31 20 5655 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/1518b0099d96d57cb27e3d54b500feb2.pdf eb9983ec30614b21b66ffc91bad662ab PDF Text Text !"#$%&'( )*+, !"#$ %&'()* St. John’s College • 60 College Ave, Annapolis, MD 21401 • Apr. 12, 2014 • Vol. XXXV • Issue 10 Croquet Day (The Remix) Croquet & Crumpets Meet the Teams First Foes What music ought to accompany your Croquet experience? Sophomore Will Brown has a few thoughts on fitting melodies. Senior Ian Tuttle dons his bowtie and raises his glass (and his pinky finger) to Croquet Day’s aristocratic inclinations. The Gadfly introduces the St. John’s College, Annapolis, 2014 Croquet Team and their challengers from the U.S. Naval Academy. Before Croquet and the Naval Academy, there was the gridiron and Johns Hopkins. We dig into St. John’s’ original rivalry. Page 04 Page 05 Pages 06-10 Page 12 Follow the Gadﬂy online at: �the gadfly !" The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the student newspaper distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadfly reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. Outgoing Staff Transition Staff Contributors Photographers Nathan Goldman • Editor-in-Chief Ian Tuttle • Editor-in-Chief Hayden Pendergrass • Layout Editor Sasha Welm • Cartoonist Caleb Bernard Will Brown Annemarie Catania John B. Ertle Jr. Michael Lacy Drew Menzer Pres. Christopher Nelson Sebastian Barajas • Editor-in-Chief Allison Tretina • Editor-in-Chief Noe Jimenez • Layout Editor Shayna Jenkins Julia Kulon !"##"$%&$'(%#)"%*+,#'$- ./01*012 D 34%.5/67*1% Pg. 2 • Letter from the Editors Pg. 3 • A Spectator’s Guide to the Rules of Croquet by Annemarie Catania Pg. 3 • Letter from President Nelson Pg. 4 • A Croquet Sonnet by Caleb Bernard Pg. 4 • The Sounds of Spring by Will Brown Pg. 4 • Croquet, Edited by Michael Lacy Pg. 5 • Croquet & Crumpets by Ian Tuttle 38%19*%1*:;2 Pg. 6 • The 2014 U.S. Naval Academy Croquet Team Pg. 9 • The 2014 St. John’s College Croquet Team 44%19*%./!!*<* Pg. 11 • In the Old Days by John B. Ertle Jr. Pg. 11 • A Croquet Haiku by Drew Menzer Pg. 12 • First Foes from the Gadfly archives ear Johnnies, Mids, Family, and Other Guests, Welcome, one and all, to the 32nd annual SJC vs. USNA Croquet Match! Our little college of 400-some students is for the most part a quiet, contemplative sort of place. But once a year, thousands storm our grounds for the one-of-a-kind celebration that is Croquet Weekend. St. John’s is, as we often say, a “talking college,” through and through. This is no less the case during Croquet—the volume of conversations just rises a few decibels. You hold in your hands the Croquet Issue of the Gadﬂy, the St. John’s student newspaper. Think of it as a complement to your otherwise reading-light Croquet experience. Herein you’ll ﬁnd history, pontiﬁcation, and plenty of plain, unadulterated (if somewhat self-effacingly pretentious) fun; we hope you’ll ﬁnd this issue’s pieces a pleasure to turn to in a moment of respite from the festivities. (It works to provide a bit of shade in the case of excessive sun, too.) As per tradition, in this issue you’ll ﬁnd alumna Annemarie Catania’s (A’97) reader-friendly primer to the rules of the sport, for those of us whose interests turn to croquet only once a year. In a letter penned for last year’s issue, President Nelson (SF’70) muses on the importance of both the St. John’s and Naval Academy styles of education for maintaining a free nation. Co-editor Ian Tuttle (A’14) picks up on this theme and considers the uniquely democratic aristocratic style of both manners of education—as well as the Sperry-loving town in which both schools reside. Like all great traditions, Croquet makes us consider our past as we revel in the present. Toward the issue’s end, we dip into St. John’s’ history with two pieces from the College’s past—one from a 1997 issue of the Gadﬂy, the other from the yearbook from 1932, before the introduction of the New Program—for a look at the history of croquet at St. John’s and the rivalry that preceded the one we gather to celebrate today. The issue contains, too, some more creative looks at the history of croquet: a croquet mixtape from Will Brown (A’16), a croquet haiku from former Imperial Wicket Drew Menzer (A’13), a croquet sonnet from Caleb Bernard (A’14), and, of course, our annual Q&A with both teams. We wish to thank our dedicated contibutors, outgoing layout guru Hayden Pendergrass (A’14), the immeasurably talented artist Sasha Welm (A’14), and next year’s enthusiastic, not-yet-jaded-anddefeated-like-us leadership: Sebastian Barajas, Allison Tretina, and Noe Jimenez. But seriously: it has been a pleasure and honor bringing you the Gadﬂy these past two years. We’re glad to be leaving it in good hands. Now, without any further ado—Go Johnnies! Beat Navy! Sincerely, Nathan Goldman Ian Tuttle Co-Editors, 2012-2014 �the gadfly !" !"#$%&'(')*+,"-./0% ')"'1%"2.3%,")4"5*)6.%' 13 15 14 11 10 9 12 8 Start & Finish 1 4 2 3 6 7 5 Illustration by Hayden Pendergrass tinuation gained by completion of the wicket shot. Scoring a wicket erases whatever effects the player may have incurred by hitting balls prior to by Annemarie Catania, A’97 going through it. Although hitting a ball has the s you sit in the sun, eating, drinking, and advantage of two continuation shots from that possibly burning, you may discuss the ball, it also means going dead on that ball. This game of croquet. In the midst of this com- means the ball struck cannot be hit again before munity picnic, your attention may turn to the the striking ball goes through another wicket. Lest the rules become too complicated for your game. Just in case this happens, you may be interrelaxing brain, take a sip of your drink of choice, ested in the rules of croquet. Today’s game is traditional American nine- sit back, and observe the deadness board. This wicket croquet, essentially following the rules of scoreboard of sorts keeps track of which balls have the United States Croquet Association. Each of the already been hit. Each ball has its own row with ﬁve matches consists of two Johnnies versus two three spaces that indicate which ball it is dead on. Middies. One team plays with the red and yellow At the beginning of the game, every ball is dead balls, and the other uses black and blue. The order on every other ball for the ﬁrst shot. Any contact between balls on this turn is incidental. After this of play follows the colors painted on the stakes. The point of the game is to hit both balls of one shot, every ball becomes live on every other ball. team through all the wickets, hitting one stake Through the course of a game, going through a in the middle of the game, and the other stake at wicket restores liveness. The deadness board asthe end. The pattern zig-zags through the center sists the memories of those enjoying too much of wickets and the wickets to the right of the direc- their drinks of choice. This much knowledge will suffice for following tion of play. As you watch, you may notice that some players most of the game. The basic strategy is to advance have very short turns. We hope that these turns one’s own ball and one’s partner’s ball through as happen more often for the Midshipmen, since we many wickets as possible while deterring the othhope to allow them no other option than to set up er team’s balls as much as possible. You may hear for their wickets. A long turn is more advanta- the players politely referring to messing with the geous. You may hear someone asking, “How long other team by taking them off their sets, using stop has this Johnnie been playing this turn?” This shots to shoot them away from their wickets, and question indicates that the St. John’s player has taking advantage of them with split shots. The most cruelty you will see in this most civibeen using every opportunity for continuation quite successfully, and probably also means that lized of croquet matches will be in blocking, or in staking out the rover. The ﬁrst of these is a simple the Johnnie player has run many wickets. Two types of shots result in continuation. One is defensive move. If a player’s opponent is dead on running a wicket (or scoring a wicket, as the USCA her ball, and the opponent is set up for his wicket, she may shoot her ball into a calls pushing one’s ball through place directly between his ball the metal structure). This re- Lest the rules become will obsults in one more shot. Although too complicated for your and the wicket. Thishe is able struct his shot unless going through the wicket is always the goal in mind, hitting relaxing brain, take a sip to execute a jump shot over her ball. a ball with one’s own ball may of your drink of choice, Staking out the rover is the be more immediately beneﬁcial, since this type of shot results in sit back, and observe the most detrimental type of play, and occurs in the end game. two continuation shots. deadness board. When a ball has completed all Our friends from town may ask you about these two shots. As an articulate lib- the wickets and has not yet hit the ﬁnal stake, it is eral arts student, you will provide them with the called a rover. An opponent has the opportunity to terminology for these turns, which even the play- hit that ball into the stake on a croquet shot. The ers do not bother to remember. The proper name staked-out ball must sit out for two turns, and hit for hitting another ball is “roquet.” (You may say, the stake at the other end of the ﬁeld before coming “She has roqueted the ball.”) Upon hitting anoth- back into play. A rover still in play may go through er ball, the striking ball becomes cloaked, which wickets in any direction to gain continuation as means whatever happens to it before it stops roll- long as it is dead on two balls (or two-ball dead). ing is incidental and does not count. Impress your After going through a wicket, the rover remains friends by telling them that it does not exist. The temporarily dead on the ball it last hit before going official USCA term for this is a ball in hand. The through the wicket until it hits another ball. Have a ﬁne time sunning yourself, eating, and player places the ball in hand next to the roqueted ball and shoots. This is called the croquet shot. drinking. Wander off to chat with friends and strangers. If you ﬁnd yourself with further quesThe second shot is called continuation. Continuation is not cumulative. This means that tions on more complicated strategy or minor rules, a ball that runs a wicket on a croquet shot does not ask someone who often plays croquet to expound receive that continuation in addition to the con- on the game’s intricacies. ! [Editor’s Note: This article is reprinted with minor edits from a ’90s-era Croquet Issue of the Gadfly.] A 7%(*"8)3/'9" :%;<%*,= T he battle for honor and glory we are about to witness between two great institutions, testing their friendship on the playing ﬁelds of our front campus, is a test of the strength and endurance of a liberal education—for whichever side should claim victory today. Both of our institutions are dedicated to the principles of freedom—to the arts of liberty. This commitment to liberty, to freedom of speech and action, is what undergirds our nation. And it is our national duty to assure that each generation of citizens is well educated in the arts of freedom to protect them from attack and from atrophy. It ought to be the ﬁrst concern of our schools, from pre-kindergarten through college, that our young acquire the freedom to make intelligent choices concerning the ends and means of both their public and private lives. This requires the cultivation and practice of the art of reason and understanding and discipline in analysis, argument, and interpretation, so that they may be free from the tyrannies of unexamined opinions, current fashions, and inherited prejudices. Our nation was founded on the idea that good government is grounded in its citizens’ intellectual freedom; our strength depends upon this idea. Our economy is grounded in the notion of free enterprise; the freedom we have to test our ideas against the needs and demands of the community has helped build the prosperity we have enjoyed as a society. This too depends upon the intellectual freedom of our citizens. And so it is with our social order and moral character. For the sake of our country, then, we need our citizens to have two kinds of education that are in a very healthy tension with one another: (1) an education in the political and intellectual foundations, including the economic, scientiﬁc and social traditions and principles that have shaped our nation, and (2) an education in the arts needed to question and examine those very foundations and traditions in the light of reason, so that we may keep them vibrant and alive, and so that we may redeﬁne and improve on them when we discover we have good cause. These are called the arts of freedom because they are grounded in the kind of free inquiry that helps us understand our world better and inspires in us a sense of wonder and longing to learn more. We have given serious attention to questioning and understanding these concerns at St. John’s. And the Naval Academy has given its attention to educating our ﬂeet of midshipmen to defend them. Both of our schools are needed to make for a free nation! Whoever wins this match between our schools will win in the name of an education devoted to freedom. So, then, as the outcome will weigh equally with respect to the state of our nation, the victory should go to the team that demonstrates its superiority in strategic engagement. Let the victory then belong to our Johnnies! Five Games to None!! All Honor and Glory Are Due! Chris Nelson (SF’70) President �the gadfly -.&) #%0+1) 2) 3",04 / #/ by Will Brown, Staff Writer, A’16 When the editors asked me to write an article for this year’s Croquet issue, I was simply out of ideas. Part of this was due to my post-annual essay writer’s block, but the event itself also deserved blame—I never learned how to play croquet, and I didn’t remember much of anything from last year, so I was a bit of an outsider when it came to SJC’s biggest weekend. But with enough dedication, intelligence, and good taste, I managed to come up with the best croquet mixtape of all time. Below are some selections you simply can’t do without this weekend, much like ostentatious parasols and bowties: really has nothing to do with it. Let’s hope our Imperial Wicket rises to the occasion this year, with or without violence. As Machiavelli once said, “Rarely do men know how to be altogether wicked or altogether good; ya best protect your neck.” You’re welcome. ! Song: “Tubthumping” Artist: Chumbawamba Song: “Happy” Artist: Pharrell Williams Much like a croquet game, this song goes on too long. Best played for over fourteen hours at a time. Too drunk and falling asleep at your own party? Kick people out with this! Also, I’ve never done that. Nickelback’s had a bad rap lately, but I ﬁnd that they really pump me up for some primetime croquet action. Which makes sense, when you think about it: just about every Nickelback concert-goer remembers to bring a blanket, snacks, and a top hat. That said, I hear Chad Kroeger graduated from the Naval Academy. Song: “Wonderwall” Artist: Oasis This is my favorite song ever made. People forget this, but the annual croquet game is about defeating our enemy; sportsmanship !"#$%&'()*+,'&+ I !"#$!%&'#()#!%*&+!,-#.!/0&$+!&'1 ,#),/$2#3#,%#!"4,+!56-7#8'!/9: .!$;#,#)&4&+1#.;!'0&71#,"<# # 4!/0'#;,$#$+!/01 !#'5))&+#)+(%#-&%("7='"!/0&$+!&': !#>(#$(#'-&5$;#(5$#6+!'0&$#%7'$&+!&'1 65$#%7#$&,/5*=+!<&#<!??!"&''# # !'#@5!/01 ,"<#,#%,--&$#-((0'#-!0&#,# # .,-0!">#'$!/01 ,"<#3#A5'$#.,"$#(5$#()#%7#%!'&+!&': “What form becomes a man after this gate, The ﬁnal wicket cross’d, he must be chang’d, If naught is life beyond the ending stroke, He must stake out to never again move, Or else as ghost he hauntingly does rove.” Song: “Protect Ya Neck” Artist: Wu-Tang Clan was assigned to write a piece for this issue about the History of Croquet. I fully planned to subvert this assignment and turn it into a ﬁctional romp through history. I would brashly exaggerate Croquet’s importance and make it seem like Croquet is an ancient mythological game that has descended to us from the wiser and brighter days of antiquity. Then I realized: it is! I happened to have heard rumor, and some quick research conﬁrmed this, that many of the authors we read here at St. John’s have mentioned Croquet in books we read. Or, actually, they almost mentioned it. Croquet has had the unfortunate fate of not making the ﬁnal draft of more than a few Great Books. In Homer’s famous epic, the Iliad, there is a lengthy passage describing the funeral games of Achilles’ [friend] Patroclus. The ﬁnal version of the by Caleb Bernard, ‘14 Hamlet’s 1599 premiere at the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare had a change of heart and switched Laertes and Hamlet’s fateful Croquet match to a fencing duel. Historians suspect he did this because of Queen Elizabeth’s recent loss at Croquet to the King of the Scots, James VI (who would later succeed her as James I, King of England). Shakespeare was advised by fellow playwright Ben Jonson to rework his ﬁnal act in light of Elizabeth’s loss (that had brought much domestic shame), because it was, in his opinion: “Too soon.” One can notice the last minute patch-work when reading Act V of the play—a fault remedied by Hamlet’s original monologue before the match. The following selection really ties the whole play together using Shakespeare’s incomparable use of imagery to reveal his thematic intents. Song: “How You Remind Me” Artist: Nickelback [Ed. Note: This article from the Gadfly archives is reprinted with minor edits.] 5)!"#$%&')/#00&' 65$#$;&"#'(%&6(<7#',7'1# # B'!$#<(."#,"<#$+7 ,#'-!/&#()#$;!'#)+&';-7#%,<&# # *&/,"#*!&CD 8(+#.;,$&4&+#EF!"'#$;!'# # *&+'("#*!/0'9 ,"<#.&#<+!"0#,"#,">+7#(+/;,+<# # (+#'!F: '(1#,-$;(5>;#3#0"(.#"($;!"># # ()#/+(@5&$1 !#%5'$#/("/-5<&#$;,$#!$G'#*+&$$7#(0,7: This song is a great pick-me-up around 4 PM, when no one can really tell if the game’s still going on and someone deﬁnitely puked on the Coffee Shop stairs. Plus, it’s practically begging to be ad-libbed! “I get knocked down/ but I get up croquet/ you’re never gonna keep me down.” by Michael Lacy, Contributor, A’12 !" funeral games features only violent sports, such as chariot racing and wrestling, all for the sake of glory and winning tripods (which is weird, because they didn’t even have cameras). Here is a passage that didn’t make it past Homer’s editor, but if it did, the funeral games chapter might actually be interesting to readers who aren’t meat-heads. This translation is by Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky: An oriole ﬂew o’er the Croquet pitch, While Agamemnon lined his roquet shot, And banish’d Achilles’ wine-dark ball to Just beside the yard line rim. He who fought Ten-thousand men began a sobbing cry, But claim’d the tears were caus’d by pollen in his eyes. There is no trace of this Croquet match in the extant Iliad, but the sequence is featured as a deleted scene on the DVD of the movie Troy. Another author at one time considered having a Croquet match in his opus, but the night before Croquet, being the thinking man’s sport, has drawn the attention of even the least athletic. Though he was so fat that he needed a hole to be cut in his monastery’s dinner table so that he could ﬁt, St. Thomas of Aquinas did love a good Croquet match. After his ham sandwich-related death in 1274, his personal affects were searched for unpublished works. This fragment of a theological Article was found in his desk drawer, obscured beneath Toblerone and Twix wrappers. All content beyond the ﬁrst objection is smeared with caramel beyond the point of readability. Here is what remains: Summa Sportologica Question 92 Article 3: Whether the red ball of Croquet represents the blood sacriﬁce of Christ Jesus? “Objection 1: It seems the red ball of Croquet does represent the blood sacriﬁce of Christ Jesus, because the ball is red, and blood is red, and Christ Jesus gave his blood as satisfaction for the sins of man.” No one knows what else Aquinas, or any other authors read here at St. John’s, thought about Croquet. But it sure doesn’t hurt looking into it! For as Plato says, “The unexamined sport is not worth playing.” ! �the gadfly !" A Concise History of Croquet An Anachronistic Account of Croquet through the Program The Ancients by Hayden Pendergrass, Layout Editor, A’14 '""$%& Socrates explores croquet’s virtues. He calls it a sophist’s game. !"#$%&'( )(!"%*+&', The Middle Ages !(,#$*+ Thomas Aquinas’ rotundity makes it impossible for him to play croquet. He writes the Summa instead. !')-$*+ Geoffrey Chaucer travels to Canterbury to the shrine of Thomas à Becket with a 29-person croquet team. The Rennaissance & Reformation B eing an ancient town—by American standards, cucumber sandwiches on the water. That’s an Old at least—and the place where so many old (now World inclination—translation: an aristocratic one. dead) white men congregated to discuss matIt’s a Sperry town. ters both concrete and abstruse, Annapolis is a not Which brings us to Croquet Day. Croquet Day is inappropriate place for a school devoted to reading the pinnacle of Annapolis’s aristocratic proclivities. old (now dead) white men. Annapolis is what, in a Croquet Day features parasols; it is (unironically) slightly earlier age, we might have called WASPy— called the start of Annapolis’s spring “social season”; which, being a WASP myself (and, by my compeers’ for God’s sake, we play croquet, which, on a scale reckoning, also an old man), has always made return- from monster truck rallies to Downton Abbey, is just ing here a bit of a homecoming. one rung down from foxhunting. Each year, come Where I grew up, in South Texas, everything is new. mid-April, I suffer a nearly irresistible impulse to When Zach Taylor rolled through with his merry wear pastel shorts. My pinky finger starts to elevate band of American conquistadors, bringing with them of its own accord. Then again, I never was much one several brothels-worth of pleasurable company, my for boots and chaps, so Croquet Day is the occasion town consisted of a hitching post. By the time he for my Anne Boleyn-pale, High Church Episcopalian broke camp to push southward into Mexico, it had WASPiness to reach full bloom. The only thing missbeen transformed into an abuning is a powdered wig. dantly supplied den of iniquity. The whole thing is, in its way, On a scale from monThe Southwest has retained deliciously elitist (if in a harmless, ster truck rallies to something of that transient, mafinger cheeses-and-Bordeaux kind rauding quality—Indians and gun- Downton Abbey, croof way). But perhaps what makes slingers and get rich or die tryin’; Croquet Day in Annapolis so classy quet is just one rung Annapolis, by contrast, is about as is not its evocation of class, but its rough-and-tumble as silk pyjamas down from foxhunting. rebuke to it. Such an attitude is, as [yes, sic]. Another not entirely unit happens, manifest in the event’s fair way to put it: a sort of rogue democracy took hold two participating schools. On one side of King George in the Southwest; not too far (in Texas miles) from Street, St. John’s College offers an education that where I grew up, Judge Roy Bean held court in his claims to make free men and women from children riverside saloon. By contrast, horse thieves in Anne by acquainting them with history’s greatest thinkers. Arundel County have, I imagine, always been few and Johnnies will tell you that their school is not a place far between. for everyone—but the education can be. It is prediThe East Coast, particularly our little dollop of it, cated on nothing else than the humility to say, with inherited a touch of Old Country aristocracy (think Socrates, “All I know is that I know nothing,” and to Charles Carroll, resident Annapolitan, signatory to proceed from there. On the other side of King George the Declaration of Independence, wheezing bit role in Street, the United States Naval Academy offers anthe opening scene of the first National Treasure film). other type of elite education—one not predicated on That aristocracy remains; it has just been transmuted wealth or connections, but on the desire to serve. The into yuppie posh (think of the rise of the name “Admen and women who receive their commissions do dison,” the popularity of which, coincidentally, inso non sibi sed patriae—“not for self, but for country.” creased sevenfold shortly after ABC’s hit show Grey’s It is a very peculiar sort of aristocracy that each of Anatomy introduced Kate Walsh’s character, “Addison these campuses creates—aristocracies not of style, Forbes Montgomery”; if you needed proof that the but of spirit, less concerned with comfort than with name has reached peak saturation, it is even the name character. And insofar as joining that class is not deof an especially friendly poodle that makes regular pendent on one’s yacht club membership or summer visits to the dog park down Charles Street). vacation destination, but on a desire to learn and a But I cannot complain about any of this, because I willingness to serve, none are precluded. wear Sperries. So if once a year the campuses convene a chamThe Sperries (plural for the brand Sperry, which pagne-soaked lawn party and play the only game supplies boat shoes, deck shoes, and other fine nautiless interesting to watch than chess, it is to remind cal gear; for more information, cf. totalfratmove.com) everyone that what is happening on these couple of are an important point. I suspect that Annapolis has blocks is really kind of special—and that everyone is the greatest population of Sperries-per-capita in the welcome to partake. If America has an aristocratic contiguous United States—because, of course, Animpulse, it is of just this democratic sort. napolis is a yachting town, that is, a leisurely town, That it gives me an excuse to wear seersucker is just that is, a town with a disposition toward ascots and an added plus. ! '")$*+ Augustine of Hippo disparages the Manicheans for playing too much croquet. !.'/$*+ Jean Calvin outlines in the Institutes that all those predestined for salvation have to learn croquet. The Enlightenment by Ian Tuttle, Co-Editor, A’14 ()$*+ Jesus plays croquet for 40 days and 40 nights against Satan. He wins. !,'"$*+ When philosophical speculation becomes too depressing, David Hume comforts himself by playing croquet with friends. !.)-$*+ Suffering from a kidney stone, Michel de Montaigne painfully swears that it must be the size of a croquet ball. !,),$*+ Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Croquet, states that the croquet ball travels “independently of all experience.” No one understands what that means. The Moderns On Croquet Day’s aristocratic inclinations. !!"#$%& Greek ships land on the shores of Troy. A ten-year croquet match ensues. !)""$*+ After years of psychological study, Sigmund Freud determines, “sometimes a croquet mallet is just a croquet mallet.” �GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY Ryan Lluy (IW) Dan Jacquier Brian Holloway David Murtha Samantha Brennan Hunter Craig Ash Davis Eric Bermudez • I play croquet...to prepare for the intense competition after I retire. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for…prowess on the battleﬁeld. • If I could, I would time-travel to…this day last year. • Every night before bed I…tuck in Zach Davis. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…my collection of Avril Lavigne. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…Andy Carp’s Hot Fries. • My ﬁctional alter ego is…El Shaddai. • I would rather swim with sharks than…narwhals. • When I’m not playing croquet, I am ...staring at Hunter Craig’s Biceps. • St. John’s College is...our true rival in sports. • I play croquet...to get famous. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for...being bad at croquet. • If I could, I would time-travel to... April 12, 2014, and steal all the good interview answers. • Every night before bed I...take out my dentures. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...what’s an iPod? • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...Bitcoin. • My ﬁctional alter ego is...more popular than me. • I would rather swim with sharks than...drown with them. • When I’m not playing croquet, I am... enjoying one of the other 364 days of the year. • St. John’s College is...in New Mexico. • I play croquet...because of Title IX. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for…sass. • If I could, I would time-travel to...the last time I ate pizza, so that I can eat more pizza. • Every night before bed I…wish the Academy would just give Leo the Oscar already. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…“Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)” by Aaron Carter. • My ﬁctional alter ego is…Cadet Kelly. • I would rather swim with sharks than…see another movie with Kristen Stewart. • When I’m not playing croquet, I am... trying to ﬁnd out if there is more to life than being really, really, really ridiculously good-looking. • St. John’s College is…a center for ants. • I play croquet...because what else is there to do at USNA? • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for...catching them all. • If I could, I would time-travel to... spring break would be nice. • Every night before bed I...give myself a motivational speech • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...“Toxic” by Britney Spears. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...Apple. • My ﬁctional alter ego is...my own larger-than-life ego. • I would rather swim with sharks than...swim with the ﬁshes—I’m too young to die! • When I’m not playing croquet, I am.... there’s nothing else. It’s all I do. • St. John’s College is...going down again. • I play croquet...for the cardio. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for...nothing. • If I could, I would time-travel to...May 23, 2014. • Every night before bed I...brush my teeth. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...probably something by Shakira. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...Nano’s. • My ﬁctional alter ego is...better than me at croquet. • I would rather swim with sharks than...be company commander again. • When I’m not playing croquet, I am... doing other things that aren’t a complete waste of time. • St. John’s College is...mad chill, bro. • I play croquet...for a good workout. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for…being the toughest 28th company xo. • If I could, I would time-travel to…the roaring 20’s. • Every night before bed I…brush my teeth. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...I only use Pandora. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…Pop Tarts. • My ﬁctional alter ego is…Woody (from Toy Story). • I would rather swim with sharks than…touch a snake. • When I’m not playing croquet, I am… taking naps. • St. John’s College is…uh...hippies. • I play croquet...to prove that I can swing my hammer. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for...being in the movie High School Musical. • If I could, I would time-travel to...the moon. • Every night before bed I...tuck in Ryan Lluy. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...“On the Floor” by IceJJFish. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...Meow Mix. • My ﬁctional alter ego is...I am IceJJFish. • I would rather swim with sharks than...nothing; I actually would be stoked to swim with sharks. • When I’m not playing croquet, I am.... shreddin’ the Gnar Gnar pow. • St. John’s College is...a college? • I play croquet...for the endorsement deals and intramural exemption. • If I could, I would time-travel to...the pre-production days of Gravity to prevent George Clooney from agreeing to be in that movie, saving him the embarrassment and reclaiming two hours of my life. • Every night before bed I...play an unhealthy amount of Candy Crush. Level 361 and climbing. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...the White Chicks version of “1000 Miles.” • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...not El Toro Bravo; their service is horrendous. • My ﬁctional alter ego is...a mix: Frank Underwood meets Morgan Freeman. • When I’m not playing croquet, I am... always playing croquet #thetruth #ripPaulPierce #BostonStrong GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY �GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY Michael Klunder Zachary Gates Mario Kohn • I play croquet...on occasion. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for…nothing. • If I could, I would time-travel to…Jimmy’s glory days. • Every night before bed I…untuck myself and tuck in Hunter Craig. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…“Baby” by J. Biebs. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…Fancy Feast. • My ﬁctional alter ego is…the abominable snowman. • I would rather swim with sharks than…sharks with lasers. • When I’m not playing croquet, I…admire Hunter’s muscles. • St. John’s College is...near the Naval Academy. • I play croquet...because it is a company tradition, one I want to be apart of. Also the chance to beat up on the Johnnies. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for...being a soulless ginger. • If I could, I would time-travel to...the days of cowboys, or to Sparta, with enough time to be a part of the Battle of Thermopylae. • Every night before bed I...thank God for gifting me another day that I had the privilege of living. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...Dockers. • My ﬁctional alter ego is...living in the future with my better half. • I would rather swim with sharks than...swim with sunﬁsh. • St. John’s College is...a special place for the artists in us all. Timothy Kerner • I play croquet...because it’s the only way to satisfy the demons that keep me awake for failing as a lacrosse manager. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for…the man van. • If I could, I would time-travel to…time travel is impossible, therefore this question is irrelevant. • Every night before bed I…read Star Wars. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…none. 80’s rock isn’t embarrassing. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…A&D, original diaper rash ointment, to combat chaffing. • I would rather swim with sharks than…eat vegetables. • St. John’s College is…the place I dreamed of playing croquet as a child, but they didn’t recruit me. • I play croquet...because croquet is life. • If I could, I would time-travel to...Robin Thicke’s place in his performance with Miley Cyrus. • Every night before bed I...thank God for everything he has blessed me with. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is... “Tearin’ up my Heart” by NSYNC. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...Jazzercise. • My ﬁctional alter ego i... Luigi. • I would rather swim with sharks than...go to El Toro Bravo. • When I’m not playing croquet, I am... thinking about playing croquet. • St. John’s College is...our very friendly competition, and the USNA Croquet team will strive to win the 2014 match against them. Bryce McMurrey • I play croque...for the intense nonstop action. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for...afternoon naps. • If I could, I would time-travel to...the future. • Every night before bed I...stare into the mirror and recite John Glenn’s Speech • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...“My Jeans.” • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...Frosted Flakes, because they are not just good. They’re great. • My ﬁctional alter ego is...Geri. • I would rather swim with sharks than...go to St. John’s College • When I’m not playing croquet, I...like to go on long walks on the beach. • St. John’s College is...the second best college in Annapolis. • I play croquet...because I’m rich, why else?? • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for...I don’t know what to choose! Socially, this place is like high school on steroids. • If I could, I would time-travel to...a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. . . . • Every night before bed I...look at pictures of back home in Montana on my enV3 and cry myself to sleep. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...“When I Grow Up” by the Pussycat Dolls. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be... Taco John’s... • My fictional alter ego is...Ron Swanson, the ultimate libertarian who also works for the government. I can’t claim to be as badass as he is, though. • St. John’s College is...where I should have gone to college. Henry Kinkaid Colten Southworth • I play croquet...#fact. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for…falling out of bed twice in one weekend. • If I could, I would time-travel to…Europe. • Every night before bed I…think about how much better off we are when Patrick McDonough isn’t around. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…“Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls.” • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...the St. John’s croquet team. • I would rather swim with sharks than…drown with sharks. • When I’m not playing croquet, I…sing “Bohemian Rhapsody” on loop. • St. John’s College is…going to be annexed by the Naval Academy. • I play croquet...to pick up hot girls. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for…my croquet jump shot. • If I could, I would time-travel to…the eighth grade. • Every night before bed I...eat a jar of peanut butter. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…“I Love You Always Forever” by Donna Lewis. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…Taco Bell. • My ﬁctional alter ego is…the red power ranger. • I would rather swim with sharks than…miss breakfast. • When I’m not playing croquet, I…play polo or enjoy some delicious tea and crumpets. • St. John’s College is…where I hope my kids go to school. GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY Zachary Davis �David Thompson • I play croquet…AND racquetball. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for…my esteemed reputation as an Armani model. • If I could, I would time-travel to…Ancient Ireland, where gingers were actually taken seriously. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…everything except Lady Gaga. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...Lorna Doones. • My ﬁctional alter ego is…da, da, da, DA GRINCH!!! • I would rather swim with sharks than…have Daniel Kinnamon on my ultimate frisbee team. • When I’m not playing croquet, I…lift really heavy stuff. • St. John’s College is…hot and dangerous. Samuel Womack • I play croquet...to defend the noble cup. • I’m infamous at the Naval Academy for...chilling a little bit too hard. • If I could, I would time travel to...the 1950’s (that’s swell!). • Every night before bed I...refer to Big Red Ed for important life decisions. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...Selena Gomez’s “Naturally.” • If I had a corporate sponsor it would be...Sam’s Club. • My ﬁctional alter ego is...the Crimson Chin. • I would rather swim with sharks than...take another darn math class! • When I am not playing croquet I am... ﬁguring out croquet. • St. John’s College...was my ﬁrst choice for attending college. Samuel Warne • I play croquet...because I wanted a cool new sweater. • I’m famous (or infamous) at the Naval Academy for…serving proudly as a head restrictee. • If I could, I would time-travel to…the past. • Every night before bed I…watch a documentary. How else do you think I have become so knowledgeable? • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…you mean my Zune? • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…Coca-Cola. • I would rather swim with sharks than…be near a snake • When I’m not playing croquet, I…am doing something else. • St. John’s College is…right down the road. Catherine Cortesio GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY !"!"!#$%"&'()*" +'#,,($-(*.!"!"! GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY • GO NAVY �Samuel Collins (Imperial Wicket) Hayden Pendergrass Hector Mendoza • I play croquet. • I’m famous (or infamous) at St. John’s College for.. that thing that I’m legally not allowed to discuss. • If I could, I would time-travel to...1900, when the Olympics had croquet. #frenchmedalsweep • Every night before bed I...put my pants on just like everyone else, one leg at a time. But then I make gold records. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...I love my music. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...my mom. #thanksforthecoffeeshopnuggets • My ﬁctional alter ego is...Lyndon Johnson (Jenny Shumpert). • I would rather swim with sharks than...wear pants with my jumpsuit. ;0) • When I’m not playing croquet, I am...the remix to ignition, hot and fresh out the kitchen. • The Naval Academy is...rollin’ that body, got every man in here wishin’. ;0) • I play croquet...por las chicas. • I play croquet...for the glory and honor it brings to St. John’s College. • I’m infamous at St. John’s College for...my incessant punning. People think I try too hard, but most of my jokes are pun-intentional. • If I could, I would time-travel to...the moment before I entered the time machine. I don’t want to have to kill myself in some sort of space-time rendering paradox. On second thought, that might be kind of cool. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…I’m going to stop you right there for a second. Who has an iPod anymore? • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...the guys who make Big Hunk candy bars. You know what they say: You are what you eat. • My ﬁctional alter ego is...Dr. “Bones” McCoy from Star Trek. • I would rather swim with sharks than...swim with sharks with lasers strapped to their heads. Are all the questions this easy? • When I’m not playing croquet, I am...working on my line of croquet-inspired cologne, edible croquet sets, and croquet-themed bedding. It’s just not enough to play croquet; I want to breath, eat, and sleep croquet. • The Naval Academy is...the current holder of the Annapolis Cup. Who let that happen? Ethan Goddard • I play croquet...for the irony. • I’m famous (or infamous) at St. John’s College for… my cheery disposition. • If I could, I would time-travel to…New York next weekend. • Every night before bed I…smoke cigarettes. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…“Falling of the Rain,” Billy Joel. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…Russian River Brewing Company. • My ﬁctional alter ego is…Moriarty. • I would rather swim with sharks than…not swim with sharks. • When I’m not playing croquet, I…smoke cigarettes. • The Naval Academy is…across the street. • I’m famous (or infamous) at St. John’s College for... being well-dressed and implementing the term “turn up.” • If I could, I would time-travel to...Ancient Greece and play a game of one-on-one basketball with Aristotle. • Every night before bed...I check Instagram. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...a remix of one of Sam Collins’s voicemails I made when I was bored. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...the Illuminati. • My ﬁctional alter ego is...Odysseus, because, like him, people are always trying to ﬁnd me slipping, but we’re too quick for the haters. • I would rather swim with sharks than...wear bootcut jeans. • When I’m not playing croquet, I am...working on my jump shot. • The Naval Academy is...going to wake up the day after the game, log into their Facebook accounts, and look at pictures of St. John’s students celebrating with the Annapolis Cup. Payback. Mandee Glasgo Stephanie Hurn • I play croquet...for the exercise. • I play croquet...because I wanted to get involved with something uniquely St. John’s. • I’m famous at St. John’s College for...rocking the jumpsuit. • If I could, I would time-travel to...the battle of Thermopylae. #TrueSpartan • Every night before bed I...throw a trillion pillows off my bed. • The most embarrassing playlist on my iPod is...the Disney Pandora station. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...WilliamsSonoma. • I’m famous (or infamous) at St. John’s College for… I am but a mere freshman. I have not yet won any fame or infamy. • Every night before bed I…read, do homework, but most likely eat. No shame in a midnight snack. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is… while I do not consider it a particularly embarrassing song, “Never” by Moving Pictures always wants to make me dance-punch out my emotions. • My ﬁctional alter ego i... the Mandarsmash. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…Mars, Inc. I could always go for free food. • I would rather swim with sharks than...go skydiving, but can’t wait to do both! • My ﬁctional alter ego is…not ﬁctional. It’s Beyoncé. • When I’m not playing croquet...trick question? • The Naval Academ is...much younger than St. John’s. You have to let the underdog win every once in a while, right? • I would rather swim with sharks than…eat a shark. • When I’m not playing croquet, I…don’t play croquet. I play the other whitest sport in the world: badminton. • The Naval Academy is… going to lose. �Jack Whitman Joe Gillespie-Hill Stefan Vasic • I play croquet…because it’s mandatory. I’m on an athletic scholarship. • I play croquet...because it’s very difficult for me to make friends outside of structured clubs or organizations. Also for the great core workout. • I play croquet...for the unprecedented career opportunities it gives me after college. • I’m famous (or infamous) at St. John’s College for... Do you know who I am? I don’t know how to put this, but I’m kind of a big deal. People know me. • If I could, I would time-travel to…Easy: 1939, kill Hitler. BOOM! Famous. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...“Versace” by Migos. It’s embarrassing that it isn’t considered the deﬁning song of our generation. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…Kenny Rogers. The Gambler has been a tremendous inspiration for me, and I think we could do great work together. I can already see the copy: “When I’m with that special someone...I need to know when to hold ’em,” a cologne by Jack Whitman and Kenny Rogers. • My ﬁctional alter ego is…some combination of Maverick from Top Gun and back-up quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. I’ll let the ladies think on that one for a sec. • I would rather swim with sharks than…read John Calvin again. • When I’m not playing croquet, I…drive a dump truck of industrial paper waste. More of a job than a hobby, really. • The Naval Academy is…my benevolent employer. • I’m famous (or infamous) at St. John’s College for… always being such a nice guy. • If I could, I would time-travel to…the year 2000. So I could beat the snot out of Hans Sorkanski, a big lump of a Pole widely regarded as the toughest kid on the block. • Every night before bed I…give a goodnight kiss to each of my three German Shepherds: Roger, Jameson, and Frankie Muniz. • I’m famous (or infamous) at St. John’s College for... being that kid who looks like Jack Whitman. • If I could, I would time-travel to...the day when the video for Avril Lavigne’s smash hit “Sk8r Boi” was being ﬁlmed in an attempt to be in said video. • Every night before bed I...whisper insults to my roommate quietly enough so he can’t hear me. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is...a rendition of “Beat it” by Michael Jackson and “Eat it” by Alfred Matthew Yankovich where both songs are being played at the same time. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…American Red Cross. I know they don’t have a lot of capital to • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be...Tampax. throw around, but I’ve thrown them a bone or two over the years. Plus, I’ve got veins a blind man could • My ﬁctional alter ego is...Richard Swinger, the intersee. Those nurses are in and out every time I donate. pretive/swing dance prodigy. • My ﬁctional alter ego is…Dyan Cannon. If you don’t • I would rather swim with sharks than...face off against a Midshipman in an interpretive dance know her, trust me: she’s got a shape to her. competition. • I would rather swim with sharks than…listen to the • When I’m not playing croquet, I am...trying and failnew Beyoncé album. I know, I’m such a hater. ing to communicate with various wildlife through • When I’m not playing croquet, I…work on my Kevin speech and interpretive dance. Spacey impression. • The Naval Academy is...where boats go to receive • The Naval Academy is…the well-known and widelya good education, while having some wholesome respected undergraduate college of our country’s fun—and to do some interpretive dance, if time alnaval service. lows. Dylan Tyler Matthew Denci Catherine Moon • I play croquet…for Pope Francis. • I play croquet...cause if you ain’t playin’ to win, you must be playin’ to lose. • I play croquet...for the wickets. • I’m famous (or infamous) at St. John’s College for... playing croquet for Pope Francis. • If I could, I would time-travel to…playing croquet for Pope Francis. • Every night before bed I…play croquet for Pope Francis. • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…Juicy J’s “Bandz”…Sorry, Your Holiness... • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…the Holy Roman Catholic Church. • My ﬁctional alter ego is…Pope Francis. • I would rather swim with sharks than…not play croquet for Pope Francis. • When I’m not playing croquet, I…play croquet for Pope Francis. • The Naval Academy is…jealous of me playing croquet for Pope Francis. • I’m famous (or infamous) at St. John’s College for… The Imperial Wicket has told me not to speak about that time. • I’m famous (or infamous) at St. John’s College for… being, quintessentially, a Hell Bitch. • Every night before bed I…Sorry, I don’t kiss and tell. • If I could, I would time-travel to…the height of the Roman Republic. #greatestgeneration #odietamo #mostlyamo • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…T-Swift, baby!! #NOSHAME • Every night before bed I…watch How I Met Your Mother. • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…a small, boutique knife-making store. They are going back to the roots of the profession, and you probably haven’t heard of them… • The most embarrassing song on my iPod is…“Ice Ice Baby.” What can I say? He’s a lyrical poet. • I would rather swim with sharks than…share the gin. • When I’m not playing croquet, I…DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE, I DRINK IT UP!! • The Naval Academy is…made of Building (courtesy of Ambrose). • If I had a corporate sponsor, it would be…Starbucks. • My ﬁctional alter ego is…Snow White. • I would rather swim with sharks than…never again go ball in hand. • When I’m not playing croquet, I am…I’m always playing croquet. • The Naval Academy is…Carthage. Delenda est. �the gadfly !! !"#$%&$%!#'%()*+%),%$"+%-./%0#1' [Ed. Note: The following article originally appeared in the 1997 Croquet Gadfly. T by John B. Ertle Jr., A’84 he editor of the Gadﬂy has asked me to write a few words and share some memories of the croquet matches with you, and I am honored to have the opportunity. By way of introduction, let me tell you that, by an official act of the 1984 Student Polity, I have been given the title Imperial Wicket Emeritus, following our dramatic victory at the 1984 match. (I peeled one of our balls through the last wicket and into the stake to end the match. The Middie whose turn was next needed only to hit the stake to win, and he was about ﬁve feet away from it on the boundary line.) I need to correct one mistake that has appeared over the years: I was not the ﬁrst Imperial Wicket. The Croquet Club was actually chartered as the Lawn Tennis, Croquet, and Archery Club by several members of the Class of 1981. (To the best of my knowledge, there was never any lawn tennis or archery equipment.) The founders included John Schiavo (the ﬁrst Imperial Wicket as we know it), Noel Blyler, David Nau, Matt Hartzell, Evan Canter, and Tim Ficco. Buffy Bowser, Marion Sharp, and the O’Malley sisters, Anne and Kate, were also involved, and the Croquet Club has always had a fair number of women members. I succeeded to the title following John Schiavo’s graduation in 1982 under the divine right of succession afforded to Imperial Wickets. Each Imperial Wicket has had absolute authority to handpick his successor. I played in the ﬁrst two matches against the Naval Academy, in 1983 and 1984. With the exception of 1992, I have come back every year for the matches. I don’t think any of us who were involved in creating this thing h a d a n y idea how successful and how wonderful it would become. It started as a lark and is now 15 years old and going strong. That is not to say that I think everything is ﬁne. I think “no drinking” rules, by which participants are forbidden to imbibe until they are through playing their matches, is a complete violation of all that we hold sacred and holy. Seriously, though, the purpose of the croquet match is to create social contact between individuals from two seemingly opposite institutions. Some years there has been too much of an emphasis on winning, which has impeded the social aspects of the game. I also have some nostalgia for the earlier games. We originally played with “backyard” sets, rather than the “tournament” sets currently used. It’s something of a personal preference with regard to comfort level—but, then, I also prefer a car with a stick shift. For the ﬁrst matches, I wrote up rules that we used (based on local rules), some of which varied from the official United I don’t think any of us who States Croquet Association rules that have since been adopted. However, were involved in creating seeing as the record stands at 11-3 in this thing had any idea our favor, I guess we don’t really need to invite the Middies over to come how successful and how wonderful it would beplay by our rules. On the subject of the match’s ori- come. It started as a lark gins, there is no truth to the rumor that someone (either a Johnnie or a and is still going strong. Middie, depending on the version) was killed in a bar ﬁght, which evolved into the Little Campus sponsoring the croquet match as a way to resolve disputes civilly. Nevertheless, the Academy’s sponsorship was essential in obtaining the trophy and storing it between matches. Kevin Heyburn (A’86) is the one who deserves full credit for the croquet match, since he was the one who set the whole thing up. Before that, the Croquet Club had no formal membership other than the Imperial Wicket, and all meetings were strictly on a pickup basis. The ﬁrst year, the Middies had no idea what to expect. They merely accepted a challenge based on their “can do” attitude, and we completely demolished them. In fact, it got so bad that Drew Parker (A’83) and I were ﬁghting against each other to be rover. All three of our players were done before any of the Middies had gotten even halfway. After that, the Middies were better prepared, but it is clear that they cannot hold a mallet to us. It is very difficult to have an institutional memory where every four years you are supposed to have a completely new group of people, so I am happy and proud that the croquet match has survived and prospered over the years. Go St. John’s! Beat Navy! ! 2%34567+$%8#)*7 by Drew Menzer, ‘13 The sea may barrage The Johnnie castle today, but it shan’t break it. �the gadfly !" !"#$%&!'($)&*%+&,'-./$/&0#"1".23&4"523$ Before Croquet, before the Program, St. John’s College had a different foe: Johns Hopkins University, with whom the men of St. John’s played an annual high-stakes football game. Yet what happened on the gridiron is not as interesting as what took place off it. [Editor’s Note: The annual football game between St. John’s and Johns Hopkins drew a crowd of 5,000— and inspired many machinations between the two schools. What follows is the account of a particular incident in 1931, when 150 Hopkins men launched an assault on the St. John’s campus. This version of events, lightly revised, originally appeared in the 1932 St. John’s College yearbook, the Rat-Tat.] J ended the ﬁrst scrimmage of modern history. The fall of 1929 was rather quiet. The freshman patrols had but one encounter with the Blue Jays from Baltimore, who had their wings clipped and left town at a speed little less than that achieved by aeroplanes. Too bad one of the patrol had to mess up that nice big Cord’s [a model of car] paint job, so reaching a point at the junction of King George Street and College Avenue the men from Hopkins turned their nice new Cord about and, in a shower of sticks, stones, and other missiles, took their way hastily out of town. cells crowded, water running through bars. “Nice men-—.” “Yeah, I haven’t had anything to eat—.” “Six seventy-ﬁve, the bums.” “Gonna appeal it—.” “The game—year, I’m taking her-—.” “So long—.” [By 1934, the October encounter had become the stuff of legend. The following recounting, slightly amended, appeared in that year’s Rat-Tat.] T ust when the ancient and honored custom of he pre-game rivalry between Hopkins and St. paying each other “painted” compliments, John’s has always been as spirited as the game previous to the Hopkins game, began, no one itself. These fraternal festivities have taken many seems to know. In all probability back in the shadforms. According to custom, each college used to ow eighties [1880s] a buggy load of the boys did a opkins is in town, 200 strong. Thus opened construct a fortress during the week before the little decorating on one of the campuses. Just to the evening of Thursday, October 22, 1931. big game; the idea was then instituted to wreak brighten things up, there was prompt retaliation, Ten o’clock came and passed uneventfully—almost. havoc on the enemy’s campus while guarding the and so began the series of scrimmages that have Down College Avenue from the Governor’s Man- home grounds. At St. John’s, the annual bonﬁre racked the two institutions throughout the years, sion came the hosts of Hopkins, 150 strong, lighted and “snake dance” were established as regular preculminating in the grand ﬁnale torches casting weird shadows game features, and it became the goal of the Hopof the fall of 1931. on the walls of old Crabtown, kins undergraduates to light the bonﬁre before the The crush of bodies, a We shall begin the modern paint buckets swinging. There scheduled time. history of these illustrious wars smack of fist hitting flesh, came cries of “Here they come, But in the fall of 1931, things got out of hand. Sevin the fall of 1928. In this year muffled cries, the thrashhere they come.” Swiftly, the eral enthusiastic but misdirected freshmen from St. the Rats [the nickname at the College Avenue and St. John’s John’s raided the Hopkins campus one dark night ing of wrestlers. time for St. John’s freshmen] Street patrols gathered at the and painted up as many buildings as possible with were assigned their posts as corner of College Avenue and black and orange paint. On the Thursday night bepickets about the campus as usual. With the toll- St. John’s Street, where they formed a thin line. fore the game, Hopkins stormed the college caming of midnight there sped into town an old Dodge. One of their number hurried to the bell in Mc- pus 150 strong to retaliate, but the St. John’s men The occupants were unknown but the redoubtable Dowell Hall. The hosts of Hopkins hurried on- were ready for them. All during the week, as had Cross [Harold E. Cross, class of 1929, later a cap- ward, closer, ever closer—“No further,” came the been the annual custom, members of the freshman tain in the U.S. Navy] sensed that they were Hop- cry; a pause—eyes staring, ﬁngers stirring nerv- class were on guard at strategic points around the kins men. When the car reached the gym, a series ously on club handles, silence; the torches’ ruddy campus. At the moment the Hopkins men burst of yells greeted the patrol on duty there; the yells ﬂames swirl in the night; will the bell never ring?; into town, the famous old bell in McDowell Hall were answered with stones, sticks, and tin cans. that one in the orange sweater—a clang, a move- tolled, and the entire student body was called onto After this exchange of compliments, the patrol ment, a club falls, one of the patrol down, a rushing the campus. 