I am done with the "real world."

Coming to terms with the real world

"Because that's what adults do" or "because that's the way the real world is" are stupid arguments for doing things. 

I will no longer be swayed by them. I will no longer choose how to behave, what to teach, how to raise my daughter, or how to express my spirituality because of them.

They are the equivalent of "because I said so." I am going to a class on Tuesday nights offered by headstart called "Father Power." It is good.  One of the things the facilitator has taught us is that saying "because I said so" is the ultimate in verbal and psychological abuse. It suppresses the human being emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, ethically, and creatively. "Because that's how the real world is" does the same.

Good things don't happen in "real life," but they happen to me. 

Every truly great decision I have made and every good thing that has happened to me has been in defiance of "reality" or at least the "real world" to which people are constantly referring. Packing stuff into a car and travelling a thousand miles to a place where I had no family or friends for graduate school was good. I had no money to move to where I am now, so "in reality" I shouldn't have taken the job site unseen on a temporary basis, but I did. So, a person I kinda knew packed everything in a horse trailer and moved me here. My temporary position became permanent. That doesn't happen in "real life." My wife couldn't get pregnant. One ovary was gone the other had a 6cm cyst blocking it. Now I have a 4 year old girl. Forget the "real world."

I've written poems, played D&D, danced and sang before the throne room of the Lord God Almighty, swam in lakes, built fires in the back yard, watched superheros crash into buildings, written books about things I was thinking about, thrown rocks into a puddle, caught fish just to throw them back in the water, and shared peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches with a loving dog. I've told stories, ridden horses to which I am allergic, fired hundreds of shotgun shells at little clay plates, watched the sunset from the Eiffel tower, sat down to wait for Old Faithful to erupt again, had sex, drunk whiskey, read the Bible, hugged a gangster, developed a reading knowledge of a dead language, and bought a guinea pig.

These things have all been varying degrees of "real" but none of them was done because that's what you have to do in "real life." In fact, all of them were done to a greater or lesser extent in defiance of what you have to do in "real life." They were done in rebellion against "what adults do." They made me happy and are, I would say, all good, moral things to have done.

The "real world" makes you do bad things

I could create an equal list of things that I have done because "that's what you have to do in real life," or "that's what adults do." I won't, but I could. I started to, but deleted it. The things on that list range from the dreadful, to the banal, to the downright evil. I've done them because while I might have ideals, I had to face "reality."  

Do you think Manafort is being indited today for ignoring the "reality" in which he found himself? No, he did what you have to do in real life. Do you think that a little boy in the SS thought he wanted to grow up and gas Jews? No, he was responding to the reality in which he found himself and doing what he had to do in the "real world" because he was an "adult." All of the most horrible things I have done have been because I was "facing facts" and "doing what I had to do." 

The "real world" that "adults" live in isn't even real

My intellectual life for the past four years has been increasingly influenced by media ecology. Media ecology is all about how media and thought patterns interact and exist. What I have learned is that the "real world" that "adults" inhabit isn't even real. It's constructed by our interactions with various communication and can certainly be constructed another way through different interactions. Worse than that, however, it is manufactured through various interactions that actually make us think that we consented to various things that we never would have wanted or needed or desired if the world were "real." Well, guess what, you no longer have my consent, "real world."

As a Christian, we aren't even supposed to be like the "real world."

We are supposed to "not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2). Jesus prayed about us saying, "They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world" (John 17:16). This world is one in which the Devil is prince (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11), not someone we want to be like.

Instead of "acting like adults" and facing "the real world," we are to come as a "little child." Sunday we were visited by our district Pastor from the denomination. He challenged us to have "God sized dreams." You can't have those while focusing on the "real world."

There are good reasons to do things.

This doesn't mean I am going to stop paying my bills. To use electricity or water without paying for it is stealing and stealing is wrong. Exercise and healthy eating make our bodies better and are sometimes fun. The work I do is important and I am pretty uniquely equipped to do it, so I'm going to go to work.

There are good reasons to do things. Do them because they are beautiful. Do them because they are good. Do them because they are good. Aristotle chides young people because "καὶ μᾶλλον αἱροῦνται πράττειν τὰ καλὰ τῶν συμφερόντων" [and they grasp more at the noble than the useful], however, using similar language Paul argues that "πάντα δὲ δοκιμάζετε, τὸ καλὸν κατέχετε" [hold on tight to that which is noble] (1 Thes. 5:21). Aristotle's argument for practicality seems to fall on deaf ears for Paul and with good reason. That reason is that the purely practical is not a good reason. Good reason is a good reason.

The problem of Consent

Coming to terms with an even smaller relativism.

Good and Evil are interesting things.

The Snake said that if we ate of the fruit, we would be like God and we would know the difference between good and evil. This seems like a funny thing to tell us, given that we must have already had some idea about the difference between good and evil because we'd been told not to eat from the tree.

Still, since that time, we've been trying to figure out good and evil. I'd like to think that the main project of moral philosophy or ethics is to try to find the best way to know and communicate the good, but sometimes I wonder if the reason we spend so much time wondering what good and evil are is because we already know what they are, but want to find a way to justify the particular kind of evil we enjoy.

I hope that's not the case though. There are a lot of ways that people have thought about how to decide what's right and wrong. I kind of like Aristotle's notion that what is right is what allows people to flourish and what is wrong is what inhibits human flourishing. Of course, it is possible to take this in some weird directions including eugenics. I also kind of like the Platonic/Stoic injunction that what is right is what reason dictates is right whereas what is wrong is what reason dictates is wrong. On the other hand, reason depends heavily on the premises on which it is based and as computer programmers used to say "Garbage in, garbage out.

Hume basically thought that we know what's right and wrong based on feelings, or moral sentiments. It disgusts us to see evil and so we don't like evil. Still, I'd say that we often really like things that are really bad.

I think that Kant's categorical imperative, that we basically know what is right and wrong the same way we know that a triangle has three sides even if we don't count them because that's what a triangle is, has some traction. Still, it is a struggle to find out what these moral axioms are and, in my opinion, leaves us with having to go with one of the other systems. It's not so easy.

Some people like, Mill and Bentham, have argued that whatever does the most good for the most people is what is ethical. That makes sense, except for how do you know if it's really good?  You're back to using another system to find that.

So, I'm not saying it's easy. 

All of the men listed above have had a pretty profound impact on how I have formulated my ethical system and so while I just "wrote them off" above in a few terse sentences, that was more to show how slippery the subject is, not to say the thinking wasn't formidable.

But I feel like there's an ethical system that is just giving up and that's social relativism. The social relativists say whatever a given society says is okay is okay and whatever a given society says is not okay is not okay. It's not okay for people in the US to eat each other, but it we shouldn't go imposing those values on New Guinea. We can't really figure out what's right and wrong but we can go with what works for a given society in a given time and place.

Such a value system, or the lack thereof, works well for doing anthropology. It's not a terribly useful exercise to go to a far away country and write back home about all the things the other country is doing wrong. If you want to study them, you should try and figure out why they think those things they're doing wrong are right.

However, it doesn't provide much guidance on how to live one's life, especially in a diverse society. It's pretty easy to find people who will tell you what you're doing is okay. Then that becomes your society. Since that is your society and since you know good from evil based on your society, everything is okay, which it's not.

But it's gotten worse

As problematic as social relativism is, it has gotten worse. Lately, I've been hearing about an even smaller form of relativism: consent. This has been going on for a while. Basically, since you can find a group who is small enough to condone whatever you're doing and that is your society, if you can find them, it is okay. As long as what you're doing doesn't directly effect other groups ability to do what they want you should be able to do whatever you want. As long as everyone involved is consenting, everything is okay.

But where do these rights come from?

I admit that I was taken in by this tiny relativism for quite a while. As a principled Western libertarian, I often said "my right to swing my hand ends at your face" and I still see that as true. But at some point I have to ask "why?" And if the answer is "because you didn't give consent to hit me." I can pretty quickly go from there into all the ways that you DID give consent.

