First, the result of some etymological work I did yesterday
after reflecting on my musings on the Pentecostal event unfolding on Beale
Street. I followed up on the citation
of Acts 2:1, and then found some symmetry with Acts 2:6. Thinking the connection between the ‘they’
(Apostles) and the ‘others’ (the many) helps me to think further about the
learning community unfolding via koinonia
(the dynamic spirit of the common, which is always more than and exceeding any
self-definition the community has of itself.
Indeed what constitutes it as a learning
community is the felt presence of this excess that the community is always
engaging because it is always confronting them.
Much of what I have been writing about in these meditations, and much of
what is published in Being and Learning
is organized around the thinking that takes up the questions that unfold from
thinking about the ‘excess’. In the
mediation I will turn to in a moment, this excess is again taken up as the
arrival of the newcomer, the stranger, el
otro). What is important to me
about Act 2:1 & 6 is the story it tells about the way the community is
gathered together by an ‘outside’ (excessive force); is moved by this force
that estranges them (turns them into strangers by forcing them to speak in
‘other’ voices, in ‘languages’ that are not their own, and, in turn, forces them
out of their place of retreat, their ‘private’ gathering place, and into the
streets, the public, where the same force moving them gathers the attention of
others in the same manner that it has gathered the Apostles. That is, the excessive force [full of fury]
that takes hold of them takes hold of others (the many, the public) via the same
strange voices, voices, it turns out, that are only strange for the Apostles,
because they are most familiar to the many; indeed, they are the ‘languages’ of
the many. What is disclosed in Acts 2:1 & 6 is a
particular excessive gathering force that takes those who already constitute a
community (congregation) and pushes them out of their zone of familiarity and
in the push extends the community, takes it public and into the streets. Here is version of Acts 2:1 & 6 that I
cobbled together yesterday:
[On]
Πεντηκοστῆς (Pentecost), ἦσαν (they
[Apostles] were, esen) πάντες (all, pantes) ὁμοῦ (together, homou) ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό
(in the one place, eti to auto)…συνῆλθεν ([then] came together, synelthen) τὸ πλῆθος
(the multitude, to plethos) καὶ συνεχύθη (and was confounded, kai synchethe) ὅτι ἤκουον εἷς ἕκαστος τῇ ἰδίᾳ διαλέκτῳ
λαλούντων αὐτῶν (because heard [understood] each one the language spoken by them
[the they, Apostles], hoti ekouon heis hekastos te idia dialekto lalouton
auton). Act 2:1, 6
The togetherness of the Apostles, all being together (ὁμοῦ)
in the one place (ἐπὶ
τὸ
αὐτό),
then, their togetherness is extended, the togetherness of the strange and
familiar; they are together in being perplexed (συνεχύθη).
In the meditation from this day ten years ago (10/18/04, BL 243-244) I take up the ‘extension’ of
the learning community, continuing the theme addressed the day before: the
musicality of the learning community, or how the learning of the community is moved by ‘singing’.
The previous day’s meditation concludes with a citation from
Heidegger’s reading of the Rilke fragment “music is existence”: “To sing the
song means to be present in what is presenting itself.” [Today, in the wake created by the exegetical
reading of Acts 2:1 & 6, I want to hear the ‘singing’ of the ‘song’ as the
voicing of the something that exceeds what is familiar, both to the one who is
singing and the ones who are hearing the song.
This ‘novelty’ or ‘strangeness’ is the excessive that offers up the
content of learning; the song is the ‘curriculum’ of study that is common (koinon) to all.] In this case, ‘to be present in what is
presenting itself’ is to be carried away
by the flow. [A push-back to yesterday’s
confrontation with Heidegger, against his thuggish language of ‘capture’ (seizing) and ‘throwing’: isn’t this precisely what is happening in
Acts 2:1 & 6? The Apostles and the
people in the street have not ‘stepped into’ the flow of the gathering force;
rather, the taken by its fury that is depicted with fire!]
For me the key to the meditation is the claim: “what is sung
is not yet spoken”. (10/18/04, BL 243) The claims indicates that what is ‘spoken’
is what is familiar or easily understood; it is commonsensical; what is
‘spoken’ does not offer up anything ‘new’ and thus is not the basis of
learning. If learning is an event, then
it happens as a movement, and we can call the learning community ‘a movement’
with the full awareness to the historical significance of this description in
the public-political sense. [Indeed, if we are going to speak of the common (koinon) and of koinonia then we have to think in terms of the transformative
political movement. More on this to come…]
Singing stands for what is ‘new’, and the song for what is studied: “the
voice of the stranger as stranger, and with this recognition [the affirmation
of] the novelty of this voice….this affirmation is the essence of the listening
that receives the novelty of this ‘new’ voice that has ‘not yet’ been heard
within the learning community itself.” (10/18/04, BL 243-244) Reception of the
song is an affirmation of novelty, the affirmation of the offering be made, the
offering that gathers the community into learning.