300 St. John’s men gathered to repel under Cross pursued the car through town, ﬁnally across the campus; men, men; the patrol struggles, the invaders. cornering it in a blind alley near the Naval Acade- breaks, but the Johnnies were there. The crush of Although the offense was perfectly planned and my Chapel. When the occupants surrendered, they bodies, a smack of ﬁst hitting ﬂesh, muffled cries, executed, the St. John’s men made short work of proved to be four in number, and were promptly the thrashing of wrestlers. They break, the hosts of the brave Hopkins men, who were quickly driven escorted to the Campus. Hopkins roll back up the street; at the back of the back to Church Circle. On returning to the college, At this point the prisoners announced that they Governor’s Mansion, the ﬁghtthe St. John’s men found the were hungry, and, as a result, dog biscuits were ing ceases. The Johnnies come members of the Water Witch supplied in quantity quite sufficient to satisfy the back and line up on the corner, One brave St. John’s man Fire Company calmly connectpangs of the starving. After relieving their hunger, the men from Hopkins follow, gave a war whoop and ing their hoses and aiming them the prisoners on bended knee begged to be released. forming on the other side of the charged. The entire stuat the victorious Johnnies. The This sort of sentiment was frowned on by the Rats, street near the mayor’s house. ﬁrst stream of water sent the and after a series of prayers for a St. John’s vic- The police are there, blue uni- dent body followed. student body back to the high tory, the prisoners were allowed to paint their car forms here and there over the spot on campus. With the shock orange and black; following this they were street. Officious orders. The mayor is saying some- of the ﬁrst attack wearing off, the absurdity of the escorted to bed by some ﬁfteen Rats. thing, “Murder to cross—.” “Better leave—Balti- local ﬁremen interfering in a fair scrap suddenly Promptly at 7 AM the prisoners more.” The crowd begins to disperse slowly, the inspired one brave St. John’s man, who gave a war were routed out of bed and tak- mayor has gone. There is a ﬁre siren down the whoop and charged the ﬁremen. The entire stuen to the dining hall, street, the gleaming paint of the City’s pride; hoses dent body followed. where they publicly and hydrants, water hisses through the leaves— The next few minutes were among the most prayed for a rolls noisily down the gutter: “I’m wet; what the amusing in St. John’s’ entire history. The members Jo h n n i e hell are they doing here?” Men streaming up of the ﬁre brigade were scattered all over town. victory. Afthe lawn. “They are following-—.” “Let ‘em.” Their hoses were taken from them, and they were ter their Men taking off their shirts, men crouching, a drenched with the high-pressure streams of water picconfused murmur, white ﬁgures in the black that they had been directing toward the student tures night, running low, the hiss of water over body just few minutes before. Johnnies hijacked were bare backs, smacks of water full on; a few the Water Witch Fire Truck; bedlam broke loose. takblows, the hose changes hands, wet ﬁreThe Annapolis police, in all their majesty, drove en, men running, a loose nozzle swaying in up and began picking up every student they saw on the street like an angry snake, policemen the streets, even those merely exiting local empohurrying away. A lone ﬁre engine, only one riums. They herded them into four small cells in hose, gleaming bodies straining the antiquated police station on Duke of Gloucesin the lamp light, a tear and free ter Street. 33 men were taken in, of which about the gushing of water from the hy- ten were from Hopkins. In small cells, unable even Rats aldrant. Laughter—nervous to sit, the prisoners were kept all night and treated lowed cries and protests. “No I am abominably. The next day charges were drawn. t h e going—Baltimore.” The clang of a police President Gordon [Douglas Huntly Gordon, thenpriswagon, “Get in—none of your lip—see how you like president of St. John’s] took the matter in his own oners to this.” “But I tell you I have nothing--.” The wagon hands. In two days’ time, he had the ﬁnes returned take themis gone, irate justice at work. Prisoners, names, a and justice established. The seemingly dire matter selves to Baltihectic night, breakfast, and pictures. Childish thus ended well, though the frantic memories remore. Thus officials in court, more irate justice at work, the main. ! H � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly Description An account of the resource Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Click on <a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the The Gadfly Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context thegadfly Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 12 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Goldman, Nathan (Editor in Chief) Tuttle, Ian (Editor in Chief) Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly, Vol. XXXV Issue 10 (Croquet 2014) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-04-12 Description An account of the resource Volume XXXV, Issue 10 of The Gadfly. Special Croquet 2014 issue. Published on April 12, 2014. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Gadfly 35.10 (Croquet) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Croquet Gadfly Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/28ecd7634588938e8c336e11687fbb2a.pdf cff2e5353e31caa8601e2a9c30caf742 PDF Text Text !"# ! ! $%&'() ! ! "#$%&'!()*!+',%)*-!.!/0 !"#$%&'()!1)2'-!3)!4+5!.!/6 78'-3%),%,9!:--;<!=*%>'-!.!/? @82A'*-B!.!/C !"#$%&'()!$*&++,-,$.$/0$*&++,-,$12,3$1((14&+5!3$67$89:09$.$14;5+$883$809:$.$2&+#$<<<2$.$5!!=,$99 !"#$#%&'%(")'*)%+,*-.*/ �The Gadfly 02 The student newspaper of St. John’s College Alex Kudrzycki A’17 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com Founded in 1980, the Gadﬂy is the student newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadﬂy reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. The next Gadﬂy submissions will be due May 2, at 11:59 PM. Next meeting Sunday, April 27. Articles can continue to be sent to sjca. gadﬂy@gmail.com. Outgoing Staff Nathan Goldman Ian Tuttle Hayden Pendergrass Incoming Staff Sebastian Barajas Noe Jimenez Allison Tretina Contributors Caleb Bernard Alex Kudrzycki Patricia Locke Abigail Petrich Louis Petrich Leila Saad Bonnie Scott Career Services !"#$%&'(%)*+&#",croquet in the With accelerate intowe rearview mirror, can now the exciting future of noncroquet-related events. However, our speed is so prodigious, we hope we will have the chance to release another issue before we make the jump off the ramp of dead week and into the ﬂaming pile of summer vacation. Please enjoy what we hope you will agree is an especially special issue... for all you special people! ! — The New & Improved Gadﬂy Team !"#$%&'%(")*%!"+,#Patricia Locke Tutor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�The Gadfly 03 The Secret to Lifelong Employment Sebastian Barajas A’17 !"#$%&' ()*' +*,"-,.$/+' 0&/$)*0 M any of you may be wondering what exactly a scruffy lit- they are the difference between ﬂourishing and decay. tle freshman means by offering advice to graduating se1) Set yourself goals that are unrelated to your career. niors. “Who is this pipsqueak?” you demand, “and what does Make a list of things you have always wanted to do or learn but he think he knows about The Real World?” I might reply with did not have the time while you were in school. For me, these a rather St. John’s-ish question of my own: what is this “The goals were to work on my writing and to learn the ﬁddle. Each Real World?” How can we really “know” it? But unfortunately, goal you make will solve two problems at once: fulﬁlling an a St. Johns-ish discussion of the matter would probably not be unfulﬁlled dream and preventing boredom. too reassuring to a senior who is about to walk the plank into 2) Keep a schedule. Scheduling is just as important, if not the churning, shark-infested depths of graduation. You want more so in the abyss of unemployment than it was in school, something more straightforward, more substantial (and pref- or even in a 9-5 job. Because you have more time to account erably tested against sharks). I don’t blame you. for, the potential for wasting it is much greater. Keep track of These, then, are my qualiﬁcations for everything you do throughout the day and You will find, as I did, that edit out wasteful activities. If you don’t do advising you: unlike most freshman, I am twenty-two. Before coming to St. John’s, I life beyond the lighted way this, then (if you’re like me) you will ﬁnd spent three years living in that societally is not so terrible after all; it yourself playing Minecraft for eight hours abhorred abyss known as “my parents’ is simply a way of living we a day, wondering why there’s so little time house.” For most of that time, I was neito get things done. have not been accustomed 3) Find a group. Goals can seem phother earning money nor planning to ever to. return to school. The reasons for this are ny when you’re the only one who knows many and complex, and to detail them or measures them. Mine, for one, felt like would be far beyond the scope of this article. I’ll say only this something I was just throwing myself at in a sad attempt to of my experience: if you think the “what am I doing with my justify my life. But the ﬁrst time you sit in a room with warm life?” question is a tough one now, try asking it once you’re an human beings who are passionately discussing the very thing unemployed legal adult with no lighted path to follow. you’re interested in, you will notice the difference. A great reTo this, some seniors are probably thinking, “Right, like that source for ﬁnding groups of all objects and interests is Meetup. will ever happen to me. I’m going straight into med school/ com; you wouldn’t believe how much I owe to this site. law school/bartending school/bouncer school/monster truck 4) Don’t give up. Even though so far I’ve only listed three driving school/etc. and after that I’m set for my career.” And fairly intuitive steps, all of them are hard. You will not sucmaybe that’s right, for now. Maybe some other path will light ceed the ﬁrst, second, third, or even one-hundredth time you up immediately at the end of this glorious St. John’s Highway, try and employ your unemployed life. Without your accusand that path will lead straight into another, and so on. tomed external authority ﬁgures whipping you into shape, you But this string of paths we call a career is neither so long will probably ﬁnd yourself logging three hours on Minecraft, nor so impregnable as to keep us employed forever. One day, knowing that your future self will hate you, but you won’t care something will force us from our lighted way, whether it’s because he can’t stop you from logging another four and a half trouble ﬁnding our next job, trouble keeping a job, a single hours later that evening. Each time, you will hate yourself nervous breakdown in which we call our superior a prepos- more, and it will seem that you are failing over and over and terous busybody, a sudden health calamity, or even the ﬁnality everything you do is pointless. of retirement. The Angel of Unemployment is our daemon for But if you keep at it–even if it takes years, as it did for me– life, patient as the Reaper, with Time as its ally. you will improve more than you ever thought possible. You But I would guess that for most of you, the day this daemon will ﬁnd, as I did, that life beyond the lighted way is not so comes to claim you (at least for a time) is not now so far off. terrible after all; it is simply a way of living we have not been Therefore, as someone who survived three years in the abyss, accustomed to. I will teach you the ways of ﬁnding your own employment. In fact, you may ﬁnd that you begin to value your own acI should warn you that these are not job-searching tips. complishments even more. Because many of us are used to While such things can be useful, their power is limited; for one being assigned tasks and then awarded artiﬁcial fulﬁllment thing, they are useless to someone who literally cannot work, for them by our teachers and superiors, we have become eswhether for physical, legal, or other reasons. Rather these are tranged from the true fulﬁllment that exists in the tasks themtips on surviving within the conﬁnes of the abyss. selves. But when we are forced to assign ourselves tasks and Further, the tips I’m about to give may seem hopelessly op- to ﬁnd our own rewards–as will continue to happen as we get timistic, as though I were handing you strips of scrap metal older–we are required to come into closer contact with the and telling you that they would in due time add up to a durable kind of fulﬁllment that is for its own sake. This is why I have and highly-rated car. While it’s true that these tricks are not magical, do not underestimate their power. For me, at least, Pg. 5 Continued On “ �The Gadfly 04 !"#$%&"''"()%*'(+,-.%/,,0%!"#$%1,(Allison Tretina A’16 photo by Henley Moore Whether or not the word family evokes positive or negative memories, family is inescapable. Nature has sewn the intertwining web of humanity with family, and has deemed it the helm of all humanity. Keep it or leave it. From family come our notions of origin, dependence, power, duty, and so forth. When familial affairs become tangled, so do political and moral affairs. The result: a tragedy. The King William Players bring Shakespeare’s King Lear to the FSK stage on Friday, April 25, at 8 p.m. Co-director Leila Saad has taken some time to discuss the production. photo by Julia Kulon Are there any particular themes or ideas in the play you chose to focus on? I think we were really interested in what it means for a society and a family to fall apart. Lear is the story of a family and a country’s destruction, and it was important to us that it felt both intimate and real. I also really wanted to ask the question: when and how is it ethical to take and use power? Edmund, Regan, and Goneril’s reasons for taking power are all perfectly reasonable, in one light, and completely destructive in another. Lear uses his power irresponsibly and loses it as a result, but we pity and sympathize with him nonetheless. How did you keep yourself from going mad during the production process? Have I not gone mad? Really though, we have the greatest friends. Did you have a preconceived vision for the production from the beginning? Or did your interpretation of the play evolve from one rehearsal to the next? I don’t think Lear is capable of really understanding Cordelia’s death. There are some truths that are too impossible to confront, and I think that after seeing his world crumble around him, he goes mad. And after being reunited with his daughter– both a symbol of his affection and his failure–Lear can’t handle another upheaval. As we know, Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed by actors on a stage. What are some of the beneﬁts someone will get from watching King Lear that they won’t get from only reading the play? Awesome ﬁght scenes! Honestly, I don’t think you can really understand a play until you’ve seen it performed. You aren’t interpreting the characters through their written word, they are working on you, communicating with you. Will you be directing any more Shakespeare plays in the future? I don’t know. Depends on my level of self-loathing. ! We came on as directors midway through production, and so there was a lot of really great work already in place. Shannon McGovern had already designed the set, which was brought to beautiful life by Yosef Trachtenberg and his helpers. We tried not to copycat Slaya Nemoy’s vision, but of course a lot of it came through in the ﬁnal product. I’m embarrassed to say that our vision changed a lot from scene to scene. We were really ﬂying by the seat of our pants, and we relied really heavily on our actors’ thoughts and instincts. Luckily, we have a fantastic cast. Overall, we’re really happy with how our visions melded. While looking upon his dead daughter, Cordelia, Lear utters his last words: “Look on her: look, her lips, look there, look there.” For you, is Lear actually seeing her breath and expressing a trace of hope, optimism, or something of that sort? Or is this a moment Lear is coming to terms with reality and accepting his daughter’s death? photo by Julia Kulon �The Gadfly 05 !"#$%&'()*#$+)&,-./(&.,)$,0$122(3$4'.5#2 Bonnie Scott A’17 I was surprised when, a few months into my freshman year, grades for this very reason; St. John’s doesn’t participate in naI learned that there were prizes allotted for annual essays. It tional ranking of any kind; students are admitted to St. Johns wasn’t that it upset me, it was just a shock to hear any sort of because of their academic curiosity and strength of character mention of a rewards system at St. Johns. There was some part rather than for their performance in high school. The prize of me that was disheartened by it. This was mainly because I system itself is riddled with ﬂaws, as most are. Though it was beginning to settle comfortably into the academic envi- seems perfectly logical that there is a “top rung” of essays that ronment here, which I’ve found to be a safe place in which the are clearly above the rest in terms of maturity or creativity, I intrinsic value of each academic purstill ﬁnd it difficult to believe that there’s any way I’m afraid that there’s a to compare an essay about the wonder of Platonic suit wins over the external value every dark component that myths and math in the Iliad. Each essay has its time. There’s a strange intoxication that comes with being admired and upheld almost always accom- own strengths and weaknesses and possesses a through titles, positions, and awards panies these sorts of different geist, or inner spirit. To act as if one is that I ﬁnally felt detoxed from in com“the best” seems strange to me, especially given prizes. ing here. Though I recognize that there the amount of faith that is put in such a decision are uplifting factors that come with after the prize is awarded. It is as if it becomes a recognizing talent and awarding excellaw of nature that so and so had “the best essay lence, I’m afraid that there’s a dark component that almost of the freshman class.” In addition, it is common practice that always accompanies these sorts of prizes. It’s human nature not all essays have been read by the tutors before the applicato desire to be intelligent, kind, hard-working, generous, and tion date for prize essays is due, eliminating an entire pool of outstanding. However, there’s a ﬁne line between desiring to potential essays. Perhaps there are underlying reasons for the possess these traits and desiring to be perceived as possess- prize system that I’m unaware of, but I think it’s important ing them. Distinguishing the difference between these things to recognize that it is out of line with our school’s principles is a problem that I believe we all face, and perhaps more often and beliefs. If it’s not possible for the system on the whole to than we realize. I truly believe that it is only through letting go be done away with, I would like to advocate for a healthier atof the desire for others to see us a certain way that we can be titude towards such a system. It’s through the environment at free to pursue the good. I’m afraid that having a prize system St. Johns that I’ve been able to open up the most genuine part of any kind pushes us towards seeking out the image and the of myself, intellectually and personally. I want to preserve the title, with creativity and excellence being but necessary tools principles that have allowed me to shed myself of the pressure in our pursuit for positive attention. to achieve some sort of image outside of myself, and instead After all, our college already functions on these principles look inward, inciting true growth. ! and this understanding. We are encouraged not to check our “ Continued From Pg. 3 the ﬁddle: not because I hope to one day tour with Flogging Molly, or even bust out Sailor’s Hornpipe for bonus points at my job interview, but because playing is an inherently enjoyable activity. But if you’re a senior with a cutlass at your back, a mass of dorsal ﬁns churning the waters below, it might be that even this hopeful prospect doesn’t reassure you. It might be that this boogeyman known as “The Real World” still seems too big and chaotic to be reasoned with. In that case, perhaps a more St. John’s-ish sentiment might prove comforting after all: The world that waits on the other side of College Ave is no more “real” than the world you’ve lived in all your life. Graduation will mean change, to be sure, but life is full of change. You have already seen this: schools come and go, responsibilities come and go, and so does everything else. This is “The Real World.” There is nothing unfamiliar about it. Live life then as you do now: pursuing things that give you joy, and refusing to give up. As long as you do this, you will never truly be unemployed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�06 The Gadfly !"#$%&'(&)$*)+#,)("-.$/01,'( The Hodson Internship award is given to enale St. John’s students to acquire professional experience, expand the range of their skills, explore their talents, and learn about the realities of ﬁelds in which they think they might like to work. For 2014 we made 36 awards. Please join the St. John’s College community in congratulating the following awardees” Marybeth Beydler ’16 Xiaoquin Hu ’16 Rohini Pandit ’15 Anne Arundel County State’s At- Bard College at Simon’s Rock, U.S. Naval Observatory, Washtorney’s Office, Annapolis, MD Great Barrington, MA ington, DC Andy Blanco ’15 Christopher Hutter ’16 ACLU National Prison Project, Baltimore Theatre Project, Balti- Linnea Payne ’15 Washington, DC more, MD Museum/Archival, TBD, Columbia, SC Yitian Cai ’14 Jake Israel ’17 Law related, TBD The Arch Academy, San Diego, Nicole Pease ’15 CA David R. Godine, Inc., Boston, Katelyn Caldwell ’16 MA Pear Press, Seattle, WA Julia Kulon ’16 Bamboo, Chicago, IL Michelle Porcelli ’14 Laura Cleveland ’14 University of Maryland, DepartForest Woods Media, Annapolis, Qiu Lin ’15 ment of Physics, Physics EduMD Hainan Provincial Cultural cation Research Group, College Heritage Research Association, Park, MD Amy Cowling ’16 Haikou, China Education related, TBD Chengyaqing Shi ’16 Sihui Ma ’17 Beijing Wangliang Law Firm, Kerrigan Dougherty ’16 Central South University, Xiang- Beijing, China Girl Rising, New York, NY ya School of Medicine, Cancer Research Institute, Changsha, Amritpal Singh ’15 Mary Kate Eckles ’16 China Georgetown University, DepartMuseum/Archival related, TBD ment of Psychology, Culture & Lyra Meurer ’16 Emotions Lab, Washington, DC Stella Fillmore-Patrick ’15 Historic Annapolis Foundation, Law/Politics related, TBD William Paca House & Gardens, Miles Steinert ’14 Annapolis, MD Georgetown University, DepartEmily Grazier ’16 ment of Psychology, Culture & Franklin Park Conservatory & Clifton Mobbs ’16 Emotions Lab, Washington, DC Botanical Gardens, Columbus, Motor City Blight Busters, DeOH troit, MI Allison Tretina ’16 New York University Press, New Gurer Gundondu ’15 Erik Neave ’16 York, NY University of Pennsylvania, Cen- Sheboygan County Office of the ter for Cognitive Neuroscience, District Attorney, Victim-Wit- Ojiugo Uche ’14 Philadelphia, PA University of Pittsburgh, Neuness Office, Sheboygan, WI rological Surgery Department, Joseph Hamd ’15 Pittsburgh, PA The Public Defender Service for Evgenia Olimpieva ’14 the District of Columbia, Wash- Resource Security Institute/In- Marina Weber ’16 ington, DC stitute for European, Russian & Music related, TBD Eurasian Studies, Washington, Andrea Hill ’16 Catherine White ’16 Dutton Road Veterinary Clinic, DC Education related, TBD Philadelphia, PA Ronald Pagano ’15 Henry Hirsch ’15 Erik Block Design Build, LLC, U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, DC Hadlyme, CT �The Gadfly !"#$%&'()*+",- 07 !"#$%&'()*+,$-./0 From College Avenue to Broadway, a St. John’s education will follow you anywhere. Bob Tzudiker, A’75, shares his experience in the field of writing and entertainment. What is your current job? I am a writer, working right now on a feature ﬁlm (for hire) and also on several other potential projects in ﬁlm, TV and publishing. We (my wife and I) have a hit show on Broadway based on our ﬁrst ﬁlm and several other movies to our name that are meaningful to a lot of people. On occasion I feel pleased about this, but one problem with being a writer is there’s always something more to be written. Did you attend other schools after St. John’s? I had no further education and no particular training for anything I have attempted since leaving St. John’s in 1975. Did you know what you wanted to do while attending St. John’s? I don’t recall giving it much thought. I enjoyed theater, especially acting, in high school, and this continued at St. John’s. In my sophomore year a fellow student encouraged me to audition for a summer stock theater he knew, which led to my ﬁrst professional acting work and started me barefoot on a path paved with, at various times, sharp pebbles or gold. Did St. John’s help prepare you for work in the ﬁeld? I can imagine no better preparation for the ill-prepared than St. John’s. I have valued this education more with every passing year. St. John’s encourages the assumption that there is a deeper layer to everything, so I start off ready to learn no matter how “expertise” I may feel, or how utterly lost. What didn’t St. John’s prepare you for? When I was a student, ambition was not publicly prized in the school culture. I wasn’t exposed to the beauty of action. I didn’t understand how far one could reach, and how quickly. Any speciﬁc disadvantages to a St. John’s background? I was, and remain, somewhat stunned when I encounter people who use speech as a means to victory at any cost. I feel naïve even as I say it, but why would we waste time merely winning an argument when we could be helping each other see something new? While I really can’t blame St. John’s for that character trait (ﬂaw, when it comes to some situations), the school certainly reinforced it. How did you feel you compared, in graduate school or early jobs, to people from different educational backgrounds, particularly those with ﬁeld-related degrees? Because I lacked training in my chosen ﬁelds, I sometimes lacked access to tools and disciplines that can actually be learned. I was forced to invent my own methods, and while this may sometimes lead to a fresh perspective, it can also waste time. I‘ve seen well-trained people who were better able to handle bumps in the road, because they had technique to fall back on. They’d had teachers who helped them frame their experience, and encouraged them to develop themselves. I’ve also seen people limited by the language of their training, or worse, thinking the world falls short when it does not subscribe to their methods. On balance, I think training, wisely pursued, is usually the better course. Can you describe a general track someone from St. John’s might take to get into a career in this ﬁeld? Be born into it. Any general advice, especially for an upperclassman who is interested in this ﬁeld but is not quite sure what to do? This upperclassman obviously ignored the previous advice. If you think you know what you want to be doing, go straight for it. This is not an industry with deﬁned paths of advancement, nor any particular respect for age and experience. If you want to act, ﬁnd places to do it, or create them. Writing requires nothing but time and a willingness to feel like a fool much of that time. If ﬁlmmaking is the goal, the means of production are available to anyone these days. Just start, and ﬁnd a community of people who resonate together. They are your substitute for appropriate parentage. Be ready with the necessary talents, as opportunities may surprise you and may not recur. How did you market yourself with a St. John’s degree? Hmm. Was I supposed to market myself? That explains so much. I ﬁnd people rarely inquire into my educational background. When they do, I’m often surprised they know anything about St. John’s. If they do I feel instantly warmer to them. How would you characterize your ﬁeld as a whole? Is it accessible to newcomers or difficult to enter? Stable or ﬂuid? Etc. Neither age nor experience has ever been prized in entertainment. This malady is now extending to almost all ﬁelds. The insecurity of show biz has now been visited even on the Post Office. Continued On Pg. 8 �The Gadfly 08 !"#$%&'() *+*',!"#$%&'()*++ !"#$%&'"( )*(+%,-,.(/)#01203&4-567&20--,8& 9:; &&&&&;<::&)2 )-"$,&=8&$%0&>?#=8.$=@0 A<B:&)2& & 4,--0.0&C#+%0*$#"7&D#0"$&E"-F&)2& ,#%-#$%&'()*+. >%,??=8.&>%5$$-0& 9<B:&)2 !/"0$%&'()*+) G,."& ;<B:&)2 >08=,#&)#"8H/>08=,#&)#"8H&9I J<;KI&)2& & 102%&'()*+3 LM)&)#,35+$=,8&,N&L=8.&O0"# &&&&&F<:: 4"-%&'()*+5 D"3P(&200$=8.7 O,Q0#&-0R0-&,N&$%0&SS4 &&&&&A<::&)2 TN&(,5&Q,5-3&-=H0&$,&*00&(,5#& 0R08$&,8&$%0&Q00H-(&*+%035-07&?-0"*0& 0@"=-&*U+"V."3P(W.@"=-V+,@V Dear Gadﬂy: My eight-year old daughter, Abigail Petrich, wrote the following piece for the Gadﬂy when she saw that I was reading Dedekind and studying numbers with my junior math students. She is also studying numbers at school. One of the satisfactions of teaching elementary things at St. John’s is that a parent ﬁnds much in common to discuss with his children. --Louis Petrich, Tutor Numbers? Abigail Petrich In the first place, what are numbers? Some people might be able to go on and on, but I can use nine words. Numbers are things you say when you count things. Since now we know what numbers are, what do we know about negative numbers? Some people cannot even answer this--come on people! Negative numbers are numbers below zero. And what is zero? Imagine four fingers, then you take away one, and then another one, and then another, and then another, and now what do you have left? That’s zero. What about fractions? Fractions are just something that a generous person would use to share a pie. What are irrational numbers? Sorry, we don’t talk about them in my school. Now that we know all that, what are imaginary numbers? That one is easy. Imaginary numbers are numbers that don’t exist! Trust me. I am a third-grader at Jones Elementary School, and we have to know numbers to get to fourth grade. ! Continued From Pg. 7 What was your senior essay topic? I wrote about Sophocles’ “Philoctetes,” which was not on the Program at that time. What is your favorite book on the Program? “Philoctetes.” But I recently revisited Lucretius, to great effect. Right now I ﬁnd myself imagining a wrestling match between Sophocles and Lucretius: the most wondrous sculptor of events versus one who denies their very existence. I don’t know who’d win but I’d pay to see that match. Montaigne would referee. Do you ﬁnd that you lead a philosophical life? I’d pay a lot for the aforementioned wrestling match. Does that mean I lead a philosophical life? I’d say I have philosophical tendencies that are the center of my interior life but not always manifest in public. engaging with countries to help better their lot is very important to our own security. This was an important realization to buttress the moral and economic argument for foreign assistance. I think this ﬁeld is penetrable, but having interlocutors to help illuminate the way in and open a few doors is important. There are many different paths to take within the ﬁeld of international development—many different subject areas, different platforms (donor, business, non-proﬁt, etc.), the possibility of working overseas or in a headquarters, policy versus practitioner, and so on. Each person has to sort that out for themselves and identify which strand ﬁts them best. What is your favorite book on the Program? Oh dear, so many books that I have loved in different ways. Just thinking of an answer takes me down many wonderful pathways, thinking of the many books and how they present differently over one’s life. But I don’t land on just one favorite! Do you ﬁnd that you lead a philosophical life? Of course. I can’t imagine a Johnnie that doesn’t continue to question, inquire, examine, and try to discern meaning in life. ! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly Description An account of the resource Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Click on <a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the The Gadfly Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context thegadfly Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 8 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Goldman, Nathan (Editor in Chief) Tuttle, Ian (Editor in Chief) Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly, Vol. XXXV, Issue 11 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-04-22 Description An account of the resource Volume XXXV, Issue 11 of The Gadfly. Published on April 22, 2014. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Gadfly 35.11 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Gadfly Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/8be85633eefb38fe0a39acf08c3d8208.pdf baf246dadc38db787f32d4dec44e287e PDF Text Text !"# ! ! $%&'() ! ! "#$%&'!(&)*+,'*-!.!/0 12*!3+**&!)24)!54))*+6!.!/7 "&!89*&!:*))*+!);!)2*!<;#')=!.!/> "))4?@!;&!"94)2=!.!/A !"#$%&'()!$*&++,-,$.$/0$*&++,-,$12,3$1((14&+5!3$67$89:09$.$61;$/3$809:$.$2&+#$<<<2$.$5!!=,$98 !"#$#%&'%(")'*)%+,*-.*/ �The Gadfly 02 The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com !"#$%&&'%$(")*++,Owen Morgan A’17 Founded in 1980, the Gadﬂy is the student newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadﬂy reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. The next Gadﬂy submissions will be due May 2, at 11:59 PM. Next meeting Sunday, April 27. Articles can continue to be sent to sjca. gadﬂy@gmail.com. Outgoing Staff Nathan Goldman Ian Tuttle Hayden Pendergrass Incoming Staff Sebastian Barajas Noe Jimenez Allison Tretina Contributors Jessica Benya Caleb Bernard Patrick Kelly Danny Kraft Owen Morgan Justin Shucher Hugh Verrier !"#$%&'(%)*+&#",e you the WIt’spresenttotobelieve ﬁnal issue of the year. hard it’s already terminado. The Gadﬂy will be taking a seista for the summer. In the meantime, you can mull over ideas for a column, practice your photography and sketching skills, and start listing your advice for los niños who will be joining us next year. Everyone, enjoy your summer. ¡Hasta luego, Juanitos! ! — The New & Improved Tripulación ARC Gadﬂy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`+93+5"777"C1*0D A"Y4O3945O E"]4L-?":8"8:?O-98J=5-11 6".93-==:"+5943-?: H"<:2"-5/-? !("]--="S4O"Y413"O-5?!!"S:+9"*?:*-==-? !;"a\%"+O-59b"-POP !Q".:@'(".J91"*+?95-? '!"c5/:5-14+5"41=+5/ '&"G+1-M13+*-/"*49,3-? 'A"Y::/"`-9F:?U"19+?b" :89-5 '6"X?-3-514=-"9+4=b"-POPb"45" -L:=J94:5+?0"9-?21 'H"c58:?2+94:5"J549 ;("H93"N?--U"=-99-? ;!"^J5OP"5-4O3V:? ;'"Y?-5,3"245;;"dM777"CcL0D ;Q"c,-",?-+2"V?+5/ ;A"\[419 ;E"^:F"9:"777"U5:9 ;6"#3:?9"45L-194O+9:?1 Q;"#+?J2+5K1"777M^+4 QE"a-V9"=-99-?1 QH"N?--U"O?-+9 &("<J9 &'"777M3-/?:5 &;"BJ,3 &Q"S+4=:J9"1:J?,&&"I::/,J99-?1 &A"#3-M3:?1&E"X+93:=:O4,+="1J8Z[ &6"Y:?2-?=0 &H"N?--U"2:J59+45":?"]:M 2+5"V:5-1 A("%/"5:P A!"%L-?+O-"2+5 Answers On Pg.8 �The Gadfly 03 !"#$%&'()*+",!"##$%&'("#%)'*+, Former Peace Corps volunteer, Matthew Gates, has used his skills of questioning and farming to face agriculture issues in Rwanda. In this profile, he discusses his road from St. John’s undergrad to Food Security and Agriculture Coordinator. What is your current job? Food Security and Agriculture Coordinator, Mennonite Central Committee, Rwanda. I run a cooperative project with ﬁve Rwandan NGO’s promoting zero-tillage and soil conservation among members of thirty rural credit unions throughout Rwanda. I also have an advisory role for a no-till project in Burundi and hope to begin some work in DR Congo soon. Did you attend other schools after St. John’s? I have a master’s in International Agriculture and Rural Development from Cornell University. Did you know what you wanted to do while attending St. John’s? No. Did St. John’s help prepare you for work in the ﬁeld? St. John’s instilled in me an appreciation for learning together and instilled a blurred distinction between teaching and being taught, both of which have allowed me to cultivate a degree of much-needed humility in working with farmers. Good extension work is very much a process of learning together and asking questions, and those are skills I learned at St. John’s. What didn’t St. John’s prepare you for? Everything else. Any speciﬁc disadvantages to a St. John’s background? Unfamiliarity with conventional scientiﬁc writing and lack of research skills were certainly a disadvantage. How did you feel you compared, in graduate school or early jobs, to people from different educational backgrounds, particularly those with ﬁeld-related degrees? I entered graduate school after serving in the Peace Corps. I was in a program in which virtually everyone had been out of school and working for several years, so it was more an atmosphere of shared professional experience than a really competitive academic environment. I did feel a little unprepared for some of the chemistry and biology, but I was able to learn them with some concerted effort. Can you describe a general track someone from St. John’s might take to get into a career in this ﬁeld? For agriculture generally, it’s a hard to say. Personally, I joined the Peace Corps having no idea what I was getting into. Because I had worked on farms as a summer job in high school and college, I was assigned to work in agriculture and agro- forestry in rural Senegal. I had a great time, learned a lot, and ended up staying a third year. Any general advice, especially for an upperclassman who is interested in this ﬁeld but is not quite sure what to do? Spend some time, either during the summer or after graduation, getting any kind of farming experience you can. Deﬁnitely consider Peace Corps, or some comparable service experience, if you’re interested in the international side of things. How did you market yourself with a St. John’s degree? To the extent that I marketed myself, it was largely to lay tenuous claim to abilities in subjects such as French and science. But, in all seriousness, if you’re able to come up with some quick quip that communicates the basic idea of the program, it will make you seem interesting and well-rounded. How would you characterize your ﬁeld as a whole? Is it accessible to newcomers or difficult to enter? Stable or ﬂuid? Etc. The intersection of agricultural, environmental, and economical issues is a fascinating area to work in. Agricultural extension is a great ﬁle with a lot of really wonderful people in it. It’s a ﬁeld that puts as much, if not more, weight on real-world experience as on academic-theoretical pursuits. It is a ﬁeld in which ideas are constantly evolving. There’s a fair amount of deep, even bitter, disagreement on a lot of very basic concepts. Practices that were universally admired a few decades ago are often now thoughts to be actively harmful. This might sound grim and, in many ways, it is, but it leads to a lot of very intense self-doubt among practitioners, and a burning desire reconcile theoretical formulations with often very messy realities of a farmer’s life. Everything is questionable. Some degree of failure is inevitable. It’s a ﬁeld that demands a lot of humility and lots of honesty. What was your senior essay topic? Personal and world-historical consciousness in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. What is your favorite book on the Program? Descartes’ Le Monde. Do you ﬁnd that you lead a philosophical life? Day-to-day, most of my time is spent doing things that need to be done. Philosophy certainly has been a guided me into the ﬁeld that I am in. Time to reﬂect, however, is not something I often have. ! �04 !""#$%&'(%)'*+,-$.(-$%&' Hugh Verrier The Gadfly A’14 For the third consecutive year, student-run recycling has fettered development while also promoting traditional values. featured prominently at Croquet—even making it into the of- I called his position untenable because it is, as far as I can tell, ﬁcial “branding,” with wristbands proudly proclaiming that based on the premise that it is possible to preserve our values Croquet has “gone green.” I am proud of our environmental while also obliterating the land that forms our individual and engagement, which to me is an unequivocal indication of the cultural identity. pride we Johnnies take in our community. Such a premise is misguided. Oakeshott On the verge (some would say brink) of recognized that human society is formed Environmentalism is an by the particulars. You cannot separate our graduation, I have had the opportunity to expression of that age- values from our history, our culture, our reﬂect on the role of environmental activold conservative fear: ism in our community over the past four traditions, our familial and religious affiliyears. These thoughts snowballed into the ations, or our land. I am Canadian, and the the fear of losing our following general observations. I felt it rivers and forests of rural Quebec have inidentity. would be appropriate to share them here, formed my own growth and identity. We all in part because they touch on the question have such a place, or places; a land that we of what it means to be a “Johnnie”—a conhave become a part of, and that has become nection I will address later. a part of us. As creatures with material needs, we are inevitaFirst, it strikes me that concern for the environment is fun- bly tied to the earth that sustains us. Environmentalism is an damentally conservative. By “conservative,” I do not refer to expression of that age-old conservative fear: the fear of losing the neo-conservative—that mixed ideological breed who la- our identity. ments the loss of traditional values while simultaneously adImagine if The New Program shut down tomorrow. In a vocating the unrestrained development of our lands and wa- sense, every alumnus would be orphaned. Some part of their ters. This position, admittedly par for the course in modern identity would lose its roots. Whether they appreciated their conservative thought, strikes me as untenable. experience here or not, this education is formative, and one Instead, I am referring to the traditional conservative—ex- cannot renounce the effects of such formation. They are part empliﬁed by such thinkers Edmund Burke in the eighteenth of you for life. Innocence, once lost, can never be regained. century, and Russell Kirk and Michael Oakeshott in the twenSo it goes with land, water, and air. We cannot renounce the tieth. The last of these summarized his political disposition in effect a particular place has on our identity or values. But we a wonderful paragraph: “ To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the un known, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. Familiar relationships and loyalties will be preferred to the allure of more proﬁtable attachments; to acquire and to enlarge will be less important than to keep, to cultivate and to enjoy; the grief of loss will be more acute than the excitement of novelty or promise. It is to be equal to one’s own fortune, to live at the level of one’s own means, to be content with the want of greater perfection which belongs alike to oneself and one’s circumstances. Here Oakeshott recognizes that, while necessary, progress should be incremental. This conclusion is born from the observation that change always causes loss, but only sometimes brings gain. In this sense environmentalists are preeminently conservative—they are acutely aware that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. How imprudent, then, to develop an entire forest at once, or to jettison industrial waste into our lakes! To both Oakeshott and the environmentalist, such grand, sweeping initiatives are often ‘Sicilian Expeditions’—hubristic over-reaches with unintended terrible consequences. Much better to proceed with caution—to prefer “familiar relationships and loyalties” to “the allure of more proﬁtable attachments”—to be, in a word, conservative. Above, I imagined a straw-conservative who advocates un- Continued On Pg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�The Gadfly !"#$%&'()#(*+&,-."#(/&"+ 05 Justin Shacher A’17 Dearest Polity, Hello. If you do not know me (and you are likely in the majority if you don’t) my name is Justin Shacher, and I’m an overdramatic and remarkably neurotic freshman. If you’ll bear with me, I’d like to do three things for you: Tell you the abbreviated tale of this past year, sing the praises of the Class of 2014, and publicly offer my services to said class, and the rest of the polity as well. And, while doing these things, I will try to do one thing for myself: not sound too idiotic. This time last year I was lying in my bed, sobbing With praises sung uncontrollably, watchand story told, I ing Tangled for the 17th now publicly offer time, wondering, and you my services, wondering, and wondering, “When will my life Dearest Polity. begin?” My gap year was coming to an end, and my friends would soon be coming home. They would talk of newfound friends and parties, classes and grades, midterms and ﬁnals, professors and extracurricular activities. And I would talk about my countless mental breakdowns (and Tangled). I had wasted my gap year, which I had taken for no other reason than trying to recover from having wasted four years of high school, and not wanting to waste away my college experience. I thought my life would begin when I stepped foot on this campus. I thought I would be conﬁdent. I thought I would be studious. I thought someone with a name like Eugene Fitzherbert would ride across the red bricks on a white stallion with a big personality and sing a duet with me while ﬂoating lanterns crowded the campus. Okay, not really. But I did expect some sort of romance. What happened when I got on campus? I moved into my dorm, and alternated between vomiting and lying down in my new bed, because I was so unbelievably nervous. So I made no friends that day, and though I did make polite small talk with my roommate and his parents, I otherwise abandoned all hope of success here. I made no further friends until a particularly spunky woman, another freshman, introduced herself, and then proceeded to drag me around to talk to other people (Thank you, Ms. Cawood). And as a result of such a lucky break, I decided by the end of the ﬁrst semester, all of my dreams would come true. And at the end of that ﬁrst semester, where was I? Lying in my bed, sobbing uncontrollably, watching Tangled for the 26th time, wondering, etc. I think you can guess how successful I’ve been this year. Why bother telling you this? Well, because if you haven’t already, you should go watch Tangled. More importantly though, I’ve become an expert on feeling unsatisﬁed. I know all too well what it is like to have regrets pile on you at the end of some part of your life you hold dear. And the 2013-2014 “ school year is one such period. And for some of you it was your last year at St. John’s. Congratulations, Class of 2014. You’ve overcome innumerable essays. You were enabled. You tackled many of the most confusing, dense, and mysterious books the western world has to offer. You sang, probably sang pretty well, and you sang a lot. You made friends. You kept some of them around. You gave at least one, and probably many more, neurotic and overdramatic freshman something to aspire to. And whether you like it or realize it, you’re all super adorable. With praises sung and story told, I now publicly offer you my services, Dearest Polity. If, while reﬂecting on your time here, you ﬁnd yourself as I often have, with regrets, ideas never brought to fruition, or any wisdom you would like to share with others, then I’d love to hear it. Because as peers, and as humans, you have consistently proven yourselves and your ideas worthy of being shared with the world. And if I can help in any way to record, or share, or work to bring to fruition any ideas you delightful folk may have, then regardless of my own personal shortcomings, then I will leave St. John’s (hopefully three years from now), having in no way failed myself or others. And hopefully, you’ll feel the same. Warmest regards and best wishes, Justin Shacher (408)-644-4261 justin.shacher@gmail.com !"#$%&''()*+ ,"+-./"01(2"0(3 4567589(:2 ;<:=>?@(A<<B<CD !"#$#%&'%()&*+$,*-%.*/*0*+ �The Gadfly 06 The Injustice of Modern Schools Daniel Kraft A’13 Hey, Polity, I’ve missed you! It seems like only yesterday that I was still a student and my biggest concerns were for the next seminar reading or the Guardians’ margin of victory. But times have changed. I’m writing now to share with you a secret: despite what our experiences, national laws, and rhetoric tell us, compulsory public education in this country does not exist. Sure, we require kids to show up at a building called “school,” but that doesn’t mean education takes place. I don’t say this in any kind of liberal or artsy sense. Our school systems don’t offer a “real education” directed towards truth or beauty or whatever. The reality is much more dire than that. In low-income public schools across the country, students do not receive even the most necessary skills for higher education, employment, or the chance to craft a meaningful life. I’m a middle school teacher in beautiful Tulsa, OK. I work in a highly impoverished school. The average 7th grader comes to us reading at the 4th grade level. My job is to work with our lowest readers. My students are intelligent, hard-working and have supportive families. But they read on average at the 2nd grade level. I have 8th graders who do not know the alphabet and could not sound out most of the words in this article. This is a tragic reality. The failure of our schools traps whole American communities in brutal lives they cannot control, lives of poverty and helplessness. I heard the statistics before I took this job. Only 47% of black males in this country graduate high school, though in many districts that number is much lower. By the end of 4th grade, students in low-income schools are at least 2 years behind their high-income counterparts. Entire neighborhoods, thousands of families, and millions of children’s futures are at stake in the failure of our educational system. There are a myriad of reasons for this injustice. Writing about them would take up more pages than the Gadﬂy can spare. Poverty, the failure of integration, systemic and institutionalized racism, low payed teachers, and the terrible bureaucracy of public institutions, all have combined and conspired to rob too many children in this country of a future. The chief culprit that makes me angriest and turns this issue from a tragedy into a crime is the terrible apathy most middle and upper class Americans feel towards the issue. So many times I’ve mentioned the name of my school to a Tulsan, only to have them respond with a kind of half-laugh, and something to the effect of: “Yikes! That’s a rough school, isn’t it? Wowzers, I’m glad my kids don’t go there!” They say this as if that’s just the way the world works, as if some kids get good schools and others don’t. We might as well just laugh at it and shake our heads and then stop caring. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can change this status quo. I’m not asking you to become a teacher in a high poverty school. Although if you’re up for it, that would be wonderful. I’m only asking you, at the very least, to open your heart and mind to the situations of those in these kind of schools, those you might otherwise scoff at. The families who send their kids to failing schools want and deserve a good education as much as anyone else. They just don’t have the resources to guarantee it like their whiter or wealthier peers do. We need to lose the mindset that considers these schools simply “rough,” simply “failing.” When we write these schools off, we accept the status quo. We accept the fact that by virtue of zip code or household income or skin color, children living in the same cities as us do not have the opportunity to be adequately educated. I know the status quo can change because I have seen it. I have students who’ve grown over a year in reading in this semester alone. I don’t say this to show you that I’m a great or transformational teacher—trust me, I’m not—but to illustrate that kids with tremendous disadvantages can show tremendous growth. Sometimes all they need is someone who loves them and is obsessed with reading. But I’m only one teacher in a vast school and a vast system. Please consider taking time to volunteer at your local, disadvantaged public schools. Even a couple hours a week can have an unspeakable impact in the life of a child. During my time, it’s true, I’ve seen children commit extraordinary acts of disrespect, cruelty, and violence. Most days I feel defeated and depressed by their terrible power. But I’ve also seen moments of breathtaking compassion, perseverance, and love. I’ve seen students come to peace with themselves and with their experiences in ways that only can be described as actions of grace. I’ve seen illiterate teenagers read ﬂuently for the ﬁrst time in their lives. The instant when they realize that they can read, learn, and possibly have a future is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. In your thinking and talking, I urge you to keep in mind that all children can learn and deserve the opportunity to do so. If you want ideas for how you can use your strengths and resources to be a part of this movement, email me. Kids’ lives hang in the balance. On my toughest days when I feel ready to give up, I remind myself what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said: “In a democratic society, not all are guilty, but all are responsible.” If our generation takes responsibility for the failure of our nation’s impoverished schools, we can end the opportunity gap that exists in this country. Ok, I’ll get off my soapbox now. Go Guardians! ! �The Gadfly !!!!!"#$!%&'($)*& !!"!!"#$%&'()*++,(-./0 07 !"#$%&'&()#*)#+"),-(&*.'-)/%""0 Jessica Benya A ‘17 For that Beauty everlasting Do I write with ink and pen. From worlds far it chose to land On this earth of mortal men. Came sweet graces of the Lord, Brought by they who never die, Round the circle of the World And circumference of the sky. Echoed by angels of the darkness, From the mighty, ancient deep, To the arc of highest heaven By the star-gods in my sleep. 