You knew when you saw me that I was a hand swinger. I had a shirt on that said so, but you still came in swinging distance, so you agreed.

Some of the pro-consent crowd have altered their verbiage based on this to "affirmative consent." Maybe that makes it a little better, but if I "affirmatively consent" to have you pour chemicals in my eyes so I can be blind, that is still wrong. Why is it wrong. It inhibits human flourishing. It is unreasonable. It is repugnant. It violates directives. . . all those ethical reasons I put above. It is just plain wrong, even if I consent.

Yet, I do believe in our rights to life, liberty and property. That's why I'm libertarian, but I don't believe that these rights exist from the consent of the governed. I have to say that I think that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that those are among them. That same creator is the source of goodness. And then, it is up to us to find what is good. And it's not just what we can find someone to consent to.

Rhetoric: Defining vs. Developing The Field of Rhetoric

Coming to terms with develop and defining what rhetoric means.

Neoclassicism, Belles Lettres, and Epistemological Rhetoric.

Coming to terms with Neoclassicism, Belles Lettres, and Epistemological Rhetoric.

Aristotle, Plato, Audience, and Truth.

Coming to terms with Aristotle, Plato, audience, and truth.

Fun class on Wednesday

I had a really fun class on Wednesday that I recorded. Here it is to share.

Oh! And check out my book!

Reading the Bible

Coming to terms with what sounds like a simple act.

The Mindset of the Act.

I don't think there have been many days since I learned to read that I haven't read the Bible. I've gone through times of extreme discipline where I read a certain amount every day, usually to accomplish some goal. I try to start off every year and every semester by reading through the Bible pretty quickly in this way: just going in the order by page, chapter by chapter, book by book, until I'm done. I'm a pretty fast reader, so I figure I go through the Bible this way a few times a year.

I've gone through other times where I barely even pick it up.

Usually, most days, there's something in between.

Generally, for me, I'm thinking about something. I remember a verse or a portion of a verse that I think applies and I use my phone's concordance to look it up. I get the context of the verse, look through cross-references, think some more, and look up other verses in the same way as my train of thought goes. It's not the most systematic way of "reading the Bible," but it means I probably spend anywhere from 20 minutes to three hours reading the Bible and thinking about it. Sometimes I spend more time reading. Sometimes I spend more time thinking. It's not very disciplined, but that's how I do it.

This blog, however, isn't about the physical act of reading the Bible. It's about the mindset of the act. It's, in terms we rhetoricians use, how we approach the text. It's something that I think about a lot, but I've been thinking about it more lately.

I teach in the humanities department and the upcoming chair and I have discussed the possibility of me teaching a New Testament Survey class. It's in the catalog and generally does pretty well. I'd like to try it. As I've thought about it, I've considered a few things. What ancillary texts would I bring in? How would I guide discussions? What papers would I consider? What would I allow? These questions have made me think about the ways I approach the text and the ways other people approach the text, or hermeneutics.

Approaching the Text as a True Believer (mysticism).

One way to approach the text of the Bible is simply as a true believer. I am a believer, so often (but definitely not always) this is my approach. When read in this way, issues like historical context, translation, and sometimes even the context of a particular portion to other portions around it are ignored. Reading the Bible is a mystical experience in which one connects with God. It is read in conjunction with His Holy Spirit and verses are brought to life and provide insight on particular contexts within one's own life.

It's a really cool way to read the Bible, and it is advocated in the Bible itself:

"And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (II Peter 1:19-21).

So, it is a good way to read the scripture. The interpretation is given, not through contemplation or private interpretation, or studying context, but through an active work of prophesy brought about by the mystical act of interacting with the Word of God.

Like much in mysticism, it's beautiful and mysterious and hard to articulate in tangible terms. I certainly would accept papers that incorporate such a reading, so long as it was incorporated along side and with evidence from one of the other methods It is also not the only way of reading scripture nor is it even the only way that the Bible itself advocates.

Approaching the Text as Theology

Another way that I approach the text of the scripture is theologically. Approaching the text theologically is seeing the text as an argument, or series of arguments about the nature of God and the relationship of other things, including people to Him. Theology is not apologetics (that's historical or philosophical and we'll get to it later). It doesn't try to prove there is a God. It assumes that there is one and tries to logically derive information about that Divinity.

There are different ways that the Bible can be used in this way.

Rhetorical Theology:

I don't know if anyone else refers to this method as rhetorical theology, or if there is another term for it I don't know, but basically, it looks at the text as a coherent argument about the nature of God in and of itself. While I can't think of a place where this is expressly advocated in Scripture, there are lots of places where one scripture refers to another as evidence to the nature of God. In several of the gospels (although I'll use the example from Mark) Jesus engages in this kind of use of scripture to discuss the nature of God:

"Jesus said to them, 'Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong'" (Mark 12:24-27)

So, if Jesus used this method of approaching scripture, most true believers shouldn't have a problem with it either. But atheists or those coming from other theistic systems should also feel comfortable reading the Bible in this way. It is an argument about the nature of God, an argument that an auditor can accept or reject or even reject a part of.

Systematic Theology:

Systematic theology is a means for arguing about the nature of God which can take scripture as its premises and incorporate arguments from other sources in order for the writer to make his or her own arguments about the nature of God. Although I believe the scriptures are rife with systematic theology, it is a little difficult to prove it. The problem is that when premises outside of scripture are used for arguments within scripture, then they become scripture. Thus the theology is no longer systematic but what I previously called rhetorical. An assumption has to be made that the source texts could have been used whether they were used or not. Once that assumption has been made, it is easy to find examples of systematic theology within scripture, the most well known example being Paul's argument to the Athenians at Mars Hill:

"So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’" (Acts 17:22-28)

Arguments here come from multiple sources, those accepted as scripture and those from pagan poets to whom Paul is referring. Scripture is used as a premise of an argument about the nature of God, but only as one of several premises.

Either rhetorical or systematic theology are hardly the only acceptable ways to read the text.

The Bible as Moral Philosophy

The Bible can also be seen as a work, or collection of works, that contain arguments about how we should live our lives. In this way, the Bible can be read alongside the works of Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Hume, Locke, Rawls, and Nietzsche as making arguments for certain thought patterns and resulting behavior. Moral Philosophy assumes that right and wrong, if they exist at all, are logically derived and that by logically approaching these questions, one can arrive at answers for what it means to think and be good in the world.

Most moral philosophy does not claim to be creating something new, but rather to be guiding the reader's thoughts toward a particular goal at which the reader, if she or he had been thinking properly, would have arrived on their own if they really thought things through. It takes the reader carefully from premise to premise, or from narrative to narrative, to show that particular right thoughts and actions are manifest.

The Bible advocates its use as a means of moral philosophy in a number of situations. First of all, the Bible argues that the moral philosophy it advocates stands alone as a morality outside of itself. The morality is knowable by without the Bible and that the Bible merely provides a road-map, so to speak, of a morality already known:

"For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them" (Romans 2:14-15).

Of course, the Bible still claims that it is useful as a road-map to arrive at moral thoughts: "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (I Timothy 3:16). To approach the Bible looking for the right way to live and arguments for right living is an appropriate way to read the text, but certainly not the only appropriate way.

Philosophical apologetic is a common approach to using the Bible as moral philosophy. Ravi Zacharias is well known for taking his listeners through a serious of premises logically, with little reference to scripture, and then showing how that logical conclusion is also in the Bible. From that, he asks his auditors to consider that perhaps other portions of the Bible are likely equally important.

Historical Approaches to the Bible.

There is also a way of using the Bible as a historical text. Seeing the Bible as history and reading it to gain insight.

The Bible as History

All historians of the first century Mediterranean world see the New Testament as a primary text. The Bible as a whole is a wonderful tool for getting a glimpses of a time and a place that was very different than our time, but that has a profound effect on us. Some of the authors of the Bible clearly expected their work to have historic significance and even saw themselves as writing the history of their day:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught (Luke 1:1-4).

There are a few ways this is done.

