Morality, Musings, and Academics
OK, so Bush is back in with his
"mandate" of only 51%, which is being challenged as I type this. We are still
in Iraq. The world has not come to an end. Folks are getting
impatient.
So really, for quite a while now, I've
been pretty annoyed by lefty types, especially of the academic ilk, and their
humanistic superiority complex, even as they are confronted with the solopsism
of their positions on the divine. AND I AM ONE OF THEM! I am lefty, radical,
theory whore. Derrida rules! DeCerteau is my homey! Sylvia Wynter rocks the
house. Adrienne Piper wrecks heads. That's right, feel my theory
fury.
¡BUT!
I
am one of those folks who beleive in the divine. I can get down in some bible,
though I ain't no Christian no mo'. When I'm in a yoga class, it's all about me
and Ganesha getting our groove on. In front of my meditation shrine She that is
She moves me. I talk to animals, collect rocks that remind me of body parts,
make mojo packets, read pennies, tarot, go to saint feasts, bembes, toques,
where beads you ain't suppose to touch. In on the ONE, as we all are. So this
humanistic thing has always struck me as spureme arrogance.
The idea that human's
alone stand in judgment for what constitutes knowledge makes no sense to me.
The idea that we're each a
unified subject, all alone out in the world, makes no sense to me.
The idea that history is moving
in one line, creating a unified story makes no sense to
me.
But don't get me
wrong, I can throw down some Marx, have read Satre in the original French..but I
digress.
What I'm getting
to is this thing that the reactionaries have pushed on us in the academy: the
liberal university.
Now
first of all, anyone who works in a university can tell you they are anything
but liberal. But deans, provosts, chancellors, and presidents are shaking in
their boots, scared to death of not providing an environment that engenders a
"balanced " education.
Now
this is where it gets problematic. Reactionaries of any ilk do not like, nor
cultivate critical thinking. The university, or really any educational entity
is about teaching kids how to engage the world with the best tools for their age
at the time. That their sheltered children must grow up and leave the fold of
the fanatical community to which they belong in order to get, not an education,
but a ticket into the "good life" irritates these folks to no end. We, the
professors of the nation, are an obstacle to entrenching fanatical non-behavior,
even when we are not communists, socialists,
anarchists.
Non-behavior?
Hold up. WAIT A
MINUTE!
Yeah,
non-behavior. When one has been inculcated to adhere to a doctrine of any sort
without any thought about the veracity, temporality--its made-upness---then one
has been written into a set of parameters, of behaviors that should never be
questioned. Hence, one has a set of behaviors that are rooted in a belief of a
supreme, irrevocable rightness, so actions are never created by a sense of self
motivating, or even of communal coherence. This type of body is moving out of
fear of failure of betrayal of messing up and getting caught by other bodies, or
suffering the consequences of the Supreme
doctrine.
Now, notice, I
ain't said nothing about the Christian right here, though they up in this mix
FOR SURE. I'm also talking about intransigent tree huggers. I'm also talking
about vegetarians that sneer at omnivores. I'm talking about nationalists who
repress inspiration because tradition is more important. I'm talking about
lefties who think they can laugh at the notion of God in the lecture. I'm
talking about Red States and Blue States. I'm talking about politicians who've
hijacked the English language by PRETENDING to be everyman real in their
rhetoric. I'm talking about those folks who believe that there is such a thing
as "any normal, rational
individual..."
I'm talking
about allaus here right now. oona crazy sho
nuff.
Where is this
leading? To radical love baby! RADICAL LOVE OF THE ONE, WHICH IS ALL OF
US.
I used read those Dr.
Bronner's Castille Soap bottles and laugh soooooo hard. Remember those? Well,
you'd have to be a bit of a earthy crunchy type to have actually handled one of
those. At any rate, Dr. B. was determined to get out the message that we are
all the One, we just have decided to acquiesce that power into different systems
in order to have an ordering, but has that systemization resulted in an orderly
procession of energy?
Not
really.
So let chaos reign
in your heart. Be willing to recognize that you are always already that other
person and in multiple places at one time. You can be on a mission, but you got
multiple points to make before you punch in that last ticket. And that last
ticket...well I'm not getting all the way off in it
today.
I just felt moved
to bring to the attention of blue staters, even where they are isolated in red
states that constantly talking about religious fanatics like you ain't one your
damn self is hyper hypocritical. You got your therapist, you got your books
(race matters, this bridge called my back, whiteness etc)--you have a
humanist-based religion, which I practice, too, it's all good. But when
fanaticism is involved, it's only a matter of time before the ridiculed get wind
of the chatter and get mad, try to make a
point.
What's my
point?
Money is godless.
The market reigns. And it is worshipped by all of
us.
For better or worse,
we all believe that in order to get ahead in the United States, a person needs
an education. Even though we love the tale of bootstrap climbing entrepeneur,
we just mostly feel like we don't have time for that type of crappy existence.
Fanaticism aside, when it comes to money and the ability to make things happen
in the social field across state boarders, class room walls and prison cells, we
will get organized;
entrenched.
So this push
to equalize the university campus so that all sides can be heard is bogus,
right? Yeah, you're true believers. But I want to challenge you to listen to
the Moral Majority, not figure out tactics, but fell the points where they are
of and in love. Meet them there and see what you can make happen for the One.
'Cause the way it is right now, that vibrating fluidity that undulates through
space and time which is oona and eye, allaus her'nh right now, that's been done
been itself, is gonna turn in on itself. Inertia. In error.
This is what the great
scriptures of the world talk about. This is what the fanatics of father-figure
worshippers are rushing to create, because they are insecure in their own sense
of self and community, but rooted, emboldened by their knowledge of the sacred
text. Can I get a Baudrillard amen up in here? Entropy. Entropy. I believe
that those texts that recount the visions of seers are warnings, not documents
that are to be followed. We sent ourselves those messages to remind us when we
got to this place in the time warp NOT to act like we hadn't learned nothing
across the ages. Humans have suffered social entropy before, but in pockets.
This one here is being forced on the entire world, all at once, in a fanatical
race to be right, to be redeemed. But earth, Momma got a tendency come back at
ya, fiercer, bolder, wiser than before.
http://www.entropylaw.com/
Ain't
no body all the way right, nor all the way wrong, but there are a lot of
indecent folks who owe us an apology. They should be removed from the big toys,
offices and spread sheets of the world. But should that happen forcibly?
Should it happen by ridiculing them? I don't know. I just know that just when
you think you going to hell in a handbasket (even if you want to take that trip
cause you righteous enough to survive the heat), you just as likely to find
yourself unrecognizably reordered into something seductive and
elegant.
This ain't nothin
to chuckle about, but it's kinda funny in that bathetic greek-tragedy kinda way,
cause we have been here before, and we know better. So smile, and get busy
lovin'.
Posted: Thu - November 18, 2004 at 12:26 PM