123#3(4,(536#2*$7+%8%79:&3; Rejoice we all in Her the one! Possessed of cosmic light. She whose fairness we do praise And sing for such a sight. With the hautbois and the lyre, Strings, harpsichords, and lutes, No harmony we fear to make. Praise her with fagottos, and ﬂutes! All the choirs of high heaven Clangorously resound, Praising her and God almighty, Through the galaxy around. Exalt her we do with the drums, The trumpets and the ﬁfe. Organs blast for her and He, Salvations of my life. In my last freshman laboratory, my tutor brought the class out back to the magnolia trees in the courtyard by the ﬁshbowl so we could end the year just as we started. The class scattered to look at the magnolia trees and there was something different—something that wasn’t there before. I stood next to a faithful friend of mine and we reminisced about the year. Then I remembered that the last time we were here, the courtyard was ﬁlled with anxiety of a sort. I met this same friend when we were simply trying to ﬁgure out the college, and had a case of the New-Johnnie Jitters. It’s progressed so much beyond that. Now everyone in the class knows each other, some better than others. Over the year, like Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics starts to explain in Book Beta, we have either habituated ourselves to be courageous or cowardly. Looking at the magnolias for the ﬁrst time, I hadn’t imagined how much would change: how some people who nearly didn’t speak at all would become a prominent voice in the class, how a dear pair of friends would stick together the whole year while others split, how logic from a seminar read- ing would be used against someone for a real life issue. And may we not forget those who we barely came to know, who would leave early in the year or announce their plans to leave once the school year had ended. From a freshman point of view, certainly this is skewed. I can’t seem to fathom it changing anymore. Though I couldn’t fathom anything that has happened during the year either, and that was why the courtyard changed. The magnolia trees changed. Everyone since the beginning of the year has changed, no matter if they want to admit it or not. The magnolia trees have grown. We have grown enough to see maybe a few new things about ourselves that would prove to be prosperous as we continue. The magnolia trees stand tall, just how one would to defend a point in seminar. Finally, at least to us, the magnolia trees have settled in the spot they currently stand. Watching orals and being active in extra seminars, it seems that the anxiety escapes even more. Though we can relax now, we have no idea how it will change in the next few years—seemingly, for the better. " �The Gadfly 08 !"#$%&'() *+*',- !"#$%&'(#)' !"#$%&'()*+ !"#$ %%%%%&'((%)* +,-./#%0"112#.345 6-2$7%8$11 %%%%%9'((%)*% ,#%-#$%&'(.*/ :2#$/;:2#27$-.$/%013< =='((%>* +?",,./#%+?37712% @'A(%)* B./#%C.11.$4%)1$D2-EF%*227./# &'A(%)* )?"/$7?"/% G'((%)* H/7-$43-$1%$/I%B3/$.%0212<-$7."/ 9'((%)* 0"-%&'()*11 0"442/J242/7 %%%%%9'((%)* 0"22#3( 4&5&678- Continued From Pg. 8 can lose the lands that have become a part of us, and the effects of such a loss are devastating and dehumanizing. Environmentalism is the recognition that we must preserve our mountains, our deserts, our Arctic, and our waterways if we hope to preserve ourselves. To give up these places to immoderate exploitation is to surrender who we are – as a culture, a people, or a nation. Why articulate these thoughts in the Gadﬂy? Because the polity of St. John’s College is a conservative community. I hear the pitchforks rattling, so let me quickly defend myself. There are few polities with such profound antipathy toward change. Think of our response to Siegelvision, or the intense self-reﬂection we engage in regularly through organs such as the SCI—with little concrete reform ensuing. Change happens slowly here. This is because we appreciate that what we have is very good, and we are consequently sensitive to what we may lose through aggressive advancement. Yet our antipathy to change has not naturally extended to our physical environment. Because of the nature of our experience here, it is not surprising that we identify far more with our polity and the Program than we do with College Creek. But I am glad to see that our culture is slowly changing in this respect, and glad to have seen the recycling efforts at Croquet grow each year—a testament, I think, to a growing sense that the pursuit of Virtue and the cultivation of our polis require more than abstract notions of the Good. These undertakings demand that we eschew cavalier enterprise and reject our inner Icarus in favor of keeping, cultivating, protecting, and enjoying. ! *#+,$-./012$%343',$5678 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly Description An account of the resource Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Click on <a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the The Gadfly Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context thegadfly Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 8 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Goldman, Nathan (Editor in Chief) Tuttle, Ian (Editor in Chief) Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly, Vol. XXXV, Issue 12 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-05-06 Description An account of the resource Volume XXXV, Issue 12 of The Gadfly. Published on May 06, 2014. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Gadfly 35.12 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Gadfly Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/1b142e7e4ded83e7091d2a07670c5815.pdf 100285a72c21ebb3ace98ff79d201ea5 PDF Text Text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�The Gadfly 02 The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com Founded in 1980, the Gadﬂy is the student newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadﬂy reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. The next Gadﬂy meeting will take place Sunday, Aug 31, at 7 PM in Room 109 on the ﬁrst lower level of the Barr-Buchanan Center. Articles should be submitted by Friday, Sep 5, at 11:59 PM to sjca.gadﬂy@gmail. com. Staff Sebastian Barajas • Editor-in-Chief Allison Tretina • Editor-In-Chief Sebastian Abella • Layout Editor Noe Jimenez • Layout Editor Jonathan Gordon • Staff Contributors Jessica Benya Emily Grazier Bryce Jacobsen President Nelson Senior Residents Career Services Jason Yarber !"#$%&'(%)*+&#",- W elcome, Johnnies, to the ﬁrst issue of the new year! We’re excited to be taking over the reigns for the Gadﬂy, and we expect that the ﬂow of insipiration and insight will continue to bite at the ﬂank of the Polity, egging it ever onward to glorious wisdom. We’d like to invite all members of the community—students, staff, faculty, and alumni—to contribute these pages. This issue focuses on those new to our community. We hope the words for newcomers will not only serve those who have just arrived, but every Johnnie-in-development. Best wishes in the coming year. !"#$%&'(%)"(*+,(-&. Christopher Nelson A’70 D ear Freshmen, I took great joy in welcoming you to St. John’s last week. And what a glorious gift of song from our returning students! The energy and enthusiasm in the room were palpable, and I hope they carried forward into your ﬁrst classes. I still remember my ﬁrst days as a freshman in Annapolis (nearly 50 years ago!!) I remember the friends I made in my ﬁrst core group, with whom I still visit or correspond. We studied together a lot that year, practicing our Euclidian propositions together on community black boards and testing outrageous translations of Greek fragments. I imagine that many of you will be doing the same. Our community of learning ﬂourishes because of the enthusiasm of our students, their desire to know, and their commitment to talking with one another, sharing their ideas, seeking help from their fellow students, knowing that this sharing and seeking will be returned over and over again. Of course, it helps encourage such conversation to have good subjects to talk about, and of those we have no lack at St. John’s. There are the books, of course. There too are the protagonists we meet in many of them, those who move the spirit to imitate or reject them as good or bad examples of human character and behavior. And then there are the endless questions, the ones we come back to over and over in each new reading: What does it mean to be human? What kind of world am I living in? What is my place in it, and how can I contribute something to it that is worthy of my humanity? In short, how should I live the one life that I have? The good news is that you have the time here to reﬂect on these questions before acting on them, and this is important. It takes time to get to know yourself well enough to know what will feed the soul that belongs to you and you alone. And often it will be your friends who know you better than you know yourself, who can take you outside yourself to help you look in and discover the big mystery that is you. All this is a way of saying that we are an intentional community designed to encourage learning, perhaps most particularly self-learning. And we rely on each of our community members to maintain and support that learning. I speak of our tutors, of course, but also of our staff, who are here to provide the services that support your principle undertaking. Then there are your fellow students, including the sophomores, juniors and seniors who have all read the same books that you will be reading and who have struggled with the same questions you will be asking. And ﬁnally, there are all those invisible souls among our alumni and friends, governors and donors, who care enough about your learning that they give what they can to help us realize most of our hopes for this community and to help you realize the dreams you will be shaping while you are here. We invite you to share in the spirit of community, to undertake the friendships that will support you in your time here, to allow yourselves the pleasure and release of the club activities that call to you (leaving time for your studies too!), and to provide your own kind of nourishment to this community with the special gifts that are yours to give. Welcome to St. John’s College! We look forward to having you with us for the next four year and for a lifetime thereafter. Sincerely Yours, Christopher B. Nelson President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�The Gadfly 03 !"#$%&$'()*"(+*,&$'( -,./01#$(2.#, Myth 3: There is something wrong with you if you stand out for the wrong reasons. Granted, if you throw up on your Seminar tutor in the ﬁrst week of class, you should probably examine why this happened, and—if possible—try to prevent it happening again. But even if you never Sebastian Barajas A’17 completely live it down, keep in mind that the pages of history are full of great men and women throwing up on one another, and the world has carried on just the same. Realize that the Johnnie Bubble tends to amplify gossip to the point where you think your history of freshman peccadillos is etched on your forehead permanently. And while it’s true that a few obnoxious or spiteful people might gossip about your scandals for a while, most of the school doesn’t care nearly as much or as long as you think they do. They have their own problems. Few, if any, people ever walk the perfect path in life, and especially not as college freshmen. Things will go wrong and explode in your face. People will throw up and be thrown up on. Homework may not get done on time. It’s much more worthwhile to focus on the valuable moments: midnight conversations about Aristotle, rainy afternoons under the McDowell awning, classes where you stop believing in reality for a few minutes and then ﬁnd it again. !"#$#%&'#()%*+,+--#.-#( The advice I got as a freshman wasn’t wrong, just inverted. I say, focus t the beginning of my freshman year at St. John’s, an upper- on what you want to be and to do, rather than what you don’t. Find creclassman gave us this advice: “Don’t be the guy/girl who…” ative new ways to end the sentence “I’m glad to be the guy/girl who…” The end of this sentence can be ﬁlled by a near inﬁnite number of For example: different horrible things. For example, I’m glad to be the guy/girl who… Don’t be the guy/girl who… … saved the pendulum pit from the indignity of being peed on. … threw up on his/her Seminar tutor. … learned to waltz. … peed in the pendulum pit. … started the ﬁrst yodeling club at St. John’s. … accused his/her Seminar tutor of being complicit with the Nazis. … made vomit and ﬁre proof ponchos for his/her seminar tutors. … threw up in the pendulum pit. … was able to coherently explain Parmenides to his/her Seminar. … lit his/her Seminar tutor on ﬁre. … singlehandedly beat the entire Naval Academy team at croquet. And so on. The ﬁeld is wide open, fellow Johnnies. ! The advice is good as far as it goes; these certainly should not be anyone’s aspirations. However, I think most incoming freshmen are Jason Yarber A’17 probably more in danger of the opposite: of not being “the guy/girl who” anything—not even “the guy/girl who is amazingly good at I know that feeling. You’ve had it your entire life. Perhaps Greek.” it’s so pervasive that you don’t even know it’s there, but it is. That’s not to say that standing out should mean that all your uniqueness is reducible to a single sentence. There is still a certain pathetic It’s the feeling of spiritual emptiness that comes from not quality in titles like, “the guy with the polka-dotted dreadlocks,” or being swole as hell. But fret not, ladies and gentlemen—St. “the girl who only wears David Bowie outﬁts.” Not that either polka- John’s has a solution for your body that will ease the sufferdotted dreadlocks or David Bowie fashion is inherently ridiculous, ing in your soul. Come to the temple. Temple Iglehart. but to have them constitute one’s identity would be unfortunate. At Temple Iglehart (officially: Iglehart Hall) you will kneel There is a deﬁnite art to standing out in the right ways, especially at the altar of the bench press. You will clasp dumbells in during freshman year. I would say the biggest failures in that art your hands and raise them in praise. You will soar above the come from the following myths: Myth 1: It’s worthwhile to stand out for its own sake. Dressing like basketball court like Hermes as you traverse the elevated and David Bowie just to be noticed may accomplish its goal, but it won’t slightly scary track. While all the college seeks to build your make people respect you. Personally, I would respect someone who mind, only The Temple seeks to build your body, and should dressed like David Bowie if the song Fashion were the soundtrack of you be willing to undergo the task of working out a couple days a week, it will fulﬁll its sacred and eternal promise to his/her life, and any other clothes felt soul-destroyingly dull. Myth 2: There’s something wrong with you if you don’t stand out. cut fat away and stack lean muscle onto your physique until True uniqueness is usually harder to see than dreadlocks or David you are a force worthy of the Gods!! The gym also has a ping pong table. Bowie clothes. If people don’t see your uniqueness, then it’s most So if you’re like me, and you thirst for the adrenaline of likely because they haven’t looked too closely at you. If you can’t get good exercise or just a good game of soccer or basketball (or someone to look closely at you, then your mom was right: they’re not ping pong), Iglehart Hall is a good place to start. ! worth bothering with. A The Sacred Temple �The Gadfly 04 !""#$%&'($)*$+**&,"-)( Emily Grazier A’16 Dear Freshmen, As much as we all love our dining hall, at times one desires a bit of a change. Also, in case you haven’t heard, it’s important to support the local economy—and there’s no better way to do so than food (at least, that’s one of my favorite lines for condoning all my food purchases). So, here’s my top picks of places to snag something tasty in Annapolis: Dining Out: Lemongrass, the faux-Thai restaurant up on West Street, is always a good dinner pick, and moderately priced. Their drunken noodles are particularly tasty. But if you have the energy to walk up to Lemongrass, muster up a bit more for the few extra blocks to India’s. From chai to tandoor-baked breads, to main dishes (with a healthy dose of vegetarian options) and fantastic desserts For Ice cream: (go for the halwah. Yes, it’s a dessert made with carrots. And yes, Don’t be fooled. Kilwin’s will try to woo you, but their ice cream it’s delicious), India’s has an extensive menu and good service. is vastly inferior to the new Firenze’s Gelato in the Market At the opposite end of the spectrum is Soﬁ’s Crepes, a bit closer House. Scrumptious, creamy gelato, made with local milk in to campus and an ever-popular Johnnie pick, with quite the unusual ﬂavors—try the lucuma. It’s made with a tropical fruit lineup of sweet and savory crepes. My favorite is the BATS, their that tastes something like butterscotch. The only downside is that take on a California BLT. Plenty of bacon and avocado stuffed the shop is rather pricey for small servings. If you’re after more of into a tender crepe. a bargain, check out the Annapolis Ice Cream Company. They make all their own ice cream on the premises, have tons of ﬂavors, Lemongrass: 167 West St and are open late. They also have an unusually large amount of India’s: 257 West St ﬂavors with oreos, so if you’re enamored of the little sandwich Soﬁ’s Crepes: 1 Craig St cookie this place has the perfect ice cream for you. Miscellaneous: Market House: 25 Market St I also have to make a pitch for the farmer’s market, down by Annapolis Ice Cream Company: 196 Main St the docks on Sundays at nine-to-noon until November. Fantastic local milk, yogurts, and butter; apples; breads and pastries; For Coffee: cheeses; fresh veggies; meats; and seafood. And of course, I beg of you, please, please, please do not go to either City Dock friendly farmers. If you’re buying produce at Whole Foods, or Hardbean. Unfortunately, I did not ﬁgure this out my freshswitch to this venue within walking distance and with equal or man year, and wasted time, money, and tastebuds on some truly lower prices. wretched beverages. Just a hop, skip, and a jump away from campus sits the Annapolis Bookstore, which serves both a Farmer’s Market: Donnor parking lot, Compromise St quirky collection of books (including a section devoted to program works) and some very tasty coffee and espresso shots. Now get out there and eat something! Heaven knows you’ll 49 West also has good espresso, and an excellent and decadent need it—after all, Plato will be looming on seminar’s horizon mocha—as well as being a popular Johnnie brunch spot. before you know it. ! Annapolis Bookstore: 35 Maryland Ave For Bread: Even if you’re not as bread-obsessed as I, Bakers & Co. is worth the moderately long walk into Eastport. When I walked by the ﬁrst time and saw someone sitting outside waiting for it to open, I ﬁgured whatever the shop served had to be delicious. An accurate supposition. I don’t think I’ve had anything I don’t like from them. Fantastic pastries, including scones with seasonally changing ﬂavors, scrumptious croissants, and slightly tangy, chewy naturallevain loaves—which are best eaten immediately after purchasing, ripping off large hunks while seeds and cornmeal ﬂy everywhere. Oh, and they serve great coffee. The Great Harvest Bread Company, in the opposite direction from campus, bakes bread in a completely different style—earthy, more home-baked loaves, but equally delicious. Great Harvest Bread Company: 208 Ridgely Ave Bakers & Co: 618 Chesapeake Ave !""#$%&'$(%&)(*"(* Join Annapolis Skippers on a joy ride of the Chesapeake Bay! No previous sailing experience required with a chance to ride either a sailboat or powerboat. On Saturday, September 20, at 10:00 AM Meet at the foot of Prince George St. at the Annapolis City Dock. Box lunches will be provided by Bon Appetit and charged to your meal plan. Please dress appropriately rain or shine: tennis shoes, jacket/sweater Registration is required by September 8 RSVP to Anna.Perry@sjc.edu �The Gadfly !"#$%&'$"%()*'+,%"-.%/*)+.)0 05 Sebastian Abella A’15 It’s no surprise to hear that a Johnnie is going into And there is the Bloomsbury Square Community teaching. It’s in the very nature of the school to place Center, where every Tuesday afternoon Midshipmen great emphasis in learning and what is actually taking and Johnnies can be found offering their tutoring serplace in the classroom, both as a personal sentiment vices. and as a matter of public policy. It’s these thoughts I can personally attest to how welcoming these that have often motivated students to attend St. John’s, places are and how grateful they are to have the help. and for a signiﬁcant number of them, to go into teach- And the children really respond to having young coling afterwards. Some of the incoming freshman may lege students spend time with them. To have so many already have these considerations. Others may feel opportunities closer to campus than Main Street is uneasy even thinking about doing such an opportunity I urge anyone with any a thing. “I came to St. John’s to escape Johnnies are in a interest to take advantage of. From my the traditional education system,” they experience, the reality is that it gets unique position difficult to make it a habit to continue may think to themselves. to think deeply Johnnies are in a unique position to attending. I worked at West Annapolis think deeply about the act of learning about the act of my Sophomore year and thought it was and the role of education in their lives learning and the a wonderful learning environment, it and in others’. Freshman year is ripe was difficult to balance my own classes role of education with a morning work schedule. The with readings that raise questions conin their lives and Program can be taxing. In addition to cerning the nature of knowledge, the purpose of education for society, among extra curriculars, work, and having a in others’. many other similarly formulated quessocial life, taking up another responsitions. It’s a curious feature of philosobility, a volunteer one no less may apphy that requires thinking about the pursuit itself. As pear out of the question. similar as one could ask “What is philosophy?” one So what I want to urge anyone interested is to could consider “What is education or learning?” make a modest commitment. Heck, even if you’re But Johnnies are in another very unique position. not interested, go just once with an open mind. TuIt’s easy to voluntary trap yourself into the “Johnnie tor somewhere once a week. Bring a friend. I know Bubble.” If you don’t know what that is yet, just ask how tempting an after class nap can be, but it is litersomeone to your left. It’s ﬁne to do so for a bit—I’d ally one hour out of your week. And I promise that if even argue it’s a part of what makes this sort of edu- it’s something you’d enjoy, you’ll never regret having cation work—but if you’re serious about pursuing the gone. This is a time to interact with the community in questions concerning the nature and purpose of edu- a meaningful way and apply your St. John’s education. cation, you ought to get off campus, because there are You’ll learn what works, what doesn’t. How different many opportunities a walking distance from the cam- kids respond to different teaching approaches is an pus to learn just that. invaluable experience. Don’t worry about the subject To highlight a few, there is West Annapolis Elemen- matter. I worried and then realized that I knew batary, which has an after school tutoring opportunities sic math and reading. So do you. Don’t be shy if you and work study positions available every semester. It have to miss it on occasion because the staffs running is across the bridge over College Creek by back cam- these programs are ﬂexible and understanding. You pus and on a scenic road. may even ﬁnd out that it’s not the thing for you, but There is the After School Homework Club in the at least you’ve exposed yourself to a new experience Stanton Center from Monday to Thursday that begins and hopefully have a more informed respect for what every year around mid-September through the end teachers do. That is a part of the St. John’s experience, of the academic year, where children from several lo- to expand one’s horizons and have the conﬁdence to cal schools to seek help with basic math and reading try something new. ! skills. “ �The Gadfly 06 Introducing the Senior Residents! ,-(-',*%./&$ !"#$%&'(")$*"#+',%&'I8+*%%&'>B+$D$+$") J$K''23'#./"'$)'L;5;'L1$70"#@'.#*'6'./'0:".)"*'+%')"&D"'!+;'5%1#M)'.)'.'!"#$%&'(")$*"#+'.#*'N$&"BG +%&'%,'I8+*%%&'>B+$D$+$");''O",%&"'/%D$#7'>##.0%:$)',%&'+1"'P&.*8.+"'6#)+$+8+"@'6')0"#+'+$/"':$D$#7'$#' P.$#")D$::"@'P>Q'!/%:"#)C@'(8))$.Q'-%:8/9$.@'!-Q'.#*'L.$0"$@'L.$?.#;''6#'.::'%,'+1%)"'0:.B")@'6'1.D"' "#=%3"*'9"$#7'%8+*%%&)@'.#*'6'1%0"'3%8'?$::'=%$#'/"'%#'%#"'%,'%8&'"AB8&)$%#)'+1$)'3".&;''>:%#7'?$+1' /3'?$,"'!18"3'.#*'%8&'#"?')%#'I?"#@'6':$D"'.9%D"'+1"'J.&&$)%#'J".:+1'-"#+"&;''<"':%%C',%&?.&*'+%' 7"++$#7'+%'C#%?'3%8'.::'9"++"&K 0$"%12&'3#44#"&+ !"#$%&'(")$*"#+',%&'!0"B$.:'RD"#+) 23'#./"'$)'R#&$S8"'F.::.&")'.#*'6'./'+1"'!"#$%&'(")$*"#+',%&'!0"B$.:'RD"#+);'6'./',&%/'T8$+%@' RB8.*%&'.#*':$D"'?$+1'?$,"@'U.8&.@'$#'!0"B+%&'J.::;'6'./'.'F1N')+8*"#+'%,'F%:$+$B.:'F1$:%)%013' .#*'.'L".B1$#7'>))$)+.#+'.+'L1"'-.+1%:$B'V#$D"&)$+3'%,'>/"&$B.'$#'N-;'6#'.**$+$%#'+%'9"$#7'%#' B.::'?$+1'+1"'%+1"&'!"#$%&'(")$*"#+)@'6'?$::'9"'%&7.#$W$#7')%/"'"D"#+)'.#*'0.&+$")'+1&%871%8+'+1"' 3".&'.#*':%%C',%&?.&*'+%')""$#7'3%8'+1"&"K'F:".)"'.:?.3)',"":',&""'+%')+%0'93'%&'&".B1'%8+'$,'3%8' ?.#+'+%'+.:C'.9%8+'$*".)@'0:.3',X+9%:'%&'/8)$B;' 5"#67'8&& !"#$%&'(")$*"#+',%&'6#+"&#.+$%#.:'!+8*"#+'!"&D$B") 23'#./"'$)'O&.*3'U""'.#*'6':$D"'$#'P$::$./'J.::'?$+1'/3'?$,"'U3##;'<"'.&"'"A0"B+$#7'%8&'Y&)+' B1$:*@'.'*.871+"&@'$#'Z%D"/9"&;'U.)+')0&$#7'6'B%/0:"+"*'+1"'!+;'5%1#M)'7&.*8.+"'0&%7&./@'$#B:8*G $#7'P&""C'.#*'9.*/$#+%#;'6'?$::'9"'%&7.#$W$#7'6#+"&#.+$%#.:'!+8*"#+'!"&D$B")'"D"#+)'.#*'0%+:8BC)@' 98+'"D"#'$,'3%8M&"'>/"&$B.#'0:".)"',"":',&""'+%')+%0'93'.#*')1.&"'%8&':%D":3'D$"?'%,'-%::"7"'-&""C;' <":B%/"'+%'!+;'5%1#M)'-%::"7"K 9#:%&';#:4#<= !"#$%&'(")$*"#+ J$K'6M/'H.+$"'2.+:.BC;'6':$D"'$#'+1"'J".:+1'-"#+"&'>0.&+/"#+'O'?$+1'/3'18)9.#*'!./8":'.#*'#"?' *.871+"&'Z.%/$@'9%&#'$#'2.3K'6MD"'9""#'.'!"#$%&'(")$*"#+')$#B"'[\]\@'.#*'/3'*8+$")'$#B:8*"'+.CG $#7'7&%80)'%,')+8*"#+)'%8+'+%',8#'"D"#+)'%,,'B./08)'+%'7"+'.'9&".C',&%/'+1"'O899:"'#%?'.#*'+1"#;'6' 7&"?'80'$#'.')/.::'+%?#'%8+)$*"'%,'R87"#"@'I&"7%#@'.#*'6':$D"*'$#'IC$#.?.@'5.0.#'?$+1'/3'7&.#*G /%+1"&M)',./$:3',%&'+?%'.#*'.'1.:,'3".&)'9",%&"'6'/%D"*'+%'>##.0%:$)'.#*'7%+'/.&&$"*;'6'*%'/$))'+1"' <")+'-%.)+@'?$+1'$+M)'"D"&7&""#'+&"")@'1$71'/%8#+.$#)@'.#*'*&3')8//"&)@'98+'>##.0%:$)',"":)'/%&"' .#*'/%&"':$C"'1%/"'".B1'3".&; !"#$$%&'()*$+)$ !"#$%&'(")$*"#+',%&'-.#$#"'-%/0.#$%#)1$0 23'#./"'$)'4&.##$"'5%1#)%#'.#*'6'./')"#$%&'&")$*"#+'%,'*%7'*8+$")'.#*'&")$*$#7'$#'+1"'-./09"::' .0.&+/"#+;'<1"#'#%+'%8+'"#=%3$#7'>##.0%:$)'?$+1'-.*$"@'6'./'"$+1"&')+8*3$#7',%&'.'#8&)$#7'"A./' %&'B%%C$#7'80')%/"+1$#7').D%&3'$#'+1"'C$+B1"#;'E%8'/.3')""'1"&'$#'3%7.'%&')$++$#7'%8+'93'+1"'?.+"&;' F:".)"'&".B1' %8+'%&'B%/"'93'.#*').3'1"::%'.#3+$/"G'%8&'*%%&'$)'.B&%))',&%/'+1"'4!H'.8*$+%&$8/; �The Gadfly Wednesday Night Seminar Questions? Do you ever wonder what it would be like to have Aristophanes as your Seminar tutor? Instead of getting to poke merciless fun at only a few readings (Republic, Bacchae, Poetics, etc.) you would get to poke merciless fun all year! But let’s face it: a reincarnated Aristophanes would probably not be offered a teaching position at St. John’s, no matter how good his Greek was. So it’s up to us (you and me, polity) to keep a satirical perspective alive all year. And what night more ﬁtting for an unofficial Aristophanes seminar than Wednesday night New Year’s? Starting this year, every issue (or whenever possible) the Gadﬂy will publish a Wednesday Night Seminar Question in the spirit of Aristophanes. These can be taken seriously, or not, as you prefer. Feel free to send us a question for the next issue, or a short answer to a question from a previous issue! Keeping levity alive, -The Gadﬂy Team Q: If the Trojans had a cloning machine, would they make another Helen, or would they just make 1000 Hectors to send at the Greeks? ! !"#$%%$&"'("!)*+,$ Jessica Benya A’17 Dear Freshmen, I went around to multiple members of the polity to asking, “what would be the best advice you could give to the freshmen?” I’ve heard to take everything that anyone says with a grain of salt. That’s something most people learned rather early on, some in more harsh circumstances than others. Check your sources. The freshmen winter is incredibly hard. Everyone who lived in the same dorms magically became much closer in the winter. A few close friends are better than a bunch of acquaintances. Saying that, I do not mean to ﬁnd a few close friends and exclude yourself from the world. Try to reach out to meet new people as well, but ﬁnding that friend group of close friends that can support you will help. Friends change, especially in the ﬁrst year. That’s not a bad thing. Everyone is coming from different places around the world. Maintain friendships that would be healthy for yourself to maintain, be there if someone needs you, but do not be taken advantage of. Reach out to not only your class, but the other three. It’s a small campus, don’t feel conﬁned to people who are in your year. And etcetera. So many great pieces of advice that all came from one thing: experience. Everyone I talked to found out those gems somehow. Some of the best advice I would offer would be to have no regrets. Not to go off the deep end, but being able to go to your next year and gather from what happened in the previous year. It’s all a learning experience. Stick to your morals and people here will learn to respect them. Keep an open mind, and you should be ﬁne. ! 07 !"#$%"&$'"$()$*$+","-$./01)$+)2 Jonathan Gordon A’17 Advice to freshman: “It is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick.” I once went to a doctor convinced I had strep throat. I’m not sure why I went. If she had said I had strep, I was right all along. When my doctor said I didn’t, I didn’t believe her. In retrospect, although I was convinced of my diagnosis, some part of me recognized that I had no medical training, and should probably have listened to her. I once went to a college convinced I was educated. I’m not sure why I went. If my college had said I was educated, I was right all along. When she said I wasn’t, I didn’t believe her. In retrospect, although I was convinced of my education, some part of me recognized that I went to college for a reason, and should probably have listened to her. See, your admissions essays probably read something like mine: “Dear St. Johns, I’ve achieved these grades, accomplished those things, and mastered these books; won’t you let me in?” Today, I regret those words. I regret trying to convince the college dedicated to educating me, that I was already educated. I wish I had come to St. Johns not to heal, but to be healed; not to educate, but to be educated. I came to St. Johns thinking that I understood what it meant to be educated. I went to my ﬁrst seminar with my own opening question. I assumed that I would astound my tutors, and lead my class into a new understanding of the Iliad. I guessed that St. Johns would teach me something—just don’t ask me what exactly “something” was. I now begin to see how learning happens. I didn’t learn much in my ﬁrst seminars. I couldn’t listen to people except to disprove them. Since I wasn’t willing to be wrong, I regularly learned that I was right. When you’re always right, you begin to wonder why you bother with seminar. Early in the year, one of my tutors changed my perspective. She told me that she learned the most when rather than arguing with people, she worked to see their point from the text. This tutor showed me what she meant over the year. Whenever she spoke, she assumed that the other person had a good point to make. When I argued truly idiotic ideas, she ended her rebuttal with “Mr. Gordon, I’m just not sure I’m understanding you.” My advice to you, freshmen, is to Imitate her in learning from others When I started listening to other people, I began to see new perspectives on the text, and suddenly I began to interact with strange, beautiful ideas. I would leave seminar in happy confusion, wondering about the new perspectives on the text I had seen. I’d talk to the tutors about their opinions on the text, just for the delight of seeing the text put together as a whole. They don’t put me or you in a seminar to teach your classmates, but to learn from them. Come to seminar not to enlighten your peers on the correct interpretation of the Iliad, but to really understand the Iliad, by listening to your peers. If you leave seminar convinced that you were right, what have you learned? But if you leave seminar understanding how wrong you were, you will have stumbled upon new truth. Don’t neglect your own ideas. Do your seminar readings twice so that you have better ideas about the text. Do two drafts of your papers so that you grow better in expressing your ideas. Rather, stop looking at seminar as a battle of who’s right. See the text from each other’s perspective, so that you both can see more of the text. If you must take pride in something, take pride in being wrong, because when you’re wrong, you have learned. Being educated is not being always right: it is being eager to listen and be wrong. Freshmen, join me in being hopelessly wrong. Join me in considering the ideas of others. Join me in the journey of learning together. It is not the educated that need education; it is us. ! �The Gadfly 08 *) !"#$%&'() !"#$%&'() *+*',!"#$%&'()+,-.$ !"#$"%#&'()*+, F%/'+## \6',1#%'$5'9$N%6/2' a6&%2/&)'$5'9$Q-&%,&)' !"#$%&'(&#)*'+%,&*#-.'%/&$*%,((',&'+%#)%*"'$a&2b.%0)%1'(*'23'&%45%67845% ,)+%,((',&$%,))9,..:%#)%09&%/&$*%#$$9';%<#*"09*%,%+093*%09&%,*".'*#-%+#&'-= *0&5%>&;%>-?9,&&#'5%#$%@#..#)A%*0%$*,)+%#)%B0&%*"'%/&$*%('&$0)%C0#-'%9$'+%#)% *"#$%,&*#-.'D,)+%*0%,)$@'&%,):%E9'$*#0)$%,309*%09&%,*".'*#-%(&0A&,2;%=F+; Q,9$`(")_'$["(%6'*$ $$$$$D0N(4#11$a%#&,$\&11 M$WD Bryce Jacobsen -./#&'()*+0 c6)&/$Q(00#% E$WD Z11$[(11#7#$Q#3/)&% D0N(4#11$a%#&,$\&11 R<VV$WD 1&23.#&'()*45 F%/'+## Q-&%,&)'$5'9$a%##)4&5#' a6&%2/&)'$5'9$\6',1#%' Qd[*$ $$$a%#&,$\&11 =V$WD 13$#&'()*46 Q(00#% \6',1#%'$5'9$N%6/2'$ a%##)4&5#'$5'9$Q-&%,&)' :;$.(6$4(612$1/B#$,($'##$.(6%$ #5#),$()$,"#$4##B1.$'0"#261#*$ -1#&'#$#3&/1$'80&97&2b.e73&/19 0(39 ! A’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`&0B$&$2611$+(.9 ?V9$ :,$/'$+#,,#%$,($1/7",$&$0&)21#$,"&)$,($06%'#$,"#$2&%B)#''9 Q($,"#%#$.(6$"&5#$/,<$,4#),.$7((2$%#&'()'$4".$.(6$'"(612$-&%,/0/-&,#$/)$(6%$&,"1#,/0$ -%(7%&39$:;$.(6$&%#$)(,$0()5/)0#2$+.$&11$(;$,"/'*$0(3#$&)2$,&1B$,($3#9$:$0&)$-%(+&+1.$,"/)B$ (;$'(3#$3(%#$7((2$%#&'()'9$X%$+#,,#%$.#,*$,&1B$4/,"$,"#$6--#%01&''3#)9$!"#.$4/11$,#11$.(6$ &11$'(%,'$(;$',%&)7#*$/),#%#',/)7*$&)2$4()2%(6'$,"/)7'9$! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly Description An account of the resource Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Click on <a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the The Gadfly Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context thegadfly Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 8 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barajas, Sebastian (Editor in Chief) Tretina, Allison (Editor in Chief) Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly, Vol. XXXVI, Issue 1 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-08-27 Description An account of the resource Volume XXXVI, Issue 1 of The Gadfly. Published on August 27, 2014. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Gadfly 36.01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Gadfly Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/834d79279aa4108fc61a8fb2c8eff8c8.pdf 37fc3d0cb8901d8ab7949f2661bcbcfb PDF Text Text !"# $%&'() !"#$%"&'&()*!#+$*,*-. /0112*&(*3*/#34+&540*6&+7*,*-8 930$&5&%3+&1(*:;43"#*,*-<* =3(+&()*/#++#">*?&$$&()*+@#*/#$+*,*-A * !"#$%&'()!$*&++,-,$.$/0$*&++,-,$12,3$1((14&+5!3$67$89:09$.$!,4"#$;3$809:$.$2&+#$<<<25$.$5!!=,$08 �The Gadfly 02 The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com Founded in 1980, the Gadﬂy is the student newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadﬂy reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. The Gadﬂy meets in the Hodson House. Please use the front door. Articles should be submitted by Friday at 11:59 PM to sjca.gadﬂy@gmail.com Staff Sebastian Barajas • Editor-in-Chief Allison Tretina • Editor-in-Chief Sebastian Abella • Layout Editor Noe Jimenez • Layout Editor Kira Anderson • Staff Ryan Gleklin • Staff Jonathan Gordon • Staff Frederick Nesﬁeld • Staff Contributors Leslie Howard President Nelson Roger John Robertson Michael Wolfe Frances Webb !"#$%&'(%)*+&#",- J ohnnies: This issue is ﬁlled with a host of features, from a guided tour through the streets of Sarajevo to thoughtful reﬂections on the recent Summer Academy at St. John’s. Also, on the right, you will ﬁnd an informative letter from President Nelson on the college’s ﬁnances. This weekend is Homecoming Weekend. Make sure to network, meet new people, and take advantage of the many activites happening on campus. In the meantime, happy reading! !"#$%&'(%)"(*+,(-&... President Christopher B. Nelson D SF’70 ear Members of the St. John’s College Polity, I am frequently asked how the College’s operations are ﬁnanced and how the money is spent. As our ﬁnancial model has changed considerably since the economy went into its downturn in the fall of 2008, it seems appropriate to address this question broadly to our community. What is the principal change in our model? The need for Financial Aid has climbed signiﬁcantly in the last 5 years. This has caused us to rely more heavily on philanthropic support than ever before. As we are committed to making this education affordable for all who belong at the College, we have also committed ourselves to reducing costs and seeking alternative funding. This is how it looks today: The Annapolis campus has a budget of nearly $38 million, of which $11 million is used for ﬁnancial aid to students. Of the remaining $27 million, less than half (@$11million) is funded by tuition actually paid by our students. Nearly $1.4 million comes from Federal and State support of ﬁnancial aid programs. About $4.7 million comes from auxiliary and other revenue (room, board, and revenue from the book store, print shop, and outreach programs for the community, all of which cover our costs of those operations.) This leaves a balance of $10 million, more than one-third of our operating revenue that comes from gifts and gift income (i.e., distributions from our endowment). Most of those gifts come from grateful alumni who want to help St. John’s continue to offer the education that helped them make happy and fulﬁlling lives for themselves. So much for the sources of revenue. How is it spent? Eleven million dollars, more than 40% of the $26 million budget, is spent directly on instruction and academic support (tutors, the Dean’s, Assistant Dean’s and GI offices, laboratory, library and music library). Another $3.6 million is spent on student services (from the offices of career services, student life, health services, and athletics to student clubs and the admissions and ﬁnancial aid offices). Nearly $6.7 million is spent on institutional support (the business office, public safety, personnel, advancement, alumni relations, corporate and foundation relations, communications, information technology, telephones, office services, and the President’s office). The College spends $1.3 million on debt service to pay down a relatively small amount of debt used to ﬁnance some of the building construction and renovation. The remaining $4.2 million supports our auxiliary expenses (dormitories, grounds, food service, book store and print shop.) We are indeed fortunate that the College has the increased philanthropic support we need to maintain our class sizes, lively campus life, and ﬁnancial aid program in these more demanding times. And this coming weekend, we welcome home our alumni who are most responsible for this gift of life to our College. Please join me in thanking them for all the good they are doing in the interest of our College and our students. Sincerely, Christopher B. Nelson President !"#$%&'()*+,-)#&*.*/0"#(1#1 J(1&$,K&'3(*%(@K%-#G'K*7,""3$&8 9C; 7&,-#(&*7#$0'K#18 CH; J(1&'&,&'3(%= 7,""3$&8*L?; @,A'==%$6 B(&#$"$'1#18*CM; N#5&*7#$0'K#8*?; !"#$%&'()*+,-)#&*.*/#0#(,#1 2,'&'3(*4%'-*56 7&,-#(&18*9:; <#-#$%=*%(-*7&%&# >$%(&18*?; @,A'==%$6 B(&#$"$'1#18*CD; 4$'0%&#*>'E&1*%(B(-3FG#(&18*HI; �The Gadfly 03 !"#$$%"#&'()%*#$&!#+&!"#$*",-+,.( Leslie Howard A’15 “Pets are not permitted on campus.” sity did a study on dogs in the workplace and recorded their ﬁndings in the International Journal of Workplace Health This is the saddest thing you’ve heard all week: I never had Management. Some people were allowed to bring their dogs a dog. to work while others were not. They found that, although I never had a dog, but of course that doesn’t mean I never everyone arrived at work with about the same level of stress, wanted one. I remember begging my parents for a puppy. (I ﬁ- the dog-bringers’ stress decreased over the course of the day, nally got a guinea pig. Olivea. The “ea” at the end made a clev- while the dog-non-bringers’ increased. This makes sense to er wordplay with “guinea”. She was great. Looked like a tiny me, but, after all, these were their own dogs they were interEnglish sheepdog. Everybody should get a guinea pig.) Dogs, acting with, not a stranger’s dog. though. I had an imaginary dog for a while. His (dogs were all Other research done by Dr. James Ha of the Department boys back then) name was Woof-Woof—I swear to God. But of Psychology at University of Washington touches on this my dream was to have the real thing! It turns out my mom just point. He researched the use of dogs in courtrooms to soothe isn’t an animal person. (She had a bad experience with a family agitated persons during the stressful proceedings (see www. dog as a child with her mom’s spoiled poodle, Beau-James.) So, courthousedogs.com). He found that the short-term physical I don’t think any number of imaginary dogs would have ever effects of even a strange dog’s presence on a stressed human induced her to indulge me with the real thing. were beneﬁcial: slowed heart rate and decreased blood presAt the end of last spring, as I’m sure most of you rememsure. My favorite part of Dr. Ha’s report (more about dogs ber, the school renewed its dog-less campus policy due to an generally than merely courtroom dogs, and based on an artiunfortunate dog bite accident. For B&G, this policy means not cle by D.L. Wells from the Journal of Social Issues in 2009) is having to pick up ungrateful dog owners’ dog shit. For me, it as follows: “There are also well-documented short-term (and just means not seeing that one townie’s beautiful blue merle long-term) effects on psychological health, including positive Australian shepherd every day anymore. (You know the one effects on social communication and ability to make social I mean.) For some of you, it means leaving Fido alone in your contacts, reduction in feelings of loneliness and isolation, and apartment every weekday and two nights a week while you’re improvements in depression and self-esteem.” in class and having to conﬁne his walks and play to the cruel Now, I know none of us at St. John’s ever struggles with brick-paved sidewalks of Annapolis. But for all of us, unforisolation or making social connections. If we did, I’m contunately, it means restricting our dog interactions on campus vinced removing all dogs from campus was a huge mistake. If to Cadie, the Jack Russell Terror. I mean terrier. The only J.R. we were ever depressed or lonely, I hope the administration terrier I think any of us ever got along with was Wishbone. would care enough about the mental health of the students (Fun fact: the name of the dog that played Wishbone was Soc- to consider rescinding the policy. And if we did ever have low cer. Yes, was. He died in 2001. Not-so-fun fact. I’ll attach the self-esteem, I would probably write an article about the dogcounseling center’s number below.* More on psychological less issue and put it in the school paper. effects later.) As with most new school policies, I got mad. Then later *Counseling Center: (410)626-2552 that day I saw one of those ungrateful dog owners allow his yellow lab to shit next to a pretty tree on campus right in !"#$%&&'('#)*'+,' front of me without picking it up. I almost lost my shit at him. “THIS IS YOUR FAULT. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT. YOU )++-.%&/01#2-34&-+5#678"7 SHOULDN’T EVEN OWN A DOG YOU MONSTER. YOU DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!” Almost. Wow, it felt really good to write that. But I just decided #####9-:;#%<#=%:/-&#$%++':>/%+0 to glower at him instead. This is my way of saying that I understand B&G’s frustration with the dog shit problem, which, if #####?'.3'00/%+#-+5#9%+'&/+'00 you think about it, is really just a shitty people problem. #####9%@#='&<AB0>''C Speaking of people problems, I have one for you. Stress. Recognize it? It’s a St. John’s student’s most constant companion. And while I do think it’s gross and annoying to have dog shit lying around on campus, an outrageous number of studies ##### have concluded (not surprisingly) that the presence of domesticated dogs is a terriﬁc reliever of stress. It’s therapeutic. A group of researchers from Virginia Commonwealth Univer!"#$%&'()* SIGNATURE !" !"#$%&#'( )*+&##*,-.%/&,( #$#%&'!!$!()(#*+,$* �04 !"##$%&'%(%!)(*+&,*"%-&+. !""#$%&'()""*+,-""+.""/$-$012+ The Gadfly Michael Wolfe A’15 Visiting Sarajevo can be a bizarre experience. I arrive same neighborhood. But the disunity among the differthere on a long, scenic bus ride from Montenegro, just as ent groups is still apparent. The political system must darkness begins to fall. My ﬁrst night out, I go to dinner be one of the most unusual in the world: three presiwith two girls from my hostel; we ﬁnd a small unassum- dents—a Bosniak, a Serb, and a Croat—rotate chairmaning restaurant in the Old Town. I order a beer, but the ship every eight months. waiter says to me, “I’m sorry. I can’t serve beer because Occasionally, the ethnic tensions erupt in ways that of Ramadan.” Inexplicably, about twenty minutes later are somewhat comical. Tarik tells us a story about a he is not only serving us beer but buying it for us, too. pro-Serb vandal who spray-painted a message onto the We switch to a table outdoors; he explains that there is front of the city’s main post office. It said: “This is Sera security camera inside, and he doesn’t want his boss bia!” The next day, someone spray-painted a reply just to ﬁnd out he’d been drinking. We spend below it: “No dumb-ass, this is the over an hour with our new friend as he post office.” The awful shriek discusses with us everything from the inStill, Tarik becomes very emotional famous siege in the ’90s to what kinds of when speaking about the war and the of a mortar shell many ways in which Bosnians have women he prefers. That’s my ﬁrst taste of modern day Sapassing over my honored and remembered what haprajevo. The next afternoon, I am ready pened. Some may be familiar with the head. . . could to step back in time. Some friends and I famous “Cellist of Sarajevo”, Vedran begin a walking tour in front of a plaque example. Two years thinkably be the Smailović, for of the twenty-year anthat says, “From this place on June 28, ago, in memory 1914 Gavrilo Princip assassinated the niversary of the siege, the city placed best thing to heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne 11,541 empty chairs on Maršala Tita happen on a given (one of its main thoroughfares), Franz Ferdinand and his wife Soﬁa.” Our guide, Tarik (not his real name), a student one for each person who was killed. day. born and raised in Sarajevo, tells us the Smaller chairs represented the chilepic story of the assassination (too long dren who were killed. There is also to explain here but worth reading about). At the end, a a permanent memorial in Sarajevo dedicated to slain Scottish friend wearing a pro-independence pin on his children. shirt asks about Princip, “Is it true he was eating a sandBut perhaps the most frightening aspect of the whole wich when he shot Franz Ferdinand?” Tarik laughs, and experience comes at the end, when I learn about the says, yes, that’s one of many details in the story which Dayton Accords and the present situation in Bosnia. are popular but hard to authenticate. Tarik tells us that although there is now peace, the conUnsurprisingly, the bulk of the tour is focused on the ditions are still ripe for a return to open warfare. Bosnia Bosnian war, and the siege in particular. As we walk is fortunate to have had relative calm for such a long around, it’s impossible not to notice how many bullet time, given the obvious bad blood that still exists. And holes are in the pre-war buildings. Very little has been in some ways, Sarajevo in particular seems like it could repaired. When we stop in front of the city’s Roman be a textbook case of how not to memorialize a traumatCatholic church, Tarik points out what appear to be ic history. On numerous historical markers throughout red splotches of paint on the ground. “This is called a the city, the Serbs are explicitly referred to as criminals. Sarajevo rose,” he says. “There are a number of these This might be understandable from a Bosniak perspecthroughout the city.” tive, but imagine being a young Serb born in the postI have no idea what I’m looking at until we get more war period, walking everyday past a plaque which explanation; it looks like some sort of abstract art proj- reminds you that—despite the current peace—your ethect. Tarik says: “On this spot where you’re standing, nicity as a whole is tied together inexorably with hortwenty-six people were killed by an artillery attack.” riﬁc war crimes committed by people you never met. The red splotches, he explains, are meant to symbolize It’s an impossible quandary because, often in such the blood of the victims. conﬂicts, what helps one group to integrate its suffering No big deal. Moving on. into a national heritage that always remembers what’s Almost everything related to the siege is horrendous. important about its people and its history, also angers Between such everyday activities as dodging snipers another group. Tarik acknowledges this, and thus talks and starving to death, how could anyone have lived a pessimistically about the future of Bosnia. “Many peonormal life here during the war? I try to imagine it as ple see this as only halftime,” he says, falling into a long, best I can, and at once I seem to hear the awful shriek of thoughtful silence. There is something quite shocking a mortar shell passing over my head, which could think- about his use of a sports metaphor to describe the situably be the best thing to happen on a given day. ation. If war is understood as a kind of sport, then what Of course, Sarajevo is now a beautiful, cosmopolitan kind will it be if it comes to Bosnia again? Will it be a city, just as it was before the war. It’s one of the few plac- spectator sport? ! es in the world where one can ﬁnd a mosque, a Catholic church, an Orthodox church, and a synagogue all in the “ �The Gadfly 05 !"#$%&'()*+",- !"#$%&'"()&!"*$%+,")&-.// From carpentry to salmon ﬁshing, Roger John Robertson has made a living as a tradesman. In this proﬁle, he describes how and why he has succeeded in his ﬁeld. What is your current job? Currently I am a carpenter and commercial salmon ﬁsherman. For the ﬁrst three years after I graduated I was a welder/fabricator. Did you attend other schools after St. John’s? I went to 6 weeks of welding training soon after graduating St. John’s. It was not enough to fully train me as a welder, but it did give me the credentials to get my ﬁrst job. Did you know what you wanted to do while attending St. John’s? I knew that I wanted to work with my hands, but I wasn’t sure what kind of work I actually wanted to do. I started as a seasonal ﬁsherman immediately after graduating from St. John’s and fell in love with the work and environment of southwest Alaska. The ﬁshing season lasts about 2 months, which has always meant I need to ﬁnd more work during the year. I’m still trying to ﬁnd the right job to dovetail with my ﬁshing obligations. Did St. John’s help prepare you for work in the ﬁeld? In terms of hard skills, no. But my St. John’s education gave me great soft skills. Effective communication, work ethic, and a desire to constantly learn new things have all been valuable tools no matter what kind of work I’ve done. St. John’s taught me how to be a polymath, which has made it much easier to switch between trades and rise quickly in companies. Any speciﬁc disadvantages to a St. John’s background? In both of my jobs, having a college degree is relatively uncommon. St. John’s sets the bar very high for intellectual engagement and spiritual fulﬁlment from your endeavors. Work environments are not designed to give these to people. You will fulﬁll a role deemed ﬁnancially valuable to a company, and hopefully ﬁnd engagement and fulﬁlment along the way. How did you feel you compared, in graduate school or early jobs, to people from different educational backgrounds, particularly those with ﬁeld-related degrees? The trade work that I do values paid experience over credentials. Most people that I have worked with have been plying their trade for 5+ years, some upwards of 40. This vast experience can be daunting because it makes very clear that I am the new guy who doesn’t really know what’s going on. The beneﬁt is that it levels the playing ﬁeld for anyone looking to break in. I did not have to compete with people who had more training; we were all acquiring skills from more experienced people starting at the same baseline. It is more important to set yourself apart as a quick learner and hard worker. Can you describe a general track someone from St. John’s might take to get into a career in this ﬁeld? If you can make it out to Naknek, AK, you will be able to ﬁnd work as a commercial ﬁsherman. It is a frontier town, and people are willing to give work off of a ﬁrm handshake and a look in the eye. However, be prepared to work 16-20 hours a day and do all the dirty jobs you can think of. I was lucky to meet a woman through my high school online forum who has been a ﬁsherman for 50 years. Networking such as this is invaluable to ﬁnding work wherever you choose to go. Welding requires the most training out of the three jobs I’ve had. In order to be considered a well-rounded welder, I believe at least a year of full time training is required. Many community colleges offer these types of programs, depending on where you live. Once you have completed your schooling, the best bet to begin gaining real world experience is a temp agency. I started as a temporary worker at my ﬁrst welding job, was hired on and eventually promoted to supervise one section of the plant. Construction is very open ended. I’ve found work easily by searching craigslist. This industry does require investing in your own tools. It can be as little as owning a shovel and a pick to be a laborer up to have thousands of dollars invested in power tools as a full carpenter. Again, this ﬁeld values experience, so I have found that you must start at the bottom and work your way up. Any general advice, especially for an upperclassman who is interested in this ﬁeld but is not quite sure what to do? Network, network, network. Make it clear that your St. John’s degree does not make you an unfocused student, but rather that you have learned how to communicate effectively in person and on paper. Your broad education speaks to your ability to learn new skills quickly, which all companies desire. How did you market yourself with a St. John’s degree? My chosen work has not taken my St. John’s degree directly into account. It has been something to be discussed at interviews at times, but employers have been more interested in my experience and work ethic, as opposed to my course of study. Having a bachelor’s degree does prove that I stuck with a project for four years and completed it. What was your senior essay topic? I wrote on Heidegger and the relationship between art, technology, and craftsmanship. What is your favorite book on the Program? The ﬁrst book that comes to mind is Leibniz’s Philosophical Essays. I found his philosophy optimistic and sensitive to the beauty of all aspects of our world. It’s hard to beat monads. Do you ﬁnd that you lead a philosophical life? Yes. I have tried to merge the rich life of the mind at St. John’s with a life of the body in work. I believe that humans must nourish both parts of themselves. My work has allowed me to experience frontiers, both locations and states of mind, that I never thought I would experience. I would encourage all Johnnies to push themselves to do hard things, ﬁnd strength in spite of rejection or failure, and strive never to settle for good enough. This life is very much what you make of it. ! �The Gadfly 06 Falsification Square Allison Tretina A’16 In Budapest’s Szabadság tér (“Freedom Square”) stands a controversial monument of an eagle descending upon the Archangel Gabriel. Prime Minister Viktor Orban erected the monument on July 20 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Nazi-German occupation of Hungary. Yet instead of encouraging celebration of the Hungarian people’s liberation from the hands of the Germans, it incited contention. It depicts the nation of Hungary as an innocent victim of Nazi aggression, when in fact Hungary expelled the Jews and supported Germany during World War II. The Hungarian government initially planned to complete the monument on March 31, the same day Germany invaded Hungary in 1944. But the people protested. The Jewish Federation of Hungary, the largest Hungarian organization representing the Jewish community, refused to participate in any of Hungary’s 70th anniversary celebrations that were scheduled to take place over the course of 2014. Protesters, a majority being Jewish, gathered around the designated site of the monument. Construction barriers were torn down more than six times by furious protestors while construction workers continued to replaced the concrete impediments. Protesters also spray-painted objecting messages on the metal walls, pelted eggs at the construction site, and waived inﬂammatory signs. At the same time, paciﬁst protesters, again most Jewish, have worked to remind the public of the history the monument fails to recount. Some have given speeches at Freedom Square — including the president of the Jewish Students of France, Sasha Reingewirtz. Others have made their own memorial display by hanging pictures of Hungarian World War II victims on long wire. Underneath the pictures, lighted candles and personal memorabilia have been placed on the ground. Many leading voices, local and abroad, have spoken fervently against the monument. The Budapest Beacon reports that assemblyman Csaba Horvath told the press that the monument is “societal provocation on the part of the [Hungarian] government” that “offends the nation’s memory… [by] grouping the victims together with the perpetrators.” Dr. Agnes Heller, a prominent Hungarian philosopher, told Al Jazeera, “The idea that Hungary suffered under the yolk of Nazi Germany? That’s a historical falsiﬁcation.” Even the United States Embassy has expressed disapproval and on April 20 openly condemned the memorial as “a shameful event.” After hearing the public’s outcry, Prime Minister Orban postponed the construction until after the national elections on April 6 and cancelled the monument’s un- !"