The Bible in History

Using the Bible to Illuminate History

There are two primary ways that people try to place the Bible in history. One is to try to use extra-biblical historical sources in order to clarify certain passages. By knowing the facts about the Roman government, or the Alexandrian conquest of Palestine, for instance one can better understand what it means to "walk the extra mile" or the relationship between Pilot and Herod, or even why the New Testament was written in Greek. All of this adds a richness and clarity to the text. 

Personally, my study of classical rhetoric and the Greco-Roman culture in which both rhetoric and the Bible came into being have mutually influenced each other productively. Knowing how and why certain things were done helps me understand both. So, I approach the Bible this way a lot.

Using the Bible and History to Question Each other

Another way of placing the Bible in history is a Marxist influence coming from a discipline that really caught on in the 1980's and 1990's called New Historicism. This way of looking at the Bible assumes that a great deal of its influence comes from the fact that its interpretation was to the advantage of certain people, especially the Christian emperors of the late Roman Empire and subsequent regimes who have used the Bible to prop up their power.

This second method has heavily influenced the writers of groups such as the Jesus Seminar and other cultural critics who are looking for the "historical" Jesus or the "historical" Paul rather than the Jesus or Paul presented in the narrative of the scriptures. 

I have personal problems with this methodology, not just in Scripture but in the reading of other texts. "The Hermenuetic of Suspicion," as  Paul Ricoeur calls his methodology, of which New Historicism is a derivative, assumes the worst of every author. It relies on Marx and his notion of ideology to the point that it questions whether anything can exist outside of its ideology, even itself. It reduces the value of all texts to mere artifacts of an economic power with little to teach us.

Still, I have to admit that this is the current trend in Biblical studies. The Ivy League theological schools are full of these scholars and the scholarship they do is very, very good. It has provided profound insight into the power-structures of the first five centuries of  the Mediterranean and helped us know a great deal about the power structures that have produced us. So, while I would never approach the Bible or any other text using this method exclusively, I'd need to teach it to my students if I were to teach a course on the subject.

Using History to "Prove" the Bible

Sometimes, people use external histories to verify portions of the Bible. This is another branch of apologetic: where people try to show that the Bible is factual by pointing to external sources. Often this is the point of using external sources when looking at the Bible. Certainly, it works to an extent. If one assumes that because something is generally factual some particular part is also factual, history proves the Bible. Unfortunately, those portions of the Bible that are the most contentious are the least likely to leave an external historical record.

The Bible as Literature

Finally, the Bible can be approached as one of the greatest works of literature or collections of works of literature of all time. Whether one is a believer, an atheist, or a member of another religion, it doesn't take much time perusing the Bible to find that the Good Book is, in fact, a good book. It is filled with a variety of stories, essays, poems, and speeches. It is an amazing piece.

I remember the first time I got "lost" in the Bible. I was attending a Christian school where we were largely self-paced, so seeing a student reading the Bible was not something any adult would have interfered, although they should have that day. One of the texts asked me to read something from 1st Samuel and I got so into the story of David that I totally blew the entire day. I ended up having to take everything home for homework. I was 14 and I loved a good adventure story. Most of my free time was caught up in stories of swords and magic. I hadn't mean to spend five hours reading the Bible, but I did. As I closed the pages on an ancient David and being given Abishag to keep him warm, and at last he died, I was satisfied. It was a great story. Then I looked at the clock and whispered a word that was not allowed at my school when I realized I'd "wasted" the entire day.

There are so many really great stories like that in the Bible, but not just stories. When I realize I haven't read much in the Bible, my go-to is the Book of Psalms or Ecclesiastes. They are both so mournful. I love poetry, but bitter-sweet is my favorite flavor. Most of the time, when I am thinking about the Bible and end up reading the Bible though, it is the doctrinal books of the New Testament. Cogent, coherent, beautiful essays, written in the forms of letters (which gives a personal, rhetorical touch) move me . . . Romans 7. When you're frustrated with yourself, like I am all the time, read Romans 7. He gets me. He speaks to what it is to be human. That is good, flippin' writing right there. Or Galations 3. Isn't that perfect! Doesn't that just perfectly capture trying to be a good person and knowing you can't be good enough and that even trying isn't how you do it? And look at that little bit in the middle of 3, verses 15-22, It looks like Paul can get lost in a good story of the Bible too. 

Reading the Bible as literature is a great way to think through plot, genre, purpose, setting, verbal style, and audience. It is really good stuff.

It's All Okay

So, how will I teach the New Testament. Who knows. We're more than a year out from me teaching that class if I ever do. Still, it is something to consider. And something with which I am still coming to terms. 

Sometimes you just have to laugh.

Coming to terms with having to laugh.

Different people find different things funny. There are a few things that get me going.
For starters, I like puns. They make me happy.

There are three guys on a boat. They have a pack of cigarettes, but no means of lighting them. The problem was easily solved. They threw one cigarette into the water. At that point the whole boat became a cigarette lighter. 

I really love the unintended puns that come from grammatical, spelling, and editing errors. Everyone makes such mistakes, including me. So I don't see it so much as making fun of the author as the event of the author's mistake. My favorite are the ones from church bulletins (like these) and signs, but even little kids' homework will due (see, get it?):

My daily sense of humor is dark and hyperbolic: gallows humor. Probably the only thing I liked from Mike Myers Cat in the Hat movie was where he said,

"There is a third option! ... It involves... murder!" 

I use that phrase anytime a person, especially a student, is presenting me with a dichotomy. I almost never cite my source. I also offer murder as an option when someone is complaining about someone else. I look them in the eye and say with a deadly serious face, "I could kill him for you." I offer robbery or sale and distribution of narcotics as a way to alleviate financial difficulties, especially for churches in which I'm involved. When I am teaching logical fallacies to my students, I look forward to teaching the slippery slope fallacy and give this story as an example:

So, you think you want to have a beer, huh? Well if you have a beer before too long you're going to want to have a cigarette with that beer. You're going to be drinking and smoking. Before long, you'll smoke a little pot. That will be awesome. So you'll try a few hallucinogens; you'll drop some acid do a little "special K." And you know which hallucinogens are best! The ones that are mixed with stimulants! So you'll take a couple tabs of ecstasy and that'll be amazing, So you'll decide to go ahead and step up the stimulants, a little meth, a bit of cocaine. And you know what goes great with cocaine, right? Heroine. So you'll be addicted to heroine and cocaine and you'll drop out of school. You'll end up stealing from, and likely murdering, your family. Then you'll have no one else to rob. So you'll to whore yourself out on the street for $5 a pop to feed your growing addiction. Do you really want to have that beer? 

I always get laughter and sometimes applause from my students after this little monologue. Joking about death, addiction, prostitution and illegal substance abuse is hilarious. This isn't because I think death and violence are funny in and of themselves. They are not. Instead joking about them is a way to lighten the load, so to speak.

Humorist Alan Mott recently wrote a blog about an event that occurred on his twitter site. He told a joke that compared him finding out that Kari Byron would no longer be working on the television show Mythbusters with the 9/11 terror attacks.

Where were you on September 11, when Allan found out that his favourite TV redhead who isn't Christina Hendricks was no longer mythbusting?

The joke is only moderately funny to me. But hey, Mr. Mott can make a living out of being funny. I can't. So who am I to criticize? Besides, the joke isn't really what I was going to discuss anyway. It is something that he said in his blog that really caught me:

At my mom’s memorial service I didn’t prepare a speech, but instead went up in front of everyone and told my favourite anecdote about the time she asked my dad what religion he was–over 30 years into their marriage. I told it because I thought it was funny and in that moment it felt better to laugh than it did to cry. To some people it might have been inappropriate. I could see them being offended by my refusal to discuss her passing with solemn, respectful dignity, but I knew that wasn’t the path I could take to endure the worst moment of my life. By making “light” of something, we are also making it less “heavy”–what might seem like a lack of reverence to some is actually a survival tactic for others. That joke isn’t intended to trivialize the tragedy, but instead to keep the teller from being crushed under the agonizing weight of it. - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/avoid-offending-others-almo/#sthash.B31ALnOW.dpuf

I think it's like that for me too as well as for my students who laugh at the "slippery slope" joke. Drugs and I would argue government hypervigilance have devastated the rural Southwest. Drugs are where the money is. They are where the power is. They are where the danger is. People who can take a risk in the drug trade can get rich or die trying. My students are, in many ways, shell shocked. I would bet half of them suffer from some kind of PTSD because of violence related in some way to drugs. It is hard for them. It is hard for me. So, sometimes, you just have to laugh.

