Last day of April, raining like crazy here in NJ. After a long day yesterday, which included the successful presentation at LAPES up at Columbia's Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, the bulk of today was spent at the home of the artist Jan Sawka, who designed the set for the Grateful Dead's 25th anniversary summer tour. In turn, I read OPM 77 in the wake of discussing many new ideas and projects, not to mention experiencing a host of different venues. And I write all to underline what I believe to be the key point made in OPM 77, which is that the event of thinking/learning, or the 'dwelling' of the Sage is something that, as I write, can happen anywhere and at any time, but always in the company of others. Indeed, if there is one claim I would claim to endorse even more intensely ten years after I wrote these meditations, it would be the one that says thinking/learning arises as a congregational experience, made in community, as something like the conversation between friends.
This is one reason why the Heraclitus story is interesting. Because, in fact, there is not a moment in the story when his visitors cross the threshold and join him in his home. On the contrary, all we get from Heidegger's re-telling of the story originally told by Aristotle is that the unexpected visitor's are surprised and thrown back by encountering the 'great' philosopher warming his hands by the fire. And, as a result, they find him uninteresting and turn to leave. In OPM 77 I continue to emphasize why I understand the story as showing us the contextual nature of thinking/learning. That is, no one person (teacher) can 'make' learning happen. Neither can the students simply will it into being. Moreover, the 'architecture' of the place, and even the time when the event takes place, all figure into the event of learning. And I seem to be hinting at the almost spontaneous quality, which means that there is a kind of hidden force at work that will bring it all together, or not. I hint at this in OPM 77, and emphasize this in my post-reading commentary, when I say that, for me, the line Heraclitus utters to his visitors as they are about to depart, "for here too the gods come to presence," indicates that the most powerful force that is present remains concealed or hidden. Now, one can certainly understand this to be a metaphysical claim. But one can also understand this as capturing this notion that the extraordinary remains hidden in the ordinary, and it is precisely when we perceive the hidden presence of the extraordinary in the ordinary, THEN thinking/learning is underway. But why is it claimed so emphatically and intensely that the perception of the extraordinary in the ordinary happens only with others? And what is an example of such disclosure? To explore this, I would have to rehearse a paper I wrote back in the fall, one titled "Learning By Jamming." Better to invite folks to find that paper at academia.edu, where I've posted it!
This is one reason why the Heraclitus story is interesting. Because, in fact, there is not a moment in the story when his visitors cross the threshold and join him in his home. On the contrary, all we get from Heidegger's re-telling of the story originally told by Aristotle is that the unexpected visitor's are surprised and thrown back by encountering the 'great' philosopher warming his hands by the fire. And, as a result, they find him uninteresting and turn to leave. In OPM 77 I continue to emphasize why I understand the story as showing us the contextual nature of thinking/learning. That is, no one person (teacher) can 'make' learning happen. Neither can the students simply will it into being. Moreover, the 'architecture' of the place, and even the time when the event takes place, all figure into the event of learning. And I seem to be hinting at the almost spontaneous quality, which means that there is a kind of hidden force at work that will bring it all together, or not. I hint at this in OPM 77, and emphasize this in my post-reading commentary, when I say that, for me, the line Heraclitus utters to his visitors as they are about to depart, "for here too the gods come to presence," indicates that the most powerful force that is present remains concealed or hidden. Now, one can certainly understand this to be a metaphysical claim. But one can also understand this as capturing this notion that the extraordinary remains hidden in the ordinary, and it is precisely when we perceive the hidden presence of the extraordinary in the ordinary, THEN thinking/learning is underway. But why is it claimed so emphatically and intensely that the perception of the extraordinary in the ordinary happens only with others? And what is an example of such disclosure? To explore this, I would have to rehearse a paper I wrote back in the fall, one titled "Learning By Jamming." Better to invite folks to find that paper at academia.edu, where I've posted it!
3.0 - I can't recall if my visit with Jan Sawka's family on this day 10 years ago was the first or the second visit. What I can say with some conviction is that it was an interesting experience, especially the opportunity to look at Sawka's original sketches for the 1989 GD summer tour set design. A GD show offers an example of how the extraordinary can appear in the ordinary. Improvisation interrupting the routine. Of course most in attendance were anticipating the arrival of the new, and to a certain extent conjured it. And this is something I will pose today in my class, which will be organized around the question: In what sense are students responsible for their own learning? I've been underwhelmed this semester by my students engagement, or lack thereof. But one of the reasons for this is my own stifled practice in teaching in the manner I most enjoy, and that usually provides some joy. There's no question that the presence of a skeptical TA has contributed to the stultification of my practice, a skepticism that is rooted in her inability to allow the learning community to form without her having a leading role. The irony is that her performance would normally be exemplary, were she a student in the course, and not the TA. For her the question of responsibility resides in her taking a step back from the community and remain present in the space without inserting herself. The TA is a participant observer. The student and the teacher are participants, each with their own responsibilities with respect to gathering and movement of the learning community. Foucault, who we will be taking up today, suggests that there is a paradox with the call to care for self and the need to prepare oneself with an encounter with the truth that is beyond the self. Foucault uses the term "subject" and not "self," but both refer to subjectivity and the formation of a singular persona. The paradox reveals the limits of self-care. And it is also in tension with self-overcoming or replacement of the self that happens with the event of learning, the encounter with the captivating significant object. This estrangement is happening with Heraclitus' visitors, when Heraclitus points towards the hidden presence of the gods. If spirituality, as Foucault describes it, is the practice that prepares one for an encounter with the truth, then it seems that practice will only get underway after the realization that work must be done. That is what the estrangement from the ordinary reveals: the hidden mystery in what one takes for granted, the extraordinary in the ordinary. When the ordinary is no longer appearing as such, it appears as a problem, as problematic. Here Freire's problem-posing education is recalled. When the taken-for-granted can no longer be taken for granted, we are confronted with a problem. Foucault reminds us that the problem may be with our capacity to understand the world, and not only in the world itself. Put otherwise, if the problem is in the world itself, one can not begin to imagine how to take up this problem if one is not capable. Hence the ongoing preparation, the work on the self that is learning.
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