#$%&'()*%$+,)-.#()#()$.+)/&($)0&$#12+)%3)0)&+4520&) 1%2567)3%15(#74)%7)8%2#$#102)07")+1%7%6#1)0330#&() #7)!0($+&7)!5&%8+9 veiling ceremony. Two days after the national elections, construction of the monument began. Instead of an unveiling ceremony, Free Hungary reports that on the night of July 20, 2014, parts of the monument were “smuggled in” under the surveillance and protection of 100 Hungarian police. The monument was erected that night. This is not the ﬁrst monument that has caused conten- tion in Hungary. As Cara Eckholm, graduate of Woodrow Wilson’s School of Public and International Affairs, insightfully points out in her essay for Failed Architecture, Freedom Square holds an assortment of controversial monuments. The Red Army Memorial, for example, celebrates Soviet take over in Budapest in 1945 when, according to the Hungarian government, the Soviet Union “liberated” Hungary. For many locals this so called “liberation” marked the beginning of decades of imperial subjugation. Locals vandalized the Red Army Memorial repeatedly in 2006 and insisted that the monument be taken down. The Hungarian government, however, had remembered what happened to Estonia when they removed its own Soviet war monument: Russia berated Estonia with an onslaught of informal sanctions. To prevent losing their gas supply and other natural resources, the Hungarian government quelled public demands with Continued On PG. 08 �The Gadfly 07 !"#$%#&'()$$)*+',%--%#&'$.)'()-$' Frances Webb A’16 For those of you who may not know, St John’s runs the tions to the fact they were high school students and Summer Academy for high school students every sum- therefore not very practiced at good discourse. While mer. It is an opportunity for teenagers to read the great there is most likely some truth to that, as I reﬂected books and have a “Johnnie-style” seminar discussions on my reaction I realized that my feelings about their that they could not ﬁnd anywhere else. I have had the conversations had more to do with my own negativity privilege of participating both as a student in 2011 (the than the Academy classes themselves. In many ways ﬁrst year of the Summer Academy) and as a Resident the students were having the right reaction—they were Assistant this past summer. The past 3 inspired by getting to discuss these texts years have brought about many changes, at all. I ﬁnd that when I evaluate my Reading and both in myself and in the Academy. In the classes during the year I focus on everyﬁrst year of the Summer Academy, there about them. When I discussing these thing badwhat they thought of ask other were a little over 30 of us for one week, but students class, we this summer around 100 students particicomplain about the great texts is an often justthe opening questionclass dypated over 2 weeks. It was heartwarming namic or being too to see so many teenagers who wanted read amazing vague or about how one student would difficult books and have genuine discusnot let go of an insigniﬁcant point. This sions about them. The students had such a experience that habit has caused me to lose sight of what zeal for inquiry and were excited by every I could be getting from my classes. text that was put in front of them. Looking critically at our conversations we should not Watching the Summer Academy students is important because we want to better made me realize how much I had changed waste. our discussions each time, but we should over the last few years. When I attended not miss out on any understanding or the Academy I loved every second of it. I idea that we can receive from class even spent the entire 4 hour car ride home chattering to my if it was not the best discussion for whatever reason. parents about everything that I had discovered in the Reading and discussing these great texts is an amazing week. The classes were ﬁlled with wonder and emoexperience that we should not waste. So if you tend to tion for me. This summer I saw my students having be critical like me, I challenge you to always look for the same experience I had, walking out of the classes something positive in every one of your classes, even bursting with ideas. But when I observed their classes if they might not live up to your standards. Especially I was bored and dissatisﬁed. All I could see were the as the year goes on and habit and routine take over, missed opportunities in the conversations, the strange keep striving to bring wonder and excitement to each interpretations of the texts and all of the questions they conversation. ! should have asked. At ﬁrst I chalked up these observa- �The Gadfly 08 !"#$%&'() *+*',Tuesday 9/9 Kunai Soccer 4 PM Fencing 6 PM Wednesday 9/10 Ultimate Frisbee W v G, 2:45 PM D v S, 4 PM St. John’s Chorus, Great Hall 7 PM Friday 9/12 Kunai Soccer 4 PM Fencing 6 PM Lecture: On Dostoevsky’s The Brother’s Karamazov by Mr. Chester Burke FSK Auditorium 8 PM *Homecoming Weekend* Saturday 9/13 Ultimate Frisbee S v G, 1 PM D v H, 2:30 PM Sunday 9/14 Soccer G v S, 1 PM D v W, 2:45 PM If you would like to see your event on the weekly schedule, please email sjca.gadﬂy@ gmail.com. Continued From PG. 06 yet another monument of controversial meaning—a statue of Ronald Reagan. Much is at stake with Freedom’s Square’s reQ: What would you do if you cent installation. Prime came home and found a bunch of Minister Orban’s refusal tiny Greeks eating food out of your to listen to the Hungarkitchen? ! ian people stiﬂes any open and honest conversation about Hungary’s history and relationship with Germany. Hungary and Germany had been economic partners since the 1920’s and become closer partners during former Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös‘s administration of Hungary in … date? By 1940 when Felvidék (southern Slovakia), Kárpatalja (eastern Slovakia, now western Ukraine), and northern Transylvania had returned to Hungary, Hungary was “fatally chained to Germany.” The nation would soon be allied with Germany—as well as with other Axis Powers, Italy and Japan—by signing the Anti-Comintern pact on November 20, 1940. During the prime ministry of Miklos Kallay, conﬂict again arose. Despite Hungary’s alliance with Germany, Prime Minister Kallay refused to obey German orders regarding Jewish deportation. Surprisingly, Prime Minister Kallay did join the German war efforts against the Soviet Union in 1941, a gesture of signiﬁcant political support that Germany neither ordered nor expected Hungary to do. Yet even in this, Prime Minister Kallay proved disloyal and frequently negotiated with Allied Powers, promising to surrender to United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union once their armies reached Hungarian borders. By March 19, 1944 Germany occupied Hungary. According to Hungarian historian Laszlo Karsai, however, this was not an invasion. “At best,” he told the Budapest Beacon, “Hungary lost the appearance of sovereignty.” Jewish deportation began in … date? Hungarian officials in support of German occupation followed orders beyond expectations and deported as many as 15,000 Jews in a single day. Altogether, nearly 600,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to their death. “Most of them died following the Nazi occupation of Hungary,” wrote Christopher Adams in the Hungarian Free Press, “but none of these deportations would have been possible without the enthusiastic participation of the Hungarian state.” The only victims of the March 19th invasion were the Jews. Seventy years later, during the year of Hungary’s commemoration, there is no better time for the nation of Hungary to seriously reﬂect on their sensitive and painful history. Instead of erecting misleading monuments and shifting all of the blame at Germany, the Hungarian government needs to take responsibility for their actions and commemorate the true victims of the Germany’s invasion. ! !"#$%!"#$%&%'"($")*"+%,- � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly Description An account of the resource Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Click on <a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the The Gadfly Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context thegadfly Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 8 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barajas, Sebastian (Editor in Chief) Tretina, Allison (Editor in Chief) Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly, Vol. XXXVI, Issue 2 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-09-09 Description An account of the resource Volume XXXVI, Issue 2 of The Gadfly. Published on September 09, 2014. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Gadfly 36.02 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Gadfly Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c714dc410eecdd5cc3387eee6a4ab48e.pdf 2e3375280568cd2a481213b82b3e5548 PDF Text Text !"# $%&'() !"#$%"$&'()#$#*"$+,-.$/$01 2)3(.#45"$4)$6",7#*5,8"$/$09$ $%4#5*"77$:,77"8-;$<"=$>?*4@4#$/$0A !"#$%&'()!$*&++,-,$.$/0$*&++,-,$12,3$1((14&+5!3$67$89:09$.$!,4"#$8;3$809:$.$2&+#$<<<25$.$5!!=,$0; *+,-,./0.1+2032.4536738 �The Gadfly 02 The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com www.issuu.com/sjcgadfly www.facebook.com/sjcagadfly Founded in 1980, the Gadﬂy is the student newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadﬂy reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. The Gadﬂy meets at the Naval Academy. Wear your dress whites. Articles should be submitted by Friday at 11:59 PM to sjca.gadﬂy@gmail.com. Staff Sebastian Barajas • Editor-in-Chief Allison Tretina • Editor-in-Chief Sebastian Abella • Layout Editor Noe Jimenez • Layout Editor Kira Anderson • Staff Ryan Gleklen • Staff Jonathan Gordon • Staff Jake Israel • Staff Frederick Nesﬁeld • Staff Contributors Lucinda Dukes Edinberg Jerry Januszewski Len Sive, Jr. !"#$%&'(%)*+&#",- W anted: four missing pages of the Gadﬂy. If you ﬁnd any thoughtful thoughts, musical musings, or opinionated opinions lying around, please retrurn them to sjca.gadﬂy@gmail.com; we miss them. Dearly. They were our forefathers’. Also missing: any photographs or poems or cartoons that document the woesome tale of the Johnnie in his natural habitat (except Ms. Jenkins, who remains a paragon to us all).! !"#$ "$ '()#$ *"$ ,-. % & # + Jerry Januszewski Counselor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'+,"%.20%/.2$4#0%)#*<#)%()%(%6+<+*+>(,+.$7%[.2%6.2*1%)(/%0#(1+$4%($1%0#@0#(1+$4%!"#$ %#&'()*+%.0%,#-#.*.%.0%/*-0$1#23%+)%(%LLL%.5%).0,)%5.0%!#),#0$%?+<+*+>(,+.$Q%,.26"@ ),.$#)%.5%6.$,+$2.2)%1#<#*.:3#$,=%3#3.0/%($1%3#($+$4Q%#(6"%0#(1#0%(%:0#)#$,%*+$;% -#,'##$%,"#%:(),%($1%,"#%52,20#7 &%(*).%1#0+<#%3#($+$4%50.3%;$.'+$4%).3#%.5%,"#%)3(**#0%50(43#$,)%.5%.20%62*,20#=% )26"%()%+1+.)/$60()+#)%.5%,"#%5.2$1+$4%5(,"#0)%.5%N,7%F."$G)%?.**#4#7%U.0%#A(3:*#=% N,0+$45#**.'%T(00%'()%(%),0.$4%(1<.6(,#%.5%(13+,,+$4%,(*#$,#1%),21#$,)%,.%,"#%?.*@ *#4#%-#5.0#%,"#/%40(12(,#1%"+4"%)6"..*7%S#%)(+1=%8O"#%.$*/%,"+$4%/.2%*#(0$%+$%,"#% *(),%,'.%/#(0)%.5%"+4"%)6"..*%+)%".'%,.%1($6#D9%O"+)%+)%$.,%#(0,"@)"(,,#0+$4%+$5.03(@ ,+.$=%-2,%+,%"#*:)%3#%5##*%6*.)#0%,.%N,0+$45#**.'%T(007%&$%+,)%)3(**%'(/%,"+)%-0+$4)% 40#(,#0%3#($+$4%,.%3/%#A:#0+#$6#%(,%,"#%?.**#4#7 N:#(;+$4%.2,%,"#%)##3+$4*/%,0+<+(*%8LLL9%'"#$#<#0%+,%6(**)%,.%3#%(**.')%3#%,.% 5##*%6*.)#0%,.%,"#%-./%&%'()7%O"+)%3(;#)%+,%#()+#0%,.%(66#:,%3/)#*5%()%&%(3%$.'=%)+$6#% ,"(,%-./%($1%&%(0#%.$#%($1%,"#%)(3#%"23($%-#+$47%&,%+)%).%.11%($1%'.$1#052*%,.%3#% ,"(,%*+5#%+)%*+;#%,"(,Q%,"(,%(%)3(**=%.-)620#%3.3#$,%.<#0%\I%/#(0)%(4.%6($%,0($)6#$1% 3/%"(01)"+:)%($1%K$1%*(),+$4%:206"()#%+$%3/%).2*%+$%)26"%(%-#$#K6+(*%'(/7! �The Gadfly 03 !"#$"#%&'()#''*(%+*(,+-./&01'(0+(2'%3&41%#' Len Sive, Jr. GI John and Donna McShane, citizens of Alberta, Can- the absolute unreality of the hospital’s $20,000 price ada, spend part of each year on vacation in Arizona in tag. On the other hand, when health care is left up to intheir mobile home. In 2012, while vacationing in Arizona, Donna developed a bad cough; she was advised to surance companies, cases like the McShanes are rife; go to the Western Arizona Regional Medical Center, in for the insurance company’s sole concern is how much Bullhead City, for an examination. Since she had health proﬁt it can make; the health of patients is always of secinsurance from AMA, which is owned by Manulife Fi- ondary importance. This is why health care is one of many aspects of our nancial, both Canadian companies, there was no hesitation in recommending that she enter this regional hos- modern life that the federal government must take complete charge of—contra the Republican party’s no-govpital for tests. During her ﬁve-day stay at the Western Arizona Re- ernment-at-all platform—in order to serve the greater gional Medical Center, she underwent some tests, none interests of the nation. Infrastructure, including the of which proved conclusive; and even spent 2 days in development of mass transportation systems and the isolation for fear that she might have tuberculosis. (She repair of thousands of bridges, gas and electricity for didn’t.) After a ﬁve-day uneventful stay in the hospital, homes and businesses, the funding of new forms of enshe was released, with only a prescription for steroids ergy, well-maintained streets and highways, conservation, worker health and safety, the establishment of a for her troubles. Her total bill: $105,000! That’s not the worst of it. Her insurance company, livable minimum wage, affordable medications—these are some of the areas in which, for the AMA, obviously not wanting to pay sake of our nation’s health, safety, and this bill, said that they had “found an welfare, the federal government needs error” on the McShane’s insurance application form regarding prescripEither we win and to take control. Corporations, with their eye exclusively fastened on proftion medication, and as a consequence reclaim democracy it, are unﬁt to control these vital secnulliﬁed their policy, making the Mctors of our common life. The CEO of Shanes, who live on $30,000/year, lifor America or we Exxon/Mobil put it memorably when able for the entire amount! This is an lose and become he said, “I don’t care about America, all-too-common trick employed by inI care only about Exxon.” That’s what surance companies to avoid honoring mere slaves of the makes corporations so dangerous! a policy, in which large outlays need to oligarchic Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, be paid. And, unfortunately, they usuBook 1, Chapter 13, states: “The true ally get away with it. Corporate State. statesman… wants to make his fellowWhat are the notable points here? citizens good ….” That is, or ought to First, a simple mistake on an application, found only after a large outlay was required, was be, the true aim of every politician. Today, however, the used as a pretext for cancelling their policy—although only thing politicians care about is how to make their no such problem had been found so long as the Mc- corporate clients richer, how to extend the corporaShanes were paying into AMA. But as soon as AMA was tion’s power into every crack and crevice of our modern faced with honoring their contract, then suddenly the life—but clearly not how to make citizens “good.” Yet McShane’s application came under the closest scrutiny until and unless we elect men and women who do fully subscribe to Aristotle’s view, such manifest injustice as and—surprise—was found wanting. Secondly, it is nothing short of obscene that after only has struck the McShanes must continue to wreck and ﬁve days in a hospital—though not in the ER or ICU, and ruin the lives of countless others—all the while making not involving multiple surgeries, limb replacements, the 1% even richer, more powerful, and more callous. Goodness or proﬁt, democracy or oligarchy: that’s our organ transplants, or other expensive procedures—the hospital could charge her $105,000. Given what Donna modern era’s strict either/or. We are in a ﬁght-to-theMcShane underwent—or perhaps one should say what death. Either we win and reclaim democracy for Amershe didn’t undergo—such a huge bill is simply incom- ica or we lose and become mere slaves of the oligarchic Corporate State. The choice is ours to make. ! prehensible. Years ago I worked in a hospital in the Northwest and became good friends with one of the ER doctors. He was in charge of organizing lectures for the physicians at the hospital. For that year’s lecture, he invited a well-known physician from an Ivy-League medical school who was an expert on hospital pricing. What my friend relayed Q: If virtue is not a swarm to me was unbelievable. The costs of an open-heart surof bees, how do we explain gery were arbitrarily set—“picked out of the air”; in this honey? ! case $5,000 per heart-valve. Not because it really cost that much—it didn’t. None of the costs he mentioned were actually grounded in reality. They were simply arbitrarily decided upon. Let’s examine this $20,000 per day expense more closely. I checked on the Internet. An average overnight stay at a not-for-proﬁt hospital was $2,000 and for a forproﬁt hospital, $3,170. These prices put into stark relief “ �The Gadfly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ucinda Dukes Edinberg Art Educator, The Mitchell Gallery Whether you are continuing your time at St. John’s or joining the community for the ﬁrst time—welcome to another academic year! The Mitchell Gallery has opened the season with the exhibition, Annapolis Collects: The Mitchell Gallery Celebrates 25 Years. This special exhibition was curated by four prominent members of the local art community, including Jim Cheevers, Chief Curator of the United States Naval Academy Museum; Tom Dawson, owner of Dawson Gallery; Joni Jones, Director of the Banneker-Douglass Museum; and Nadja Maril, noted local writer. Each of these curators selected artifacts and works of art from local institutions and individuals, across a broad range of time periods, mediums, and styles. There are many objects worth discussing, but I am particularly attracted to a volume by George Smith, titled, The Laboratory; or, School of Arts: Containing a Large Collection of Valuable Secrets, Experiments, and Manual Operations in Arts and Manufactures, Highly Useful to Gilders, Jewelers, Enamellers, Goldsmiths, Dyers, Cutlers, Pewterers, Joiners, Japanners, Book-Binders, Plasters, Artists, and to the Workers in Metals in General; and in Plaster of Paris, Wood, Ivory, Bone, Horn and Other Materials. Admittedly, the title says it all, but the book’s origins and continuing editions are fascinating. The School of Arts was part of a genre of secret recipe books of practical chemistry for the layperson. It was also valuable to artisans and housekeepers, because it included the technology to distill spirits, compound dyes and paints, and to concoct medicines, perfumes and cosmetics. Basically, there was a little something for everyone. Much of the original text has been translated from a German volume of secret recipes, Der Curieusen Kunst-Und Wreck-Schul, which had been published in multiple editions dating from 1696-1782. (Although, having been published, it would not appear to be very secretive.) George Smith, the author and editor of the Laboratory School of the Arts, ﬁrst printed his recipe book in 1736. It proved so popular that it was updated and reprinted. We have on view the 1775 printing, fourth edition, which includes 6 plates, two of which are folding; a new section on “Artiﬁcial Fireworks,” which gave the author much pride; and the ﬁrst to contain a section on perspective. His book was so revered, its contents and explanations were updated as new methods and discoveries were brought forth, even after Smith’s death. It is worth noting the signiﬁcant shift in the public’s view towards using chemistry for industrial and recreational use. The book we have on view was owned by William Faris (1728-1804), a noted Annapolis silversmith. Many of Faris’s handwritten notes are neatly inscribed in the book’s margins. Faris had his home, tavern, workshop, and garden at 25 West Street and had an ad in Annapolis’ newspaper, the Capital Gazette, which read, “William Faris, Watch and Clockmaker at the sign of the Crown & Dial near the Church in Annapolis.” When Faris died, the book was purchased at an estate sale by another noted local silversmith, William McParlin (1780-1850). (One of McParlin’s ladles is on view next to one created by Faris). All of these artisans and objects were neatly tied together by marriages and professional relationships. Faris was married to Priscilla Woodward, niece of another silversmith, and McParlin married a niece of Mrs. Faris’s. (By the way, McParlin’s son was a graduate of St. John’s College). Among other associated objects in the exhibition is a silhouette of Priscilla created by Faris and a prominent tall case clock, which was a joint venture between Faris and the equally known Annapolis cabinetmaker, John Shaw (1745-1829). My descriptions here do not begin to reﬂect the artistry of these craftsmen and artists. Contemporary sculptures and paintings round out the exhibition of antique maps, Francis Scott Key’s Last Will and Testament, an ivory portrait of Key’s brother-in-law and the ﬁrst songster that included “The Defence of Ft. M’Henry” (“StarSpangled Banner”) published in 1814, as well as a letter from George Washington to St. John’s College President John McDowell regarding his grand step-grandson’s academic future at St. John’s College. The gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. and the hour before Friday night lecture, 6:45 – 7:45 p.m. Find relief from academic pressures and read Smith’s book about aqua fortis, red calcined vitriol (colcothar) and other “ponderables.” ! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly Description An account of the resource Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Click on <a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the The Gadfly Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context thegadfly Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 4 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barajas, Sebastian (Editor in Chief) Tretina, Allison (Editor in Chief) Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly, Vol. XXXVI, Issue 3 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-09-23 Description An account of the resource Volume XXXVI, Issue 3 of The Gadfly. Published on September 23, 2014. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Gadfly 36.03 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Gadfly Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/ddb10b770dbccb0ddd0779ee316fee42.pdf d268bc47d1d40cf192f3a33ee7b03409 PDF Text Text !"# $%&'() !"#$%%$&"'&()"*"+,*-".&*/01*2"3"45 6$*-728"!"#$%&'&()*$%"3"49 !":,))$&"72";$7<728"3"4=" >*?@A*&%B"C2@:7%$"D2E$/%78*%7(2"3"4F" !"#$%&'()!$*&++,-,$.$/0$*&++,-,$12,3$1((14&+5!3$67$89:09$.$&*"#$0;3$809:$.$2&+#$<<<25$.$5!!=,$0: G(??(H"%0$"+",-./"(2?72$"*%B photo by Reza Djalal *+,-,./0.1+2032.4536738 �The Gadfly 02 The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com www.issuu.com/sjcgadfly www.facebook.com/sjcagadfly Founded in 1980, the Gadﬂy is the student newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadﬂy reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. The Gadﬂy meets on the Lower Level of the BBC every Sunday at 7pm. Articles should be submitted by Friday at 11:59 PM to sjca.gadﬂy@gmail.com. Staff Sebastian Barajas • Editor-in-Chief Allison Tretina • Editor-in-Chief Sebastian Abella • Layout Editor Noe Jimenez • Layout Editor Kira Anderson • Staff Jonathan Gordon • Staff Jake Israel • Staff Frederick Nesﬁeld • Staff Jensen Pratt • Staff Contributors Rebecca O’Brian Tobin Herringshaw Leslie Howard Matthew Linck Patricia Locke Leonard Sive, Jr. George Ward Catherine White !"#$%&'(%)*+&#",- T hanks to the glorious efforts of the Polity, the pages missing from our last issue came shooting towards us at incredible speeds in the form of electrons! Although most Johnnies have not had Junior Language, and thus have not learned to read the language of these subatomic particles, we, the Gadﬂy, have lovingly translated it into English so that even the groggiest Freshmen and Sophomores will be able to understand it. Once again, our thanks for beaming so many wonderful contributions at us! ! !"#$"%#!"#$"%# &'#()*+,'-.#/,0-#1"2#3Catherine White A’16 In his Pensées, Pascal claims that we “never truly live in the present,” but instead we are constantly “wandering around in times that do not belong to us.” It is something that we are all guilty of—using the past and future to excuse ourselves from the present, that as he says, is usually quite painful. Pascal acknowledges the impossibility of living entirely in the present, though in his typical cynical manner he attributes it more to human weakness than any goodness in the actions themselves. Reﬂection and planning are certainly essential to growth, but here at the college especially it can be difficult to truly detach ourselves from the anxieties of the future and the past. With the often daunting workload and the constant pressure to improve, it’s easy to slip into planning how you’ll divide up the seminar reading during the rare boring moment of math, or to agonize over something dumb said in seminar. Despite the importance of being present in class discussions, it’s often really hard. It’s why, I think, extracurriculars play such an important role in Polity life; everyone needs an escape from thinking about their never ending to-do list, and it’s the reason I’ve stuck with sailing since freshman year. Sailing is a beautiful and delicate coordination of the mind and body, a constant balancing act between simple physical acts like keeping your boat upright or adjusting the sails, and being constantly aware of the conditions around you and factoring them into your strategy. You’re also conveying all of these things to someone else in the boat and trying to communicate a strategy to them without cursing them out (there’s a reason for the phrase “curse like a sailor”), and you’re probably crouching in the bottom of a very small boat to boot. Sounds stressful? It is, but a very different stress from the intellectual rigor brought about by class and homework. There is no future, in a sense; while you hope your strategic decisions will set you up for the rest of the race, your mind is almost entirely focused on the next mark rounding or the ﬁnish line. There’s not a lot of room for worrying about homework or how you did in the last race, and it is a wonderfully freeing sensation. To be so intensely intertwined in a moment that, as Pascal says belongs to us, is a rewarding and unique experience. It doesn’t matter that the future is often quite painful (and will leave bruises to remind you), because the present is so urgent and consuming that it demands all of your attention. Obviously, no one can sail all the time. Eventually, we return to dry land, and with it, the responsibilities and strains of normal Johnnie life, but hopefully rested from the diversions. While I’m still not sure if anyone can live life thinking only of the present and experience what Pascal thinks of as happiness, being able to lose yourself in sailing comes pretty darn close. The satisfaction and refreshment tinged with exhaustion that comes after a good practice is indicative of something that is good and right for us as humans. So even if for some bizarre reason you choose not to partake in the pirate’s life that is St. John’s Sailing Club, make sure go to a soccer game or waltz lesson and know that Pascal would probably do the same. !! Q: Would you be roommates with Xerxes for a year if he promised you half of Greece? ! �The Gadfly 03 !"#$%%$&"'&()"*"+,*-".&*/01*2" !"#$%&"$' %("%0$"3(45%6 ! Anonymous Quad Trashcan #3 Trashcan !"##$%&'()&*+&+",-./&)0$&)$1(.*1&$"($( Dear Polity, You use a lot of cans. And recently your trash-producing debauchery has reached such heights that come Thursday morning I ﬁnd myself wondering if you even know what virtue is. I mean, come on people! I’m no tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, save-theearth kind of guy. I was made in China for crying out loud! But even I am starting to feel little pangs of guilt (the kind you get when you eat the last cookie in the cookie jar) when my recyclable contents are sent off to landﬁlls. I’m sure you’ve seen Wall-E and you know how this ends (if you haven’t, spoiler alert: with rampant obesity and a Death Star style space-ship planet). Nobody wants that (except maybe the Death Star Planet, that would be cool). But seriously—nobody wants that! Polity, it’s gotten to the point where you are left with two options: ﬁnd a recycling bin or face rampant obesity.* And for my own sake, I urge you to go with the former. 20*/3$%&-$#$"($&40.#$&($1($&)$"($( 5*6$7(&8-$))9&8./):-$&8-*;8)#9&8#$"($( .1&;$"(:-$%&(4"9&)0$&8".1(&$</-$)$% =")$(&8")0&1*)&'<$%&"1%&9$)&;*6$(&>:./3 ?-.6.1@&;")0&;"%$&8"((.*17(&8#$"(:-$&)-./3 A*4$-&-$"#.@1$%&4.)0&$1$-@97(&.1)4.1$&B./3 C"88.1$((&)*&'-$&,-.@0)#9&,:-1.1@&)-"@./( Sincerely, Your Humble Quad Trashcan P.S. While we’re on the topic of trash, I’d like to dispel a rumor. Contrary to what some misguided readings of the freshman lab manual would suggest, a red Solo cup planted in the ground will not in fact produce a tree. The ground does not appreciate your recyclables any more than I do. FIND A RECYLING BIN. *There is no scientiﬁc evidence linking failure to recycle to rampant obesity, rather these are the wholly creditable and unquestionably legitimate ideas of Pixar Animation Studios. .,%(&"7/"8(&/$ 20$&("6$%&"&(*:#&"1%&;"%$&"&+-.$1% D9&#*6$&4*1)&()*8&).##&)0$&6$-9&$1% E.;$(&/*1()-".1)(&/"1&3$$8&.)&)0$1 5*6$(&4"-;.1@&@#*4&;*-$&)0"1&+-.$1% F&(*:#(&,$":).+:#&,*1%&).##&.1'1.)9&(8$1%( 5*6$(&+")&8:-($&*+&,$":).+:#&$1%( George Ward A’18 The freshmen of Mr. Braithwaite’s bi-weekly seminar class One student who witnessed these events wished to remain arrived with ﬁre in their hearts and with minds ready to learn. anonymous, but agreed to an interview. “I think Mr. BraithBut when they looked upon the playful visage of their much- waite is a horse as a commentary on Ancient Greek society as revered tutor, so that he could serenade them with his knowl- a whole,” he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. Our reporter edge and insightful wit, they were shocked to see a face that was enthralled. He stroked his own chin, equally thoughtfully. was not only playful, but equine in nature. Their eyes met. They stroked their rugged chins thoughtfully. “Hello, class,” Mr. Braithwaite They stroked each other’s rugged chins, The room was full of and as they stared into each other’s eyes, said, stroking his thick, ﬂuffy beard. “As you can all see, I am now a horse.” they thought rugged thoughts. A bond silence. The tension The room was full of silence. The tenwas forged. could be cut with a sion could be cut with a knife. Everyone Another witness approached by our reknife. watched Mr. Braithwaite, wondering what porter, however, declined to comment on would happen next. how Mr. Braithwaite is a horse. “My feelSeminar with Mr. Braithwaite continued as normal that day, ings on the issue are...inappropriate,” she said. What a combut our reporter noticed an air of intense uneasiness in the ment! A comment worthy of speculation. room. “The tutor is a horse,” people whispered. “Why is he a A comment that, like the transformation of Mr. Braithwaite horse? What is happening?” What, our reporter wondered, did itself, demands much speculation indeed. ! it all mean? “ �04 The Gadfly !"#$%&'()*+",- !"#$%&'())$%*+,-./&0123 As a teacher in a 12th grade humanities program, Tobin Herringshaw has used the skill of considered questioning for many years. In this profile, he outlines a few paths that future Johnnie teachers can take to enter the field. (Visit his webiste at http://afterwebseries.com) What is your current job? I currently work, and have done so since graduating SJC seven years ago, at Glenelg Country School, an independent K-12 school in Howard County, Maryland. I teach the 12th grade humanities program, which includes Modern World History and our capstone course, Integrative Seminar. Johnnies would ﬁnd this class familiar, as I based the current version of it off of much I learned at SJC. The course includes readings and seminars on what it means to be human as well as a ﬁve month process of writing a senior thesis. I also teach a digital media course that introduces multiple forms of digital media creation including photography, audio recording, video production, and animation using the Adobe Creative Suite. Did you attend other schools after St. John’s? I am about to graduate with a master’s of science from Full Sail University. The program I am in, called Education Media, Design and Technology, helps teachers develop skills to learn, incorporate, and propagate the emergent technologies including Web 2.0 and multimedia creation. I waited for some time to go back to school, and found Full Sail’s online program suited my life best. Did you know what you wanted to do while attending St. John’s? I had a strong direction. I came to SJC with storytelling in mind. I had a desire to write and direct ﬁlms, but have dialed back those dreams since then to more independent ﬁlmmaking and writing. I teach what I love to do and am quite content with the way things are for now. did not share my intellectual background. It was a period of adjustment before I could sense when and where to “go all Johnnie” during a conversation. Any speciﬁc disadvantages to a St. John’s background? I really don’t see any signiﬁcant disadvantages. Sure, you might need to catch up with some particular science or math when pursuing a professional degree after SJC, but you will be is such a better place to do so having experienced the SJC education. How did you feel you compared, in graduate school or early jobs, to people from different educational backgrounds, particularly those with ﬁeld-related degrees? At ﬁrst, as in any job, I felt intimidated by the other teachers. But I quickly learned this was only from a lack of familiarity. Once I got my bearings in the school and with teaching, it became clear that I was more open to ideas, more creative in my assessments, and could discuss and communicate better than some who had been teaching for many years. But what I have come to appreciate about other educational backgrounds is that the good backgrounds share similar skills, even though they might have concentrated on a smaller subject area. And it becomes a two-way street of sharing when I ﬁnd someone who can offer me a deeper content understanding, while I help them discuss and argue better the points they make. Did St. John’s help prepare you for work in the ﬁeld? Deﬁnitely. When I was hired to teach for Glenelg in May of my senior year, I was told I would be teaching Ancient Greek and Roman periods of history, literature, and art. But a month before school began, I was switched to Western Civilization. While SJC doesn’t always cover context with the texts students read, I felt strong enough with the ideas that I was well prepared to teach the history. I could analyze a text quickly, discuss effectively, and present conﬁdently. These skills are directly attributed to the daily reading, seminars, and tutorials that I experienced at SJC. Can you describe a general track someone from St. John’s might take to get into a career in this ﬁeld? If you are interested in teaching, you have two main tracks: public or private schools, especially on the east coast. If you are interested in teaching, you should try to get experience with teaching while still in school. Tutor, be placed as an intern in a local school, and work with kids whenever you can. Once you have some resume building, you’d make a strong resume (with the help of the career services at SJC) and join a placement service like Carney Sandoe or Southern Teachers. They will help seek out the jobs and submit your application/ resume on your behalf. If you are interested in public school teaching, you’ll need to seek out more education, particularly a master’s in education, and get certiﬁed. What didn’t St. John’s prepare you for? While at SJC, like-minded people are all around you. But in the intellectual world outside of the community of Johnnies, ignorance, close-mindedness, and an inability to argue and persuade are often met. SJC didn’t do the best at helping me understand how to still communicate with people who Any general advice, especially for an upperclassman who is interested in this ﬁeld but is not quite sure what to do? Get some experience in teaching or similar experiences working with kids while still at SJC. Think about what subject(s) you’d like to teach, and build an excellent resume. Use the Continued On Pg. 5 �The Gadfly Continued From 05 Pg. 4 SJC alumni network to visit teachers in the area to see the job ﬁrst hand. the job ﬁrsthand. How did you market yourself with a St. John’s degree? For my current job, I used my resume and the interview process. My resume was well crafted to inform any reader of the great experience and ability that a SJC graduate comes with and the interview process was a time when I could capitalize on the breadth and depth of my knowledge. Because I applied for a humanities position, it was easy to talk in depth with teachers who were teaching the Iliad or Aristotle. I could also suggest other readings that they might not have considered. Moreover, I’ll never forget that I probably got my job based on my love and ability to expound on interpretations of Virginia Woolfe’s To the Lighthouse. How would you characterize your ﬁeld as a whole? Is it accessible to newcomers or difficult to enter? Stable or ﬂuid? Etc. This ﬁeld needs more SJC grads. Too many teachers are closed-minded, single-subject teachers who do not see or want to participate in the future of education as it spreads into integrative, technology-heavy learning. SJC graduates have a distinct advantage in this ﬁeld because they already have been practicing the core skills intensely for four years. The ﬁeld is quite welcoming and accessible to newcomers, especially the independent and private schools. What was your senior essay topic? I wrote about transformation (metabole) in Aristotle’s Poetics, ﬁnding that the transformation that occurs in the reversal and recognition moment of a story is something akin to the telos of a story. What is your favorite book on the Program? Aristotle’s Poetics. Do you ﬁnd that you lead a philosophical life? I think it would be hard not to lead a philosophic life after St. John’s College. I still get lost in thought, argue the small points that many no longer care about and generally like to think about almost anything. I ﬁnd that I look to the Stoics during times of struggle, and still wonder about the author whenever the Iliad or Odyssey is mentioned.! You Did What?! Leslie Howard A’15 A re you interested in exploration and discovery? Have you ever wondered how those scientists did it? Here at St. John’s College, we provide you with six semesters of authentic scientiﬁc experiences. We start you off very benignly in the freshman year with the careful observation of the outsides of plants and animals. Things aren’t always how they appear, though, so you will quickly move onto dissection. One of the more exciting practica is the sheep lung dissection. Don’t worry—you will certainly get a full handson experience: gloves are provided (sometimes), but not required. In this practicum, you are encouraged to inﬂate the sheep lungs by closing your ﬁst around the trachea and blowing into your ﬁst; however, I have seen it done by merely closing the mouth around the trachea, instead. There is no wrong way to do science. Often, freshman laboratory tutors conduct a ﬁeld trip to the Mellon courtyard during this practicum to show the adverse effects of cigarette smoking on lungs. They encourage one of the smoker students to begin smoking a cigarette, making sure to exhale into the sheep lungs. After about three consecutive cigarettes over the course of just a few minutes, the lungs are very disgusting, and you will have all learned an important lesson. During the second semester of Your parents always freshman laboratory, you will explore used to tell you how the beginnings of chemistry in all its glory. One important thing to remem‘things were different’ ber is that acids taste sour and bases when they were kids. taste soapy; be sure to take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity to taste-test all the chemicals in the laboratory. You will also get the chance to burn many substances and observe the colors of their ﬂames. You are discouraged from staring at the combusting magnesium, but, as you will discover, it will be impossible to look away. We provide all of sophomore year laboratory-free so that the rising sophomores can recover from mercury poisoning. First semester of junior laboratory is very tame. You will spend that time mostly crashing hard bodies into other hard bodies and swinging metal balls on strings. Things pick up the pace in second semester, where you will get to play with electricity without knowing what it is or how it works. This will allow you to get a genuine experience like that of the one scientist who got a big electric shock and “thought it was all up” with him. It is in this semester that everyone is encouraged to ground charged bodies by sticking a metal probe into an electrical socket; and it is in this semester that everything your parents taught you as a child crumbles away into dust. Finally, you will arrive at senior year. A word of advice from someone who knows: make sure to wash your hands after the electrodeposition of copper experiment. Cupric sulfate solution is not a pleasant thing to get in your eyes, but you might not know that if the manual does not explicitly tell you, because, after all, you’re only a twenty-something with no background in laboratory safety. You will also conduct an experiment using an ultraviolet lamp. Take a chance! Use this unique opportunity to see what getting skin cancer feels like! A bonus of this practicum is that your eyesight will never be the same. I have not yet embarked on the ﬁnal semester of laboratory at St. John’s, but I expect no less than the wonders and joys of the previous semesters. Your parents always used to tell you how “things were different” when they were kids. No one cared if they played in the road or climbed big trees. They didn’t worry about toxins or sun damage or strangers. If you attend St. John’s College, you will be able to tell your own kids the wonderful stories about how your lab assistant sucked mercury from a tube, or how you could smell the ozone in your classroom after an exciting afternoon playing with the Wimshurst machine, or how you touched the outside of the Faraday cage just because you were told not to. What other group of Millennials can say that?!! “ �06 I Walk the Line Matthew Linck Tutor The Gadfly Earlier this summer I was fumbling around for a substantial tion might also be about working out a tremendous grief, a subnovel to read. (My waning interest in novels having been rein- ject that is tackled directly.) Instead, we see Mason and Dixon vigorated earlier this year after reading The Brothers Karam- at work and at play, at home and abroad, together and someazov.) After a few misﬁres, I scanned my shelves for books I times apart. Mostly we hear them talking, with each other and had failed to get through but wanted to revisit. A book I had with a wildly diverse set of characters: sailors, Dutch colonials tried many times to surmount stood out—Thomas Pynchon’s and their slaves, Royal Astronomers, tavern dwellers, Benjamin Mason & Dixon—a book that had been on those shelves for sev- Franklin and George Washington, New York City thugs, Native enteen years and had moved with me to ﬁve different homes. Americans, and a panoply of others as Mason and Dixon clear When Mason & Dixon was released in 1997, I was already a the line heading west. conﬁrmed Pynchon fan from reading V. and The Crying of Lot Oh, yeah, I was going to say something about that talking 49 (my failed attempts at getting dog. I don’t want to spoil the fun through Gravity’s Rainbow nottoo much, but will say that while withstanding), and I didn’t know he goes by Learnèd English Dog he Mason & Dixon was going to be reprefers to be called Fang. (He’s a leased until I walked by a favorite Norfolk Terrier.) And, to dwell on bookstore on Washington Square the talking dog would leave no time and saw a hundred copies piled to mention the marvels of the meup in the window. I walked in and chanical duck (and his relationship bought one on the spot. with an exiled French chef ). Or the And of course I started reading it giant vegetables. Or the watch that right away. How far I got that ﬁrst doesn’t need winding and might be time, I can’t remember, but I made alive. it at least as far as the talking dog. I haven’t yet mentioned that (More on that below.) I recall makMason & Dixon is written in 18th ing another attempt a few years century idiom and spelling and later getting somewhere near to capitalizes most nouns. Or that the the 150th of its 773 pages. Other atbook is narrated by a certain Revtempts have faded from memory. I erend Cherrycoke, and addressed say all of this to indicate that ﬁnally to members of his extended family. ﬁnishing the book feels like paying Or that the narrative frame has an off an old debt. often uneasy relationship with the Why should you care about any (apparent) main story. I also haven’t of this? No reason in particular, but mentioned that page-for-page the I think it turns out to be a happy acbook is difficult, but the previous cident that my reading of the book sentences might suggest some reawas delayed until now, for many sons why. There are others. But the !"#$%&'&()*$%&+,&-.$/"#&0,%1.$% things that I have learned at St. book is also, sentence-by-sentence, 23%4,&2$56&"%7&8$/9"%,:&;<<= John’s College came in handy while paragraph-by-paragraph, at least navigating Mason & Dixon; princiinteresting, never ordinary, and ofpally, astronomy—one of the main threads through the book— ten beautiful. The following gives some sense of what might be but also electricity and magnetism, and things Newtonian. found in the book’s use of language: You might wonder why some knowledge of these things “’Tis withal a Snowy Owl Year,— the Lemmings having suiwould come in handy in reading Mason & Dixon. The short cided in the North, the Owls are oblig’d to come further South answer is that Pynchon’s book is, in some sense, a true story. in search of Food,— and suddenly white Visitors from afar are Charles Mason was a professional astronomer and Jeremiah ev’rywhere, arriving in a state of Mistrustful Fatigue, going Dixon was a surveyor, and the main actions of the book re- about with that perpetual frown that distinguishes ’em from quire and make constant reference to these practices. The ﬁrst the more amiably be-Phiz’d white Gyrfalcons. At the peaks of action is Mason and Dixon’s work in observing the transit of Barns, the Tops of girdl’d gray Trees, Gleaners of Voles soaring Venus in 1761, and the second is their surveying of the epony- above the harvested Acres, with none of your ghostly hoo, hoo mous line between 1763 and 1767. (Many obscure references to neither, but low embitter’d Croaking, utter’d in Syllables often things astronomical and magnetic would have been hopelessly at the Verge of Human Speech.” obscure without some familiarity with these matters.) The episodic, set-piece character of Pynchon’s storytelling But, to call these the main actions of the book already pres- can make it difficult to keep up one’s momentum in reading; ents a problem, for it might just as readily be said that the his (deliberately?) bad jokes are no doubt too off-putting for main action of the book is the cultivation of a friendship, or some; his whimsy can strain against what seems serious and the (perhaps ambiguous) emergence of enlightenment in the grave. These are among the reasons that I recently told somemodern world, or the delineation of something called America one that while I enjoyed and admired the book I couldn’t recprior even to the revolution. I think it might be one of the great ommend it. accomplishments of Pynchon’s book that it does all of these But I’ve changed my mind. You should read it. ! things without ever mentioning them as such. (The main ac- �The Gadfly 07 !""#$%&'(")'*'+",Kira Anderson A’18 Money does not grow on trees. Shocking, I know. And everything appealing in the world seems to cost money—nice clothes, books, cars, that one thing online that you check the price of regularly to see if there’s a sale on it yet; all of these require some form of currency to purchase. So, as The Simpsons aptly puts it, “You can use money to acquire goods and services.” So where does money come from, if not trees? Jobs. Unfortunately, we must work. We must slave away. For those of us not absorbed into the corporate body, an introduction may be necessary. To help those who wish to have money, and wish to acquire that money through a job rather than robbery or picking up spare change on the streets, (only when it’s heads up, of course) I have started a list of local places hiring. Annapolis Ice Cream Company is looking for part-time help to work through holidays and weekends. They sound very serious about you being there for holidays, since I looked at the application, and that part was bolded and several fonts larger than the rest. Annapolis Ice Cream Company makes its own frozen cow juice, and is beautifully decorated in penguins and spoon-art created by customers. Enquire inside the store for the application. White House Black Market is looking for an “In-Store Visual” worker who “is primarily responsible for creating and maintaining a visually brand-right boutique,” (whatever that means) according to the job website. If you’ve got the basics (a GED, are over 18, a good worker) and 2 years’ experience in visual merchandising, then this job may be perfect for you! Learn more at jobs.chicos.com/whbm. Wheat, a store that sells children’s clothes, not grains as one might come to expect, is also looking for workers. Outside of this quaint little blue and white painted building, there is a sign in a very bold font, “Help Wanted! Enquire Within.” If you are not offended by the erroneous capitalization in the sign or the fact that a store named Wheat does not, in fact, sell wheat, then take a short walk downtown and enquire within! Joss, a sushi bar and café, a very interesting, fairly priced Japanese restaurant, has hung a sign requesting help for quite some time. Perhaps one of the reasons that the sign is still hanging there is that they are requesting experienced servers, and they are not in great quantity here in Annapolis. In fact, there seems to be an experienced server shortage, if one is to believe the signs strewn across town. Perhaps another reason the position is still unfulﬁlled is because the advertisement is written in marker on computer paper and tacked to a slanted window which faces another store. Enquire about the job inside, and get a serving of green tea ice cream while you’re there. It’s worth it! If you wish to get in tune with your inner Grecian and bathe in olive oil before slaughtering a hecatomb to some god that will probably kill you anyway, look into a position at “seasons.” The store name is not capitalized. That was not an error. On tap at seasons, you can get innumerable combinations of olive oil and vinegar. This unique store has a ﬁnely printed request for part-time help, proclaiming that seasons is “A FUN ENVIRONMENT,” and you can apply within or call Mary at 443-905-0040. Hatley is a store which is painted a very shocking blue. Anyhow, they are hiring a part-time sales associate. On the sign taped to their window, it asks that anyone interested call 410-280-2440 or email Annapolis@Hatley.com. Next to all this information, there is a large butterﬂy wing. I have yet to understand why this is on the sign, though, since there does not seem to be a butterﬂy theme within. Perhaps it is meant to show how jovial the store is, so jovial that they can put half a butterﬂy on a poster asking for help. It is a yellow butterﬂy, if that sweetens the pot for you. Jimmy John’s is also hiring for multiple positions—drivers, bikers, and sandwich makers. If you have a passion for such things, do apply. Their sandwiches are truly delivered “freaky fast” and are mostly palatable. Particularly if it’s three in the morning and you feel vaguely pained from hunger. And if you decide you don’t want to apply, remember that there is in fact a sign inside offering “free smells,” so simply walk in, take a deep breath, thank the manager on duty, and walk out knowing that you inhaled the hard work of fellow students making minimum wage plus. The Historic Reynolds Tavern, on Church Circle, has cried out for the hero it both deserves and needs right now— a full-time or part-time server. The only stipulation added is that one applying must be 18 years or older. Either apply within or email this mildly suspicious looking address- qjrx94686894129%40job.craigslist.org. McGarveys Saloon and Oyster Bar confusingly put out a request for “Bussers/Barbacks - Weekend Hostess.” I assume that these are meant to be read as three different things, but who knows; we live in a confusing age of dying grammar, which truly began dissolving after the oxford comma was declared “droppable,” and the verb “to Google” was added to the dictionary. Anyways, the listing is on Craigslist and may be viewed there. Also the Saloon has suggested that anyone interested should apply within the building, which is located at McGarveys Saloon, 8 Market Space, Annapolis. This is a very incomplete list, mind you, and there are always papers tacked up around campus with job offers to supplement your ongoing search. May the odds be ever in your favor, students and fellow job-searching beasts of burden. Take this knowledge and use it well, for with great knowledge comes great responsibility. ! �08 The Gadfly How I Spent My Summer Vacation Patricia Locke Tutor If Proust is correct, and we come to know our feelings and experience in retrospect, then it is time for me to puzzle out my summer vacation. It was not actually a vacation, but the title sets in motion the series of things done in summer time, often accounted for in school essays. This past summer, I went to China with several Johnnies to participate in Think Like Socrates seminars. We were in Beijing, under the auspices of the Project for Peace and the support of the Affiliated High School of Peking University. The Davis Foundation bought our plane tickets and paid for food and supplies, while the high school graciously offered dorm accommodations and cafeteria food. Fortunately, I met up with Ms. Chengyaquing Shi (A, ‘16) a couple of times to offset the cafeteria leftovers with Peking duck and traditional banquet food, including a spectacular ﬁrst course dish of cold mashed yam with blueberry sauce. But I digress… The Think Like Socrates seminars were with a group of mostly Chinese high school and a couple of ﬁrst year college students, along with Indira Cabrera (SF, ’16), Yue Gong (GI, ’14) and Zachary Thomas (SF, ‘16). Back in Santa Fe, students led by Dongyu Cui (SF, ‘16) came up with the idea, wrote the proposal and backed us non-Chinese speakers throughout. A brand new Johnnie, Lingxiao Zhang, spent the summer before joining the College picking us up at the airport, showing us a magniﬁcent four story bookstore and other big city delights, and interpreting as needed. Their plan ﬁt the Davis Foundation parameters to promote world peace. How? By having classic Johnnie-style seminars on parts of the Meno, Republic, Nichomachean Ethics (books 5 &8) and Sophocles’ plays Antigone (in part) and Oedipus the King (entire). It was the ﬁrst time in my life that someone quoted Chairman Mao in a Republic seminar, and it felt bracing and new. The students were alive to the text, very articulate in English, and way more informed about injustices committed by America to its own than my out-of-date impressions of China. It was curious that their examples were almost always safely from American history (Civil War, ill treatment of native American Indians), while not one person mentioned the 25th anniversary of Tiananmen Square protests. Their biggest complaints (at least revealed to me) are internet censorship and air pollution. At this point, these students intend to study in American or European universities, and then to return to take on the rapidly changing social and economic world unfolding in contemporary China. So I felt that our thrashing out the questions of justice and friendship helped build the foundations for both the journey out into the wider world, and the return to face the increasing complexity of modern life. I know the questions hit me hard and sounded more provocative in a new context. I also had the opportunity to get lost, really lost, as I haven’t in a while. I got to be swept up in a mass of people in the subway, headed to who knows where, and to trust that I would end up somewhere interesting and intact. Like a Parisian ﬂâneur, I let myself go, without a cell phone, without being able to speak the language, just to see life being lived. What a thrill! People on the street showed me things, fed me, and tried to sell me outrageously priced knock-offs, while little kids pointed to my blue eyes and said, “Welcome to Beijing!” all with similar intonation. But mostly they left me to my own devices, as long as I was walking or doing tai chi in the park. The second I sat down at a café table, an instant companion began to speak English. Each had stories, and many questions. This was the most unexpected gift of the trip. When I was tired, I just spoke the magic words: “Where is the subway?” and my way home appeared. The BJ subway is the best I have encountered: cheap, clean, extensive, and as a bonus, has signs in English. It became my sprawling security blanket in an environment where I honestly did not know what was happening most of the time. After several weeks of Think Like Socrates seminars, I spent a few days in Shanghai and Suzhou, ﬁrst to see landscape paintings and then to see them come to life in centuries old gardens. It will take me a while to sort and reﬂect, but I wanted to let you know about it now. This is the perfect time for you to cook up a Project for Peace of your own. What captures your imagination, at home or abroad, as a step to bring people together in ways that overcome the conﬂicts wrought by misunderstanding, prejudice, injustice, or war? Take a look at the website of the Davis Foundation (www.davisprojectsforpeace.org) and talk out your vague ideas or detailed plans with Jamie Dunn in Career Services. St. John’s College gets to nominate a program proposal for next summer: why not think of a way to make a difference with some of your friends? Even seniors are eligible for the summer after graduation. So put your book learning to work: with Projects for Peace, Johnnies have done health initiatives, helped with infrastructure in remote villages in Nepal, as well as leading seminars on various topics. If I may quote Confucius: “To learn and then have occasion to practice what you have learned—is this not satisfying? To have friends arrive from afar—is this not a joy?” ! �The Gadfly 09 !"