Telos of Teaching

Coming to terms witht the last day, again.

Today is the last day of summer teaching for me. I have a short break from teaching before classes begin in August and I need it. My wife and I have a baby due in November and need to spend some time together while we can. I have a paper I want to get out to a publisher this summer and another on which I'd like to make serious progress, aiming at sending it off before my baby's due date. I need to revamp my online class to meet accessibility standards. I will be moving to a new office and need to unpack, decorate, etc. I am part of my University's assessment team and will be traveling to Illinois before long to work with the Higher Learning Commission on improving assessment. I have a lot to do and teaching really is getting in the way of it.

Still, teaching is why I got into this gig. I didn't know I was going to be a teacher growing up. It wasn't until I got a job with the writing center at the university where I did my undergraduate work that I realized this was an option. As I sat across the table from my tutees, teaching them to write better, something woke up inside me. It was a realization that this is what I was MEANT to do. If a person has never experienced this, it is really difficult to explain. One of the reasons I could never doubt the existence of God is that I cannot doubt my experience of teleology, of becoming what I am meant to be.

I get this sense at other times and in other places: during worship at church, sometimes when I'm writing a research paper, occasionally when I'm working in a committee and it all clicks together to create something good for the institution. Every time my wife and I have gone in for an ultrasound and I've seen my unborn child on the screen, I've felt it. None of these is a situation where I can always expect it, however. None of these is as replicable. Every single time I've gotten in front of a classroom, every single time I've stood to teach, whether I do well at it or not on a particular day, I feel like a needle in a groove, like a train on a track, like a gear in a machine. I feel like I am moving and doing what I've been designed for and it feels good.

And as I do it, I fall in love. I fall in love with the ideas. I fall in love with the material. I fall in love with the students. If falling in love is a metaphor, it is a near one. I hunger for it. I desire it. My heart flutters and I get goose-bumps. Every day, at the end of class, I am eager for the next one.

Then it ends. Every semester ends. It needs to end. I am exhausted. My soul is empty because I have poured so much in to this. Yet, I am sad. Every semester the pain of ending is worse. Many of these students, I will never see again. Certainly, if I do, the relationship will be changed, strained, forced somehow. It's over. So, I go into a bit of a funk here on the last day. I need it to end, but I want it to just keep going.

Why do words hurt?

Coming to terms with hurtful words.

My wife and I were driving to El Paso yesterday to pick up her sister who will be spending the summer with us from the airport. We were driving with the windows open because the air conditioner in our car seems not to function and it is HOT in southern New Mexico this time of year. My wife asked me a question which I completely misunderstood.

I heard “would you be offended if I referred to you as ‘bungie?’” To which I replied, “Probably not anymore, but there was a time when that really upset me.” It was true. When I was a kid at Gertrude Burns Elementary in Newcastle, WY, one of the tools that people would use to bully me was to take my name (I go by “Benji”) and twist it around. Sometimes they’d yell, “hey BUNGIE” and run away or when I’d assert a belief or opinion they’d say “He’s just BUNGIE” then everyone, even the teachers, would laugh at me. They’d keep doing this over and over until I was reduced to tears in front of everyone. Then they’d make fun of me for crying. They enjoyed making me cry. I’d have to say even the teachers seemed to get a thrill out of bringing me to tears so the other kids could mock me for the tears. They wanted me to be hurt. They wanted me to lose my cool. They wanted me to be demeaned because then they could get the pleasure out of taunting me further.

It seems really stupid on the surface. I mean, why would “Bungie” hurt at all? Why were they able to do this, probably most days in second and third grade? In fact, I knew it was stupid at the time. I remember trying to ignore them and play by myself at recess. I would usually, when this game started, just roll my eyes and ignore them. I would ignore them, but they wouldn’t go away. Certainly, if I was successful in continuing to ignore them, they’d move on the physical attacks. It made sense to cry after those. Often they wouldn’t need to resort to group beatings to get me to cry. I’d just start crying because they were saying a meaningless word, or maybe a word that meant a stretchy rope.

 Naming and Association

In discussing rhetoric in the context of argumentation and debate, we often warn our students against fallacies of association. These are mistakes where one associates one idea with another and therefore assumes that both ideas are inherently interrelated. One type of this is the use of the ad hominem argument. Literally translated from the Latin, “ad hominem” means “to man” or more often “to the man.” However, the way we describe this most of the time is “name calling.” For instance when we referred to Bush as a, “trigger happy cowboy” or a “Nazi” or refer to Obama as a “communist” or a “Muslim.” The appellation of the name circumvents arguments about the ideas or actions. Whether or not the name is “accurate” is completely irrelevant. It is that we can use the name to dismiss the person or the idea.

On the other side of the fallacy of association is honor by association: when we say that someone or something is good because it shares certain qualities with other things that are good. For instance, arguing that honey is somehow better for you than corn syrup because it is natural and natural fruits and veggies are good would be this kind of mistake. Or when we mention that Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. were both Republicans (which is true) so George W. Bush must be an equally great dude. By naming something as great, it can be seen as great by others.

Painting by Adolph Hitler around 1910

The use of these fallacies in argumentation is cheap and dirty and wrong. Still, people use them because, at least in the short term, they work. It even works when we are having less public debates. In a personal argument, calling someone a jerk, a loser, a witch, a pig, a control freak or whatever epithet an individual might choose to hurl in an angry moment also circumvents one’s own need to explain one’s position. It is a dismissal, a failure on the part of the one who uses it, not on the part of the one who is called the name. It is evil to say these things because they show a flaw in the speaker’s mind, not to have them said to you.

Grown Up Equivalents.

Certainly, I don’t think someone could goad me into crying in a corner by calling me “Bungie” today. Maybe but probably not.

On the other hand, there are other terms that they could use. Most of them are not the type of words or phrases that I’d post on a blog or even use in my private life, but there are certain terms that if they hurled them at me, names that if someone called me I may very well end up in a violent physical confrontation. This is a very real possibility, if they were used the wrong way.

Let’s take one of those words which I’ll not use here, but my more astute readers can guess what it is. We’ll call it the “S” word. In general, I would not be friends with someone who uses this word or words like it often. If someone just hit her thumb with a nail and screams out “S,” I will not really mind. If I am riding with someone in the car on an icy road and we suddenly slide to the side and someone says, “Oh, S,” I will probably never mention the fact to them. If someone says that the political party which aggravates them is just talking a bunch of “S,” I might, if we’re actually friends, ask them to stop swearing. If we’re not friends, we won’t become friends, but I am not going to hit them.

If a person says, however, “You are nothing but an ‘S’ head,” or “you are a piece of ‘S,’” I would probably leave. If a subordinate or equal talked to me that way, I’d report them after I left. If a superior talked to me that way, I’d immediately look for a way out of that position. If a stranger talked to me that way, I’d remember his or her face and avoid them in the future. Either way, I’d leave. I would leave because if the pattern continued I’d either break down and start crying just like I did as a kid, or I’d end up in a physical altercation. In fact, I’d assume anyone talking that way wants a physical altercation since that is the means by which most people arrive at one.

Why

Why is it that when people hurl these sorts of insults at us that we care at all? The old American proverb “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me” (first written in The Christian Recorder, 1869) seems to be right. If someone says something, what’s the big deal? So, they called you a name. So what? I was repeatedly told by teachers, parents and others that I just needed to “get over it.” When people mocked me like this as a kid. And, I probably should have, but I don’t. Neither do you. No person with a sense of self sits there and lets other people curse and swear at them. No reasonable person lets others call them names.

