment. This is how learning foreign languages gives us a second chance at life; it tells us that there is a different way, that not everything must be as we have always assumed or taken for granted. It opens us up to new ways of thinking, challenging the very structures underlying our thoughts and our understanding of the world. It dares us to reconsider our organizing principles and even calls us to repentance, reminding us that other, newly discovered worlds of thought are lurking out there, and that sometimes the old thought patterns and world conceptions simply will not do, or at least that these could stand some enrichment.
So yes, while our performance on the cocktail circuit may seem enhanced by occasional references to foreign speech, while our friends may marvel at the linguistic variety of our bookshelves, and while women may swoon at the sound of the exotic idiom, these are mere distractions from the main or central purpose of foreign language study.
Foreign languages, with the possibility for new and varied experience that they bring, are, in fact, at the very heart of what it means to be human.
Mitt Romney and Me
People tend to vote for people like themselves, and in a representative democracy, I suppose that's ok, since we are supposed to elect people who represent us. And while Mitt Romney and I actually have very little in common, I believe that there will never again in my lifetime be a presidential candidate with whom I have more in common than the Mittster.
Sure, I am not a millionaire, and I have neither the hair nor the handsomeness that he has. I have not his Cadillacs nor his Mustang (I never will, if not by force, then at least by choice). I have not his apparent health, nor the lakeside mansion in New Hampshire, nor the beachfront property in California. I have not his business acumen, nor do I share his view that (cringe) corporations are people. I have not his penchant for building fences to keep Mexicans out. I do not blame faculty lounges for the ills of America (there aren't any... lounges, that is). My father was not a cabinet member, governor, or self-made millionaire. I did not go to Harvard and share a class with George W. Bush. The ambassador to France was not a family friend when I was growing up, and Richard Nixon did not come to my ring ceremony. My wife does not ride horses, and her father was not the mayor. I do not care for cars. I was never an AP, and I never had a near-death experience resulting from a drunken priest's reckless driving.
And yet...
like Mitt...
I, too, met my wife when I was 18 and she was just shy of 16 (the odds! the coincidence!). I, too, am a lifelong Mormon, with a convert AND French-major wife (quelle coincidence!) and come from a family of four children. I, too, have a parent who was born outside the United States. I, too, was a missionary in France, and came home and got some Ivy League degrees. I, too, am a Republican with some left-leaning flavor. I, too, have sung my whole life and like to sing. I, too, have a wife who makes granola the staple of our breakfasts. When you consider the statistical (un)likelihood of finding all of these uncanny compatibilities between a major presidential candidate and yourself, how can you not consider seriously voting for such a person? I mean, this is exactly the guy I would want to represent me in the White House, the person I would most like to share a (root) beer with, right?
Too bad I like Huntsman better.
Sure, I am not a millionaire, and I have neither the hair nor the handsomeness that he has. I have not his Cadillacs nor his Mustang (I never will, if not by force, then at least by choice). I have not his apparent health, nor the lakeside mansion in New Hampshire, nor the beachfront property in California. I have not his business acumen, nor do I share his view that (cringe) corporations are people. I have not his penchant for building fences to keep Mexicans out. I do not blame faculty lounges for the ills of America (there aren't any... lounges, that is). My father was not a cabinet member, governor, or self-made millionaire. I did not go to Harvard and share a class with George W. Bush. The ambassador to France was not a family friend when I was growing up, and Richard Nixon did not come to my ring ceremony. My wife does not ride horses, and her father was not the mayor. I do not care for cars. I was never an AP, and I never had a near-death experience resulting from a drunken priest's reckless driving.
And yet...
like Mitt...
I, too, met my wife when I was 18 and she was just shy of 16 (the odds! the coincidence!). I, too, am a lifelong Mormon, with a convert AND French-major wife (quelle coincidence!) and come from a family of four children. I, too, have a parent who was born outside the United States. I, too, was a missionary in France, and came home and got some Ivy League degrees. I, too, am a Republican with some left-leaning flavor. I, too, have sung my whole life and like to sing. I, too, have a wife who makes granola the staple of our breakfasts. When you consider the statistical (un)likelihood of finding all of these uncanny compatibilities between a major presidential candidate and yourself, how can you not consider seriously voting for such a person? I mean, this is exactly the guy I would want to represent me in the White House, the person I would most like to share a (root) beer with, right?
Too bad I like Huntsman better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)