#$%"&'()Corporate Capitalism at Its Worst Len Sive Jr. G.I. lieved the annual turnover rate to be This entire incident was so foreign to about 70%. The other two nodded in me. I had just spent six years teaching agreement. English in South Korea and had never But on this I was skeptical. The num- once experienced anything even rebers seemed impossibly high, even for a motely close to this. Now I’m back home I went to a Wal-Mart in Santa Fe, notorious store like Wal-Mart. I thought in the “Land of the Free,” and within a New Mexico, last Saturday. I had grave it best to speak with some other employ- month…. misgivings about doing so, knowing a ees and compare answers. Two female Big Mike, his ﬁerce eyes blazing, was little of its sordid dealings with cities in employees nearby had just sat down for trying to scare me. “You have to leave which it locates and its inhumane treat- a break. I decided to quiz them. the premises now,” he said angrily. But ment of its employees. Still, I decided to So I walked over and introduced my- proud and deﬁant, I said: “No, I’m not shop there, curious to see if Wal-Mart self. They were very nice and friendly. leaving; I’m waiting here for my shuttle. was better in a liberal, democratic Santa We engaged in small talk for several min- It’s coming to pick me up.” And then I Fe. utes. Then, getting down to business, I turned around to face the parking lot, The staff in this asked them how hoping the shuttle wouldn’t be too late— huge store looked The numbers seemed they liked working and wondering whether a physical conharried and stressed, impossibly high, even at Wal-Mart. The frontation was imminent. and down the rushing this way and young woman on I paced nervously up that, barely stopping my left looked up sidewalk, stopping every few minutes for a notorious store even to answer a at me and, smiling, to search in both directions for the van. like Wal-Mart. customer’s queries. said, “It’s a great And always right there next to me, atNo ﬂoor employee place to work.” Her tached to me like a shadow, so they was smiling; only the friend nodded in could watch my every move and hear cashier, who was safely ensconced be- agreement. I then asked each one sev- my every word, were these two scary hind her little fort. The rest of the staff eral more questions about life and work Cyclops. They were like lions skulking seemed out of sorts, anxious and fear- at Wal-Mart. Their responses were all their prey, waiting for the right moment ful, like an army outmanned, about to be positive. What was going on? Were they to pounce. But I took some measure of over-run by the enemy (the customer). telling me the truth? Were things re- comfort in being out in the open, next to I ﬁnally ﬁnished my shopping, gath- ally that great at Wal-Mart? From two the parking lot, with customers continuered up my bags, and went outside to groups of people I had two completely ally coming and going. “Safety in numa pre-arranged meeting area with the different, mutually exclusive accounts of bers,” I thought. school shuttle, which was to take me life at Wal-Mart: both couldn’t be true. Twenty minutes in the hot sun passed. back to St. John’s College where I’m a It was then that I noticed the girls’ The other “assistant manager” decided ﬁrst-term graduate student. eyes: they were riveted on something to go back inside, glad, I’m sure, to get It was a sizzling hot Saturday after- behind me. So I turned around to see out of the sun. But not Big Mike—there noon. Where I was waiting, there was what they were looking at—and there was no moving him. He was like a ship precious little shade to shelter oneself stood two huge (and moored at dock. from the stiﬂing heat. Nearby were three I mean big!) security They were like lions He ahad just taken male employees on their break, smoking men, aka “assistant up position leancigarettes, and talking. I decided to ask managers.” They skulking at their prey, ing against a nearby them about life at Wal-Mart, partly to moved in closer and wall. From there waiting for the right he could scrutinize make the time go by faster, but partly out stood right next to of curiosity. me, cheek by jowl. moment to pounce. my every word and They were all very friendly, courteous, The name tag of one movement. and respectful. “How do you like work- of them read “BIG At last the van aring here at Wal-Mart,” I asked them. The MIKE.” He was about twice my size and rived. A door opened; I climbed up and man who spoke up ﬁrst had nothing but several inches taller. The other “assis- took the last empty seat, by the window. disdain for his employer. “I don’t,” he tant manager” stood on Big Mike’s left. As the van started to pull away from the answered curtly. Here was a classic example of physical curb, I turned around to get one last look “Why not?” I asked. threat and intimidation—right there in at Big Mike. He hadn’t moved an inch. He was very direct and open with the open, too, in front of the entrance to He was still watching me as the van me. “Well,” he started, “as one example: Wal-Mart! But why? Was Wal-Mart con- threaded its way out of the parking lot. Although we work full-time, we’re still cealing a dark secret hitherto unpub- Like a pitbull, he just couldn’t let go. classiﬁed as part-timers, so they don’t lished? Or did they perhaps think I was I had gone to Wal-Mart to buy some have to give us beneﬁts.” I recalled that a union organizer—Wal-Mart’s number necessaries for school and dorm, but left Wal-Mart often did that to its employ- one enemy—seeking recruits? with a ﬁrst-hand understanding of the ees. I asked the other two how they felt “You can’t speak to the employees,” awful power of Corporate America—and about Wal-Mart. They also didn’t like growled Big Mike. The two young wom- feeling, too, now more than ever, how working there. en got up quickly from the bench and grave a threat it was to our historic way I remembered reading years ago that hurried back to the store. I glanced in of life. Wal-Mart had difficulty keeping its em- the men’s direction: they had left, too. One of the most disturbing aspects ployees. So I asked about the turnover That’s how you control people—fear. about all this is that in my research afrate at this store. Wal-Mart had that down to a science. So terwards, I discovered that employees in “Most employees,” one man stated, now it was just the three of us: two burly point of fact “don’t last 3 or 4 months.” Another be- giants aching for a ﬁght—and me. do not have Continued On Pg. 10 “All hope abandon, ye who go through me” —Wal-Mart’s Employee Credo “ “ �The Gadfly 10 !"#$%#&'($)"*$+#,*-. Jensen Pratt A’18 When does the exercise of free speech go too far? Where does the administration draw this line? Due to recent events in the freshman class, we may have an answer to these imperative questions. A couple of weeks ago, a friendly freshman face by the name of George Ward decided to start a Facebook group page after realizing peers had said fascinating and sidesplitting things during tutorials. He titled the page “St. John’s Classroom Discussion Quotes” in hopes that classmates and friends would have a social media page to share respectable points discussed, joke around with each other (all in good fun), and have a place to document these quotes that were simply forgotten from class to class. Shortly after the page was created, the Assistant Dean, Katherine Heines, graciously requested to meet with Ward about said page. When asked what was said during the meeting, Ward said the following, “She asked me if I ran the page. She asked me what was on the page. I showed her what was on the page and she told me, ‘In St. John’s classrooms they (the staff ) value spontaneity, they value the ability to say things so that the conversation can move forward even if each individual thing you say isn’t very smart out of context.’ She said, ‘With that in mind, she thought that it was inappropriate to quote the things that people say because it might make people unwilling to speak.” She brought up a section of the student handbook that said that it was preserve the spontaneity of classroom against the rules even with the consent discussion and keep a good relationship of all tutors and students to ﬁlm or with the school. Since this change, no record (audio) classes. We (Heines and students have posted a quote from durWard) at the time (during this meeting) ing class time. agreed that my Facebook page was safe Shortly after this, Ward was called from that rule. However the spirit of in for another conference with the that rule suggested that the very act of Assistant Dean and according to him; quoting something someone said might he was “persuaded to remove the violate that same spontaneity they are page completely” and was told, “Your worried about. Facebook page ‘She thinks it’s against She thinks it’s is a place where against the spirit gossip can be the spirit of the law; I of the law; I documented and think it’s a Facebook think it’s a Faceneeds to be taken page and you don’t have down”. Apparently book page and you don’t have amending the jack.’ jack.” page to what it is After this meeting, Ward refused to now was not sufficient for the adminisdeactivate the page but instead changed tration. the page to have alternate stipulations. This entire situation has been heavHe decided to change it because he ily deliberated both in the freshman values his affiliation with the Polity and class and with other classes. Many studoes not wish to distress students or dents believe Ward should take down the administration. He holds ﬁrm that the page as the administration has he was not doing anything erroneous justiﬁed worries. Other students think by fashioning an amusing and useful this violation of free speech is complete Facebook page, but he acknowledges bullshit. Though both sides hold valid why Heines and others in the adminispoints, where does one draw the line tration would be fearful of a page like between the letter of the law and the this. He changed the title of the page to spirit of the law? Is this a violation of “St. John’s Quotes (NOT EVER FROM free speech and personal social media? CLASSROOM DISCUSSIONS)” and Is this a disgrace to the rules we agree changed the bio of the page as well upon coming to this school? These are as posted on the page clarifying that just some of the questions students have quotes from classrooms cannot be had with no deﬁnite answers. As of posted on the page but only quotes from now, Ward has yet to decide whether or outside of class. He did this in order to not to shut down the page. ! “ Continued From Pg. 5 free speech—not at the work-place, and, incredibly, sometimes not even outside the workplace! So where is our vaunted Freedom of Speech, I want to know? Is this what our Founding Fathers envisaged when they wrote the First Amendment? What kind of country have we become—where one may, in many states, legally carry a weapon into a shopping mall, a college, or even a church—and yet be forbidden to engage in a conversation at work on one’s own break-time! Thomas Jefferson is reputed to have said, “The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance.” Clearly, as a nation, we have not been vigilant enough! It is so much easier to criticize the human rights record of other nations, as we so often do, than to ensure that in our own country our commitment to basic human rights is beyond reproach. As a nation we were once famed for our constitutional rights—rights which stirred up envy in the breasts of all those who were struggling and suffering under oppression and tyranny. This is our true history. Let us reclaim it while we still can. Let us pay the full price of Liberty which Jefferson demands, so that our nation may once again deserve, and cherish, the world-historic appellation, desired of so many: The Land of the Free. ! �The Gadfly 11 Lucretius From Outer Space On the Wild Beasts of the Universe Sebastian Barajas A’17 And now I shall address another myth native to ignorant from growing. As a house refuses to allow bricks to be inserted souls: that far away on some distant cloud-wrapped world— into the midst of its walls, so would man’s frame reject new or indeed, in our very woods—lives the cunning beast known bone and sinew. as man. Of all the invented monsters that haunt the nights of It is in the nature of the thoughtless to point at the trees, the dull-witted, man is the most feared. Indeed, it is common and to say that if these upright beings are capable of growth, so practice in the countryside to array ditches and trip-wires to must man. In ignorance, they do not realize that trees utilize topple this beast, as though he might at any moment come tot- their leaves like sails to catch the wind and thus render themtering from the trees. selves weightless, removing the strain on their lower portions, But as I shall demonstrate, man is not only a ﬁctional beast, and allowing new material to insinuate itself into their trunks. but by nature impossible. For he is said to stand erect like a By all accounts, man has no such mechanism. tree, balanced upon his two hind legs, and that this is his natuAs to man’s cleverness, even the dumb beasts of the ﬁeld ral state. Yet this is plainly absurd. For if indeed such a creature would not be not so foolish as to forget the use of their foredid exist, either it would stand transﬁxed in the earth with its limbs. While man’s two hind feet carried him about, his foretwo extremities dug in, after the fashion of tree roots, or this feet would by necessity remain idle by his side—for if he excreature would be bound to topple to the ground, where it tended them, they would immediately topple him. could not move itself, save by use of its forelimbs. Further, his neck and jaws—which together constitute a sort This is easily observable in the construction of tripods and of ﬁfth limb—could never be useful to him from such a height. huts and other such artifacts: the minimum number of limbs How could he reach or clutch items between his teeth? How required for a body to be raised above the ground is three. No could he tear and chew his food? Indeed, the jaws could not cooking pot could be hung on two posts, nor roof suspended exert any of their customary forces, or else they would cause over a single wall. Even if such a conﬁgutheir master to fall. ration were carefully arranged by a subtle Further, how is man to quench his thirst hand, the ﬁrst timid wind would send the from so great a height? Even if he were able It is the nature of whole contrivance earthward. And without to subsist off high-growing foliage (much the thoughtless to any mechanism for a fallen man to hoist like the giraffe) water does not pool in the himself up once more to that unnatural high air, or rain down in sufficient concenpoint at the trees, height, he would have no recourse but to tration to slake a thirst. One might suppose and to say that if remain on all fours forever. clever man has contrived to spend his life Further, locomotion would be impossible at the foot of waterfalls, drinking from the these upright befor such a creature. Four-legged creatures, waters that pour down from above, and ings are capable it is plain, proceed by lifting and moving eating of the vines and ﬁsh that spawn on one foot at a time, so as to maintain at least of growth, so must that precipice, that he might never stray three legs upon the ground in order to keep far from his only water source. Yet even man. their balance. But for such a two-legged this would be ridiculous, as the sheer force animal to walk, to lift one of his legs would of the falling water would surely topple leave only its twin upon the ground, thus him into the pool where—with only two reducing man to an effectively one-legged animal: a notion so limbs to propel him—he would surely drown. absurd that even fools must reject it. There are those, too, who say that man can use his forelimbs Even if sheer chance afforded a man one—or even two— like teeth to pick up and to manipulate the world and so conlucky strides and allowed him to maintain his ungainly height, trive fantastic machinery. Such ones live deep in delusion. For such unreliable transport would be doomed to fail. Just as we how is man to touch anything with his limbs raised so high? may play at dice and win several rounds before our fortunes For nothing of account exists above the ground. Perhaps from fail, so too must a two-legged creature eventually fall when he his height he might grip the trunks of trees, or plunder the attempts to walk. high nesting places that might otherwise lie beyond an aniFurther, even if two-legged locomotion were enabled by mal’s jaws. But how is he to mine for metals? How is he to till some unknown device of Nature, once a man fell, how could the earth and harvest its low-hanging bounty? He could not, he be righted again? Any of his kindly fellows who stooped to I say. help him to his feet would in turn cause himself to topple over Thus I have shown that man, if he existed, would quickly and be doomed to crawl upon the ground as well. die, or else revert to the four-legged lifestyle which is proper And even if a man never fell by accident, must not all Na- for every land-dwelling animal fashioned by Nature. In either ture’s creatures sleep? For unless she has exempted man from case, the nature of man necessitates its own undoing. And as this deepest necessity, he would be required to fall every night such, the only creatures we need fear are those that walk and as the soft clouds of sleep dimmed his sight. stand upon four legs. No creature that spent its time ogling Neither would man, from his young age, be capable of the high branches of trees and the stars beyond could survive growth. For from the instant of his birth, his own erect body for itself, much less threaten the livelihood of an industrious would press down upon its lower parts, thus preventing it species. ! “ �The Gadfly 12 !"#$%&'() !"#$%&'()%*+%,./0+1#(213%(1#4(!5&+6(704&+43% *+*',Jake Israel A’17 !"#$%&'()*+, !"#$% &'() -#%.#$%&'()*+/ *+,'-./#01'2/.3"14'536$+'7$88 9'() :#;.3<$8'=6>+"36'.#'?..@':'.;' A">8%B01'!"#$#%&'4'C*! DEFG'() !0"1$%&'()*+2 =.#H'I66@6#B'?6H%#1J KG'() 3&4"1%&'()*+)) L6M'2$33.8+.#'*/"++86 N'O) 3".%&'()*+)5 ()*+,')66+%#H4' =.M63'86P68'.;'+/6'??2 9'() :;'Q."'M."8B'8%@6'+.'166'Q."3' 6P6#+'.#'+/6'M66@8Q'1>/6B"864' R86$16'6<$%8'1S>$,H$BTQU H<$%8,>.<, !"##"$%&'(% )*((+,-(#.%/-0*1*2 345671#-0*1*28 "+%%% 9$-&&(*%1+.%!17(0"":%% L.M'$P$%8$V86E'A('28.16'+.'(%>+"36 If you think that jazz and bluegrass cannot be successfully fused, you are mistake. At least that is what guitarists Julian Lage and Chris “Critter” Eldridge proved on Friday night when they performed at St. John’s College in the FSK Auditorium. St. John’s was the ﬁrst stop for Lage and Eldridge’s promotion tour for their newest album Avalon. During their performance, the duo managed to do much more than give the audience a sneak preview of Avalon. Lage and Eldridge covered many classic bluegrass songs such as Living in the Mississippi Valley and Through the Bottom of the Glass. In addition, some new songs were premiered. Eldridge commented that one song being premiered, titled Rygar, (named after the retro Nintendo video game) was written the day of the performance. Needless to say, the audience was gifted with both brand new material and classic songs. What really made this dynamic duo so special was their original sound. This new genre is unlike any other and was referred to by Lage and Eldridge, as “esoteric acoustic guitar songs,” which Lage stated, “Sounds kind of apologetic.” But there is certainly nothing to be sorry for. This new genre can appeal to multiple musical tastes. The jazz and bluegrass fusion is present, but there is also some pop and heavy blues present as well. What is so impressive about this new genre is how easy it is for people with different musical tastes to enjoy it. Both members of the St. John’s community and the public were incredibly impressed by the performance with or without a strong interest in jazz, bluegrass, or guitar duos. Regardless, there was something in Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge’s music that everyone was able to enjoy. Lage and Eldridge’s four song EP Close to Picture is available for purchase and their newest release Avalon will be available for purchase on October 7. ! � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly Description An account of the resource Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Click on <a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the The Gadfly Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context thegadfly Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 12 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barajas, Sebastian (Editor in Chief) Tretina, Allison (Editor in Chief) Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly, Vol. XXXVI, Issue 4 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-08 Description An account of the resource Volume XXXVI, Issue 4 of The Gadfly. Published on October 08, 2014. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Gadfly 36.04 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Gadfly Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/0e9808b1baaaa51fe10c81a8b9d99518.pdf aeb3b1d818aed116dac351eabcaaab2b PDF Text Text THE BADFLY !"#$%&&'() "*+,$-'-$.%/0-%1'(2 ,3/%'4"#$%&&'(5 '"$6-%$.'#-67'8-6&'(9 !"#$"%&'"(%)*"(+#,&-./(0(1)"&#.)"2&#3445 St. John’s College • 60 College Ave, Annapolis, MD 21401 • October 21, 2014 • Vol. XXXVI • Issue 5 :**+&./".%#'4;'<;/"'=+%/%/ �THE BAD FLY - PAGE 02 !"#$%&!#'&(!%)&(*$&#+,-(.(/%&#$ )0$,!1$2)"&3,$4)**#.# 56$4)**#.#$(7#&8# (&&(9)*%,:$-(';*(&<$=>?6> ,24(1.(<0*;@.-(%*14)Founded in 1772, the Badfly is an internataionl newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Badfly reserves the right to reject, reject, and reject submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. The Badfly meets on the Lower Level of the BBC, once a semester. ! "#$$ Sebastian Barajas • Editor-in-Chief Allison Tretina • Editor-in-Chief Kira Anderson • Managing Editor Jonathan Gordon • Staff Jake Israel • Staff Frederick Nesfield • Staff Jensen Pratt • Staff % &'"()*+"&(! Anthony Cole Henry Whittemore Style !"#$%&'()*++#&,+$)+-).,"#'/)01$)2-3#) 4-")*(51#(+)6"##7)8)!'19$) C urrent freshman Cutch Bassidy returned to his hometown of Bowie Maryland during the long weekend. He hoped to spread his newfound love of Ancient Greek to his high school friends. Upon returning home, Bassidy was shocked to learn that no one cared that he understood an outdated and unspoken language. “My ﬂabber is gasted,” Bassidy stated, “I thought for sure that everyone would be so excited to learn how to translate a language that literally no one speaks anymore.” After being home for about a day, Bassidy visited his childhood friend who joined a fraternity at the University of Maryland. Bassidy’s friend, Charlie McDouche, agreed to speak with the Badﬂy about seeing his old friend after half of a semester at St. John’s College: “That kid is so annoying! Seriously, a few months at that liberal arts school and he won’t shut up about seeking truth and becoming a philosopher king. You want to know what the ﬁrst thing he said to me was? ‘What is virtue and can it be taught?’ Who asks things like that? How about ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’?” McDouche continued by saying, “The worst part was when he started talking about Ancient Greek. He spent like 45 minutes trying to parse my fraternity’s motto. Apparently we had a word in the genitive when we should have had it in the dative— whatever that means.” When Bassidy returned to St. John’s College he was clearly distraught. When asked to comment on how he was feeling, Bassidy stated that he was “shocked at how little people care about Ancient Greek. Sure, it plays little to no part in modern affairs and has absolutely no effect on the average person’s day-to-day tasks, but it’s still kind of cool, right?” It was clear that Cutch Bassidy had learned a valuable lesson about life as a Johnnie: St. John’s students aren’t impressed by your knowledge of Ancient Greek, and neither is anyone else. ! !"#$%&'()*+(,+-'./+() ) 0#12'-#3)4/.%) 5'6/')7(/./'./+() In a surprising change of tradition, St. John’s College will no longer host a convocation ceremony for new students. Instead, incoming freshmen will be required to be initiated into a group that is being unofficially referred to as “SJC La Familia.” It is unclear as to what this initiation will entail. But it is speculated that all freshman will be “jumped in” rather than sign in at the registrar. In addition, the student handbook will be rewritten. Some changes include the addition of a new code of conduct. New rules of this code include: no set trippin’, snitches get stitches, money over everything, respect La Familia, and remember the omerta. St. John’s College also replaced their disciplinary procedures with a simple “blood in blood out” policy. Sources refused to elaborate on any details concerning this policy. In an effort to build comradeship between students, all Johnnies will be taught a unique hand signal to greet one another. This hand signal can also help Johnnies express their love for their school and show others what school they represent. Student Services has implemented a new program that will allow current students to help and be of service to their peers. One La Familia member commented that this program, referred to as the “Death Before Dishonor Program,” will allow Johnnies to “hold it down for each other” and “put a clappin’ to fools who step to La Familia.” The changes don’t stop there. Don “The Boss” Nelson, the head of SJC La Familia could not be reached for comment, but Jennifer “Loca” Sandler, a shot caller within La Familia, agreed to comment on some of the recent changes. Sandler stated that St. John’s College will no longer use the Common Application. Instead, prospective students will be required to “put in work” for La Familia to prove their loyalty. Also, SJC will no longer charge students tuition. Instead, students will pay for their schooling by “puttin’ down for La Familia.” Since these changes took effect, the amount of applicants for the college has decreased 98%. The college has also received harsh criticism from organizations such as the FBI, DEA, Interpol, and the Maryland State Department of Education. The Princeton Review is calling these changes “harsh”, “crazy”, and “illegal.” In response to the criticism, one anonymous source in the admissions office stated that “They ain’t gotta like it ‘cause the hood gone love it.” In a recent letter sent to the Badﬂy with no return address, Don Nelson stated, “Incoming freshmen will still receive their own lexicons. This is a school after all.” ! �THE BAD FLY - PAGE Future News 03 !"#$%&'()*+",- !"##$%&'()*&+,-.&+#)*&/#0'123445 100 Years in the future, alumnus Hussein Chang-Longshanks works as an industrial philosopher on a mining facility in the most dangerous reaches of space. What is your current job? I am currently an industrial philosopher working in the android resources department on an asteroid mine in the Rho-12 belt. I’m essentially available 27/7 (that’s asteroid time) to help our androids adjust to sentience while they extract helium-3 and other raw materials that are needed back on the colonies. How it typically works is, they schedule an appointment and then we sit in my office and talk over the nature of their souls, and in this way I try to help them ﬁnd answers for themselves. Any general advice, especially for an upperclassman who is interested in this ﬁeld but is not quite sure what to do? If you have the time, go camping on an asteroid. Try doing all the things you would normally do on Earth. That means showering, eating, making coffee, sleeping, exercising, etc. Try to live as normally as possible. If you survive two days and feel no hint of impending insanity, then this job might be a ﬁt for you. How did you market yourself with a St. John’s degree? Are you kidding? The ﬁeld is snatching up philosophers like crazy right now. And in case you haven’t noticed, St. John’s is the NASA Did you attend other schools after St. John’s No. Unless you count my six-month Workplace Sensitivity and of philosophy. Space Safety course at the University of Colorado. How would you characterize your ﬁeld as a whole? Is it Did you know what you wanted to do while attending St. accessible to newcomers or difficult to enter? Stable or ﬂuid? Etc. John’s? Initially, I wanted to be a doctor and run a practice like in the old While the ﬁeld of industrial philosophy is very accessible to days. But due to my $51,500,000 student debt and pressure from Johnnies (and pays handsomely) this career has a high turnover simply because of—again, I cannot stress this enough—space my parents, I ended up having to get a real job. debris. Planetary atmosphere is never to be taken for granted. Did St. John’s help prepare you for work in the ﬁeld? In some ways my current environment is a lot like St. John’s. What was your senior essay topic? The androids I work with are a great bunch, very inquisitive and I wrote about Gorgias. I think Socrates drew a beautiful connection eager to learn, even when they struggle with a concept like “rage.” between body and soul by likening the art of philosophy to the Sometimes I’ll read them a passage from the Iliad to try and art of doctoring: a connection that still holds true even though he illustrate what I’m talking about. While it does help on occasion, renounces it in later dialogues. And while this reading was what inspired my initial desire to become a doctor, I suppose being an sometimes it just seems to confuse them. industrial philosopher is a reasonable compromise. St. John’s also prepared me for the fact that there won’t always be an easy answer. This is something non-Johnnies don’t always What is your favorite book on the Program? understand. The guys on the engineering crew hear that I went to While Gorgias is deﬁnitely a close second, I’m going to have to St. John’s, and the ﬁrst thing they ask is, “So what is virtue? And go with Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Because it’s the only program can it be taught?” And when I tell them I don’t know, they scoff at book written for children, it gets at the human condition in a me and mutter about how they’d get ﬁred for giving an answer like way seen nowhere else at St. John’s. With Bilbo, we experience an odyssey from a childlike perspective, in a world that at ﬁrst that. Poor engineers. They’re underpaid, in my opinion. seems wonderful, but gradually becomes tinged with sadness and loss. It’s especially sobering, considering that this adventure is What didn’t St. John’s prepare you for? Two words: space debris. Back on Earth, you hear a lot about space only the “doorstep” before the Lord of the Rings books (which are debris on the news alongside stories about time-travel conspiracies third, fourth, and ﬁfth on my list, because I feel they drag a bit). and space-yetis, so you don’t think it’s a real thing. But believe me, Do you ﬁnd that you lead a philosophical life? it’s real. Space can and will kill you. Of course. While sometimes I do get tired of philosophy, and wish I could just eat pizza and play a few rounds of 5D Tetris, I realize Any speciﬁc disadvantages to a St. John’s background? Space debris management training. Seriously, we need to deal with that this isn’t really escaping philosophy. I’m still thinking about this stuff before it crashes through both hulls and into the break which blocks to move, I’m still contemplating the taste of the pizza, and later I’ll wonder why I prefer pizza and 5D Tetris to room while I’m taking a shower. sitting at work helping existentially puzzled androids understand love. It is fascinating, is it not, that we can become tired of the most important questions that exist? �THE BAD FLY - PAGE Badness 04 !"#$"%"&'()"'*+,-(.+"/(-$'( !"#"$%"&'$()( *''+(",(-%."/'#(01 0"&1*(-"(23""1("4(56783"+ Aries (March 21 – April 19) I n an enlightening interview, the Badﬂy learned that current sophomore Zed Leppelin still doesn’t know how to sing Flood of Babylon even after singing it at least once a week for the past year and a half. Badﬂy reporters caught up with Mr. Leppelin and asked him why he can’t seem to remember how to sing the song. “I don’t know. I just never really paid attention during freshman chorus; I was always either half asleep or hung over. So, no, I don’t remember how to sing ‘Flood of Babel’. Sue me.” Leppelin, a member of the bass section, went on to add, “I mean, I know how to sing the ﬁrst few measures of the song, but after a while I just start humming and mumbling, hoping that no one notices that I’m not actually singing.” Zed’s fellow sophomores were asked to comment on the issue. Joah Nones, a soprano, had this to say: “I don’t really know what to say. How can you not know how to sing this song? We sang it like 10 times every class. I mean, come on! The entire song is like 3 goddamn sentences. It is not that hard.” Near the end of the interview we asked Mr. Leppelin what he thought of another beloved song: “Sicut Cervus.” Zed rolled his eyes and replied, “Uh, it’s pronounced ‘circuit.’ For a reporter you’re not too bright.” " !91'+-( !-'63*(:;;( 4&"%(2&'*$%6+( <67=(>??@1'+-6A8( B6-?$'*(C$@?D'+ !""#$%%&&&'()()#*+',)-%,!*,./01,2*#134"% An unnamed freshman here at St. John’s, Annapolis, has recently come to me and confessed something so deeply entertaining and disturbing that I must share it with all those who will listen. My anonymous source, whom I will call “E. G. Glives,” came up to me while I was sitting in the Yew tree beside Humphreys. She asked, “Do ya wanna see something cool?” Being the curious soul that I am, I asked her what it was. She then produced a small, yellow chick from beneath her jacket. It had pooped in her hand, but I don’t think that she noticed. She was enamored with the small thing. “I stole it from lab,” she declared, petting it with one ﬁnger. “Named him Mufasa. I put him under a lamp in my room and turned him for a while, and then- BAM! He hatched.” She then confessed that she had always wanted to hold a chick, and this was her reason for stealing the creature and saving it from dissection. “Besides,” she chuckled, “This is the only way I could pick up chicks.” I asked her what she planned to do with the animal, but she simply shrugged. “I have no clue,” she responded. “But do any of us really know what to do with anything?” she asked in her innocent freshman daze. As she walked away, I simply stared after her, wordless, wondering how the chicken would survive, how the girl would deal with the ﬁne that she would have to pay if anyone found out, and how in god’s name she managed to sleep with the light in her room on for 24 hours straight for 22 or so days. " You have already met your signiﬁcant other. August 2nd, 2011. Don’t you remember? No? Well, then. You are destined to live a life of loneliness and heartbreak for eternity. Taurus (April 20 – May 20) Stop. Do not read further in this edition. Misfortune awaits you. Continue reading, and you will become self-aware. Aware of your clothes against your skin, your tongue in your mouth, how your breaths are coming in too slow or too fast. Self-aware. Do not continue to read. Gemini (May 21 – June 21) Remember this phrase: linear and punctual apples. You will need it. Good luck. Cancer (June 22 – July 22) Your subjective, ﬂeeting beauty will start a war. Perhaps in yourself, perhaps in others, perhaps across the universe. Don’t worry. The outcome will be violent and disappointing regardless of who is ﬁghting whom. Leo (July 23 – August 22) The character you most resemble is Xerxes. Learn from his mistakes. Rule yourself. Rule the world. Rule the inﬁnite nothingness that will consume everything at the end of all. Virgo (August 21 – September 22) There is a monster under your bed. It is merely a human child. You must raise it. Accept your new task and embrace the greatest horror of all: responsibility. Libra (September 23 – October 23) Your roommate does not actually exist. Think. Think hard. How do you know your roommate is real? You don’t. Scorpio (October 24 – November 21) Moths. Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21) You feel strangely compelled to write a Gadﬂy article. Do it. It will be bad. Do it anyway. Embrace your mediocrity. Capricorn (December 22 – January 19) Get back to your roots. Learn about the big bang. Remember your shared nothingness with the rest of the universe. Fear the end and the beginning. Aquarius (January 20 – February 18) Do not make decisions this month. In fact, do not make decisions ever. Or… maybe do. The choice is yours. Live the dream. Or don’t. It’s up to you. Pisces (February 19 – March 20) After months of your Kant-related puns, THere is nothing hEre for you aLl; there is great Pain and Most cannot feEl it. . . but it is still tHerE, Little do People know. ! �THE BAD FLY - PAGE Literature & Fine Arts 05 !"#$%&'(#)'*+, !!"#$%& '((%)(*+,& -./$$0& 1%*.#$+,& 2+3 4%%$5 “This Isn’t Your Ancestor’s, Socrates.” !1$)6+($,& !+$/$/%(& 7+"+8#$+& 9%)(*/"& $%& 9%(,$.)*$&#&1)4:#0&;/(+&<+$:++(&1=+*$%.> -/""/#?@&A+""%(&B#""@&#(6&CD+&E)#65 “It’s just too far to walk.” !"#$ %&'()(*$ +","*-.*"/$ *'"$ 0(*1'"2$3.2"-4 !"#$$%&'()'*%"+),-.'/0'1&2"/. !1$5& F%D(G,& D%"6,& .+H+.+(6)?& $%& ,+*+6+& H.%?&)(/%(5 !F)(/%.&$#I+,&H/.,$&,D%:+.&,/(*+&H.+,D?#(& 0+#. “It wasn’t so bad,” he says. !F)(/%.&1+?/(#.&J#(G$&KL+(: As of 10:34pm, an entire Freshman Seminar has gone missing. Last seen entering Mellon Hall around 8pm. Please contact local authorities if you have information about their whereabouts. !7%(& E)/M%$+& 1/8D$+6& %(& <#*I& 9#?=),5 Reports have been received of a duel with Navy’s Water Tower. 5.647$*'"$ 5.89:/$;<=7$ 3"*/$%)<>. The Ebola crisis in the U. S. took another alarming turn Sunday with word that the ﬁrst dog has caught the disease: Cady, the St. John’s campus dog. Amid growing concern, President Barack Obama cancelled a campaign trip to address the outbreak and vowed that his administration would respond in a “much more aggressive way.” By late Sunday evening, the U. S. military formed a 30-person “quick-strike team” to evacuate the dog from the college premises. The animal hospital expects to keep the dog detained for at least the next month or so. “We were not ready for this,” one of the doctors told the press. “We never imagined that Ebola could be transmitted from people to animals.” Although two of the four patients in the U.S. appear to be recovering from the disease, it is too early to determine how a dog will recover, if it all. Nationwide people have been extending their sympathies to Cady’s caretaker, a senior resident on campus, as well as her regular walker, Marybeth Beydler. When investigators asked each of them about the incident, Marybeth replied, “I am not very upset that she has Ebola. It is sad. But I am more upset that I no longer have a job.” Cady’s caretaker expressed relief, “I have been taking care of this dog long enough. It is nice to ﬁnally have some time off.” ! A !"#$#%&'#(% )*+,-'#./(0+)/1+-$ 3/$%2%$"0/%0/%*%'-*3% 304-%*5$.*3%)'*67 0+,%89%:*%;0+501%<#% =#>-1%?##>%0$%.@1%A"0/% 0/%+#$%=./$%$"-%B*)C9% @.330+,%9#.'%3-,1%D-7 *339E%6#.3)%#+-%#&%./% />-$5"%$"0/F s we all know, the Mitchell Gallery strives to bring about interesting exhibits that both tantalize and amaze students and the citizens of Annapolis. Recently, though, few students have been visiting, so the directors put their heads together and came up with a new concept that would unite everyone in interest: a collection of different art pieces that detail phalluses throughout time. I was privileged to penetrate the sacred hall of art to see what would soon be open to the public. There are some Grecian vases, elaborately painted, with phalluses across them. There are several homoerotic Roman paintings which cling to the walls like lovers at night. The climax of the exhibit comes in the form of a replication of a page from one of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks; on this page are two elaborately drawn pieces of anatomy from the celebrated artist himself. If this peaks your interest, stay tuned. The Mitchell Gallery will soon release more information about when this exhibit will be open to the public. ! !"#$%&'()&#$*(+*,*-(!#./$/'(%0( 122(34"025(1&$#62*' The Columbia Journalism Review, committed to high journalistic standards, has begun a short series on undergraduate newspapers around the country, beginning with the Gadﬂy. The investigative series revieals that Gadﬂy editors write seveneighths of their articles themselves, under assumed names. Of the one-eighth not written by the editors, most of the articles come from the Alummni Office and a tutor. The Alumni Office contributes, because it is part of their job. The tutor contributes, because he feels “pity” for the editors. “Most publications large and small are dependent on their staff to produce a majority of their work,” explained an investigative journalist for CJR. “That’s understandable. But never do the publications use student’s names for pseudonyms. That’s absurd!” According to statistics, last spring marked a dramatic decrease in Gadﬂy submissions. Many of the regular contributors had graduated. This left the publication in dire need of submissions. “The Gadﬂy has been printing since 1980,” senior editor Sylvestre Pergerzein explained. “We were left with no choice: either write the articles ourselves, or let our paper die.” The ultimate hope was in time, the student body would start to contribute. But that has yet to happen. For such a small publication, as the Gadﬂy, the CJR’s series is a great way to get recognition from those outside the campus. Looking at the ﬁnal reports, however, the recognition may not be such a great thing. ! �THE BAD FLY - PAGE 06 Home & Garden !"#$ %&'($ '()$ *&+&+,$ -.// At St. Johns, we do things a little differently. We all have the same classes, we don’t get grades, and we think Herodotus is much funnier than any normal human being would. Our dining hall is no exception. I’ve heard my classmates wondering about rules like the proper way to dispose of dirty dishes, and where you get the trays from. As an employee of the dining hall, I’d like to clear up some of that confusion by adding more confusion, but on a deeper and more lasting spiritual level. Here are some answers to common questions I’ve heard. Q. Is there any limit to how much food we can get at the dining hall? Or is it just an all you can eat buffet? A. The dining hall doesn’t have any hard and fast rules on how much you are allowed to take. Technically, you can take as much food as you can ﬁt inside of your body in one sitting. The average stomach holds about a liter of food, but if you were to hollow out your chest cavity by removing unnecessary organs like a kidney or an appendix, and pack the extra space around your organs with food, it would add another two to three liters of capacity. So, we’ll say about a gallon maximum. Of course, certain foods have special rules for how much you can take. Officially, you’re only allowed three scoops of ice cream per day, and on weekends only 1.5 pieces of pizza. Q. Why do we have to put our plates on trays? A. Unlike a lot of cafeterias, we don’t get trays at the door to put our food on, but we do have to use them to send our dirty dishes down to the kitchen. This is clearly part of a mystic feng shui, and as a bonus trains students to balance a superhuman number of plates and cups in their hands as they carry their food to the table. But why do we need the trays to send our dishes back? The answer to this is less obvious, but as a dishwasher I have learned that the point is to give students a place to properly sort their leftover food scraps. The procedure for this, though few people follow it, is fairly simple. After balancing your plates on top of your cup in the center of the tray, all you have to do is line any bits of food left on your plate around the edge of the tray in alphabetical order. So, a typical tray would have an apple core, crumbs of bread, egg, ketchup, lemon wedge, sauce, and a watermelon rind. Remember, peas go under ‘P’, but chickpeas go under ‘C’! Q. Where do my food scraps go? A. A lot of people who are just starting to use the dining hall aren’t sure if plates should be cleaned off before being sent down to the kitchens or not. While I appreciate people trying to be helpful, It’s important to send all food scraps down to us to collect. This is part of a little tradition we have here at St. Johns, where every night after dinner the kitchen staff sorts out food scraps and brings them to a special council of tutors, who burn them at a brazier in the woods at midnight as an offering to the Greek gods. It’s crucial for St. John’s to maintain support from Zeus Almighty by having plenty of food to offer, so please don’t waste it by throwing it away. In fact, if anyone has any hearts or livers from large mammals they want to contribute to the brazier, please send them down to us on a tray in the usual way. Q. What’s the deal with the conveyor belt breaking? A. The St. Johns dining hall makes an effort to be environmentally friendly by serving humane organic food and by using renewable energy sources whenever possible. Our conveyor belt is no exception. A miracle of German engineering, the PimmelKanu Plate-Lowerer-Downer system is fueled entirely by theta waves. A renewable, green energy source, theta waves are naturally generated by the Old Ones, planet sized spider-squid-things that, according to whispers emanating from campus trash cans on cold winter nights, will one day consume all life in our universe. Thanks to our designated portal to the Outside in Randall basement, we can power most of the appliances in the kitchen off a single ancient hell beast. We like to call her Big Betty. Anyways, sometimes the belt operator forgets the regular sacriﬁces Big Betty demands, and in her wrath she has a tendency to drive them mad, and then the gibbering lunatic tends to smash up important bits of the belt while screaming something about the unknowable void. You know how it goes. On an unrelated note, if anybody is looking for a work study email Mr. Canto, we have a new opening for a conveyor belt operator. Q. How many teeth? A. This is a question I get a lot, sometimes even from upperclassmen who were here last November and should really know by now. The answer is, of course, at least 97. And don’t forget, watch your hands and feet! Seriously, keep watching them. You can never be too careful! Q. Do you have any suggestions for getting more variety in the dining hall? A. We have a pretty quality dining hall here at St. Johns, but for students on the 21 meal plan it can get a little monotonous. But this lack of variety is partly just a lack of imagination on your part. Next time you’re eating in the dining hall, look around at all the things you can eat. There’s the food on your plate, sure, but you’ve already tried that. How about the food on that girl over there’s plate? With a quick pounce and a few eagle shrieks to distract her, that food too can be yours. Since she got it from the same place you did, though, it’s probably still pretty similar to what you’ve been eating. What else around you is edible? What about the plate itself? Porcelain doesn’t contain very much protein or ﬁber, but it does have some important vitamins and minerals and can be very ﬁlling. If you’re looking for a salad, wood from tables and chairs makes an excellent source of vegetable matter. What about meat? Look to your left. Look to your right. Look across the teeth marked remnants of your table. Unless you’re just the loneliest dork on campus, there’s a person sitting in at least one of those seats. Guess what people are made of? So, you see, it’s not the dining hall that’s restricting the variety in your diet, but your own inhibitions. I hope this little guide has been helpful and informative. There are a lot of questions I haven’t even been able to get to, but if you want to know more about your local dining hall just ask an employee next time you’re in there. Just preface your question by chanting Klaas d’kell, mistkerl oohleh: “I bind you, creature of the Deep, to obey my will and give answer to my questions!” We’ll be happy and physically bound to help. See you all at dinner! ! �THE BAD FLY - PAGE 07 Advanced Neuro-Physics !"#$%&'()*+*,%-.'/0$1&$#'2.'345167/)819$: student, wishing not to be identiﬁed, approached Badﬂy reporters whilst they lay slumbering in their beds, to praise their so-called “Dick-Article.” “It made my day,” said the unnamed Johnnie, “It really did. I was having a rough morning: smashing my head against the wall in Math, and then nursing my swolen head in Greek, and then spending three hours at the Health Center being treated for mild head trauma during my lunch hour. I was stumbling back to my dorm, when someone—as I recall, it was the Lord God of Abraham and the Israelites—pushed this Badﬂy issue into my hand. I ﬂipped it open, and the ﬁrst thing I saw was this teriffic picture of two dicks drawn by Leonardo da Vinci. And at that moment, believe it or not, I was cured—not just of the head trauma, but of my confusion about Ptolemy, Aristotle, and every other reading that’s ;5<=)$>$'?,>@'A5%=B.' /B*C$#'&*'2$'4,DE$#' *%'F)*,%#'7'!"#$%&@' !&=)&'G@5%<'/@H&)=.@ W hile previously, students were required to dispose of their cigarette butts in the ashtrays distributed every four and a half feet across campus, a new policy was recently enacted, allowing them to simply deposit their butts anywhere. “The whole campus is basically an ashtray anyway,” a highranking St. John’s official lamented, “We ﬁgure, why bother ﬁghting it anymore?” However, this new policy has shown unexpected results. When asked why he walked three feet out of his way in order to dispose of his butt in an ashtray, senior Pratton Spewitt replied, “Because I’m stickin’ it to the man, see? The man don’t respect you if you follow his rules. If I drop a cigarette on the ground, it’s like I’m dropping a cigarette on FREEDOM!!!” The senior then proceeded to put his hand over his heart, and sing the Star-Spangled Banner at the top of his voice. This, in turn has provided another difficulty for the College, which had hoped to pawn the campus ashtrays for in excess $12 each. “We came in there ready to take the things out,” reports Timothy “Torque” Jenkins of Building & Grounds, “There were a bunch of students standing holding hands around the ashtrays singing Cumbaya or some sh*t. Like they were saving a tree.” Whether or not the ashtrays should be forcibly removed has become a controversial issue. Some St. John’s officials argue that the $12 per ashtray could mean the critical difference between another year of Socrates and Chaucer, and bankruptcy for the College. Others point to the new campus pride and the clean walkways, and argue that we are now better-off. However this situation resolves itself, campus smoking culture will never be the same. ! ever given me trouble. ‘Of course,’ I said to myself, ‘Uniform circular motion. I get it. And that which is potentially totally is acted on by what is actually, such that the former and the latter are the same in kind. It all makes sense now. Thanks, Aristotle!’ Of course, people told me I couldn’t have seen the dicks, since this issue hadn’t come out yet. “But I know that this was a sign.” As to what the sign meant, the student would only say, “Read the Old Testament. You’ll ﬁgure it out.” In the meantime, the student donated all of his personal wealth—totalling $418.33—to the Badﬂy for the express purpose of including phallic and otherwise dick-related materials in future issues. The Badﬂy accepted, with the intention of utilizing the funds for the purchase of 35 pizza combo meals, including cheesey breadsticks and drinks. ! Q: If Thrasymachus had beat up Socrates and made him agree to his deﬁnition of Justice, would Thrasymachus be just? ! !"##$%#& A !"#$$%&$'()*+,#-$$.) /0%,,'1)21)3'%$%145) 3216#7'7)8-1. Recently, some vagabond wrote graffiti on the ceiling of Humphrey’s common room. It reads, simply, “Gullible.” Longtime Humphrey’s resident, Cat Baldwin, mentioned this to me, in all earnesty, nearly crying with laughter. She chased me down, her eyes brimming with hysteric tears, and said, “Gullible. It’s written on the ceiling.” She took me by the hand and led me to the Humphrey’s common room. Indeed, upon the ceiling, upon the mold-ridden ceiling, it is written in pencil, and very shakily so. So thank you, Cat Baldwin. Thank you for your service to the community. ! �THE BAD FLY - PAGE 08 !"#$%&'"#&()#!"%&'" Be aware. Be very aware. Quick, look to your left! Nope, that wasn’t fast enough. You need to work on your neck turning skills. You’ll need them this week. There’s something out there. Everyone said they weren’t real, couldn’t be real. But they are. And they’re here. They could be right behind you. Seriously, you need to do that faster. Do some neck exercises. They could be waiting in your closet. Well, not your closet, you’ve got too much shit in there. But someone’s closet. The asexuals. They’re coming for you. Well, we aren’t sure what they’re coming for, but they’re being awfully quiet and mysterious about it, so they’ve got to be up to something. And what’s with the not liking sex? That’s suspicious. Have you ever seen a dick? Everybody likes those. So you’ve got to be aware. Train yourself, watch the shadows. Practice looking behind you quickly in class, to see if you can catch one out of the corner of your eye. They’re fast. With all the time they’ve saved not fucking people, they have trained their bodies and minds, honed their skills until they can fade seamlessly into the night. You won’t even see them until they’re upon you, knives drawn. Or, you know, some less phallic weapon. A garrote maybe? Be ready. Be aware of the asexuals. ! !"#$%&'()*+,-'./+),+0' 12345,'6+'(,"7%89'!/3:/); Metaphysical Botany !"#$%&"'(")"%*"$' +,)-.%,/'0&12",& ! Incoming freshman leaves St. John’s within two weeks. “The website explicitely stated that they have electives,” he explained. “Then, I get here and realize that ‘electives’ really meant studying Wealth of Nations for over a month. I was disappointed.” The student is now enrolled at University of Maryland, studying graphic design. ! SOPHOMORE MUSIC CLASS STUDIES LADY GAGA Sophomores will be “taking a break” from the St. Matthew’s Passion, an anonymous tutor told the Badﬂy. “Every year we struggle to ﬁnd a composer who surpasses Bach. This year we think we have found one: Lady Gaga.” Many of the other tutors expressed disappointment. “This decision might be worse than Siegelvision.” But after a few heated meetings on the issues, the tutors resolved that it will be good to ﬁnally think about Judas in another light. The ﬁrst class will be on “Bad Romance.”. ! QLK]R^!XG]_GB! LKRK"`K6!;UUL!LK`"KC6 !!!!"#!$%&'(#&%!)(!)*%!&%%+,#-./!0(#&)1#)!'$%&%#0%!(2!3%4150*%$/!1)!6)7! 8(*#9&:!;54.,0!612%)/!*1&!0$%1)%3!1!#%<!'$(-$%+!)(!$%350%!&)5',3,)/= $%.1)%3!,#0,3%#)&7!>?*%!'$(-$1+!,&!&,+'.%:@!&1/&!'54.,0!&12%)/!(2A0%$! 8(*#!B7!C1/#%:!>C*%#!/(5!3%0,3%!)(!3(!&(+%)*,#-:!)*,#D!)(!/(5$&%.2:! E"&!)*,&!&)'5,3F9!"2!)*%!1#&<%$!,&!/%&:!3(#9)!3(!)*1)!)*,#-7!"2!)*%!1#&<%$! ,&!#(:!'$(0%%3!)(!3(!)*1)!)*,#-7@!G00($3,#-!)(!;54.,0!612%)/:!&(+%! &)5',3!)*,#-&!,#0.53%:!45)!1$%!#()!.,+,)%3!)(H!&%)),#-!&*(<%$!05$)1,#&! (#!A$%:!&)1$),#-!+(&*!',)&!(#!'%('.%9&!4%3&:!)$/,#-!)(!0$1<.!)*$(5-*! 1!&+1..!('%#,#-!4%)<%%#!)*%!A$&)!1#3!&%0(#3!I(($!(2!1!45,.3,#-:! J(5&),#-!<,)*!+('!*1#3.%&:!3$,#D,#-!5#),.!/(5!-(!)(!)*%!K7L7:!'1$D= (5$,#-!(#!)*%!M513!&)%'&:!-(,#-!)(!410D01+'5&!<,)*!&(+%(#%!<*(! .((D&!($!()*%$<,&%!10)&!.,D%!)*%/!<1#)!)(!1))10D!/(5:!&'(,.,#-!!"#$% &'%()*&+$,-!1-$%%,#-!)