Possibility one: sinful pride

One of my first thoughts about this came from a camp councilor from church camp when I was a kid. I was between nine and ten years old. A group of boys gathered around me and chanted “fat fag, fat fag, fat fag” repeatedly until they had me crying. Now, I was a bit overweight, but I have never had any tendency toward homosexuality or becoming a British cigarette. I am relatively certain that the boys got into a great deal of trouble. However, the man (I saw him as a man, he was probably just a teenager himself) who took me away to wipe my tears explained that I shouldn’t be crying. He explained that the only reason I’d be upset by this is that I am full of pride and think I don’t deserve to be so harried. He explained that pride is a sin, and if I just quit thinking that I was so great that I didn’t deserve to be mocked, it wouldn’t hurt. It was my pride hurting, not me.

Now, I’ve gone around in my head about this and he might have had a point. However, I think that the word “pride” as we use it in English includes connotations that are sinful, but probably this isn’t the always the case. Certainly pride carries with it concepts of entitlement, arrogance and hubris, which are evil. However, the word can also include a sense of propriety, accomplishment and an appropriate sense of self. I think that there is a kind of pride which is sinful, but I don’t think that this is what is damaged when people attack us.

Possibility two: Caring about other’s opinions.

I’ve seen repeatedly on facebook various pictures that say that insults can only hurt a person if one values the insulting person’s opinion. Certainly, the insults hurt far more if they are coming from a person about whom you care. I had a friend in grade school, Nikki (short for Nicholas). We hung out together quite a bit on the playground. We’d even gone to each other’s house a couple times to play. It was great to have a friend like him who lived on the same block. There were other terms besides Bungie the students used. “Benji, wenji, dirty and dingy” was another one. One day he started chanting the hurtful rhyme while we were playing in his back yard. I never played with him again. Not only was it a mean attack, it was a betrayal.

Most of the kids who did this, however, I did not care one wit about. They were not people I wanted as friends. In general (multiple longitudinal studies have shown), bullies are not the popular kids at school, and this was certainly the case there. They were the mean kids, and while I had no idea that meanness had the double, related definitions of “cruelty” and “average,” when I learned about this it made sense to me. The people who mocked me were specifically the people I didn’t care about at all. Yet, it still hurt. It hurts more when it is someone whose opinion matters, but it hurts no matter what.

Possibility Three: It hurts because they want it to.

Perhaps name calling hurts so much because people WANT to hurt us. Certainly, if we change the scenario a bit and make it a physical assault we know that. If someone bumps into us walking down the street, reasonable people don’t mind, as long as it’s an accident. Sure, there might be some people who will get angry at an accidental bump, but these are not reasonable people. In fact, for most people who were properly raised, if someone accidentally bumps into you, you apologize even though the other person did the bumping.

If someone bumps into us on purpose, however, there’s something going on. The hurt might be physical either way, but if someone bumps us on purpose, there is an emotional hurt as well. It doesn’t matter if we know the person or not. In general their overall opinions on most issues don’t matter. If their opinion is that they can hurt us, they are immediately successful in doing so. The secondary emotion might be either sadness or anger, but the primary emotion, hurt is there.

The problem is the threat. The problem is that the person sees us as a verbal (or in the previous case literal) punching bag. It is not that we are nothing to them. If their opinion is not one we value, it is okay to be nothing. It is that for some reason, they wish us ill and have gone to the trouble to let us know. We are in danger and the hurt is the soul’s response to real, painful danger. It is our mind telling us to engage in fight or flight because this is trouble.

Or maybe not.

Maybe we need to get over ourselves. Maybe we need to get over others. Maybe words don’t hurt. But I think, sometimes, they do.

What do I expect from students

Coming to terms with expectations

Prologue

A colleague of mine at another university is writing a book. I won’t go into details about it for two reasons 1) I don’t know many and 2) what I do know, I seriously doubt she wants put out there in any coherent form lest someone “scoop” her, so to speak. None-the-less, she asked me to write to her about some of my expectations of students. I know she just wanted an email response, but I really think that it is useful to put this out there as a blog. 

This is not the first time I’ve written about my expectations or concerns regarding student behavior. I’ve recently written about my expectations regarding clothes. One of my most popular posts was entitled “The Speech Teacher’s Sermon in the Classroom” and was modeled phrase for phrase after Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, but dealing with classroom issues. I have also already written about what I see as standards for grading at the college level. 

Still, I don’t think that any of this is quite what she is wanting. I believe that she is curious as to the day to day expectations that I have with students. I think she wants the expectations that have come out of my particular thirteen years of lived experience as a college teacher. I think she wants to know what advice I would give to students based on what I’ve seen, what I’ve known and what has made me grow with my students.

My Lived Experience

In many ways, my teaching situation is quite typical. I am tenure-track and well on the way to tenure at a small teaching-focused state university. I started teaching as most professors do, as a graduate student. I have taught at large state schools, small state schools, Christian schools, and religiously affiliated private schools. I have taught where there was no accrediting body, some accreditation and accreditation coupled with state regulations. I have held adjunct positions by various titles and tenure track appointments at three schools. I’ve taught in the east, the west, the north and the south of the United States and for that reason, I really can share what expectations of a professor are at large.

However, my longest appointment has been at my current post which is somewhat unique. I teach at a small, regional, teaching-focused school in the southwest. This school is unique for a number of reasons. It would not be possible to go into all the nuances here, but I think I should explain some things that I think effect my expectations.  They make my institution unique.

First of all, it is an open enrollment institution. That means that we take virtually anyone who applies. We don’t require a minimum GPA from high school or a minimum score on the SAT or ACT. Our students take compass tests when they enter and if their scores show that they cannot read, write or perform mathematics at the college level, they are placed in developmental classes until they can. The unique situation that we have here effects my expectations. I know students are often struggling with college level work. I know that many have found school a struggle for their entire lives. I know that for many of them, this school is a far-fetched last hope at something outside the welfare system and that they really don’t feel any hope for success.

Second, my institution is a “majority-minority” campus. Fully two thirds of the students here are Hispanic (a term much preferred in this region to “Latino”). The vast majority of these are of Mexican and Mexican-American descent, but there are a number of students from the Caribbean and South and Central America. This second group wants to study in the States, but prefers a region where they can speak and hear Spanish in the stores, on the busses, at Church, etc. The final third is made up of (in order of population) ethnically Anglo-American students, Native American students, a much larger than average contingent of students from the Pacific Islands, especially Samoa, various students from Europe, African-American students, and a few Asian students.

This effects my expectations in a number of ways. First of all, while my students are ethnically diverse, the faculty members here are largely ethnically Anglo-Americans. It is a visual picture of white privilege. While many of the privileged ethnicity in other places are allowed to have their privilege be invisible, here we are confronted with it every day. We know the advantage of natively speaking the language of instruction. We know the power we have to get in the car and travel the country and not stand out as different. We know that we are trusted by government agencies and officials. We know that neither we nor our family members will ever be deported for missteps. We know we are blessed. We struggle with the extent to which we need to inculcate the dominant culture into our students so they can succeed and the extent to which we need to celebrate and empower the students within their own cultures.

Finally, there is my financial background and situation. I came from a family that was loving, strong, worked hard, read passionately, had strong moral backgrounds and never enough money. When I went to college I was on my own financially. I made it through the bachelor’s and master’s degrees without incurring significant debt. I did this by working, a lot. I needed to take on what has become significant debt in order to pay for travel and materials during my PhD. My wife only has a bachelor’s degree, but also has significant debt. The economy since her graduation has meant that she has only been able to get low, hourly wage, service industry positions. Of course, when the government looks at need-based aid, they don’t look at what your obligations are, merely income. For that reason, we struggle just to put food on the table and keep the lights on in a rented house.

