Procrastadabbler

Can I secede? My fellow American’s are a bunch of dumba**es. I disagree with much of O’s education plans and wish he would do more for our youth than talk at them and tell them to stay in school, but geeze…

I love much of what the United States is about, but I’m really not liking being an American  if I have to share the label with some major morons.

Weaving in and out of the critique of the new literacies is the concern that forms such as twitter, blogging, IM, email, RSS feeds etc are contributing to the lack of ability among people to attend to lengthy, in-depth texts. The argument goes that we have become so accustomed to gathering our information in bursts that we are losing our ability to focus.

I have recently found that I am having difficulty focusing. But it’s not just on lengthy, in-depth texts, it’s also on fluff. I get bored easily. Movies now have to be extraordinary in order for me to want to commit any time to them. The same with novels or informational texts.

I’m wondering if whether the so called attention problem is really a quality problem. There is so much out there crying for our attention that we are becoming increasingly picky about what we engage in.

For instance, I’ll give any idea that catches my attention a few minutes of my time. But then I decide whether it is an idea or approach to an idea that deserves further attention. I’m finding more and more that there is little that does. Now maybe that’s a function of my age, but I’m not so well read or worldly that I’ve “seen/read it all.” I’m just finding that people are rehashing the old under shiny new wrappers. Perhaps that’s cynical of me, but so be it.

So, I hesitate to blame the short attention span of youth or aging youth such as myself on the new literacies. I blame it on a society that ever pushes us to think safe thoughts, to not venture into the unknown, to not push ideas to the edge.

I’d rather read sharp, thought provoking 140 characters that make people bounce ideas around than 10,000 words of drivel.

If an industry is doing some good, but the good they are doing is in the spirit of making them money, is it still doing good? Is a show like Extreme Makeover exploiting the lives of struggling people even as it “helps” them?

I would like to know the tax ramifications of being helped by Extreme Makeover.

I’ve also heard rumors that the construction is shoddy and that while it looks good on screen, in real life, the things they do fall apart quickly.

But my critique here really isn’t about Extreme Makeover, but rather does making a profit off of helping people minimize the help?

Plus, programs like EM don’t address the systemic issues that put people into dire straits to begin.

Now that would be a radical show!

I’m working very hard to keep my mind open to multiple views of the world. I have my ideology, but I don’t want to become isolated within it. So, I force myself to read things that appear contrary to my belief system.

To that end, I just finished reading Carolyn Chute’s novel The School on Heart’s Content Road.” Chute is a gun-toting, Maine miltia-member, hates schools, hates government, hates corporations. Into self-sufficiency. In her “interview” which she wrote herself, she is a self-proclaimed “patriot” and “red-neck” in which she explains that the term red-neck comes from the red kerchiefs miners in the south would wear in defiance of the merger of government and industry which increased the exploitation of the worker. The term redneck is a badge of honor that ties a person to the working class. I always thought it was the red neck outdoor laborers such as farmers get from working in the sun all day. The intent is the same – the moniker redneck ties one to the laborer or working person.

There’s a lot of polemics in her book. The story itself is kind of thin. It’s actually a post-modern book (although I suspect she would hate having that title slapped on her work).

But what’ striking is that her right wing (she says she’s no wing) polemics is actually not all that different from left wing polemics. Distrust of government, distrust of industry, concern with human rights and humanity. She believes that schools are instruments of domestication. She’s not arguing anything new there. The left wingers have been arguing the same thing. She’s a proponent of homeschooling for that reason.

Her call is for self-sufficiency in all areas. Food production, alternative energy, etc.

At the most basic level, there is much that I agree with that Chute says, but there is fundamentally something wrong too. There is a tribalism underlying her belief system. She says so even in her “interview.” But her tribalism is also one of separatism. In order to live as she proposes, people must break into small groups. And when that happens, mistrust arises.

Is it possible to have small, self-sufficient groups that are still globally connected?

In the end, I’m distrustful of ideologies, my own included.

An interesting meditation on naming the world in today’s New York Times. The author is a scientist and writes about taxonomy and how it is a dying practice – that so few of us can name things. The author ends by stating that by naming things, it changes things. It changes our relationship to things. It makes us notice things.

I’ve often railed about our compulsion to name things. I’m married to a man who likes to name the trees. When we walk, he identifies the different maples and oaks and other trees that shelter us. I’ve too often failed to appreciate this. But I’m seeing now the importance. It’s not the label that’s important, it’s the act of labeling. By giving something a name we bring it into being – into our consciousness.

It is one of the first tasks God gave to humankind according to the Bible (if I’m remembering my creation story correctly). It’s what Paulo Freire did with his students. Naming the world gives us power because it allows us to see our world.

And I think that’s one of the tasks of academics. My students and others often complain about how academic writing is ponderous and I explain that part of the reason is that in academic writing you have to define everything. The other critique I often hear is that what academics write about is so very obvious. And my response is, if it’s so obvious, then why aren’t more people thinking and doing things about it. The job of the academic is to notice and name those things in the world that are so obvious most people miss it.

Right now I am sitting on my deck on a humid morning. On the table in front of me is a bee. On the other chair is a wasp. By naming them I am seeing the difference in them. They are remarkably different. They play different roles in this ecosystem. But before I stopped to look and name, they were simply bugs. I don’t know enough to tell you what kind of bee, what kind of wasp. But they are now part of me having been named.

I think I understand a bit more now.