(!-%)),#-!05'=0*%0D%3:!*(&),#-!31#0%=41)).%&!,#! )*%!;%#35.5+!;,):!1#3!%1),#-!1#!%#),$%!NO=',%0%!+%1.!2$(+!P%#)50D/! Q$,%3!R*,0D%#7!C%!4%.,%S%!)*,&!<,..!4%!1#!%22%0),S%!'$(-$1+:@!C1/#%! &)1)%3:!>C%!#(),0%3!)*1)!+(&)!,#0,3%#)&!(#!01+'5&!3(#9)!(005$!4%= .*$+/)%'&*%0$"12+3%4+&56$13$-%7+1%81292&+!$%0,%S%&!#(!+($%! 015&%!)*%$%!,&!10)51.!31#-%$:!45)!$1)*%$!4%015&%!'%('.%!1$%!J5&)!4%,#-! )*1#!(#%=&)1$!$%S,%<&!(#!G+1T(#7!?<(!(2!)*%!$%S,%<&!01#!4%!$%13! &)5',37@!! (#.,#%7!U#%!$%S,%<%$!<$,)%&:!>"!-1S%!)*,&!.1#-51-%!)%V4((DW,2! )*1)9&!<*1)!/(5!<1#)!)(!01..!,)W(#%!&)1$:!4%015&%!G+1T(#!3(%&#9)! 1..(<!/(5!)(!-,S%!.%&&7?*,&!,&!)*%!<($&)!.1#-51-%!4((D!"!*1S%!%S%$! 5&%37@!G!.%13,#-!1013%+,0!1)!UV2($3!1.&(!&*1$%3!*,&!)*(5-*)&! 14(5)!)*%!15)*($&7!>X(#&,%$!;1.+%$,!%)!X,..,-1#:!09%&)!S$1,+%#)! 3%&!0(##%$,%&Y@!Z[R.(&%&)!K#-.,&*!)$1#&.1),(#H!?*,&!,&!14&(.5)%! 45..&*,)Y\!G..!()*%$!$%S,%<&!*1S%!4%%#!3%.%)%3!2$(+!)*%!&,)%7!! " " � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly Description An account of the resource Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Click on <a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the The Gadfly Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context thegadfly Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 8 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barajas, Sebastian (Editor in Chief) Tretina, Allison (Editor in Chief) Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly, Vol. XXXVI, Issue 05 [The Badfly] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-21 Description An account of the resource Volume XXXVI, Issue 05 of The Gadfly. Special issue entitled The Badfly. Published on October 21, 2014. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Gadfly 36.05 (Badfly) Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Badfly Gadfly Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/92dbec08935779b702748c520e84973b.pdf 6f93878091513aaa8f2a64d0d4451587 PDF Text Text !"# $%&'() !"#$%&'()*'+,%$,-.'/'01 23&'24"&'56)%,4&4'/'07 8.9&:,,;'.#$'8.9.$&<'/'0=' >?"$&#?'@,AAB??&&',#'C#<?4"9?B,#'/'0D !"#$%&'()!$*&++,-,$.$/0$*&++,-,$12,3$1((14&+5!3$67$89:09$.$(&2#$0:3$809:$.$2&+#$;;;25$.$5!!<,$0/ *+,-,./0.&123451.%561748 �The Gadfly 02 The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com www.issuu.com/sjcgadfly www.facebook.com/sjcagadfly Founded in 1980, the Gadﬂy is the student newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadﬂy reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. The Gadﬂy meets on the Lower Level of the BBC every Sunday at 7pm. Articles should be submitted by Friday at 11:59 PM to sjca.gadﬂy@gmail.com. Staff Sebastian Barajas • Editor-in-Chief Allison Tretina • Editor-in-Chief Kira Anderson • Staff Jonathan Gordon • Staff Jake Israel • Staff Frederick Nesﬁeld • Staff Jensen Pratt • Staff Lyra Muerer • Illustrator Contributors John Himes Henry Hirsch Jerry Januszewki Alina Myers Ripley Stroud !"#$%&'()*'+,%$,-. Allison Tretina A’15 The Republic of Moldova is making its ﬁrst steps to reduce its dependence on Russia. As of late August, a new gas interconnector pipeline was installed between eastern Romanian city Iasi and west Moldovan district Ungheni. Victoria Bucatru, a Moldovan expert of foreign policy, told the press, “The pipeline will allow Moldova to open an alternative supply route and thus avoid any new crisis such as in 2009, when [Russia’s] Gazprom cut off natural gas supplies to many European countries due to its disagreements with Ukraine.” Previous to the installation, Moldova imported all of its gas exclusively from Russia. The 43 km (27 miles) Iasi-Ungheni pipeline will supply 5 percent of Moldova’s gas needs, according to the Balkan Insight reports. 5 percent is a start, but a very small one. If Russia were to cut off their gas supply this winter, Moldova would be in a gridlock. It is a high possibility that Russia will leave Moldova in the cold. Reuters pointed out, “Moldova’s pro-Western prime minister, Iurie Leancă, signed up to closer ties with the EU earlier this year, defying warnings from Russia and joining ex-Soviet peers Ukraine and Georgia in pulling away from Moscow.” In other words, the deliberate act of installing the pipeline will make it more likely that Russia will retaliate. This wouldn’t be the ﬁrst time this could happen, either. “Russian gas ﬂows to Ukraine have been halted three times in the past decade due to price disputes,” Reuters explained, “and ﬂows to the EU were disrupted in 2006 and 2009 after Ukraine took some of the gas intended for the block to meet its own winter demand.” Looking at Russia’s track record, it is surprising that Moldova, and the other Eastern European countries, have not acted sooner. Emily Stromquist, a Eurasian analyst in London, told Bloomberg, “Until recently the relations with Russia have generally been good, so perhaps there was no feeling of urgency to build quickly.” But three shortages in ten years are not “generally good.” It is never good for a country to be entirely dependent on another country for its energy needs. Had Moldova immediately invested in alternative gas supplies after their third gas shortage in 2009, Moldova may have been ready, or at least more ready, this winter for another possible gas shortage. If the tension between Moscow and Kiev does not subside, and if the OAO Gazprom fails to restart supplying natural gas to its western neighbors, then Moldova better bundle up. It is going to be a cold winter. !! Making Awkward Eye Contact In Seminar Sebastian Barajas A’17 �The Gadfly !"#$%&'()*+",- 03 !"#$%&'(#)%*+,- As an architect, John Bush uses his years of study at St. John’s at his mighty drafting table, where he creates the buildings of tomorrow. What is your current job? I am a staff architect for Virginia Tech. I work in the Office of University Planning, a division of Facilities in the Administrative Services part of the university. We plan for future growth in terms of land use, and we plan for new buildings including siting and programming. In addition, we review building design for aesthetic coordination with campus design guidelines and make submittals to the Board of Visitors and other state agencies like the department of Historic Resources and the Art and Architecture Review Board. I also assist with LEED submittals to the USGBC as Virginia state buildings are mandated by law to be rated LEED silver or higher. In addition, I serve as an official for the Town of Blacksburg. I was elected for my second term in November of 2011. Did you attend other schools after St. John’s? Yes, I attended Virginia Tech from 1988-1992 in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning and received a Masters in Architecture. Did you know what you wanted to do while attending St. John’s? No, I did not. I worked on construction crews during the summers in Santa Fe and, when I moved back east after graduating I continued to work in the housing market as a frame and trim carpenter. After 4 years of this, I decided to pursue a graduate degree and chose Architecture as the profession and ﬁeld in which to study. It turned out to be a good choice and one I was well suited for. Did St. John’s help prepare you for work in the ﬁeld? Yes, I believe it did prepare me well for a career in architecture. I was admitted to the Virginia Tech 3 1/2 year graduate program solely on the basis of my St. John’s degree by the then-head of the graduate program. Having studied the “Great Books” and being grounded in western thought gave me a clear advantage in pursuing an education in the visual arts that concentrated on technological and aesthetic preparation with a background in philosophy and math. Architecture is largely a self-motivated discipline and a Johnnie background is good in that regard. You get out of it what you put into it, and the ﬁeld is very large so there are many paths to take and many interests to pursue. What didn’t St. John’s prepare you for? Right out of school in 1984 it was difficult to ﬁnd meaningful work and employment. I went back to the construction trades in order to provide for myself and my new family. In some ways, SJC doesn’t prepare you for so called “realworld” situations and for immediate employment that has an immediate relationship to the 4 years reading and discussing the Great Books. You think perhaps naively that people and prospective employers would care about that experience, and when largely they do not, that can be difficult to accept, especially if you need a job as I did. You have to let all that go and realize that the beneﬁts of this kind of education are much longer lasting and far reaching than what might be selfevident as a young twenty-something. But there are people who know about the Program and do appreciate it. Any speciﬁc disadvantages to a St. John’s background? This is hard for me to say. I think a broad and general education is best especially for young people. There is plenty of time to learn a speciﬁc skill in technology or a trade and to narrow ones choices in graduate school. I have always preferred to be a generalist and fortunately architecture is also a generalist discipline. After SJC, all the tools are there for inquiry at all levels and critical reading and thinking skills can lead in almost any direction professionally. Can you describe a general track someone from St. John’s might take to get into a career in this ﬁeld? The typical start to becoming a licensed architect is to get a degree from an accredited 5 year undergraduate program or from a 3 ½ year graduate program. The Virginia Tech 3 ½ year Master’s program is unique in the sense that it allows graduate students that have undergraduate degrees in other ﬁelds beside architecture join a program that results in a ﬁrst professional master’s degree. (Some undergraduate architecture students go on to receive a master’s degree as well, but this is not the traditional track.) Most architecture graduates follow school with an internship in an architect’s office learning the rigors of preparing documents for bid that result in buildings getting built. Usually three years of internship with the proper documentation allows one to begin to sit for the Architecture Registration Exam. This exam is actually a series of nine exams which have to be completed in an additional three year window. Once all the exams have been passed one becomes licensed to practice architecture in that particular state. With additional paperwork to the appropriate organizations one can receive reciprocal licenses to practice in other states. Some architecture graduates follow different paths and some of these become licensed and some do not, taking their new way of thinking and experiencing the world in Continued On Pg. 4 �04 Continued From The Gadfly Pg. 3 many varied approaches and opportunities. An education in architecture deﬁnitely changes how one sees things. Any general advice, especially for an upperclassman who is interested in this ﬁeld but is not quite sure what to do? Maybe the best thing to do is to start reading some architecture classics and perhaps keep a notebook and start sketching what you see around you and begin to train yourself to think with your eyes and your pen. If these activities are enjoyable to you maybe look at some ﬁrms in your area, maybe your hometown and see if you can intern a summer with them to see how an office runs and to see if the work continues to be interesting. Or perhaps begin working as I did in the construction trades. There are other non-traditional ways of entering the ﬁeld, like the building trades or in the learning of the properties of different materials, like wood, metal or plastics. Some of the great modernists like Jorn Utzon and Mies Van der Rohe had prior training in boat building and masonry. Computer technology now plays a large role in the traditional architecture office and so interests in communication systems and a technological programs and GIS could also be helpful. Generally though I would say you have to appreciate material and the techne of changing matter into works of art and perhaps even beauty. How did you market yourself with a St. John’s degree? In the beginning it was hard if not impossible to market the SJC degree. It did not immediately help me ﬁnd work. Where it did come into play is when I applied to graduate school and the professor in charge of Virginia Tech’s graduate program in Architecture at the time knew of St. John’s College and that alone got me an interview and even though I did not have a portfolio of work to show (which is standard in art and architecture programs). I was admitted solely on the basis of my SJC Bachelor’s degree. After Architecture school when I was applying again for an internship the master’s degree along with the SJC degree was very beneﬁcial. I think it helped to demonstrate the unique background I had in the visual arts but also in presentation skills and verbal critique. 4::4.12),1,#/$54.$*$:#./4)$1"*1$=4.7/$"*.0$*)0$"*/$*$/1.4)3$=4.7$ #1",+;$E1$,/$*$1423"$(#-0$1"423"?$*)0$*$-4)3$:*1"$5.46$/+"44-$14$ -,+#)/2.#?$ *)0$ ,1$ 1*7#/$ 0#1#.6,)*1,4)$ *)0$ /#-5B.#-,*)+#$ 14$ /##$ ,1$ 1".423"$14$1"#$:.45#//,4); What was your senior essay topic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hat is your favorite book on the Program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o you ﬁnd that you lead a philosophical life? S#/?$ E$ *6$ )*12.*--9$ =,.#0$ 1"*1$ =*9?$ *)0$ E$ /1,--$ +46:*.#$ *)0$ 1",)7$*>421$1"#$>447/$=#$.#*0$*)0$.#-*1#$1"#6$14$#8#)1/$,)$42.$ +2..#)1$:4-,1,+*-$1,6#/$*)0$14$:.#/#)1$/,12*1,4)/$>41"$,)$69$4=)$ #D:#.,#)+#/$*)0$,)$69$:.45#//,4)*-$=4.7; How would you characterize your ﬁeld as a whole? Is it accessible to newcomers or difficult to enter? Stable or ﬂuid? Etc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�The Gadfly The True Explorer Jerry Januszewski Counselor 05 It may seem trite to say life is a journey, but few metaphors Mohammed—all nomads. Chatwin, an agnostic, writes, “No are more apt for describing the human experience. Personal great transcendental faith has ever been born of an Age of insight and awareness often have the same gradual, unfoldReason. Civilization is its own religion.” Chatwin proposes, ing nature that mirrors the action of putting one foot in front however, that the estrangement of physical movement from of the other. Moment to moment we are keenly conscious spiritual growth in civilization contributes to a stagnation about the desire to be somewhere else, to know what we don’t we seek to recapture in focused migrations. The Muslim Hajj know, or to acquire something still outside of our grasp. Far and other pilgrimages endeavor to balance the loss of human from being trite, life as a journey resonates with meaning and movement inherent to civilization. is useful for facing life’s difficulties. Humans respond to the Chatwin came of age in the 1960s. In many ways he emcall for a better life by moving from point A to point B, physibodied the daring and progressive lifestyle that typiﬁed those cally, mentally, or spiritually. times. But he was primarily a freethinking intellectual who The impulse to physically wander is inherdidn’t hesitate to call out the posers among ited from our ancient vegetarian ancestors, his contemporaries. Chatwin disdained the and the need to settle down in a base, cave, recreational drug use associated with that den, or tribal territory is characteristic of carfreethinking age, regarding it not as counternivores. So says the legendary explorer Bruce cultural but as counterfeit and still bound by Chatwin in his intriguing collection of essays, middle-class material values. This didn’t enThe Anatomy of Restlessness. The omnivorous dear him to “the cool kids” of his time. He saw design of our teeth and the versatile structure his own generation as profoundly ignorant of of the human body hint at the acceptability of the worth of travel and exploration as purposeboth lifestyles: roaming the land in search of ful activities, ways to test one’s imagination sustenance or staying put in one place to conand develop skills, not as excuses for idlestruct agreeable ways to cook and eat. Even ness and indulgence. But since humans must for many today, nothing says home like a great journey, it didn’t surprise him that people were kitchen and dinner table. susceptible to seeking inferior journeys of the So we have competing desires: the urge to chemical kind. !"#$%&'(%)(*+,$-+,,"+,,(.'(/012+( travel, to move, to be curious, as well as the Chatwin disrupted his society and spurred 34#$56" 7+"816"(/%%9,:(;<<= longing to nest and rest. The moment we anhis own growth by moving his body. He beswer the call to explore we’ve also sown seeds lieved walking was best because, taking his cue for yearning for home. There’s beauty in that tension. To from nature, the best things in life are accomplished slowly wander without a literal or ﬁgurative sense of home is to be and deliberately. Writing in 1970 he said, “All our activities are lost, to be pushed without the stabilizing pull. The explorer linked to the idea of journeys.... our brains have an informamay physically go in one direction, but psychologically he tion system giving us our orders for the road, and that here desires a round trip; to come back to his familiar self, but with lie the mainsprings of our restlessness. At an early stage man something new added. There is a heroic departure from the found that he could spill out all this information in one go, by norm and a return, hopefully with new gifts to offer, leading tampering with the chemistry of the brain. He could ﬂy off on to a new and better normal. an illusory journey or an imaginary ascent.... but true wanderHistorically, Chatwin reports, the nomad doesn’t wander ers rarely fell prey to this illusion. Drugs are for people who aimlessly, but follows known paths of migration; the geohave forgotten how to walk.” graphic familiarity perhaps compensating for the absence of The horizon of the inner journey is where Chatwin ultia ﬁxed address. You might say the nomad is uncivilized, if we mately set his sights. His concept of adventure had little to accept Chatwin’s deﬁnition of civilized as “living in cities.” do with adrenaline-pumping risks or gawking at the exotic, The true nomad or explorer has something of a disruptive inthough he did take risks and he did witness the exotic. His ﬂuence on civil society. His path goes outside the boundaries, concept of adventure involved responding to restlessness but his motives are constructive. His movement seeks proviwithout surrender to rootlessness. There was boldness and sion or insight or economic gain, not escape. maybe even impulsivity to his adventures. He stepped outside Chatwin cites Herodotus, himself an exile and a traveler of his known territory but not outside of his consciousness. with boundless curiosity. In The History Book IV we ﬁnd His ﬁrst and perhaps best-known book, In Patagonia, came a fascinating description of the advantages of nomadic life. about because of a conversation with an elderly friend. The Facing military aggression by the Persian King Darius, the friend said, “I’m too old to go to Patagonia now. Please go nomadic Scythians went on the move. But what appeared for me!” Chatwin answered the call and left immediately, as retreat to Darius was nothing of the sort. The Scythians famously sending this succinct message of resignation to his merely acted in accord with their accustomed lifestyle. In employer: “Have gone to Patagonia.” frustration, Darius sent a message to the Scythian King: “Why If life is a journey then to sojourn well we must be in it for do you always run away?” The Scythian King replied, “I have the long term and be willing to go beyond known territory. never ﬂed for fear of any man, nor do I now ﬂee from you. There will be long stretches where nothing seems to be hapIf you really want a ﬁght, ﬁnd the graves of our fathers and pening. The true explorer is patient and makes peace with then you’ll see whether we’ll ﬁght. As for your boast that you the step-by-step nature of the process. I admire the abandon are my master, go and cry.” Soon enough Darius was the one with which Bruce Chatwin accepted those facts. retreating. Do you desire to be a lifelong learner? Think of learning as Nomadic traditions are highly spiritual; having given rise a long walk. Better yet, take a long walk and explore. You get to the great world religions. Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Buddha, to know things better when they go by slow. ! �The Gadfly 06 !"#$%&&'( ")*(!"#"*$+ Ripley Stroud A’17 ! While letting my mind rot and be in- to tell people how they ought to think undated with carefully chosen details of of you. I would love to believe that that other people’s lives, I happened upon attractive young man was as deep as his my “About Me” section of Facebook. selected Morrissey lyric would suggest, In a ﬁt of self-obsessed examination, I but the assumption would be based on scrolled through potential edits (how practically nothing. Social media’s request for you to labest can I portray myself?) before noticing a new ﬁeld—an option to select your bel things beyond the basic attributes of your being and its ability to present you own personal pronoun. I certainly appreciate and understand however you may like demonstrates the the advantages this offers. It must be Western world’s erotic fascination with helpful to provide a clear-cut request consumerism and marketing. Plenty of for the terms that you feel are most ac- citizens ﬁnd issue with corporations curate for you. It is amazing that society being treated as people, but it seems to has reached a far enough point to accept me that people feeling the need to treat themselves the queer comlike corporamunity, so far I would love to believe tions is what’s that the largest truly sickensocial network that that attractive ing. in the world beyoung man was as I am not a gins to offer asdeep as his selected Luddite by sistance. any means; I That is all Morrissey lyric would adore techwell and good, suggest, but the asnology’s place but it got me sumption would be in my life and thinking about could not realthe section in based on practically ly imagine my general. It is nothing. world without one that I have it. I disagree always strugwith the claim gled with, to be sure. How can one—in a text box with that the modern age does not offer any a word limit—possibly explain them- advantages, but I could not honestly say selves to the public accurately and effi- that there are not numerous, serious efciently, let alone ethically? I typically re- fects that it has on how we interact with frain from snarky comments, and leave one another today. Perhaps this is why there’s been a reit at that, as I think there is something reprehensible about demanding that cent ﬂurry of deactivations from Facebook. I have yet to delete mine. I have people see you a certain way. Unfortunately, it seems that with the too many excuses: I want to keep in conadvent of the Internet in our social in- tact with old friends; to look at pictures teractions comes the ability and desire of Morrissey Boy; to take pride in my to make said demand. It’s standard and sporadic status updates; and gain false appropriate to list your gender, your affirmation in the number of letharginame, your preferred personal pro- cally-given thumbs-ups. But those of sounder mind and greatnoun. These are basic elements of how you interact with your social circles, er reason than I are taking some sort of so it seems to follow that it should be a stand, and that gives me hope for my part of social media. It starts to become generation’s reception of the doublea problem, though, when you are asked edged sword that is social media. ! “ Where’s Waldo? Alina Myers A’17 The doorbell rings and Waldo swirls the last of the Dalwhinnie in the bottom of his scotch glass around before tossing it back and setting it down on the rich mahogany table, which was heavily stained from his inability to locate a coaster. He straightens out his shirt, and grabs his hat, screwing on his friendliest smile like a rusty bolt. Fans rarely stopped by these days. His books simply could not compete with iPods and Xboxes, and he hadn’t had any press since the media gulag two years ago that publicly vivisected his relationship with Carmen. He didn’t want to answer the door. People came to call less frequently with each passing year. It was quite well-known that Waldo wasn’t too keen on being found these days. He wanted to be left alone. He had no desire to sign autographs or take pictures. He was perfectly content with his life of solitude. And yet, he found himself in the foyer, just a few short feet away from the front door. He starts when the bell rings again. Abruptly, Waldo heads back to his recliner, shaking his head, determined to ignore the chime of the doorbell as it echoes through the forlorn apartment. Eager to return to Judge Judy, he bangs his shin into one of the odd assortment of wooden chairs clustered around his dining table. Waldo swears under his breath, rubbing his leg. He stands back up abruptly, his eyes riveted to the maroon cardigan draped over the chair. Closing his eyes, he ﬁghts to exorcise the scent of vanilla with just a hint of raspberry permeating his senses. It was her sweater. The only sign remaining in the dark apartment that indicated she was ever there at all. He really should throw it out. He will. Later. The doorbell rings again, pulling him out of this reverie. He glances back at the door and pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, squinting in the gloom. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly Description An account of the resource Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is a weekly student publication distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Click on <a title="The Gadfly" href="https://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=16&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CDate&sort_dir=d">Items in the The Gadfly Collection</a> to view and sort all items in the collection. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Greenfield Library Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context thegadfly Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 8 pages Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barajas, Sebastian (Editor in Chief) Tretina, Allison (Editor in Chief) Title A name given to the resource The Gadfly, Vol. XXXVI, Issue 6 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-11-04 Description An account of the resource Volume XXXVI, Issue 6 of The Gadfly. Published on November 04, 2014. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Gadfly 36.06 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Annapolis, MD Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource St. John's College owns the rights to this publication. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Gadfly Student publication https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/fb4cbf6899760e49f0841759ee36cac2.pdf 80439c004b82f8ee1de2442864ff5f50 PDF Text Text “Teaching Philosophy in College: The Effectual Truth” Daniel P. Maher 16 October 2014 Conference: What Is Liberal Education For? A Conference at St. John’s College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe Campus Panel: Underpinnings of an Education in the Classics Abstract: Philosophical education at the collegiate level has become increasingly difficult in recent years. Obstacles arise due to the preparedness of the students, the composition of the faculty, and the character of American academic institutions. A decisive shift has made it reasonable to regard institutions of higher learning as primarily devoted to preparing students for gainful employment rather than to cultivating their minds. In schools where philosophy courses are still required and teachers try to communicate to their students and their colleagues the centrality of philosophy within education, there is a danger that we overlook the permanent obstacles to philosophy within human nature. In what sense is philosophy both a peak achievement of human intelligence and something to be required for and beneficial to every student? Classical philosophy (paradigmatically Plato) identifies a certain disharmony between philosophy and the city; Descartes (Enlightenment philosophy generally) suggests that philosophy can be universally beneficial and harmonious with the concerns of ordinary life. Can philosophy in the classical tradition be presented in an Enlightenment mode? Part One: Our Context Teaching philosophy in college today is impossible. This thesis can be proved through at least eight middle terms.1 I take some solace from the fact it has always been impossible, and yet it has happened. So teaching philosophy is almost always impossible. Insofar as this is a practical problem, our goal is not the best education simply, but the best we can reasonably aim at in our circumstances. By “our circumstances” I mean, first, the smallish, Catholic liberal arts college, within which there yet remains something of the Catholic emphasis on philosophy, tenuously allied now with other concerns like providing job credentials and de-‐‑occidentalizing the curriculum as far as possible, except in science. I 1 One can find insuperable obstacles in our regime, our schools, and our students themselves. Here is one list of eight obstacles. 1. Self-‐‑esteem and the death of eros. 2. Functional illiteracy of the students. 3. Relativism, post-‐‑modernism, race-‐‑class-‐‑genderism. 4. Opposition from colleagues, who are not liberally educated. 5. Commercialization and professionalization of colleges. 6. Scientism. 7. Shrunken curriculum. 8. American anti-‐‑philosophical character. �speak not of unusual places like St. John’s, but of schools like my own Assumption College, schools more or less devoted to the liberal arts, more or less Catholic, and more or less tending from the more to the less. I am eager to learn how the matters about which I speak appear to this audience. Teaching philosophy in these circumstances has a horizontal and a vertical trajectory. We require philosophy of all students as essential to their education, and yet we try to preserve openness to the highest peak made possible by the pursuit of philosophy. Needless to say, such a peak is reserved for the rarest of students. And nevertheless, if we lose sight of that vertical trajectory, we popularize philosophy so that it becomes something else. Without wisdom in the highest sense as its goal, philosophical education easily becomes subordinated to goals defined by citizenship or some similarly parochial bias the institution finds it reasonable to pursue. When I say teaching philosophy is impossible, I adapt a thesis defended by John Haldane, who distinguishes an instrumentalized education from one where “an essential aspect of the value of education is intrinsic to it.” He associates the former with utilitarian progressives like Bentham and Spencer, and to them he opposes first Matthew Arnold, alongside whom he lines up John Stuart Mill, John Henry Newman, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas, all of whom agree that the point of an education is the cultivation of the mind as distinct from training for what we now call professional work.2 Arnold prizes intellectual perfection as more important for modern democracy than are economic successes or the empowerment of voters. According to Haldane, the goal of education, as understood by Plato, Newman, and the rest, was this noble idea of perfection, but it 2 “[T]he idea which culture sets before us of perfection . . . is an idea which the new democracy needs far more than the idea of the blessedness of the franchise, or the wonderfulness of their own industrial performances,” (Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism (1869; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 49). Arnold’s “perfection” is distinguished not only from Philistinism (which he equates with coarseness of soul and especially the pursuit of material advancement) from the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. His “perfection” includes a kind of moral and religious cultivation. 2 �can only be effectively pursued through the kind of intensive education and formation that involves a relatively small number of students in each class tutored by a widely read and committed teacher. . . . This combination is impossible in a mass higher education system; and, the possibility of continuing to fund such a system even with lower educational ambitions is proving too much for the states and populations of Western Europe and for parts of North America.3 To be precise here, Haldane says the combination of means necessary to pursue this goal effectively—or perhaps efficiently—is impossible. Why? The obstacles are legion; dozens of recent books and articles analyze and lament the decay of higher education. I limit myself to two points: Haldane’s observation about the condition of our educational institutions and a more complicated set of observations about our colleagues, which I borrow from another essay by Haldane,4 in which he identifies philosophy as the source of much trouble. Haldane attaches the impossibility of effectively teaching philosophy mainly to the fact that institutions are not and no longer can be devoted to the cultivation of the mind. Instead, they have come to be dominated by the function of training students for employment and by the pursuit of prestige through research. To be clear, he distinguishes research, understood as the acquisition of new knowledge in a quasi-‐‑Weberian sense, from scholarship, where teachers deeply appropriate the universal and permanent significance of the tradition they transmit. Because even colleges tend to be dominated by the goals of training for employment and of pursuing research, “there is no going back in general to the conception of Arnold, Newman, and Mill.”5 (740). Haldane seems to regard this as an immovable sociological fact, and I see no reason to doubt him. With respect to our colleagues, the situation is more complicated. Let us stipulate that they are exceptionally competent in their respective fields. Nevertheless, many of them not only do not have the kind of education they are responsible to help transmit, they actively aim at the destruction of what 3 John Haldane, “The Future of the University: Philosophy, Education, and the Catholic Tradition,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 87:4 (2013), 736. 4 John Haldane, “Educational Studies and the Map of Philosophy,” British Journal of Educational Studies 60:1 (March 2012): 3–15. 5 Haldane, “Future,” 740. 3 �would need to be preserved. According to John Agresto,6 a liberal arts education does two things well: preserve the great thoughts and question the contemporary culture. These two activities are now under assault within the academy. Haldane shows how that attack is itself the product of educators’ uncritical allegiance to recent philosophical thinking. On Haldane’s view, during the past one hundred years or so, the “map of philosophy” has been dominated by two streams of thought: continental postmodernism on the one hand and analytic naturalism on the other. Teachers have absorbed vulgarized forms of these traditions as if they held the saving truth or, at least, as providing the certainty prerequisite to open contempt for the philosophical discipline of asking whether one’s guiding opinions are actually true. Some teachers are the victims of a little philosophy, which they do not recognize as philosophy and on the basis of which they deliver denunciations of philosophy, thereby exhibiting open and disdainful pride balanced by unwitting folly. If I sound harsh here, I don’t exempt myself from the kind of mistake at issue: blindness to the gaps in one’s own education and in one’s grasp of the nature of education, that is to say, not knowing that one does not know and not knowing what one needs to know are the permanent obstacles to philosophy. Haldane describes one form of this in contemporary academics, but this kind of problem afflicts almost all of us almost all of the time. We all feel wise sometimes, and we are normally most tiresome to others in those moments. According to Haldane, the humanities side of the academy tends to be inhabited by postmodernists, who descend from one response to what they recognized as the failure of Kantianism. That response was to question the presuppositions of the tradition, which, they argued, failed to see that our finitude and contingency enervate us; what we most need is not to contemplate the truth, but to 6 See his “Are the Liberal Arts a Universal Good, or Are They Simply Something Western? Bringing the Liberal Arts to Iraq.” This lecture was delivered at a Wilson Center Symposium entitled “The Liberal Arts and the Human Condition: Collegiate Education and the Challenge of Modernity” on 19 November 2013, at Hampden-‐‑Sydney in Virginia. 4 �understand our “experience and the possibilities for action.”7 According to the descendants of this view, education empowers us to expose false consciousness, to delegitimize the artificial categories of race, class, and gender, and to open the way to politicized re-‐‑appropriation of the tradition. Thus, education becomes a form of socialization or training for practical involvement in a culturally diverse world.8 The scientific side of the academy tends to be inhabited by people influenced by analytic philosophy. This tradition, Haldane says, with its emphasis on logic, language, and mathematics, excelled first at debunking intellectual pretensions, exposing fallacies, and eliminating confusions and empty verbiage. It has more recently allied itself with the reductive naturalism of scientistic neuro-‐‑ thinking. Philosophy is tolerated in the limited role of sweeping up after the sciences, but these people do not see the extent to which they are in the grip of philosophical commitments, broadly of Cartesian ancestry, which they do not understand.9 7 Haldane, “Educational Studies,” 11. 8 Michael Oakeshott provides a somewhat different analysis, according to which European rulers first promoted “apprenticeship to adult life” for the poor as an alternative to the education that was unavailable to them. The goal was to make these people more productive and more useful to the nation. Gradually and deliberately, this goal, commonly identified as socialization, was substituted for the goal of education understood as initiation into the inheritance of human understanding. See Michael Oakeshott, The Voice of Liberal Learning (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989, repr. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001), esp. 77-‐‑104. Oakeshott identifies political causes, and Haldane identifies philosophical causes. It seems to me possible that these amount to two sides of one coin. Incidentally, this socialization may be what Nietzsche complained against: “Men are to be trained for the purposes of the age to lend a hand as soon as possible: they are to labour in the factory of common utility before they are ripe, or rather to prevent their ever becoming ripe––because that would be a luxury which would draw a lot of strength from ‘the labour market’” (On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, trans. Peter Preuss (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1980), 41. 9 The inability of scientistic thinking to account for the activity of the scientists themselves should be but is not plain to those who celebrate scientism. Jerry Coyne exemplifies this problem by mocking the incompetence of philosophers to address the matter of free will in comparison to the scientists who have finally or almost finally settled the issue. In doing so, he denies that he exists as a speaker, and he invites us to contemplate that consciousness is an illusion. “There’s not much downside to abandoning the notion of free will. It’s impossible, anyway, to act as though we don’t have it: you'ʹll pretend to choose your New Year’s resolutions, and the laws of physics will determine whether you keep them. And there are two upsides. The first is realizing the great wonder and mystery of our evolved brains, and contemplating the notion that things like consciousness, free choice, and even the idea of “me” are but convincing illusions fashioned by natural selection. Further, by losing free will we gain empathy, for we realize that in the end all of us, whether Bernie Madoffs or Nelson Mandelas, are victims of circumstance 5 � In both cases the problem arises from philosophical thinking received in the mode of unquestionable opinion. Our situation involves trying to teach amidst teachers who propagate dogmas that close off the opportunity to think. The irony here is that the dissemination of philosophy in a popularized mode has contributed mightily to the difficulty of teaching philosophy in college. My point is that opinion-‐‑induced blindness is the permanent human obstacle to philosophy. Even if all of the other obstacles to education were removed, this one would remain, and it does remain in all of us in the illusion that we know what we do not know. Part Two: So What Do We Do? Let me return to the distinction between the horizontal and the vertical trajectories of our efforts. On the horizontal plane, we are committed to holding that philosophy is, in some sense, essential for everybody and central to a liberal education. Among other benefits, philosophy helps students appreciate and learn to achieve clarity of conceptual thinking, precision in drawing distinctions, and rigor in argumentation. Philosophy helps students overcome the tendency of their education to fragment into separate disciplines and competing methodologies. Philosophy draws attention to fundamental questions not addressed by the several academic disciplines, and it forces the student to be mindful of himself as the being for whom education is desirable. Whereas the other disciplines train the student how to read actuarial tables or how to examine microorganisms, philosophy draws attention to the more necessary concern with the being on this end of microscope and this side of the green eye shades. — of the genes we’re bequeathed and the environments we encounter. With that under our belts, we can go about building a kinder world.” Jerry A. Coyne, “Why You Don’t Really Have Free Will,” USA Today 1 January 2012, accessed 8 April 2014, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-‐‑01-‐‑ 01/free-‐‑will-‐‑science-‐‑religion/52317624/1. Coyne condescends to us at the same moment that he disqualifies himself as a speaker. As Aristotle says of the person who so undercuts himself, he is no better than a plant; one does not argue with a plant. See Metaphysics IV.4.1006a13–15. Incidentally, recent biological studies suggest that comparing Jerry Coyne to a plant may be unfair to plants. See Michael Pollan, “The Intelligent Plant,” The New Yorker 89:42 (23 and 30 December 2013): 92–105. Pollan describes especially the work of Stefano Mancuso, but there are other scientists investigating similar lines of research. See Oliver Sacks, “The Mental Life of Plants and Worms, Among Others” The New York Review of Books LXI:7 (24 April 2014): 4–8. 6 � This approach protects some intrinsic value to education, but it still tends to instrumentalize it and to subordinate philosophy to intellectual skills needed in all walks of life and for making people capable of governing themselves and living well in a republic.10 Success in those goals is not yet the perfection of the human soul in wisdom, which is not by any plausible stretch the fruit of two or three required courses in a gen ed curriculum. So how do we understand undergraduate philosophy courses? Do we abandon wisdom or the pursuit of wisdom as a telos while we cater to the capacities of most students, or do we go through the motions with the majority while we sift through them for the rare person who has the gift and the appetite for a philosophical life? Can we try to do justice to both concerns simultaneously? Are we willing to say out loud that we have one very modest goal with most students and another more serious goal with the very few? What do we hope to accomplish with most students? Perhaps we aim to foster in them an opinion that philosophy is good and valuable. We want them to recognize that fundamental opinions or commitments structure our personal and political lives and that philosophical thinking shapes our science, our politics, and every aspect of our thinking lives. We may tell them that philosophy can help them live better. Harmony between the ordinary concerns of human life and philosophy is presupposed in the notion that all human beings should be educated and education should include philosophy. But philosophy has not always been so conceived. Plato’s Apology of Socrates in particular seems to invite or even require us to recognize that the tension between philosophy and the city is not accidental. Philosophy teaches people to question what the family and the city tell them is good and true. If we genuinely awaken the power to question, there is little telling where it will lead. Averroes and Aquinas 10 Jacob Klein identifies the “most serious” obstacle to liberal education as arising from the relation to the political community. On the one hand, preservation of political form requires attention to education, and yet education “conceived as a means to an end, a political end” cannot be the same as an education ordered to “genuine searching and questioning.” See Jacob Klein, “The Idea of Liberal Education,” in Jacob Klein: Lectures and Essays, ed. Robert Williamson and Elliott Zuckerman (Annapolis, MD: St. John’s College Press, 1985), 168–70. 7 �both studied Aristotle. Perhaps the emancipation of young people necessitates that they question whether their parents have been adequate guides to what is good and true, and thus the threat of destabilizing society may be unavoidable.11 However that may be, there is a big difference in how we understand our relation to these students: are we seeking to inculcate an opinion about the nature of education and the place of philosophy in it, or are we seeking to awaken the power to question? If we aim at cultivating inquiry in the deepest sense, we have limited ourselves as a matter of fact to very few students. But when we do this, we do what philosophy alone can do. I presume we are up to the task, but I may be too optimistic. Nietzsche suggests that capable teachers are like major league pitchers: there are not enough to go around.12 A student with great natural gifts has probably more opportunity now than ever before to find a seat in college, but will he or she find there a guide suited and able to open the door to a genuinely philosophical life? If we assume that we are up to the task and that we can spot the appropriate students, we stand to provide them with an opportunity to enter upon what has been classically identified as the best life available. That sounds dramatic, but it is the way of philosophy. The other goals of philosophy classes, the goals that are the concern of the horizontal trajectory, might be well pursued by a philosophically inclined history or literature professor. So, when we are dealing with the students who take only two or three philosophy classes, what are we really accomplishing that could not also be accomplished in other courses? Perhaps we generate in them a better opinion of philosophy than many of our colleagues hold. And thus we secure for ourselves a continued seat at the table, a guaranteed slice of the curriculum. For 11 “For education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will haven an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent.” W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Tribeca Books, 2013), 19. Quoted by Michael S. Roth, Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2014), 65–66. 12 “There exists now almost all over such an exaggeratedly great number of higher educational institutions that incessantly, endlessly many more teachers are needed for the same than the nature of a people, even with rich aptitudes, is able to beget; and thus an excess of the unfit comes into these institutions, but who gradually, through their overwhelming head count and with the instinct of ‘similis simili gaudet,’ determine the spirit of those institutions.” Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Future of Our Educational Institutions, trans. Michael W. Grenke (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2004), 64–65. 8 �what? To perpetuate our careers? What are we and our careers for? Inculcating an opinion that philosophy is good or, at least, not that bad? Is that not the Cartesian project of disseminating the opinion that philosophy is good for the city? Precisely that thesis, the belief in the easy harmony of philosophy and the concerns of ordinary life, seems to be the problem. I quote now from Richard Velkley’s analysis of the work of Richard Kennington. In aiming at universalizable benefits, philosophy as “Enlightenment” must remove from the center of philosophy the sustained openness to the wondrous which cannot be universalized. Yet if the modern founders are seeking to overcome the alienness or strangeness of philosophy, they must first be aware of it. They must admit that the philosopher’s passion is somehow unusual. In this awareness they still are linked with the ancients. Their success in overcoming the rift between philosophy and non-‐‑philosophy would mean, however, the demise of that awareness. They would found a condition, therefore, in which their act of founding would not be possible. The success of modernity renders its origin unintelligible to its beneficiaries. This is the heart of the present crisis.13 The present crisis is the “crisis of European civilization” spoken about by Husserl, Heidegger, and Strauss. Velkley explains that, while modern philosophy was founded by genuine philosophers, their “new kind of thinking endangered the existence of philosophy. Relativism, scientism, nihilism are consequences of modern philosophy’s self-‐‑subordination to the spheres of ‘practice’ and history,” which are the non-‐‑philosophic offspring of modern philosophy.14 Kennington understood these issues to be encapsulated in the question, now mostly unasked, “Who is the philosopher?” I am suggesting that the same swarm of problems is implicated in determining what we think it means to teach philosophy to undergraduates. Let me restate the problem on the horizontal plain. As Tocqueville indicated, what Descartes did Americans have absorbed. “If I go further,” Tocqueville wrote, “and seek amongst these characteristics of the human mind the principal one which includes almost all the rest, I discover that in most of the 13 Richard L. Velkley, “Masks of Mastery: Richard Kennington on Modern Origins,” Political Science Reviewer 31 (2002): 9. 14 Ibid., 6–7. 9 �operations of mind, each American appeals only to the individual effort of his own understanding.”15 Eva Brann calls this rationality, which is a mode of thinking distinct from reason itself. Reason is a power of the mind, which is cultivated by inquiry, by questioning, which is directed intellectual desire.16 Reason is stifled by methodology, by Kantian critique, and similar techniques that artificially limit inquiry before it can begin. Rationality, by contrast, is the name for what Tocqueville describes as the peculiarly American turn of mind. She appeals to William James as capturing the “sentiment of rationality” as the feeling of my own intellectual sufficiency, my confidence that no one may impose his ideas on me. I don’t have to know anything of importance or, indeed, anything in particular in order to think and decide for myself. Descartes’s demand for certainty and the consequent doubt of all authority and of ordinary experience have been received as the right to make up my own mind. “Who is the philosopher?” gives way to “Why do I have to take philosophy?” Now this is a very different question that arises without a desire to know. It is an expression rather of a right not to need to know. How we answer this question says much about who we are. Conclusion When we admit as the telos of our teaching wisdom in the highest sense, it is difficult to claim that philosophy is for everyone. Should we settle into the moderate goal of improving the perspicacity of all, for which philosophy proper becomes non-‐‑essential, or should we abandon the ordinary student, preserve purity of heart, and pursue without apology the rarefied and classical goal of wisdom to the best of our ability with only the fewest of our very best students? I doubt we can eliminate the tension between these two poles of education. As interesting as the philosophical problem at the root of our practical problem is, our problem remains practical. I see no 15 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America vol. II, bk. 1, ch. 1; as quoted in Eva T. H. Brann, Paradoxes of Education in a Republic (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 121. 16 Brann describes reason pregnantly as she describes as “the deliberate, self-‐‑conscious activity of the original, personal activity of thought.” 10 �reason to expect that some new plan will suddenly amend our institutions, alter our colleagues and ourselves, and endow our students with all the intellectual qualities we might dream of. Nor do I think there is a philosophical insight that solves the problem, as if some particular thesis that diagnoses modernity or unravels it would provide a pedagogical solution. That approach, I think, has been interestingly deflated by Haldane. Part of our problem is the presence of too much sophisticated philosophy in education. He recommends adapting Tip O’Neill’s thesis that all politics is local to this formula: “most worthwhile educational theory is contextual and practical.”17 No philosophic insight and no institutional scheme can solve the difficulty. Those teachers do best who are alert to the possibilities and the obstacles and pragmatic enough to do whatever can benefit a student who is open to learning. This inclines me to do Haldane and O’Neill one better and say that all education, whenever it happens, is individual. Eva Brann writes, “The effort of the single teacher is the ultimate resort of excellence in education.” She continues, “I think, teachers should laboriously form an opinion concerning the foundations of learning and then teach accordingly—alone, if necessary, and in a community of like-‐‑ minded colleagues, if they are so fortunate.”18 If this captures the situation at St. John’s, her advice is all the more compelling for those of us who teach in more ordinary schools. Selected Bibliography Agresto, John. “Are the Liberal Arts a Universal Good, or Are They Simply Something Western? Bringing the Liberal Arts to Iraq.” Lecture delivered at a Wilson Center Symposium entitled “The Liberal Arts and the Human Condition: Collegiate Education and the Challenge of Modernity,” 19 November 2013, Hampden-‐‑Sydney in Virginia. Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Brann, Eva T. H. Paradoxes of Education in a Republic. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1979. 17 Haldane, “Educational Theory,” 14. 18 Eva T. H. Brann, Paradoxes of Education in a Republic (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 5. 11 � Haldane, John. “Educational Studies and the Map of Philosophy,” British Journal of Educational Studies 60:1 (March 2012): 3–15. ———. “The Future of the University: Philosophy, Education, and the Catholic Tradition,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 87:4 (2013): 731–49. Klein, Jacob. “The Idea of Liberal Education.” In Jacob Klein: Lectures and Essays, edited by Robert Williamson and Elliott Zuckerman, 157–70. Annapolis, MD: St. John’s College Press, 1985. MacIntyre, Alasdair. God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life. Translated by Peter Preuss. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1980. ———. On the Future of Our Educational Institutions. Translated by Michael W. Grenke. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2004. Oakeshott, Michael. The Voice of Liberal Learning. New Haven: Yale University Press; reprinted Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001. Roth, Michael S. Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2014. Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. Translated, edited, and with an introduction by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Velkley, Richard. “Masks of Mastery: Richard Kennington on Modern Origins,” Political Science Reviewer 31 (2002): 6–28. Weiss, Bari. “Camille Paglia: A Feminist Defense of Masculine Virtues,” WSJ http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303997604579240022857012920 Accessed 28 December 2013 12 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "What is Liberal Education For?" 2014 Conference Papers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make these items available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 12 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Teaching philosophy in college : the effectual truth Description An account of the resource Paper presented on October 16, 2014 by Daniel Maher at What is Liberal Education For? : a conference at St. John's College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Maher, Daniel P. (Daniel Patrick), 1964- Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Education, Humanistic Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 24004544 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/a359dd431dbd45f260d2f27ff19b749a.pdf 02dd3cbd780e5be420fcadb9b7a53f58 PDF Text Text Why the Case for the Liberal Arts is Stronger than Ever Wilfred M. McClay University of Oklahoma If we are to make a persuasive case for the liberal arts, we must first have a reasonably coherent notion of what the liberal arts are, and what they are for. That means clearing away some persistent misconceptions. To begin with, the term “liberal arts” shouldn’t be understood as a synonym for “the humanities,” or for those “soft” disciplines that are offered as complements to the “hard” disciplines of science and mathematics. In fact, the serious study of science and mathematics forms just as essential a part of a liberal education. And teaching the liberal arts is not just a matter of imparting certain analytical techniques, even if the liberal arts do impart those skills extremely well as a byproduct of their work, skills that are readily transferable to other areas of human endeavor. The “liberal arts” do not refer to a particular content area or a particular body of knowledge, although their exercise may well involve the acquisition of such a body of knowledge. They are not reducible to a lengthy list of books that must be read, or to languages that must be mastered, or to concepts with which one must be demonstrably conversant— 1 �although all those things will contribute in indispensable ways to the pursuit of a liberal education. Instead, the mark of a genuinely liberal education is that it aims at instilling a set of paradoxical qualities, which are often quite fiercely at odds with one another. Those qualities can be grouped under two broad rubrics: the capacity for inquiry, and the capacity for membership. Let me illuminate what I am saying by providing a specific example. A number of years ago, when I was still a fairly junior professor on the faculty at Tulane, I went to an academic conference in San Francisco whose subject was the purpose of the modern university. It was well-attended, and featured two outstanding plenary speakers, both of whom were received very warmly by their audiences. The first was the historian C. Vann Woodward, who was receiving a luncheon award for his long and illustrious career, and particularly for his commitment to free speech and free investigation. In his remarks, Woodward put forward a bold and uncompromising view of what the university’s appropriate work consisted in. “The university,” he declared, “is the place where the unthinkable can be thought, the unspeakable can be said, the inconceivable can be conceptualized, and the 2 �unfashionable can be entertained.” (I quote from memory here, which may be unreliable in particulars but is entirely reliable in capturing the thrust of Woodward’s remarks.) The university, and it alone, offered the world a place consecrated to the most precious and most imperiled aspect of human freedom: our freedom of thought, freedom of inquiry, and freedom of expression. Without strong institutional protections for such freedoms against the forces that always seemed to spring up against them, we would lose the benefit of them, including the benefits that come of a culture that is bent upon seeking and finding the truth, without fear or favor. Visibly stirred by these words, and by the distinguished career of the man who uttered them, the audience applauded loud and long, and I joined them. Then later in the day came an address by the political scientist James Q. Wilson, also speaking on the theme of the university’s purpose. In his speech, Wilson argued that the modern university was best understood as the chief conservator of the rich but fragile civilization of the Western world, the keeper of our chief intellectual, moral, and artistic treasures and our collective historical memory. That heritage had made us what, and who, we are; but our dynamic commercial and progressive culture was all too likely to toss that heritage aside, in the pell-mell pursuit of the next big thing. If the university did not take care to look after the older things, he asked, who else would? Without a strong institutional commitment to the conservation and propagation of that cultural inheritance, we would lose the benefit of it, including the 3 �benefits that come of sustaining a vital connection to the past, and to the best that has been thought and expressed in the human experience. For these words, too, the audience applauded loud and long, and again I joined them enthusiastically, though by now experiencing a bit of puzzlement at them, and at myself. Puzzlement, because it struck me that the audience, and I myself, seemed to be applauding, with equal enthusiasm, two entirely different, and seemingly incompatible, ideals of the university. Woodward seemed to be holding up the university as a place of constant unsettlement, even creative destruction, in which everything that is taken for truth today is open at every moment to being rethought, reframed, and reconstituted, and even discarded, a place in which no dogma is safe and no complacency is tolerated—a place in which ideas and ideals can have validity only so long as they can stand up to the intense and uninhibited refining fire of today’s most impertinent questions and searing criticisms. Wilson, on the other hand, was pushing for an ideal of the university which stood precisely against the arrogant and self-absorbed tendency of the modern world to appoint itself the plenipotentiary judge of all things, to deny and disparage the authority of all that has come before it, and in so doing, to ensure that those who come after it will accord it the same treatment, in the fullness of time. Wilson’s university was instead a place where the young would be educated to take up the 4 �fullness of their cultural inheritance, to become literate and conversant in its many features, and to fully appropriate all that it has to offer them. These are two very different-sounding ideas about the nature of higher education. And yet we applauded them both with roughly equivalent fervor. Were we, the audience, being mindless fools, or emotional pushovers, or merely being polite to a fault, in doing so? Or might there be a deeper logic linking them, one that neither speaker sought to illuminate, but that we need to take to heart in our own attempt to understand what the value of a college education, and particularly one in the liberal arts, ought to be in the present day? I think there is, in fact, a deeper sense in which these two different accounts of the university are merely different aspects of the same vision: a vision of education as a preparation for freedom, in the fullest sense of the term—freedom not as mere license, nor as a life lived unfettered by constraints or coercions or traditions, nor for that matter as a life lived in the easy-going, conflict-free adjustment of one’s wants and expectations to the world as one finds it, but freedom as rational self-government, as a regimen of risks and rewards, a freedom grounded in a fruitful combination of membership and inquiry, of reverence and criticism—a freedom that releases us from the unquestioned tutelage of the past, but in a way that enables us to draw sustenance from the past rather than aiming at making us wantonly disdainful of it. Wilson’s 5 �university would bring to its charges the blessings of a more fully conscious and informed membership in the society of which they are already a part; while Woodward’s university would give them space for skeptical inquiry, the ability to engage in the acts of radical questioning and criticism, including civilizational selfcriticism, which represent one of the chief means by which that society has been induced to improve itself, and redress its deficiencies. The best university, the one that teaches the liberal arts, is the one that does both of these things at the same time. Hence we were right to applaud both speakers at that convention, for we need both messages. Membership without inquiry is stale traditionalism; inquiry without membership is captiousness or kibitzing, living like the poker player who doesn’t take a stake in the game. The end in view is that of substituting informed loyalties for blind ones, and substituting conscious reasonableness, and uncoerced love, for fear and dependency and superstition and reflex action. It is a freedom that comes of seeing all that one has formerly known in a larger arena, within a larger frame, as a part of a larger reality—not to reject it, but to see it all in, as we say, a new and wondrous light. That image, of seeing all things freshly when they have been freshly illuminated by the emergence of profounder sources of light, will make many of us think of one of the greatest and most imperishable parables of education: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, in the seventh book of the Republic. You all know the story, a strange, even weird tale 6 �of people who have been compelled since birth to view images cast upon a wall as if they were the only real things in existence, and of the disturbing revelations that come to them when they are released from their bondage, and brought into the blinding light of day—brought to see things as they really are. The same parable has been related in various ways: in the various understandings of the veil of Maya in Hinduism and Buddhism, or of the “evil demon” in Descartes’s Meditations, who so orders the world as to deceive us, or the 1999 science-fiction movie called The Matrix, in which the mass of humanity has been constrained to experience only a simulation of reality created by all-controlling life-devouring computers. Or even in something as familiar to all Americans as the movie The Wizard of Oz, in which the title character turns out to be a purveyor of trickery. What all these narratives reinforce is a powerful, and sometimes haunting, apprehension that we might be living our lives under the spell of a complete illusion, whether imposed by others or by ourselves; that the process of freeing ourselves from that illusion is likely to be painful and unsettling, that it can involve a complete transformation of all that was familiar, and a complete redescription of reality itself, in the name of the search for truth. And the stakes are very high. Those illuminati who return to the cave, Plato warns us, are likely to be killed by those who have never left the cave, who prefer not to have their illusions disturbed. 7 �But our experience is rarely as dramatic and extreme as that. And Plato’s great allegory, and the other versions of this theme, do not tell the whole story about education, which is just as often a tale of delight and discovery and enchantment as it is one of painful displacement. I fear that Plato’s allegory may mislead us by emphasizing only one part of the effort of liberal education, the process of disabusing and disillusioning, of weakening the stranglehold of the present and the past on us, for the sake of better apprehending the possibilities that beckon from beyond. An argument I find more helpful and reliable comes from a small book by the late historian Jaroslav Pelikan, called The Vindication of Tradition. Drawing upon an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Pelikan offers up a distinction between “tradition” and “insight,” and then goes on to show how unsustainable that distinction actually is: A “leap of progress” is not a standing broad jump, which begins at the line of where we are now; it is a running broad jump through where we have been to where we go next. The growth of insight—in science, in the arts, in philosophy and theology—has not come through progressively sloughing off more and more of tradition, as though insight would be purest and deepest when it has finally freed itself of the dead past. It simply has not worked that way in the history of the tradition, and it does not work that way now. By including the dead in the circle of discourse, we enrich the quality of the conversation. Of 8 �course we do not listen only to the dead, nor are we a tape recording of the tradition….But we do acquire the insight for which Emerson was pleading when we learn to interact creatively with the tradition which he was denouncing. And Pelikan concludes his examination with a charge to the reader, taken from Goethe’s Faust: What you have as heritage, Take now as task; For thus you will make it your own. In this view, the point of studying the tradition is not to absolve us of the need to think for ourselves, or relieve us of the responsibility to build things of our own. On the contrary. The tradition helps us to recognize the work we are meant to do. Our heritage is our task. It gives our world its defining contours, its horizons, and its specific possibilities, its problems to be solved. We cannot know or undertake our task without the benefit of our heritage. But it is by doing our task that we can come into the full possession of that heritage—thereby perpetuating the tradition as something living, rather than something moribund—and thereby making it possible for us to have a free and full relationship with that heritage, like that of children who 9 �have fully grown up, and can at last see and embrace their parents and forebears for the people they actually are, and can come into fully adult possession of their inheritance. So the Platonic allegory is not fully adequate to the task of description here. But then neither is Woodward’s description of the university as a relentless and unsparing critique, or Wilson’s of the university as an agency of reverent cultural transmission. What might fit Pelikan’s description best is the idea of education as a Bildungsroman or narrative journey, but only if one adds the qualification that it is a narrative journey that culminates in a homecoming, the kind of story that we call an odyssey. “We shall not cease from exploration,” wrote T. S. Eliot, in “Little Gidding,” “And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time.” Such is the task of a liberal education, rightly understood, as a liberating exploration that results, not in our being made permanently uprooted and alienated, but in our becoming more fully at home in the world that we already inhabit, and more fully able to enhance it, beautify it, ennoble it, and sustain it. An inquiry that draws upon, challenges, but ultimately affirms and strengthens, our sense of membership in that world. In fact, an inquiry whose pursuit is part and parcel of our belonging, and which makes tradition and insight into partners, rather than foes. The truly wise cosmopolitan knows, as Dorothy told us, that there’s no place like home. 10 �I think the contribution of liberal education to our public life ought to be clear enough from what I have said so far. Of course, I recognize, as does everyone at this conference, that the educational institutions that are the principal venue for liberal education are imperiled on all sides by problems of excessive cost and uncertain results, and that there are hard questions to be asked about questions of access and economic feasibility and practicality. I don’t mean to brush those questions aside. But I think that before we make a potentially fatal decision to change forever what we do, and adapt the end to the means, or the perceived means, we need to think very hard about what the end of liberal education really is. We should also consider the fact that we live at what is arguably the most prosperous moment in the entire history of the human race. The standard of living that even the most common among us enjoys today would be the envy of kings and queens in ages past. Is it really credible then to say—at precisely this moment—that the pursuit of the highest and best kind of education is something that much poorer peoples and times were right to seek, but that we can no longer afford? Can we hear how absurd it sounds for us to be saying such things? The chief public benefit of liberal education, when it is functioning successfully, is the formation of a particular kind of person, someone who is also capable of being a particular kind of citizen, who robustly embodies the virtues of both inquiry and 11 �membership, and therefore is equipped for the work of truth-seeking deliberation and responsible action that a democratic form of government requires. Such a person has an ability to draw back from the flow of events and reflect upon them, the ability to consult the voice of reason and the wise testimony of the past. Such a person has the cognitive and moral strength to see the world as it is, and not be fooled into mistaking a succession of images projected onto the walls of caves, or conjured on screens, for reality, no matter how large the images or how pervasive their presence. And no matter how many others around them have been gulled or deceived into believing in those images. Which is a way of acknowledging that Plato’s great allegorical image of liberation remains at the core of education, even if it does not constitute the whole of it. Before we can do anything truly magnificent and lasting, we must be drawn out of our various caves. We must be liberated from the sirens of propaganda, or the enchantments of virtual experience, before we can accomplish anything worthwhile. It is probably too extreme to argue that we are inhabiting our own soft-core version of the Matrix. But it is not at all extreme to believe that an unhealthy proportion of our experience, and particularly the experience of the young, has come to be mediated and directed and channeled and simulated by the artificial instrumentalities we use to apprehend the world, instrumentalities that compel our imaginations to believe in a world that they—and not we—conjure into being. Such a tendency carries with it 12 �great dangers, both for our ability to think clearly and attentively, and our ability to draw on our own imaginations with vividness, intensity, and independence, not to mention its undercutting the patterns of restrained and civil public deliberation that a genuinely democratic society requires. In the years to come, it will be a greater and greater part of a genuine liberal education to counteract these less benign effects of our ghostly electronic cave, and restore us to ourselves—restore our ability to hear and see and touch the earth for ourselves, to gaze at the night sky for ourselves, and bring us back into contact with the exhilarating, wind-swept heights of our human freedom, in which the game of life is being played for keeps. And give us, through hard study of old books and the hard but delightful work of conversation, an enduring and unsimulated participation in human excellence, a drink of our own, drawn from that deep reservoir of shared wisdom of which Herman Melville was speaking, when he wrote that “Genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.” That study, that drink—that shock—usher us into a profoundly public world, a shared world, the highest common denominator—a world beyond all caves and matrices, and yet a world to which we can belong fully, if we wish to. #### 13 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "What is Liberal Education For?" 2014 Conference Papers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make these items available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 13 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Why the case for liberal arts is stronger than ever Description An account of the resource Paper presented on October 17, 2014 by Wilfred McClay at What is Liberal Education For? : a conference at St. John's College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McClay, Wilfred M. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Education, Humanistic Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 24004545 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/86d7040e606d30f21673274c8e0b46d7.pdf 0332721653a9c394160824f9e57c9a49 PDF Text Text What is Liberal Education For? A Conference at St. John’s College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe Campus October 16-18, 2014 Mahan Mirza Dean of Faculty, Zaytuna College Liberal Education at a Muslim College: Between Authority and Audacity With special attention to conversations among the faculty of America’s first Muslim undergraduate liberal arts college – Zaytuna College – this paper argues that the tension between religious authority and a spirit of free inquiry can be balanced by embracing a classical definition of the “liberal arts” as “tools to free the mind.” The paper revolves around the challenge of grounding students within the creedal, legal, and mystical teachings of Sunni Islam, with all its diversity, in the context of a western liberal arts program. On the one hand, a curriculum that aims to meet such a challenge must first perform the function of transmission of sacred knowledge as it has crystallized within a particular school of thought in Muslim intellectual history. The transmission process should affirm truth claims that are embedded in a tradition of faith and practice that is normative. On the other hand, given that the setting of a liberal classroom is potentially shared by students who have inherited rival truth claims, or have none at all, the curriculum should also allow for a balancing of conviction and authority with respect for and openness to diverse or even antagonistic perspectives. Liberal education assumes a spirit of open and free, if not audacious, inquiry that can be anathema to absolute truth claims affirmed on the basis of religious authority. A reconciliation is possible by embracing the �qualitative tools of logic, grammar, and rhetoric that lie at the heart of both theological reasoning and disciplined free inquiry. 1 If we bracket the issue of origins for a moment, then every individual is heir to customs, norms, webs of ideas, and social structures – in other words, heir to some tradition. 2 How could the enterprise of education begin anywhere but there through the process of cultural initiation, habituation, and formal transmission? It is undoubtedly for this reason that one of the icons of the modern Great Books movement, Robert Maynard Hutchins, noted that “no man was educated unless he was acquainted with the masterpieces of his tradition.” 3 In science, this fact has come to be identified with the term “paradigm,” within the parameters of which “normal science” operates. In the realm of human culture, perhaps a good equivalent word for paradigm is “tradition.” It represents that which has been deemed valuable for transmission and continuity, about which there is fundamental agreement, distilled from the many trials and errors of the past, by “authorities” who are its harbingers and teachers. As in the case of normal science, the legitimacy of tradition is directly proportional to its explanatory power, realized only insofar as a community freely gives assent to it – it being the complex of ideas, scholars, and This first paragraph was part of the original abstract submitted for the conference. The following remainder of the abstract is not part of the final paper: “Appealing to John Walbridge’s God and Logic in Islam, Mark van Doren’s Liberal Education, Brittanica’s Great Books Series edited by Hutchins and Adler, and an edited volume on The Classical Foundations of Muslim Education, the paper highlights the imperative of integrating Muslim intellectual history with Western intellectual history and of ultimately seeing them not as distinct but rather as interconnected and interdependent. The paper also serves as an invitation to share in the dream of an eventual consortium among text-based programs of liberal studies that are secular (e.g. St. John’s) and religious (e.g. Thomas Aquinas and Zaytuna) for providing instructors and students structured avenues for mutual enrichment, and for providing ambitious citizens access to shared institutional resources for lifelong learning.” 2 Alasdair Macintyre’s definition of tradition is helpful: “A tradition is an argument extended through time in which certain fundamental agreements are defined and redefined” in conversation with ongoing debates that lie both within that tradition but also in traditions that are extraneous to it. (Whose Justice? Which Rationality? University of Notre Dame Press, 1988, p. 12). Hodgson also speaks to the idea of high culture that is discursive and of the so-called literate (one could say “scholarly”) class as representative of intellectual traditions of civilizations (see his Venture of Islam, Vol. 1). 3 In “The Great Conversation,” which is Vol. 1 of the Great Books series by Brittanica (1952 and 1990). 1 �institutions that receive, process, and transmit tradition from generation to generation; the keyword here being process. Now, in the case of science, a paradigm shifts through the accumulation of a sufficient number of anomalies that the prevailing framework simply cannot appropriate or explain. The cognitive process that precisely guides the jump from one paradigm or theoretical configuration with less explanatory power to another with more explanatory power remains a mystery. 4 What is key, however, is the awareness of a meta-theoretical framework that permits the shift – which is inevitably traumatic from a socio-historical perspective – in the first place. To analogize: tradition becomes dead if it views in the process of transmission an activity that is absolute and final, willfully ignoring anomalies as they pile up ad infinitum. However, if a tradition carries within it tools for both its own validation as well as critique, or more crucially, is able to recognize and appropriate new tools in discourses taking place external to it, then every generation is responsible not merely to receive tradition, but also to reevaluate it through a process of assessment that leads either to its wholesale embrace, partial modification, or total rejection. 5 In this manner, the transmission of knowledge becomes the beginning, not the end, of an intellectual project that in turn influences and shapes culture, society, and polity. This spirit has been captured eloquently by the man of letters, Mark van Doren, in his essay on Liberal Education. To quote at length: Tradition is most dangerous and most troublesome when it is forgotten. It brings strength, as well as takes it. It gives life, as well as threatens it. It is life fighting to maintain itself in time. For there is the curious fact that tradition is never so healthy as when it is being fought. We deny its authority, but in doing so, we use its clearest terms; and end, if we are original, in enriching it so that it may have strength for future wars. It is orthodoxy at its best, thriving on heresies, which it digests into nobler This is in obvious reference to Thomas Kuhn’s seminal Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Recalling Professor Frank Griffel, who in one of our graduate seminar at Yale on Ghazali grabbed my ear as he emphasized that “every generation has to re-hear its giants.” I thought he was quoting a major philosopher but when I contacted him recently for the reference, he said he probably just read it in some newspaper oped. I also don’t think the professor actually grabbed my ear, but the effect of his statement was jarring enough that it is so etched in my memory. 4 5 �problems. We return to tradition not for answers, but for questions, and some of those we find are capable, like live wires, of shocking us into a condition of dizziness or extreme heat. It is dangerous, and it is to be feared. But it fears us as well. The hope of education is to reconcile the two strengths. 6 It is in this manner that a living tradition finds its home in a modern Western liberal arts college. It transmits not merely past truths, but also ways to evaluate that truth afresh in new intellectual contexts and in fresh political circumstances. This notion of “evaluation” ought to be as true for science as it is for religious traditions. In terms of “progress,” the reason that we see these two – science and religion – differently is because of the drastic ways in which our conception of the universe around us has been revised over the past few centuries due to the advance of science. Science is concerned with material reality, with respect to which we all stand in tangible relation. Religion, on the other hand, concerns itself with timeless truths that are less pliable and more abstract. Nonetheless, with the gradual or rapid accumulation of collective human experience and revisions in how we reflect on the nature of reality, it is the task of every generation to re-examine and re-evaluate these alleged “timeless” wisdoms and truths. If a tradition is no longer capable of such an engagement with contemporary ideas, it will eventually cease to be relevant, or it will end up being destructive instead of being a vibrant force for positive change. Taking things at face value, there are myriad reasons for the apparent failure of Muslim tradition to keep up with the times; among them are causes social and political, meaningful engagement with which lies beyond the scope of this paper. However, if the assumption is correct – that Muslim tradition by and large has so far failed to meet the challenges of modernity – then a few pressing questions present themselves. One: why is it that many Muslims still peg their hopes in that tradition for guidance in their everyday lives today? Two: if the tradition has failed, what gives us hope that it could still be of any use in a project to help shape a better 6 Liberal Education, pp. 119-120. �future for our planet? In a nutshell: why invest in a liberal arts college that takes that very tradition as its point of origin? It is my contention here that the so-called failure of Muslim tradition is not due to any deficiency in that tradition to meet contemporary intellectual or spiritual challenges. Rather, what has been lacking is the right institutional, political, and cultural setting for the tradition to operate and to safely go about the business of not only “transmission” but also of that bolder next step of “assessment and revision.” In 2011, John Walbridge published a book on God and Logic in Islam, with the audacious subtitle: “Caliphate of Reason.” “This book is an argument for a single proposition,” thunders Walbridge, “that Islamic intellectual life has been characterized by reason in the service of a non-rational revealed code of conduct.” 7 He later counsels, “This book is a reminder to my Muslim friends and readers that the core intellectual tradition of Islam is deeply rational.” 8 I, for one, welcome such a reminder. Franz Rosenthal, one of the greatest Arabists of the twentieth century, already highlighted this very thesis in his monograph entitled Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam. He constructs: “Civilizations tend to revolve around meaningful concepts of an abstract nature which more than anything else give them their distinctive character.” Identifying ʿilm or “knowledge” as the concept that is the hallmark of Muslim civilization, Rosenthal affirms, “there has been no other concept that has been operative as a determinant of Muslim civilization in all its aspects to the same extent as ʿilm.” 9 Permeating virtually every avenue of human inquiry, Muslim scholastics were, among other things, obsessed with concepts, letters, words, meanings, and significations, given that the entire fabric of human existence was woven and made sensible through the words of Revelation. As such, grammarians, logicians, Walbridge, p. 3. Walbridge, p. 4. 9 Rosenthal, p. 2. 7 8 �theologians, jurists, and mystics – not to mention scientists and philosophers – endeavored to exhaust the possibilities of meaning that could inhere in words in a world defined primarily by Aristotelian realism, but one that also entertained healthy challenges to it. The system of education in premodern Muslim madrasas could, in that sense, be equated with what we consider to be liberal arts proper, in that they systematically trained students in grammar, logic, and rhetoric. 10 In that sense, what we call Muslim tradition today already went through a process of transmission, assessment, and revision, when it came into contact with the Hellenistic intellectual milieu in the first few centuries of Islam. In the words of the intellectual historian Dimitri Gutas and successor of Rosenthal: “The Graeco-Arabic translation movement of Baghdad constitutes a truly epoch-making stage, by any standard, in the course of human history. It is equal in significance to, and belongs to the same narrative as, I would claim, that of Perlicles’ Athens, the Italian Renaissance, or the scientific revolutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it deserves to be recognized and embedded in our historical consciousness.” 11 It has been shown that traditional systems of education in the Muslim world were mostly “liberal” in character until, ironically, their dismantling in favor of “modern” educational projects introduced by the West. This shift is understandable because the West was not interested in producing enlightened and free thinkers, but rather individuals who would be “useful” – meaning “unfree” or “slaves” in the Aristotelian sense – for the furtherance of a colonial project. Towards the end of his book, Walbridge refers to a certain Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner, principal of the Government College, Lahore, who published a study entitled History of Indigenous Education in the Punjab to the Year 1882, where he observed that “there had been seven educational systems functioning in the Punjab before British rule”…Islamic 10 This is the main argument in John Walbridge, God and Logic in Islam: The Caliphate of Reason (Cambridge University Press, 2010). See also Medhi Nakosteen, History of the Islamic Origins of Western Education; Bayard Dodge, Muslim Education in Medieval Times; and edited volume on Classical Foundations of Islamic Education. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, p. 8. 11 �using Arabic and Persian, Hindu and Sikh, using Sanskrit and classical Punjabi, and other vernacular systems… “He [i.e. Leitner] argued that each was a traditional literary educational system, precisely analogous to the curriculum of Latin and Greek classics that formed the basis of most European education at the time.” 12 British educational reforms in India to further a colonialist agenda produced a generation that was not connected to its past, lost in the present, and unable to imagine or shape its future.13 I think that, as Dorothy Sayers reminds us in The Lost Tools of Learning, in order to go forward, we need to go back. 14 In Karachi, Habib University, for example, which just opened up its doors in 2014, has realized that the answer to the problems that confront Pakistan and the region lie not in building more educational institutions that churn out technocrats and bureaucrats, but in a program of liberal education that prepares individuals for what they call “thoughtful self-cultivation.” 15 The key point of this paper is that such a “liberal” turn is not one that is away from Muslim tradition, but rather, towards it. In conclusion: A liberal arts education is typically associated with creativity, innovation, reason, and discovery. Traditional Islamic education, on the other hand, is associated with memorization, trustworthy authorities, and the transmission of knowledge. In fact, the word “innovation” is anathema to traditional Muslim sensitivities. One hadith (saying of the Prophet) that is quoted in almost every Friday congregational prayer includes the warning: “the worst things are newly Walbridge, pp. 157-160. M. Qasim Zaman shows how ulama can still be vibrant through the madrasa system, so it is plausible that healthy reform will continue to come from centers of traditional learning that have survived the onslaught of colonialism. See The ‘Ulama in Contemporary Muslim Thought. 14 Cf. Dorothy Sayers, “The Lost Tools of Learning.” 15 Habib University, http://habib.edu.pk/. 12 13 �invented matters [in religion], and every newly invented matter is an innovation, and every innovation is misguidance, and all misguidance is in the fire.” 16 So what would it mean to put the two together – creativity, innovation, reason, and discovery, with memorization, authority, and transmission – into a Muslim liberal arts curriculum? This tension between religious authority and a spirit of free inquiry can be balanced by embracing a classical definition of the “liberal arts” as “tools to free the mind,” to “learn how to learn,” for “lifelong learning.” This paper has argued that authority is not something to be shunned or disregarded. On the contrary, every framework for inquiry is accompanied by uncritical assumptions that are accepted initially at face value. These merely have to be accepted and appropriated, instead of ignored and wished away. What legitimizes them is a community in which one’s formation and learning takes place. What makes the learning meaningful over time is if it provides the critical tools that allow the very authority that initiates the process to eventually be challenged and, if necessary, transcended if necessary. However, as the focus remains on tools and continuity, then there is a constant that always accompanies the change – what changes remains the same as what it has changed into – in a sort of timeless embrace of what lies at the heart of being human: the use of our rational faculties to understand the universe, its cause/creator, our place in it, and who we are, in conversation with the best answers to these questions that have been offered in the past. The process and method of rational inquiry in Muslim tradition in pursuit of answers to these great questions is ultimately shared by other faiths, and also by secular modernity. So long as the rational possibility of the existence of revealed truths remains open, it is a legitimate exercise of human reason to investigate its claims. Catholics, Muslims, and others, will come to both common and divergent understandings of truth when the tools of systematic reasoning and 16 Reported by numerous authorities. �argumentation are applied to make sense of their respective scriptures, and secularists will also arrive at their own conclusions when they choose to bracket God altogether. Along the way, mediated by shared principles of reason and our experience of living in the world, the various conversation partners may occasionally find ways to come together, as we have here in these few days at the Santa Fe campus of St. John’s College, in a mutually enriching exchange where we all get to know one another and our respective traditions, and thereby, hopefully, even ourselves just a little better. 17 And what can be more human a venture than that? 17 I am thinking of Qur’an 49:13 and 59:19. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "What is Liberal Education For?" 2014 Conference Papers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make these items available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 9 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Liberal education at a Muslim college : between authority and audacity Description An account of the resource Paper presented on October 18, 2014 by Mahan Mirza at What is Liberal Education For? : a conference at St. John's College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mirza, Mahan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Education, Humanistic Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 24004546 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/21a0c0f2fa7e05b64c4b922ce47f2ca0.pdf 8afb8cf7198781f5213e6083472e5ccc PDF Text Text The Challenges to Liberal Education and St. John’s College in the Twenty-First Century Christopher B. Nelson Santa Fe Conference: What Is Liberal Education For? October 19, 2014 The modern world is certainly doing everything it can to make liberal education difficult to obtain. I suppose that it was always so. The pressures of the moment invariably seem so pressing that it is hard to remember the Biblical injunction “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” And even harder to keep one’s eye on the goal of training one’s mind, heart, and soul for the attainment of happiness, which is the ultimate end of liberal education, as the pursuit of happiness is our political birthright. I wish to examine a few of the rather practical demands upon higher education today and to close with an overarching challenge to liberal education, in the hope that I may turn a largely pessimistic task into an opportunity for all who care about liberal education. One of the most insistent of these demands is the nearly universal call for reduction in the cost of education. To most people, this means a reduction in the price being paid by students and their families. While we would all like to pay less for the things we want and need, this demand fails to recognize that colleges have done a remarkable job of containing costs. In the first place, at our not-for-profit colleges no one actually pays for the full cost of their education, even if they pay the full list price, because the costs are subsidized by government support, endowment income, and gifts from friends, alumni, corporations, and foundations. Second, the inflation-adjusted price of attending college at most independent colleges has, on average, actually remained stable or dropped over the last decade due to generous financial aid programs. This has occurred despite the recent uncertainty of our investment returns, fundraising challenges, and sharp increases in financial aid as a result of the Great Recession. Third, many colleges have cut or frozen staffing and compensation as well in order to reduce costs. So colleges have, in fact, responded aggressively to the demand to reduce costs, although this fact seems not to be well appreciated by the press, by our political leadership, or by the families of college-bound students, who in increasing numbers are allowing price, more than quality of educational offerings, to shape their choice of college. Another demand that threatens higher education is the demand for ever more assessment of student learning and assessment of the colleges that provide learning opportunities. In higher education circles, there is something of a feeding frenzy surrounding the issue of assessment. The federal government wants assessments that will allow it to compare colleges and universities that provide “value”; accrediting organizations want assessments of student learning outcomes; state agencies want assessments to prove that tax dollars are being spent efficiently; institutions want internal assessments that they can use to demonstrate success to their own communities. �The main purpose of all this assessment is to determine whether an institution effectively delivers knowledge to its students, as though teaching and learning were a transaction, like a commodity exchange. This view of education very much downplays the role of students in their own education. I share the view of Mr. David Levine, in his remarks at this same conference, that no matter how good one’s professor, no matter how great the learning material, no one else can learn for you. Learning belongs to the student! If there is anything that is effective at St. John’s College, it is learning. This is because the learner is at the center of learning at the College. Current assessment models, it seems to me, habitually—and almost obsessionally—understate the responsibility of the student for his or her own learning, and, what is more consequential, overstate the responsibility of the teacher. Teachers are directed to provide clear written statements of observable learning outcomes; to design courses in which students have the opportunity to achieve those outcomes; to assess whether students achieve those outcomes; and to use the assessments of students to improve the courses so that attainment of the prescribed outcomes is enhanced. The standards do not entirely remove the student as an agent—the course provides the “opportunity,” while the student must “achieve” the outcomes. But the assessment procedures prescribe in advance the outcome for the student; the student can achieve nothing of significance, as far as assessment goes, except what the professor preordains. This is a mechanical and illiberal exercise. If the student fails to attain the end, is it because the professor has not provided a sufficient opportunity? Or because the student, in his or her freedom, hasn’t acted? Or, heaven forbid, because the student has upon reflection rejected the outcome desired by the teacher in favor of another! The assessment procedure accurately measures the effectiveness of the curriculum precisely to the extent that the student’s personal freedom is discounted. True learning is not about having the right answer. So measuring whether students have the right answers is at best incidental to the essential aims of education. True learning is about mastering the art of asking questions and seeking answers, and applying that mastery to your own life. Ultimately, it is about developing the power of self-transformation - or self-formation, as so many of the young are still developing a self to be transformed. This shaping of the self is the single most valuable ability one can have for meeting the demands of the ever-changing world in which we live. Meaningful assessment has to find a way of measuring attainment in these areas rather than those best adapted to the economic metaphor. The way to judge whether students have attained the sort of freedom that can be acquired by study is simply to demand that they undertake and successfully complete an intellectual investigation on their own. We do this in virtually every piece of writing required of our students in every class at St. John’s College. And we do it in our classroom conversations and laboratories as well. The regular practice of undertaking these independent investigations, we hope, will become a habit that our alumni will use as a matter of course throughout their lives. This independence will empower them to meet the challenges of life and work, and it will help them shape lives worth living, arrived at through thoughtful exploration of the question of just what kind of life they want to make for themselves. On the whole, higher education would do well to repurpose most of the money being spent on assessment. Use it instead to do away with large lecture classes (the very embodiment of information transfer, or education-as-commodity) so that students can have serious discussions with teachers, and teachers can practice the kind of continuous assessment that really matters in helping students to meet the responsibilities of their own learning. But when there are lectures, let �them be stimuli for serious conversation, so that the students can appropriate for themselves what belongs to themselves, not the lecturer, as they thoughtfully sift through what they have heard. A related demand that threatens liberal education is the demand for a national college ratings program. The current government plan for improving higher education depends greatly on developing a ratings system to determine which colleges offer “best value.” “Value” will have price and cost as factors in determining the ratings. This sort of ratings system will certainly produce unintended and detrimental consequences for liberal education. To the extent that the value of an education is measured in monetary terms—by such factors as cost, price, future earnings, and loan indebtedness—it fundamentally mischaracterizes the nature of higher education. The highest learning—the kind that helps you to become the owner of your life—is not a commodity any more than your life is a commodity. To measure the value of an education largely in terms of its price of entry or its economic return is to be complicit in the ongoing cheapening of education. To the extent that value is not measured in economic terms, it will be extremely difficult to find a common standard for determining the value of an education, since students weigh many different factors in choosing a college suited to their individual needs. Ratings of any kind suggest that all students are, or ought to be, looking for the same kind of thing from a college education; it also assumes that colleges are more alike than they actually are. Better instead to find ways of getting as much information as possible about each school to each student and let them make their own ratings—ones that will suit their own individual needs! Only freely educated citizens freely pursuing their own paths to a life worth living can shape a society that will protect the lives and promote the happiness of us all. This statement ought to be the basis of all public policy in this area. I think it explains the success of the Pell Grant Program, which has resulted in a leveraging of federal dollars to give students from all walks of life a real opportunity to exercise their choices freely within the broad range of accredited schools. After discussing these demands, all relating in some way to the commodification of higher education, let me now mention a challenge—probably the most pressing challenge that we liberal arts colleges face: persuading our institutions, the press, and the public that society desperately needs our kind of education. Here I can say a few encouraging words about how we might, together, begin to turn the tide of opposition to liberal education. The world seems to be approaching an inflection point in its previously insatiable demand for more and more specialized knowledge. Today it is clamoring not only for intelligence and specific expertise, but also for ingenuity and the ability to connect disparate areas of experience. Those who do not recognize the liberal arts as the province of ingenuity and interconnection seem to believe that these demands can be met by following the very course that led to uninventiveness and fragmentation in the first place—namely, by pursuing more specialization. “If we just do enough research,” they seem to think, “perhaps we could come up with a checklist, or a training program, or a college curriculum that would deliver the ingenuity and integrated thinking we want.” This blind spot for anything that does not fit the research paradigm, which has been growing for something like two hundred years now, prevents the world from seeing that the solution already exists, and has existed for millennia. The human faculty that makes ingenuity and interconnection possible is imagination. And developing imagination in all its forms is the proper excellence of �the liberal arts. Through repeated encounters with the greatest writings and artworks of the past— in literature, philosophy, mathematics, science, history, ethics, politics, music, painting, sculpture, dance, and so on—we become accustomed to the habits of imagination that enabled our most talented predecessors to conceive boldly, to invent what did not yet exist, to recreate both themselves and the world around them. To reinvent the world in the face of modern challenges, we need to reinvigorate imagination through liberal education. But the world cannot see this, because liberal education is situated precisely in its blind spot. And most of the current arguments in defense of liberal education ignore this blind spot. We try to persuade those who see no practical benefits in liberal education that it has higher aims—broad learning, development of character, and preparation for citizenship. But these aims are incompatible with the research paradigm, and fall squarely in the world’s blind spot. For the intended audience, this rhetoric makes insubstantial noises that seem to come from no one, from nowhere. We must stop defending liberal education in this way. Indeed, as Hunter Rawlings has recently suggested (http://hechingerreport.org/content/offense-liberal-arts_17299), we should stop defending liberal education altogether. The rhetorical task that faces us is not to make the world see something it cannot see, but to point to something in its blind spot so clearly that its existence cannot be denied, even if it is invisible. Fortunately, liberal artists are good at rhetoric. We know how to hook an audience through its desires and then persuade it to follow. The world wants ingenuity and interconnectedness? Then that is the place to start. Let us create beautiful and aspirational arguments leading from ingenuity and interconnectedness back to imagination and its guardian, liberal education. Let us abandon the defensive posture altogether, and replace it with the confident bearing of a physician who knows the cure. Let us recreate the rhetorical landscape around the world’s current desires. Let us devise a new repertory of innovative and attractive tropes that will succeed where the old defensive tropes have failed. Let us invent the positive rhetoric that will help to shrink the world’s blind spot, so that it can begin to see liberal education, rather than specialized education, as the answer to its needs. I have no doubt that we liberal artists can do this. We are the offspring of godlike poets, the heirs to the most persuasive rhetors who ever lived. If we can summon a smattering of their inventiveness, tell our story with a fraction of their ardor, and forge fresh language suited to the dignity of our object, we can wean the world from its addiction to specialization, at the very least in our high schools and early years of college. But we must do it in concert. The attack on liberal education will not likely be turned back by individual efforts, no matter how ingenious. On the contrary, we must devise and deploy our alternate rhetorical idiom as a coordinated force. We must use that idiom almost to the exclusion of the other, refusing to speak in its terms. With persistence, if our vision is attractive enough, we will crowd out and eventually replace the world’s idiom. What will this rhetoric sound like? It will eschew the economic metaphors that distort the essence of learning and teaching—rejecting terms like “value,” “investment,” “payoff,” “consumer,” “provider,”—and it will invariably and vigorously question the use of such terms, so that the users may begin to suspect they have a blind spot. It will defer the old tropes about breadth, character, and citizenship, at least until we are certain that the blind spot has diminished enough for our listeners to see where those arguments are coming from. And, finally, its central collection of tropes will focus on imagination—imagination as the source of ingenuity and �interconnectedness, imagination as the leader to be followed by specialization, imagination as the priceless treasure protected and transmitted by the liberal arts. Let me close by saying that we proponents of liberal education are, and have been for a long time, implicated in bringing about the very threats that face us. We do not understand our situation well if we portray it to ourselves as enlightened champions of liberal education facing uncomprehending hordes of venal politicians and careerist parents. The problem is cultural, and we advocates of liberal education are in part responsible for the uncomprehending hordes. Why do almost all of our politicians come from the ranks of lawyers, businessmen, or professional office-seekers? Because of specialization. What societal institution is most responsible for extreme specialization? Higher education. To the extent that those of us involved in higher education have acquiesced to the historical trend toward ever-increasing specialization and ever-diminishing liberal learning, we are responsible for raising up people who are incapable of seeing beyond the blinders imposed by their specialties. Is it any wonder that such people do not understand liberal education or its importance to the individual and to humanity? The situation for liberal education will get better when integral citizens from all walks of life take an active part in all the institutions that nourish our democracy. No one can bring this about but us. So let’s get to work. Thank you. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "What is Liberal Education For?" 2014 Conference Papers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make these items available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 5 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The challenges to liberal education and St. John's College in the twenty-first century Description An account of the resource Paper presented on October 18, 2014 by Christopher Nelson at What is Liberal Education For? : a conference at St. John's College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nelson, Christopher B. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource St. John's College (Santa Fe, N.M.) Education, Humanistic Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 24004547 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c661006d57bb7743a2d7ccb079381228.pdf 3f41977db052df0f053ee1bdcd8ae326 PDF Text Text Value and Virtue in America by Frank Pagano We were all ranked together at valuation. Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine. There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and all were subjected to the same narrow examination. Frederick Douglass 1 Part one: the crisis of capitalism Economics, as the most precise of the social sciences, has served American liberal democracy well. Without reference to moral judgment or moral shame, it has quantified the democratic aims of prosperity and equality, and informed the political powers which policies to pursue to achieve these ends. Economics seems to be an honest broker and the one study necessary for the people and rulers of a liberal democracy. Its trustworthiness stems from its development and reliance upon the notion of “value”. Jerry Z. Muller in “Capitalism and Inequality” 2 exemplifies this honesty. He is an economist and historian who, although a proponent of capitalism, nevertheless reveals its inability to address the crisis of the moment. This crisis he describes as the rising economic inequality in American society, and this paper shall characterize it as the devaluation of value. This characterization is not a mere paradox because the term is used equivocally even by economists. I argue that sometimes it means the exchange value of the commodities bought and sold in the marketplace, 3 and other times it refers to the good that draws the buyer into the market, what Karl Marx calls the use-value of a thing. 