So that is what is shaping my expectations which I can put down as a list here, beginning with

I have no expectations. I have been teaching long enough now that I don’t get surprised at anything. I’ve seen students light up cigarettes in class and attempt to carry out drug deals during my lecture. I’ve seen all manner or chemically altered states in class. I’ve seen students show off how they were body-painted at last night’s party. I’ve seen students bring children, dogs, cats, live snakes and marital aids into the classroom. I’ve seen written 17 letters to judges asking that students be excused from prison to attend class, 4 of those requests have been granted. I’ve had students miss class for nuptials, nativities and necrosis. You can’t surprise me anymore. So, while I say I “expect” these things, I don’t. I hope for them, pray for them, and reward those who follow them. I also allow the natural consequences to flow to those who do not.

Expectations regarding attendance and coursework.

• I expect that when you create your schedule, classes come in first before work, doctor’s appointments, social events, family obligations, etc.  
• I expect you to come to class, having done the assignments and readings and ready to share them and comment about them for the most part. On the other hand . . .
• I expect you to skip class. Seriously: it’s right there in the syllabus. Our accreditation system allows you to skip a number of hours equal to the number of credit hours. So, if you’re taking a three credit hour class that meets three times a week for one hour, you can skip that class three times during the semester. It is allowed. And that’s just UNEXCUSED absences.
• I expect you to tell me why you’re skipping class. If you just say “personal reasons,” that’s fine, but I expect you to let me know before class starts why you’re skipping. That’s why I gave you all those means of contacting me in the syllabus on the first day. Sometimes, if I think your reason is good enough, I may make the absence an “excused absence.” If I do that, that’s really nice of me, but I don’t have to do so and usually will not. Whether or not I do that probably has as much to do with whether you are respectful and interactive in class as much as how good the excuse is.   
• I expect you’re going to do the reading before class and have something intelligent to say about it. On the other hand . . .
• I expect you to skip the reading sometimes. That means you’ll have to catch up later in two ways. First of all, you’ll have to do the reading before the quizzes, exams, or performances that test it. Secondly, you really have to prove in the next few classes that you DID do the reading.
• I also expect that you will get assignments done on time. I will always have full descriptions of all course assignments including due dates on the course website from the very beginning of class. For that reason I will NEVER discuss the assignments in class unless there are specific questions. That I didn’t “talk about it” is no reason not to do the assignment. On the other hand. . .
• I know that life is really, really hard and at least a few times during your college career I expect you will decide not to do an assignment because you just don’t have time. If that happens in my class I expect that you to accept that I will give you a zero which will lower your overall course grade and that you will accept this and not look for “extra credit” or “an extension.” I don’t do these things, generally and I doubt your situation is so unique as to make an exception.
• I expect you to be in the classroom before I am. When you are running late, I expect you to do your best to show up anyway. When you enter late, I expect you to enter as unobtrusively as possible. I expect an apology after class if you were class, and if you have not made it a habit, I fully expect to forgive you and count you as “present” for the entire class. However, if it’s happened more than a couple times, I will still forgive you, but I will also mark you as having missed the class.  
• I expect you to wait 15 minutes for me if I’m not there when class starts. After that, I expect you to call me or the department secretary to see what’s going on before taking off. Life happens to me too. I will not make a habit out of this either. If it does happen more than a couple times during the semester that you have to wait more than 15 minutes, I fully expect you to take it up with my department chair. Clearly I am on drugs, struggling with personal issues or in some other way unable to perform my duties right now and need help.
• I expect you to be respectful and interactive in class.

• That means no cursing, swearing or emotional outbursts but lots of talking 

Expectations regarding grading

• I expect you to accept the grades I give you. You can see mygrading criteria. They have been looked at and discussed by dozens of experts in the field, my supervisors up to the level of the Vice President of Academic Affairs and hundreds of students. They are just and fair and if you don’t like them . . . great! Let’s have a discussion about them BEFORE we have graded material to defend. I am always looking to improve my criteria.
• I expect that unless you get 100%, that you won’t like your grade. That’s why you work so hard. Good for you.
• I expect that if you don’t understand your grade, we can discuss it. Remember, this is not a defense of your work. The grade I give will stand unless I made a mistake. It is a chance for me to clarify. If you approach this from any other position, we cannot have a conversation.
• I expect that I will make mistakes sometimes. I will count correct answers wrong, etc. I will always fix those grades. I will probably also make mistakes that give you better grades than you deserve. Don’t worry about telling me. I’m probably mean enough as it is.

Expectations Regarding Communication

• I expect that you will communicate with me, regularly, outside of class.

• I expect that anytime you don’t understand an assignment, a grade, a policy or a concept from class, you will communicate with me about it.

• I expect that you will never show up for my office hours, but it would be so awesome if you did. I have them there for you and get so lonely and bored during this time. I will also schedule special office hours to talk just to you.
• I do expect, however, that I’ll probably get emails, texts and even phone calls from every single one of you during the semester. I expect to hear from most of you once a week or more. That’s fine.
• I expect when you send an email, text or leave a message on my phone that you will include, who you are, what class you’re in at what time. I have 100 students in four different sections of public speaking, for instance, and I need a reminder. I expect this with every text, sorry; I don’t save your number unless I also know you from church or other social activities. I actually think it would be creepy if I did.
• I don’t expect you to contact me through social networking sites and will never contact you that way unless you initiate it. If you do initiate it, however, that’s fine. I am not afraid of students on Facebook, but you’ll be subjected to my religious, political and personal rants if you decide to become “friends.” If you decide afterwards not to be “friends,” feel free to leave no explanation. It’s actually less awkward that way.
• I expect that we will all share our religious, political and personal positions in class too. I just expect that we’ll do so in an accepting and curious way, rather than demeaning the other side.
• I expect that issues of sexuality and social deviance will probably come up at some point during the class and I expect you to comfortable discussing these concepts in an adult way. On the other hand . . .
• I expect that your particular sexual acts or criminal acts will not be discussed, nor will mine.
• I expect that if you have wildly heterodox opinions, that you know that class is not the best place to express them. This includes racism, homophobia and general bigotry. It also includes the belief that you can read minds or that your pet cat is the second coming of Christ. Those opinions should only be discussed among a select few, including your therapist.
• I expect that you will refer to me by my title, (Dr. Cline, Professor or Prof. Cline) or by my name (Benji or Benjamin). I really feel weird when students call me “dude” or “dawg” or “homes (sp?).” If you forget my name, “sir” is fine. “Sir” or “ma’am” is what I use when I forget your name.

 Expectations regarding my time.

• I expect that you know that I care about my students, want the best for them and work hard on their behalf.
• I expect a certain amount of patience. I will usually answer emails or texts within 24 hours, except on weekends, when I might not answer until we are back in session.
• I expect, perhaps unfairly, that you realize that teaching is only part of my job (45%, according my job description). I also have to do research, perform administrative duties and represent the university in all kinds of community activities and government functions. I am also expected to continue my education and spend more time in faculty development classes and doing reading than you do in your classes if you’re taking a normal load. Teaching is my favorite task, but it is a tiny bit of what being a professor is.
• I expect that time set aside for grading and preparing for classes is respected, so that you’d never ask to turn in something “late,” meaning I have to have a special time to grade just your piece.
• I expect that if we make special arrangements to meet, that you come or at least text me if you cannot make it.
• I expect you know that I have a wife, child, pets, parents, grandparents, etc. with whom I want to spend time too, not just on you. You are important to me. These people are more important. 
• I expect you know that I have faith obligations and that time spent with God comes first for me. Work is just one way to get money.

Expectations regarding our “relationship”

• I expect that when the semester ends, so does our relationship. If not, that is great and I have some wonderful friendships with former students. That friendship, however, could only develop after the class ended.
• I expect that when we hear about the big events in each other’s lives (weddings, births, funerals, birthdays, graduations, promotions, retirements, children’s quinceañeras or Bar Mitzvahs), appropriate verbal acknowledgements will be given. However, I will not give or accept gifts and will not invite you or accept invitations to celebrations.
• I expect that if we see each other in public, at restaurants, shopping or at a bar, we will smile and nod at each other. If we come into close proximity during these events, we may greet each other. We will not “hang out.”