The song moves the community by extending it. “This ex-tension is the ongoing movement of
the community as a gathering of learners.
Learning means to be extended, to be carried away by and into the realm
of the unknown, unpredictable, and unforeseen…learning is the ongoing encounter
with the ineffable, with that which has ‘not yet’ been spoken. What is sung had not yet been spoken.” (10/18/04,
BL 243)
The meditation gets carried away by the force of the
assertion; the performance of the song described as “the singing of the
improvisational aria that arrives with the essential swaying of
freedom…”(10/18/04, BL 243) Today,
the morning after listening to the blue grass and old-timey performances that
happened in this very Café Keough, I don’t believe the song sung is always an
‘improvisational aria’. What I had in
mind was most certainly not the operatic solo, but something like an extended
solo by Coltrane or Garcia, that, when performed live, moves the community of
listeners (that is no mere ‘audience’ nor ‘spectators’ but a
congregation). [This is why I begin my
paper “Leaning by Jamming” with
Coltrane.] Indeed, what is most important here is the
force of the singing that activates compassion.
The arrival of the new is heard by the “compassion…the stillness that
receives the novel…that makes room, the regioning of the Open that welcomes the
novel. This regioning ‘moves through’
and makes its appearance in the community of learners.”(10/18/04, BL 244) Compassion is the most essential
a priori, “that is always already dwelling within the heart.” And compassion is activated with “compassionate
listening…the peaceful stillness that spares freedom…that sustains the
plurality of voices.” (10/18/04, BL 244)
3.0 (Friday, Portland, ME) - Aside from bringing a smile to my face because it brings me back to those days in Memphis ten years ago, the 2.0 commentary as well as the OPM from this day 20 years ago bring some joy to me because I'm reading them after having just completed the edits of "LEARN" part 3, and with that, the edits of the first draft. Draft #2 is now completed, and the joy I'm experiencing from achieving that milestone is amplified by the resonance of what was written 20/10 years ago and what I produced today! Here is an excerpt that expresses that resonance: Espíritu, spirit, soul. Bachelard tells us that “mind and soul are not synonymous.”(PS, xvi) Mind is cogito, where the certainty of “self” abides, where “truth” is announced with the arrival of “clear and distinct ideas,” where doubt is overcome when the (so-called) meditation arrives at the conclusion: cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am. But what is this existence that the mind confirms? How does it show up and stand out in the world with others? Can it receive the word of poesy in silence? The soul is inspired into being by listening. The persona who shows up and speaks up in the discussion is formed by the poetics of the essential words that have been received. The discussion resounds with the poesy offered by the book, and improvisationally responds in kind, poetically practicing a philosophy that Socrates likened to making music.
ReplyDeleteBachelard declares “The word ‘soul’ is an immortal word…for it is a word born of our breath.”(PS, xvi) In a note he cites an entry from the 1828 Dictionnaire of Charles Nodier that says, “The different names for the soul, among nearly all peoples, are just so many breath variations, and onomatopoeic expressions of breathing.”(PS, xvi) As the students resound the poetics arriving with the presence of book, the discussion can be described as spirited, vibrant and vital. When the discussion is happening they are inspired, enlivened as a community by onomatopoeically resounding the enduring significance of the book. The dialogue is poetic, the discussion a performance of freedom, and through her conduct the teacher is a stand-in for the Muse inspired Socrates by telling him: “Make music, and work at it.”
The poetics of the discussion resound that thereby replay and remix the poetics of the reading. The learning community’s discussion is poetic, and “nothing” is produced. It is a repetition of the original writing, but not a repetition of the text that is shared in fragments, and remains illegible as a whole. Rather, it is a recitation in the sense of being a recitare, a reading out. The fragments are read aloud, and with that reading the poetics of the text resound. This is how the gathering and formative power of poesy arrives as the presence of the force of learning. Learning not schooling. To learn is to think poetically, inspired by the power of the book/text as if it were a work of art. “Forces are manifested in poems that do not pass through circuits of knowledge.”(PS, xvii)