• I expect that if we are with others during these greetings, we may introduce the others.

• I expect that you aren’t going to hit on me nor that I am going to hit on you. If you ever do perceive that I am hitting on you, I expect you to point out the behavior so that I can apologize and stop. If I do not, I expect that you will follow our university’s policy regarding sexual harassment. I will do the same with you.
• I expect that if we have a relationship outside of class because of religious, social or civic interactions, that this relationship will not be used to gain special favors in the class.
• I expect that no one, not your parents, priest, spouse or friends will discuss your situation in the class with me. If they do, I will only acknowledge that you are in the class and will probably say that I “enjoy” you being there or something else particularly meaningless.

The final expectation.

I expect that these expectations have exceptions. 

What not to wear

Coming to terms with clothing. 

I first entered the classroom as a teacher in the Fall of 2000. I was a 24 year old college graduate who was being allowed to teach college in order to help pay for graduate school. At the time that made perfect sense to me. Now I wince at the idea of a person in his or her twenties, who doesn’t even have a Master’s degree, being allowed to teach college classes. Besides the university at which I taught during graduate school, I’ve never worked at a place that made extensive use of graduate students in the classroom. I dressed pretty much the way I’d dressed in college with the exception that I now tucked my flannel into my jeans and buttoned it up instead of letting it hang open. That was also basically the way they dressed.

I did a lot of things like they did. I went to the same bars and coffee shops and never felt weird about that. I enjoyed the same websites and television shows as they did. Sometimes, during a lull in the semester I’d walk the streets where the “party houses” were and walk in and have an enjoyable time. I was also a student, albeit a “graduate” student, so I still complained about professors, worried about grades and due dates and got frustrated with the requirements of my program. I didn’t act or dress that differently than my students because I wasn’t that different from then.

While I was in graduate school, styles changed, but I didn’t. I was still pretty much dwelling at the nicer end of the grunge era. Students’ choices in clothes were changing. Off the rack designer clothes became more popular. Hoodies, with the name of the designer, fraternity, sorority or sports team replaced flannels for every day wear. Students also started to wear what they deemed “nicer” clothes from time to time too. That was where the problem came in.

I’ve never cared a huge amount about clothes. I prefer not to be seen in public wearing a pullover t-shirt. I still, however, love flannel. However, any button down shirt is fine with me. I wear jeans or comfortable, casual slacks. I often wear a suit jacket or sport coat nowadays, but not really a “suit” as it would be understood in a business context. I’ve always understood the need for ties and dress shoes for job interviews and big presentations, but would never spend a huge amount of money on such things. My very “best” clothes all come from thrift stores. The rest come from big box retailers. I almost never set foot in a traditional “department store.”

My students, for almost a decade now, really do spend a lot of money on clothes. It is nothing for them to spend $15-$25 on a t-shirt. $80 pants are common. The amount they say they spend of shoes blows my mind to the point that I don’t actually believe them. I know how much they spend because every once in a while they mention it. Generally one compliments another and then the other explains where they got the clothes and how much they cost.

That’s all fine and dandy. My students spend more money on clothes than me. They also drive more expensive cars, eat at more expensive restaurants, have more expensive phones and computers and refuse to make use of the free, public transportation offered to them. They’re idiots, but they’re young.  I used to blow a lot of money on cigarettes. Clothes are healthier.

The thing about clothes, however, is that it is one area where it puts me in an awkward position as a speech teacher. I deal with clothing three times during the semester. When I hand out the syllabus, I explain that they should make sure that they have clothing that is “a little better” for speeches. When I talk about delivery and nonverbal communication, I talk about “what your clothing communicates.” When I talk about decorum in the context of ethos, I talk about “fitting and appropriate” clothing.

Then students give their speeches. Inevitably, there will be many who wear a t-shirt and jeans. I don’t really dock them for this exactly, they just don’t get any extra points. In many ways, I see a t-shirt and jeans as fitting the classical rhetorical concept of decorum when speaking as a college student in the early part of the 21^st century. Then I have some who come in wearing their pajamas or workout sweats. I generally dock them just slightly. Then I have a few who will put on the sport coat, the tie, the dress shoes. I tend to give them extra points.

Then I have one other set. They are usually women. On normal class days, they wear jeans and a t-shirt. Then, for the speech day, they decide to “dress up.” Dressing up, however, does not quite mean what I expect them to mean. Let me describe for you a student who did this today. She wore makeup, which she doesn’t usually do to class. Her hair was done in a braid across the front to hold the rest back. She was wearing earrings and a matching necklace. She wore a blouse with a deep v-neck. The blouse was designed so that the three buttons right at her chest were to be buttoned. The lower half of the blouse was designed to be tied in a knot, in order to expose the midriff. She had her belly button pierced and a chain, which matched her necklace and her earrings, dangled from the piercing down to her belt. The belt surrounded a tight-fitting, black, shimmering skirt that did not entirely cover the thigh. Thus, bare skin was exposed until just below the knee when a pair of long, black, high-heeled boots, made out of the same material as the skirt, covered her calves and feet completely.

Not my student, but you get the idea

I rewrote the previous paragraph four times before I realized a philosophical trap in even writing about it. I was trying to objectively describe her clothing without objectifying her. Unfortunately, “objectively” and “objectify” sound similar for a reason.  Describing something objectively is the means by which one objectifies it. A more subjective description, saying that the clothing was “more appropriate for the nightclub than the classroom” (which is what I wrote on her evaluation) would not have conveyed the precise difficulties with the clothing in question.

And that becomes the difficulty in explaining to the student a couple of points docked for clothing. I know that it will be a difficulty for the student because she obviously was wanting extra points. She was thinking about “dressing up” for the extra points that she knew others had gotten when putting on better clothes than jeans and a t-shirt.  I don’t know whether or not the student will contest the grade. When a student doesn’t contest his or her grades, teaching stops with the evaluation. So, the good teacher in me hopes that she will demand some kind of explanation. There is another huge part of me that hopes she doesn’t because it is always awkward. Students come to a number of conclusions, none of which are correct.

1. Dr. Cline doesn’t like me. This is a common complaint when anyone receives a poor grade. It is almost never true.
2. Dr. Cline doesn’t like girls. Women, on average, get higher grades in my classes. That is because, on the whole, they are more dedicated than males. It is these particular students who dress inappropriately who get worse grades.
3. Dr. Cline likes me, you know what I mean? This is my biggest fear. I think it is every male professor’s biggest fear: the idea that a student will think I am a dirty old man being turned on by some young woman’s attire and taking out my frustrations on her grade. Either a positive response, that such attentions would be welcomed, or negative response, that such attentions are sexual harassment both concern me.
4. Dr. Cline thinks I’m ugly. I am NOT saying “You look disgusting! Cover it up!” I am saying that this is not what one should wear for a speech.
5. Dr. Cline thinks I’m a scarlet woman. Of course, that’s not the language which students use, but I don’t use the words they do. I’ve had students to whom I’ve recommended less social clothing think that I am commenting on their morality. In general, I have no idea what my students moral feelings are and I like it that way.
6. I have dressed too informally for a speech. I’ve had students whom I have corrected in this way then take the next step up and appear in formal gowns the next time.
7. I have overdressed for a speech. The problem isn’t really over or under dressing. It is the clothes for the time and the place that matter.
8. It was the belly button piercing. Or the skirt, or the shirt or any particular part of the ensemble.  No, it was the appropriateness of the whole.
9. Dr. Cline is just old fashioned. I don’t think this is the case. I think that even as society has changed there remains a difference between business clothing and evening clothing.
10. Dr. Cline is just a prude. Maybe. I don’t know. Still, I think that awareness of such prudishness in the general population will help you in life.

What will probably happen is she will just take the grade and shut up, but I worry. 

Media trade offs.

Coming to terms with media trade offs

I am all for newer media. Cable television, streaming video, blogging, social networking, digital readers, smart phones, texting and free wireless networking at most fast-food locations have made life far easier in many ways and facilitate communication that would have been difficult in times past. Furthermore, I see the potential for the increasing work in new media providing ground for the increase in undergraduate study of rhetoric in order to facilitate content creation.

Right now, communication as a discipline has not caught up with these advances, and possibly to be the best we can be, we shouldn’t try. Training students in particular technology is setting them up to experience obsolescence as soon as they graduate. Instead, we should probably focus on universal rhetorical principles that seem to make sense regardless of technology, such as those reaching clear back to Aristotle’s On Rhetoric. Nonetheless, what we should do is make sure the students understand the concept of universal principles themselves and that what they learn in one class should be applicable to others.

Perhaps one of the universal principles that we need to make sure they understand is one that was articulated by Marshall McLuhan half a century ago; with every advancement in technology, there is a trade off. The mobile phone and the related drop in the rates of transmission costs due to improved bandwidth is a good example. I remember as a child my mother lamenting that she would like to talk to her mother (my grandmother), but the cost of a telephone call was prohibitive. By the time I got to college, 10₵ per minute was the going rate of a domestic call. I developed a habit of talking to my parents who lived four hours away at least weekly. However, at 10₵ a minute, it was still quite outside a college student’s budget to call often. So, I would call my parents, let it ring three times and they’d call me back. I was well aware of how wonderful it was the phone calls were so cheap! That cost has plummeted. Now, most of my students call their mothers between classes. It is a stereotype that students come out of an exam crying on their phones that “the professor is so mean” and that “there were questions on the test we never discussed in class” (in my class, that is always true because I expect students to do the reading as well as attend class).

All of this is truly wonderful. It really, really is. Because of changes in media, my students have a connection to family that is deep and lasting and that I can’t really understand. My parents knew that when we separated, we were separating. We knew that the relationship was changing. When I speak to my parents, whether it is by telephone (which does not happen every day) or when I get to make a rare appearance in person, it is a call for celebration, a reunion, a joy for all parties. For people today, family reunions will be something of a redundancy, even though they live further apart than ever. My students’ parents never really separate from their children. This attachment to family that began in the millennial generation and that continues today is something that those of us from generation X and older look on with a bit of wonder, sometimes envy and sometimes revulsion.

Why both envy and revulsion? Because there is a trade off. The one that concerns my colleagues and me the most is the lack of independence on the part of our students. Every problem, every difficulty, every heart-break and let down results in a call to Mom (always Mom, never Dad ((perhaps a subject of another blog because that is certainly something with which we need to come to terms))). Even as a grade schooler, my relationship with my parents was not as close as the average college student’s relationship with her or his parents. While I envy that closeness, I am revolted by the fact that these seeming adults cannot “cut the cord,” as the metaphor goes, and live a life that is independent from their parents.

A similar set of revulsion and wonder can be paid to the way that news, especially political news, is disseminated. As a child, my parents followed pretty traditional gender roles with the exception that my father did most of the grocery shopping. Sometimes, he would return from the grocery store with a paper bag filled with groceries and a copy of Newsweek, a news magazine that no longer even exists today. In those days, grocery stores sold news magazines, which is something that they absolutely do not do now. When we had a television, which we only had off and on growing up, my Dad would try to watch the evening news most days. My Dad is a fairly conservative guy (a picture of “compassionate conservatism”), and would often complain of the liberal bias in his news magazine and his news television programs, but continued to consume the media. No doubt something similar happened in liberal households throughout the United States at that time. A conservative bias per se in media was probably not a complaint but a “pro-establishment,” “pro-management” or “anti-labor” sentiment probably irked the more liberal consumers who continued to consume the news available.

   

There were quite a few intentionally right-wing or left-wing weekly publications that were being produced as well. I know that I saw Christianity Today and several hunting and fishing magazines that espoused an openly conservative bias in my home as a kid. My guess is that the average liberal household did not have many of these passing through their mailboxes. My father was never a subscriber to widely focused conservative magazines such as National Review, but that was probably because it is kind of expensive.

Growing up in a conservative household has led me to become kind of a conservative guy myself, though more Libertarian than Republican. My grandmother subscribed me to Time (the last remaining general news weekly), so I read that with the same eye rolling with which my father read Newsweek. I am a subscriber to National Review. Real Simple, Reader’s Digest and People also come to my mailbox due to my wife’s interests and I find myself reading them far more often than I am comfortable admitting.  Print media in various forms takes up a significant portion of my home and positively fills my office.

There is another way I consume news too. I consume news on the internet. I used to consume news via various cable channels as well, and if we can ever adjust our finances, I’d like to again. Still, there is a huge difference that works itself into differences in these new media than what was happening in print.

I would take my subscription to National Review as a prime example. Because it has an openly political bias, one can easily compare it to new media with similar bias. The latest edition of the National Review magazine deals with the national issue of gun control. It deals with it in a careful, reasoned and thoughtful way. It is a conservative publication, so the careful, reasoned and thoughtful arguments lead to the conclusion that gun control should be focused on limiting government control, rather than restricting individual rights (see, I’m biased too). To read the articles in the print magazine, I had to turn to a dictionary at least twice that I remember. I was also quite thankful for some training in political philosophy so that I could understand the nuances of the arguments they were making. The articles were written in a polished, unhurried manner making extensive use of intellectual vocabulary, historical precedent and critical syllogistic reasoning. While a liberal would undoubtedly disagree with most of the axioms and some of the reasoning, no liberal would read the print copy of the National Review and come to the conclusion that conservatives were crazy. There is a bias, but that bias is explained, not assumed.

Compare this to newer media with similar bias. Watching Fox News editorials, or engaging with the major political blogs like Breitbart, or even looking at National Review’s website, rather than their print publication, provides interesting points of analysis. The language is simple and terse, even rude to those who might disagree. The philosophical analysis is non-existent. The sites are designed to cause cursory clicking from one page to the next. The editorials are reduced to the literal shouting of talking points. They are dismissive of those who would disagree and use constant hyperbole (intentional overstatement), mockery (making fun), flooding (making vast lists of charges with varying degrees of veracity as though they were all equal) and ad hominem (name calling). This is exacerbated by blogging and private video creation as well. This rude, extremist meanness is often funny, but does now really add to the conversation. This video, for instance, is funny, but does not add to any kind of intelligent debate.

Of course, some liberals see this as a purely conservative problem. I engage with more than enough left-wing media to know that knew media on the left is equally guilty of these charges. In fact, several of my left-leaning friends proudly shared this video of Rachel Maddow engaged in all four of the rhetorical fallacies outlined above.

Still, I don’t see the new news system as “bad” exactly. There are real advantages. There are advantages to the ease with which one can find like minded media. Certainly, this adds to confirmation bias, and tribalism, but a Democrat in Alabama or a Republican in Vermont can realize that they are not all alone in the world. Realizing that one is not all alone is a good thing, really. The speed at which new information can spread is wonderful. When Governor Romney made his infamous “47%” remark this last election season, he had to defend it right away. New media made this something that was not just rumor or innuendo. The recording was right there. As much as I did not favor the President in this election (but didn’t vote for either major party), I still believe that this was as it should be. Controversial statements should be discussed, not denied. The slow media of network news at five o’clock and weekly magazine coverage could not have made the discussion happen. It did happen, however, and at least partially because it happened, America, in the majority, chose Obama.

I like that I can write this blog. I know that very few people will actually read it, and it functions more, as my subtitle implies, as a means for me to “come to terms” with various and sundry topics. I like that it is something more public than a journal. I like that anyone can blog and some can become very successful at it. I like that freedom, that liberty, which lower cost publication has afforded to all of us. Unfortunately, the drive to click and garner quick agreement does have its draw backs. Some people who come across this blog may not bookmark it because I use big words or have political opinions different from theirs.  There is a trade off in the movement to new media.

And that is the real point of this posting. Changing media involves trade offs. It is not a new or original idea, but it is one with which I am coming to terms right now.