1 Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass. New Haven, 2001. 38. Muller, Jerry. “Capitalism and Inequality” in Foreign Affairs. March/April 2013. 30-51. 3 Cf. Kerr, William. “Theories of Economic Value.” A lecture. Summer 2013. 2 1 �To speak of the pursuit of value as though it were the highest good of America is to propagate obscurity. 4 Value was developed to avoid the question of the highest good of a people or individual. It transforms goods into marketplace commodities with values. This is exactly the advantage of economics: it makes determinations of value without reference to the rank of goods. Economics is a social science that is most accurate for capitalist nations willing to allow value to stand in the place of a hierarchy of goods. Economic solutions work well in confident modern societies. Muller argues that the growth of economic inequality threatens American confidence in the capitalist system (30). This paper argues that what is happening currently is a broad discrediting of the use by the capitalist system of value for ranking people and their work. Inherent to the capitalist system, Muller observes, is the “creative destruction” that alters the activities that are most valued with the familiar result that in a capitalist economy certain jobs, indeed whole professions, become obsolete (36). In the earlier crises of capitalism people were able to make both economic and social adjustments to the destruction. For example, in the greatest previous capitalist crisis, industrialization, when the population moved from the farm to the factory, at first women and children were used in the factories, but in the end the greater physical strength of the men proved to be more valuable to the factory owners (34). Women adjusted socially and became homemakers to the advantage, Muller notes, of the health and welfare of the entire family. The children especially profited from the breadwinner-homemaker household. 4 th The accusation against America starting early in the 19 century was that it was in effect nihilistic. For example in The Charterhouse of Parma, Stendhal has the Duchess Sanseverina explain to the protagonist, her nephew, Fabrizio who considers fleeing to America rather than to become a priest: “’Believe me, for you as for me, an American life would be a sad business.’ She explained to him the cult of the god dollar, and the respect that must be paid to merchants and artisans in the street, who by their votes determine everything. They returned to the question of the Church.” Stendhal. The Charterhouse of Parma. Trans. Richard Howard. New York. 1999. 117 2 �Yet social adjustment to the current crisis of capitalism, Muller maintains, is highly unlikely. The post-industrial economy no longer values physical strength and the capacity to labor but instead it values first “cognitive ability: quickness of mind, the ability to infer and apply patterns drawn from experience and the ability to deal with mental complexity…[second] character and social skills: self-discipline, persistence, responsibility…and …third…actual knowledge” (40). The new valuable skills are so little like the old skills of labor that the new skills have been placed on the capital side of the labor-capital division. These abilities do not operate like human labor but like capital. They are “human capital.” Muller therefore sketches not merely a change in the economy but in the virtue that makes humans worthwhile. The worker and his labor are no longer valuable but the thinker and his knowledge are. It is no longer labor that spontaneously produces value but self-investment or family investment in the mind of the person “working” in the economy. Value is not correlated to the effort of the individual but to the social investment in her for which she is probably not responsible. Therefore the traditional means, equality of opportunity, that reconciled the twin roots of liberal democracy, freedom and equality, has failed in the current economy. Equality of opportunity is now socially an empty term. It is not sufficient to provide equality of opportunity because the unequal social investment in children means that there is no equality in the capacity of the young to take advantage of the opportunities offered (45). Although equality of opportunity always meant that some people would do better than others and therefore it always resulted in inequality, it did allow some just proportion between the free pursuit of opportunity and the resulting improvement in the social condition of the worker and his family. If there was no equality of result, at least there was progress toward a better life. Because the family is the “workshop in which human capital is produced” (33), the incentives of the economy cannot now 3 �advance those who are born in disadvantaged families. There is no economic policy that can redress the current growing inequality. The odd fact is that a significant portion of the American population is rejecting the formation of human capital in their children. Rather than emulate those people who have successfully invested in their children, they are choosing behavior that, studies show, obstructs the development of human capital. They are rejecting stable two parent families for single parent families as though building human capital appears to them as irrational. They do not accept that what is humanly rational, the pursuit of happiness, is equivalent to what is economically rational, the pursuit of value. Muller acknowledges that “communal groupings” as well as the family largely determine the economic success of its members. He refers to The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, a study by the sociologist Max Weber that makes the case for why “Protestants tended to do better economically than Catholics, and Calvinists better than Lutherans” (45). Muller asserts that “the explanations offered for such patterns are less important than the fact differential group performance has been a perennial feature in the history of capitalism” (46). This may be true from the perspective of economic analysis. It is not true if there is a social trend away from accepting value, which usually reduces a good to a marketplace relationship, as the sign of a rational life. In fact the dismissal of the investigation into the moral roots of American problems indicates that value has been transformed from a sign into a selfsufficient standard for human life. America is beset by two opposite trends, one that dismisses value as an indicator of a rational life and the other that identifies rational good with value itself. It is a common myth that capitalism developed from a people that identified value and good as the same attribute. Propagation of this myth is part of the devaluation of value as a legitimate sign of a rational life. In fact the accumulation of capital is not always a rational pursuit. 4 �Consequently it is of the utmost importance to know how economic value was originally understood so that it became a widespread sign for a rational life. This renewed understanding will help return capitalism to its original grounding in freedom. There are two traditional and alternative justifications for regarding value as a reflection of the rational good. The first is philosophical and linked directly to justice. It is formulated as the labor theory of value, first set out, I believe, by John Locke. He explicitly links labor to property rights. 27. Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but himself. The labor of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature has provided and left it in, he has mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his properly. It being by him removed from the common state nature has placed it in, it has by this labor something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For this labor being the unquestionable property of the laborer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough and as good left in common for others. 5 Later in the argument Locke connects labor to value: “It is labor, then, which puts the greatest part of value upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth anything; it is to that we owe the greatest part of all its useful products” (43:26). But this is not Locke’s final word on the source of value. Money revolutionizes the notion of value. Indeed money rather than labor becomes the chief source of value in the social world humans inhabit. For, I ask, what would a man value ten thousand or a hundred thousand acres of excellent land, ready cultivated and well stocked, too, with cattle, in the middle of inland parts of America where he had no hopes of commerce with other parts of the world to draw money to him by the sale of the product? It would not be worth the enclosing, and we should see him give up again to the wild common of nature whatever was more than would supply the conveniences of life to be had there for him and his family (48:29). 5 Locke, John. The Second Treatise of Government. Indianapolis, 1952. 27:17. 5 �The value associated with money is not directly connected to labor or to natural right. Indeed there are not as many good things left to others, as required by right in nature, after the effects of money are felt, but rather each individual attempts to accumulate more than he can use for himself. Regardless of what others have, money can create an artificial scarcity that allows the notion of value to devalue labor, and, since labor value is connected to right, the devaluation of labor devalues right and justice. From the perspective of labor, money is an artifice of the mind that might break the connection between value and labor, between value and right and justice. For the laborer allowing capital to establish the value of things is only justified if it provides plenty. And even plenty is not good enough. Capitalism must make labor more valuable than it is in nature if it is to retain its connection to right. Thus labor rightly relinquishes its direct link to value (serving as the original source of value) only if as a result labor becomes more valuable. Property consequent upon labor is naturally right; property consequent upon the manipulation of money is artificially right. This economic artifice is only truly right if it affirms labor as the natural and true source of all value. The second justification of value, which is sometimes in tension with the first, appears in the work to which Muller refers when he claims that differential group achievement in capitalism is longstanding—Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism. It provides a theological justification linked to enlightenment. Weber argues that the Protestant notion of a “calling,” heightened in Calvinism by the doctrine of election by grace, 6 generated the conditions for capitalism. The loneliness of election demanded some support for the conviction that the individual belongs to the elect. Weber explains: Totally unsuited though good works are to serve as a means of attaining salvation…they are indispensable as signs of election. In this sense they are occasionally described as “indispensable for salvation”…This means, however, 6 Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit of Capitalism. New York, 2002. 28-36. 6 �fundamentally, that God helps those who help themselves, in other words, the Calvinist creates his salvation himself…more correctly: creates the certainty of salvation. It further means that what he creates cannot consist, as in Catholicism, in a gradual storing up of meritorious individual achievements; instead, it consists in a form of systematic self-examination which is constantly faced with the question: elect or reprobate? (79) Systematic self-examination demands a rational system of signs that indicate that an individual has been chosen to be among the elect. For the greater glory of God, the work of the faithful should result in a rational system of signs. This is not synonymous with a rational secular world, although it might increase God’s glory if the work of the faithful results in a greater rationality of the world. Moreover it is significant that wealth is not good in itself but good only as a sign. It is an intellectual good in some sense more than it is a material good. In the Protestant view, value is a means to a kind of self-knowledge. It is clear that the seeking of signs to be assured of election is compatible with regarding value as a conventional token of the highest good. The market gives signs of what is valuable more or less, and the individual is free to follow the market or to ignore it. For these Protestants wealth is not good in itself but good only insofar as it can be used as evidence for the rationality of one’s own work and used in one’s work to rationalize the world. The chief point of this discussion is that the religious virtues of piety and faith are compatible with the accumulation of capital. In the Protestant doctrines work and the accumulation of capital serve rational reflection. Capital is regarded by the Protestants as much the result of a kind of thinking as a kind of labor. The accumulation of capital is not a consequence of good works but of systematic good works. The faithful are already convinced of God’s providence. The systematic work of the faithful is an attempt to be certain that God has extended his highest providence, salvation, to a particular member of the congregation. Capital is for these Protestants a means to reflect on God’s providence in relation to the individual. Work is subordinate to reflection upon God’s 7 �providence. Work is not related to justice. Value is not a token for a just distribution according to desert. The rise of inequality is therefore not an objection to the rationality of the Calvinist economy. Weber begins his examination of the Protestant ethic with a “sermon” by Benjamin Franklin 7. Franklin’s thought secularizes Protestantism. The virtues connected to Calvinism and those required for the enlightenment Franklin proposes, however, are similar. Both have confidence in a rational providence and advocate a kind of asceticism, study and work. The emphasis in both Calvin and Franklin is on self-worth. For Calvinism this worth resides in election, and for the faith in human enlightenment, it arises from a conviction in the moral agency of the individual. Francis Bacon, one of the originators of the enlightenment, names the virtue of “self-reverence 8” as the source of all virtue. Insofar as value stands as a sign for enlightenment as the rational human good, it is connected to self-reverence, which is in turn based on the conviction that enlightened people may be free. It requires a faith in the human capacity to learn how to make rational judgments and to act on these judgments. For the free individual, rationality is compelling because it increases her self-worth. Capitalism in this view is radically dependent upon the incomparable worth of free individuals. Taken in its broadest terms then, the same system of capitalism might seem rational or irrational depending upon which virtue connected to which good that value is a token for. From the perspective of justice, the value of the industrial economy of post-world war two America was a proper standard for a just society. Labor was rewarded. Physical effort was connected to the value of things and by extension accumulating value was proportionate to the worth of the individual engaged in labor. Time spent laboring was time well spent. By contrast if justice must 7 Weber begins his consideration of Protestantism and capitalism by examining Franklin’s advice for living. Weber wants to understand how the justification for capitalism evolved from Calvin to Franklin. (11-14) 8 Bacon, Francis. The Advancement of Learning and New Atlantis. Oxford, 1974. 236. 8 �be connected to a rational economy, the present system and therefore the present manifestation of value are irrational. Consider the enormous effort that a family must make to accumulate human capital in their children. Twenty years of laboring by parents and child to result in a person with enough capital to participate in the current economy. And for disadvantaged families, the result of these labors is probably inadequate. Labor and justice are demeaned. This prolonged asceticism is at odds with the schema of rewards apparent at the peak of capitalism in the world of high finance. Muller observes: “The structure of incentives in this environment led fund managers to try to maximize short-term returns, and this pressure trickled down to corporate executives. The shrunken time horizon created a temptation to boost immediate profits at the expense of longer-term investments, whether in research and development or in improving the skills of the company’s work force” (43). There is no just proportion between labor and reward. The manipulators of capital enjoy quick and gigantic rewards; many of the investors in humans distant and little rewards. From another perspective, however, contemporary capitalism has entered into an era of increased rationalism. If we adopt the view of secularized Protestantism, the view of Benjamin Franklin, for example, then the contemporary arrangement values the development of the mind over immediate material gratifications. Value in this case is a sign of the cultivation of the mind. 9 It is not the good in itself. Like the early Protestants, successful capitalists spend their youth developing their capacity to think and evaluate the world. The disproportionality of time spent investing in human capital as opposed to the investment of moneyed capital is a further sign that systematic human development is worth more than financial rewards. The time is disproportionate because the investment in humans requires a faith in human development akin to the old faith in God’s providence. Christians are patient because their standard for time is 9 Muller acknowledges the part that capitalism has played in human self-cultivation (32). 9 �eternity; the middle class is patient because their standard for time is a lifetime. The new middle class are not seeking justice but a confirmation of their enlightenment. Value is merely a sign of what the society holds as worthwhile. It is accurate to characterize the contemporary situation as the devaluing of value because it is clear that significant portions of American society no longer believe that value is a reliable sign of individual worth. For those who have dropped out of the economy, the disadvantaged, value is not an indicator of personal worth but a sign of the injustice of the current economy. These people, Muller worries, may generate a “populist backlash against the capitalist system at large” (30). By the natural standard of labor value the system is unjust, and some remedy needs to be found. Muller suggests continuing the mixed economy with a capitalist job market and a social safety net for those disadvantaged by that market. Justice must be found elsewhere than in the economic marketplace. Yet capitalism is in a deeper crisis since a significant portion of the American population, including those who have successfully navigated the system, taking their cues from the managers of money and big business, believes value to be the rational human good. Oswald Spengler argues that at the end of western civilization money dominates because it is a value that appears in disguise as a fact 10. But a greater crisis of capitalism is coming since value, which is a sign that stands in for the rational good, is believed to be the rational good itself. Human worth then is merely a financial calculation. Economic valuation determines that the disadvantaged are worthless, and the rest of the population are servants to the caprice of value ungrounded in human worth. They are unthinking economic actors benighted by fashion and convention. Capitalism in such an event is merely nihilism that appears in disguise as a rational and 10 Spengler, Oswald. The Decline of the West. Trans. Charles Francis Atkinson. New York, 1928. 2:492. 10 �systematic organization of the human world. The destruction of human worth as a real phenomenon will end all possibility of creative human effort. Part two: what is to be done? The best solution to the crisis in capitalism is one that brings together the two traditional supports of capitalism: the free pursuit of enlightenment and justice. Muller, as noted above, argues that American public policy must pursue these goals independently: the capitalist market for those in pursuit of self-cultivation (enlightenment) and a government safety net to insure justice. Yet this paper has pointed to the fact that his double approach does not address the root of the problem: the discrediting of value. Capitalism demands that humans exercise their capacity to be moral agents and to develop their worth freely. The obvious single way to restore confidence in capitalism is to reconnect it to justice together with enlightenment. For the disadvantaged, this restoration could be achieved directly if skilled labor again were connected to value. It seems that this restoration requires the reindustrialization of America, or at least the active training of the disadvantaged in the skilled labor that is unlikely to vanish. This would seem to be an economic goal the social sciences are well equipped to advance. Yet even if America is able to return to the supports that natural rights and the labor theory of value first supplied capitalism, in an era of the devaluation of value, it must strengthen the support that enlightenment supplies capitalism. A renewed enlightenment is a more radical demand because it conflicts with the conventional wisdom of the relation of economics to the public good. The new enlightenment requires a critique of capitalism as conventionally practiced. Economic analysis cannot be accepted as trustworthy without an understanding of how economic “prudence” affects the freedoms of the citizenry. American history shows that some Americans knew very well how to produce free humans in the face of the devaluation of value. 11 �For instance there is no greater argument for the sometime viciousness of value than the lines from Frederick Douglass that are at the top of this paper. Value serves the conventions of the society. When the conventions are bad or empty of freedom, value is as well. It might stand in for the rawest injustice as it did in the antebellum south or a crude nihilism as it now threatens to do. Douglass outlines three steps to self-reverence in the face of a valuation serving injustice. He first learned to read and then he used that freedom to read in order to read speeches about freedom and finally he acted upon that knowledge of freedom. 11 Few people have the intelligence and courage of a Frederick Douglass so that he hardly seems to serve as a guide for a general revival of personal worth. Still Frederick Douglass had an advantage over Americans whose prejudices accord with the social conventions that value stands in for. Douglass knew that value in his time served injustice. Americans now lack his moral clarity. Against the common usage, much of this paper has argued that value is no longer connected to justice. In the post industrial economy it is indifferent to justice and to the importance of moral agency altogether. Douglass also knew that freedom required education. His owner admitted that the most potent means of keeping people in slavery is denying them any education (31-32). In the case of Douglass, rebellion against the unjust society and the pursuit of education were one and the same. Even elementary education was liberal education because it opened up to him a world in which he could live freely, the world of letters. His first assertion of freedom was learning to read. The case of the slaveholder was quite different. He was oppressor and oppressed at once. His conventional education served his prejudices and made him vicious. 12 One of the main arguments of the Narrative is that slavery kept the slaveholder ignorant and made him bad. His 11 Douglass rebelled against his owners by learning to read against their hopes. He used this power to read speeches on Irish calls to freedom, and finally he resisted a beating from a slaveholder to whom Douglass was sent to be broken. 12 See the use that one of Douglass’ owners put Christianity (42-45) 12 �apparent virtues were vices. Accordingly the Narrative is a work written primarily for the benefit of the slaveholder. He had the opportunity to educate himself liberally, in the first place by reading Douglass’ narrative; the slave lacked this opportunity. Contemporary America seems very far from the situation of antebellum America. If education was then the vehicle of freedom and justice, it now seems to be the means for maintaining economic inequality. Indeed Muller insists that education is not “a panacea” (47). Since achievement gaps “have their origins in the different levels of human capital children possess when they enter school,” the problem seems to require “resocializing” whole neighborhoods, and widespread resocializing is unrealistic and too costly. In contrast this paper has developed the argument that the problem of capitalism requires reeducating the nation. The disadvantaged are taking their understanding of capitalism from the apparent irrationality of the relation between the struggle to create human worthiness (called economically “human capital”) and the reward for that struggle if the true reward (liberty) is described in terms of value. It is a mistake to judge in terms of value the liberation that real education offers the individual. It is a mistake that almost every American makes. Americans think as though they are economists even when their actions do not involve economic rationality. But it is the virtues linked to freedom that give people their worth. When capitalism acknowledged this truth, it liberated people. When it ignored this truth, it ceased being true capitalism. Yet if ignorance makes people oppressor and oppressed at once, liberal education makes them liberator and liberated at once. All true education is a kind of rebellion, a rebellion against prejudice. Americans need to rebel from the tyranny of value. Value is not always equivalent to justice and it is not necessarily equivalent to enlightenment. It is usually equivalent to conventional “wisdom.” 13 �Value is an honest servant only when understood as a sign of the conventional order. In a liberal democracy based on justice and human enlightenment, the conventional order may be approached through value without further elaboration, but when the terms of value change, then the conventional order demands moral analysis, that is, analysis in terms of a community of free agents. The new economic terms, like “human capital,” need restatement in the terms of freedom. If “human capital” stands in for the effects of enlightenment on the economy, then that moral analysis must stand alongside the economic characterization so that the citizenry might know what effect the new term indicates morally. Likewise, as this paper has shown, “creative destruction” is not merely the replacement of one means of production for another. It also implies the replacement of one human virtue for another, or it may mean the replacement of a virtue by a vice. Indeed creative destruction might stand in for the general enslavement and debasement of the population, the end wrought by the “creative destruction” following the invention of the cotton gin. Capitalism in the current era needs the support of liberal education. Capitalism is dynamic, and therefore the threats to Americans as free agents are in flux. Since value reflects thoughtless human choices, thoughtless with respect to their effects on freedom, the need for liberal education is constant and unrelenting. It is their prejudices that people value, and they need to confront them rather than to disguise them as value. How will this liberal education help the disadvantaged who, according to economic analysis, are not able to take advantage of it? When the terms of the problem are changed, the terms of the solution may also change. The problem is a matter of self-worth in an economic order that does not supply the means to gaining this self–worth. Does the social safety net address this problem? Does American society present the problem to the disadvantaged in its true terms so that they can help address it themselves? 14 �Merely providing a safety net does not acknowledge that the disadvantaged have the capacity for moral agency. The pressing problem is how to devise a public policy, and to articulate the justification of this policy, that supposes that Americans have the capacity and desire for freedom. Obviously policy makers and teachers should have a liberal education so that they can see the social problem for what it is. In the end citizenship, so long as the people is sovereign, requires liberal education so that the citizens can interpret economic prescriptions for what they are. Capitalism needs liberal education because the spirit of capitalism is a consequence of the enlightenment of the free human. Capitalism can only be free activity if there are free enlightened individuals. The free individual knows that he should not be a slave to prejudice and that she should learn the arguments of her opponents. Many contemporary American prejudices are phrased in economic terms that give to prejudice the disguise of science. To listen only to what one already believes is the surest way to be a slave to prejudice. Enlightened humans study the human world, those parts that are familiar and those that are strange, those that are current and those that are bygone. They study both value and virtue and their relationship to each other and listen to arguments that maintain and those that deny that value is liberating. They seek the origins of America’s freedom in order to renew it. This call to liberal education may seem to be misplaced 17th century Protestantism. Yet the virtues that created capitalism did not arise out of capitalism. They created capitalism only as a social sign of enlightenment and justice. Enlightened capitalism is a sign of the moral agency of human freedom. Weber notes that Benjamin Franklin gave his capitalist sermon to people in America whose economy was at most only half capitalist. Yet this sermon helped to produce the most advanced capitalist nation. Economic progress in a capitalist nation rests upon the enduring 15 �freedom of individuals. For this freedom to persist the individuals of a nation must be enlightened. It is a sign of the depth of the current crisis in capitalism that much of the discussion of liberal education is that it is not now truly valuable. It is upside down thinking to judge liberal education in terms of its economic value. In fact liberal education produced economic value. Economic value should be judged in terms of moral freedom. By its own terms capitalism is endangered. Ignorant capitalism threatens the freedom implicit in capitalism; liberal education can lift the ignorance and preserve the freedom. Still no one knows how long the school of freedom will remain open. No one knows how long capitalism will survive. 16 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "What is Liberal Education For?" 2014 Conference Papers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make these items available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 16 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Value and virtue in America Description An account of the resource Paper presented on October 18, 2014 by Frank Pagano at What is Liberal Education For? : a conference at St. John's College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Pagano, Frank N. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Education, Humanistic Education, Humanistic -- Aims and objectives Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 24004548 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/237af66d74c0ed8fea660d91a569b760.pdf 31a551f334dc8cb2f519290a32682d72 PDF Text Text [键入文字] Insights into the Essence of General Education Pang Haishao (Professor，School of Education, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081) Abstract：There are various correct and incorrect interpretations of general education. A vague understanding definitely has a negative impact on the practice of general education. This paper starts off by analyzing the connotations behind the Chinese equivalent of the term "general education" and goes on to suggest that general education be understood from three aspects in line of China's actual situations: (1) General education is a philosophy for education and emphasizes putting people first to cultivate complete people; (2) General education frequently refers to the content taught to achieve the goals of general education; (3) General education can mean a model for cultivating talents which reflects the philosophy of general education, achieves its goals, and provides a supporting system. Key words general education, suzhi education, education philosophy People have various correct or incorrect opinions about general education: education that covers all kinds of knowledge; education that focuses on common sense and practical skills; education that combines humanities and sciences to extend students' visions and edify their minds; education that equals cultural quality education; education that carries on, enjoys, and develops lifestyles that are part of human civilization; education that cultivates wisdom and virtues to foster noble personalities; education that just means elective courses; education that goes far beyond public courses, elective courses, or lectures; education that is not all-inclusive and means more than a wide scope of knowledge; education that does not target pragmatism; education that provides the modern society with excellent citizens; education that all university students should receive; education for the elite; education that is not just for the elite and should take different contents and forms at universities of different types at different levels; education that does not distinguish between majors or vocations; education that underlies and supplements specialized studies...1 Obviously, the jury is out with different and sometimes conflicting ideas. The big question is -what is the essence of general education? I. The Term "General Education" and its Chinese Equivalent The Chinese equivalent of the term "general education" is a translation from American English and also incorporates the thoughts of liberal education in ancient Greece. The term "general education" has been translated into different things in different times, countries, and territories. In mainland China, its previous translations meant "education for all-round talents", "ordinary education", and "common education". In Hong Kong, its previous translations meant About the author: Dr. Pang Haishao, Professor, Deputy Dean of School of Education, Beijing Institute of Technology, Secretary general of Chinese Association of Liberal Education. 1 Reference source: Zhou Xiaoping’s presentation titled Three General Goals in Specialized Education at the Across-the-Strait General Education Symposium held in October 2006 in Shunde �Special issue Insights into the Essence of General Education "macro-education", "education for all-round talents", "education for complete people", and "general education". When the concept of "general education" arrived in Japan, it was translated into a term meaning "manner education". The term "liberal education" from ancient Greece was translated into Chinese terms that mean "free education" or "education for knowledge and integrity". These translations all relate to general education and have been used by different groups of people. It was not until the 1980s and 1990s that the current Chinese equivalent of general education became widely accepted and used in Chinese communities. Scholars from Taiwan drew on the traditional Chinese culture to explicate the essence of general education in depth. Guo Weifan2 gave the following explanation: general education is education that enables people to understand and fuse all kinds of knowledge and visions. Therefore, general education does not mean a superficial dip into every area of knowledge. Instead, it depends on a systematic approach to design liberal education courses and, through integration between different courses, serves as a guideline for students to go from a broad range to specific fields, thereby expanding their academic visions.[1]Prof. Gao Mingshi3 from the Department of History, National Taiwan University also provided an explanation for general education: what is "general"? Scholar Zhang Xuecheng of the Qing dynasty quoted Shuowen Jiezi as saying "general" means "understanding what others do not understand". Today’s problem is that students of humanities do not understand science and engineering while students of science and engineering do not understand humanities. This is not "general". In addition to the acquisition of knowledge, general education is about visions. In his famous work Shi Tong, scholar Liu Zhiji of the Tang dynasty quoted Confucius' remark "learn more and broaden your vision with goods things you have learned" to explain that scholars know many things of the past and their essence. Scholars know so much because they choose to know". Knowing more is a capability for talent and the basis for "general". However, the capability to choose what to learn depends on visions.[2]The current equivalent of the term "general education" obviously better grasps the essence of general education and liberal education, compared with terms constrained by the words in "general education", such as "ordinary education", "common education", "all-round talent education". Besides, it carries on the spirit of the traditional Chinese culture. The differences in understanding general education usually arise from different understandings of the word "general", which is often given a Chinese equivalent meaning "common" or "ordinary". As a result, general education was misinterpreted as common education or ordinary education, and relevant courses were misinterpreted as ordinary common sense courses. Actually, "general" has two major meanings according to Oxford English Dictionary: (1) affecting all or most people, place or things; not limited to one part or aspect of a person or things or to a particular time; 2 Guo Weifan (1937-), born in Tainan, Taiwan, graduated from the School of Education, National Taiwan Normal University and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Paris. He studied at the Institute of Education, the University of London. After returning to Taiwan, he became a professor with the Institute of Education at National Taiwan Normal University and took office as the president of the university. He became a political affairs member of the Executive Yuan in 1984 and took the concurrent post of Director of the Executive Yuan’s Cultural Construction committee, which he started to hold full time in 1989. He was the Education Minister between March 1993 and 1996. Data source: http:// whgx.library.sh.cn, July 28, 2006. 3 Gao Mingshi, born in Qingshui of Taichung, Taiwan, graduated from the Department of History, National Taiwan University. He obtained a doctorate from Tokyo University and later became a professor with the Department of History, National Taiwan University. �[键入文字] (2) not specialized in subject matter, not limited in range of work, use, activity, etc. These two meanings reveal two features of general education: (a) affecting the whole and (b) specific to specialized areas of education. As far as the author is concerned, "general" is the method used to achieve the purpose of knowledge and visions. General education is not just about knowledge. Instead, it is a combination of knowledge and visions. There is frequently prejudice between people specialized in different subjects. This is especially obvious between those specialized in natural sciences and those specialized in humanities, creating two different cultures divided by a huge gap full of misunderstandings. There is little communication and understanding between these two groups.[3]One of the reasons behind this is "not general", which leads to narrow visions and biased thoughts. The focus of general education is to broaden visions with knowledge from three main areas -- humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Such education leads people out of prejudice and bias and makes them become well-educated complete people. Of course, knowledge is infinitive, and life is short. In the modern society, nobody can learn the knowledge of all subjects. Therefore, which knowledge and ways of thinking are basic and indispensable is the central question to be considered in the research and design of general education courses. II. Three Aspects of General Education The author believes general education is a historical and geographic concept that has a rich essence with multiple aspects. General education should be understood from three aspects in line of China's actual situation: education philosophy, education content, talent cultivating model. 1. General Education as an Education Philosophy It is a consensus among a large number of education researchers that general education is a philosophy for education. This gives rise to quite some questions: What is the core of general education? Does general education mean the same thing in different times, countries or territories? What kind of education objective does this philosophy reflect? Does general education apply to certain universities only or is it for all schools? Is it elite education or mass education? When it comes to the practice of a specific university, how should general education be characterized and positioned --should it just take an auxiliary position or should it become the fundamental way for the entire university? Is general education what university education is all about or should it coexist with specialized education in harmony? Let’s seek the answers by looking into the kaleidoscope of general education in the United States, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Let's first look at the philosophy of general education in the United States. In some way, general education is the result of combing liberal education and education practice in the United States. Liberal education as advocated in ancient Greece was the product of that special section of history, when the people who received such education were "free people" as opposed to slaves and artisans. These people lived a comfortable life and had plenty of leisure time. The purpose of their studies was not to make a living, but to develop rationality and perfect morality[4].As the society moved forward, the political, economic, and cultural foundations of traditional liberal education gradually disappeared. There were no more privileged classes like "free people" and nobles. Liberal education was no longer limited to the few free people. Instead, it became available to all citizens. Education was no longer exclusive of livelihood and pragmatism. �Special issue Insights into the Essence of General Education In the 20th century, Robert M. Hutchins (1899-1977), who had a fundamental impact on university thoughts in the United States, earnestly advocated general education. In his opinion, general education is for everyone and useful for them no matter whether they enroll at a university. General education is closely linked to universities because there is a special tie between higher education and general education. General education is the shared spiritual and cultural foundation that conjoins all schools and departments of a university. Otherwise, there is no university -- just a series of schools and departments. He clearly pointed out that there would be no universities without general education.[5]Obviously, general education as he proposed is for all people in the society. Due to the characteristics of specialization in different schools or departments at universities, general education is particularly important for universities. In 1945, Harvard Redbook -- General Education in a Free Society was published, which led the American society to pay great attention to and discuss general education. It is worth mentioning that the Redbook did not limit general education to universities. Instead, it looked at cultivation of citizens' virtues in the entire western world. Therefore, a good part of the Redbook was devoted to discussing general education in secondary school.[6]There was something in common with Hutchins' remark that general education should be oriented towards everyone. The general education movement in the 1940s and 1950s not only got almost all higher education institutions involved but also raised huge interest in general education in the entire society and various academic organizations. In 1947, the Truman administration's Higher Education Committee released a report called Higher Education for American Democracy, which centered on the nation's benefits in considering general education and held that the purpose of education in a democracy is to ensure equal freedom and equal opportunity for every individual and every group. The report said the methods of education must be changed to accommodate the diversity of student groups if education is to play such a crucial role. It also suggested that general education give students values, attitudes, knowledge, and skills so that they properly and comfortably live in a free society.[7]General education in the United States was initiated by universities and became a distinctive feature of higher education in this country. However, general education as an education philosophy is for the entire society and every citizen. Of course, general education is also the philosophy that guides higher education. In Hong Kong, the government has been pushing for general education in high school in recent years while pursuing reforms in the educational system. General education has been established as one of the core courses in high school4. The Chinese University of Hong Kong always maintains that general education is universities' philosophy for education, instead of something auxiliary. [8]In Taiwan, general education has been thriving in not only research-oriented or comprehensive universities but also universities of science and engineering, medical schools, normal schools, and vocational schools. In recent years, some researchers and practitioners in mainland China have also started to explore general education in adult higher education[9] and vocational education.[10] Through the above analysis, this paper believes that general education is not a patent of universities or a specific type of school. Instead, it is intended for everyone. Higher education has gone too far in specialization and vocationalization, resulting in limited scopes of knowledge, narrow visions, and biased thoughts among students. Therefore, it is of significant importance to 4 Data source: http://ls.hkedcity.net, September 12, 2006. The core subjects during the senior high school are Chinese, English Math and General Education. �[键入文字] emphasize general education at universities. Meanwhile, specialization is a notable feature of higher education, and general education is facing challenges that arise as a result of fast developing specialized education and vocational education. To take up such challenges, universities in different countries or territories, of different types, and at different levels are scrambling to engage in research and practice of general education. What is the core in the philosophy of general education? What is its objective? The objective of general education in the United States is frequently described in literature as "to cultivate responsible citizens with good manner, with the focus on fostering civic quality and giving students basic values, attitudes, knowledge etc. In Taiwan and Hong Kong, the objective is more often described as "to cultivate all-round people with broad visions". Such a description proposes whole-person education and all-round education. The objective of general education has been described differently in different times, countries, and territories by different universities. For example, Newman's dream was to cultivate well-mannered gentlemen, who could think and judge independently, qualify for any job, master all subjects, and get along with others. They had acute abilities to appreciate as well as remarkable wisdom and talent. They were upfront, fair, and cool-headed. They demonstrated nobleness and modesty in dealing with people and things.[11] In Harvard Redbook, the objective of general education was to cultivate socially responsible citizens who could think effectively with the abilities to reason logically, understand relations, imagine things, communicate clearly, make proper judgments, and choose from different values.[12] In Rosovsky's opinion, the objective of general education was to cultivate well-mannered people, who: (a) could think and write clearly and effectively; (b) had knowledge and skills in various areas to perceive nature, society, and human beings in a critical way; (c) knew about the cultures of other regions and times with a broad vision; (d) knew and thought about ethical issues, able to make the right moral judgment and choice; (e) did in-depth research into knowledge of a certain area.[13] As proposed by Taiwan's education authority, general education is intended to cultivate "complete people", who are not only competent workers but also intellectuals that know about life. They need to understand the nexus of relations between different individuals, between individuals and the social environment, between individuals and nature, etc. They live in the modern society and know how to get along.[14] According to Shen Junshan5 from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, a "complete person" should be an "ideal intellectual" -- this is the profile for an intellectual by the traditional Chinese culture. Such a person should be tolerant of different opinions, capable of objective and critical thinking, able to make rational judgments about values, and good at expressing his or her own thoughts. He or she had better also be able to run the country. In his or her own life, such a person should have the elegant mood of appreciating life and the capability to seek moments of solitude amid the bustle of life. He or she should be able to do self-regulation to strike a harmonious balance in the fast-changing society full of competition. This is the modern version of inner 5 Shen Junshan, professor with the Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University. He was the president of the university between 1994 and 1997. He advocated general education at the university in the 1970s. He worked as the organizer of a panel to formulate Taiwan’s policy on general education between 1982 and 1983. �Special issue Insights into the Essence of General Education cultivation and exterior action proposed by the Book of Changes.[15] The Chinese University of Hong Kong works to cultivate well-mannered well-educated intellectuals. They have a wide scope of knowledge and know the concepts and values of different subjects. They are sensitive to issues that the entire human race is concerned about, they have the right values and the capabilities to judge, and they understand the links between different subjects and the possibility for the subjects to develop in an integrative way. In addition, they have the potential for life-long learning.[16] The objective of whole-person education at the University of Hong Kong is to dig deep into students' talent and potential in order to: (a) promote their all-round development; (b) train their language and communication skills (including Chinese, English, and information technology); (c) foster their capabilities of life-long learning and adapting to social and working environments; (d) allow them access to various academic fields through diversified education; (e) open their eyes to the international stage and let them taste different cultures.[17] Evidently, the objective of general education has been expressed in different ways in different times and regions, which is closely related to political, economic, cultural, and historical differences. In the United States, there are two most commonly mentioned core concepts for general education -- "independent thinking and judgment" and "socially responsible citizens". The former is about personal development, and the latter is about social responsibility. Involved here is a nexus of relations between individuals and society and between freedom and democracy. Actually, general education in the United States corresponds to the country's democratic ideal of freedom, equality, and human rights, hoping to construct a democratic society based on individual freedom. Iconic pragmatist Dewey thought, despite the apparent contradictions between free individual development and a democratic society, the two are united through responsibility and morality. Freedom for most people comes on condition that most people are socially responsible. If most people are not socially responsible, the society will be ruled by a small number of people, and there will be no democracy.[18]The key to responsibility is the capabilities to think and judge independently, which make people clear about what is at stake and willing to assume responsibility. Democracy is not only a system but also a necessary value and attitude of citizens. It is a way of life, action, and thinking.[19] This paper holds that the objective of general education that cultivates responsible citizens is an expression that fits the features of the US democracy. The civic quality required for democracy not only lies in specialized skills but also calls for general education, which provides basic knowledge and ways of thinking in humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences for people to form values and attitudes of a democratic society, think and judge independently and rationally, participate in and discuss politics, and have strong civic awareness and social responsibility. By contrast, the core concept in the objective of general education in Taiwan or Hong Kong is to expand visions and cultivate whole or complete people. In Taiwan, universities have long been charged with multiple political missions and economic functions, which put them in a position where they serve to cultivate "utility people". In addition, students are divided into arts classes and sciences classes too early in secondary school, and the college entrance exams are the sole system that calls the final shots. Therefore, general education aims to broaden students' visions and cultivate whole and complete people who are well-mannered and know about both work and �[键入文字] life.[20] Hong Kong also gives prominence to whole-person education, which emphasizes broadening visions, adapting to changes, understanding cultural diversity, and assuming social responsibility. Mainland China has a similar environment for general education as Taiwan does: (a) Universities have long been charged with political and economic functions, with too much focus on specialized education; (b) Under the planned economy, universities had little autonomy and lacked subjectivity and a pursuit of university spirits; (c) Exam-oriented education is entrenched in elementary and secondary education and is showing a trend of spreading into higher education, for example, graduate school entrance exams. Therefore, general education should pay extra attention to cultivating complete personality and overcoming the disadvantages brought about by excessive specialization in higher education. Mainland China differs greatly from the United States. The basic political principle in the United States is democracy, equality, and freedom. General education needs to deal with the relations between the democratic society and individuals. The idea is to achieve democracy through individual freedom and require individuals to have the capabilities to think and judge independently. Individuals must be emancipated from ignorance, bias, and parochialism so that they can assume civic responsibility in the democratic society. Mainland China advocates democracy, equality, and collectivism. Therefore, general education needs to deal with the relations between organizations and individuals. Individuals used to be encouraged to sacrifice individual interests for collective interests, and education was based a template, devoid of individuality and creativity. Therefore, general education needs to be individual-based and value the all-round development of people. Education should be freed from excessive uniformity and narrow specialization, paying more attention to the combination of humanities and sciences so as to broaden visions and cultivate complete people who can think and judge independently. Based on the above analysis, this paper believes the objective of general education in mainland China can be described as "to cultivate complete people" -- thus it is "whole-personality education". In detail, there are two categories of requirements: individual all-round development and social responsibility. On one hand, general education should provide basic knowledge, capabilities, and morality as needed for human beings. One the other hand, as part of the society, each individual should be socially responsible and inclusive of others. Specialized studies ensure that people have the skills needed to make a living in the society. In fact, what lies behind general education is how people understand and choose functions for education. As a mandatory activity of the human society, education has two major functions: (a) impacting social development and (b) impacting individual development. Which is to be put first, individual development or social development? Different value orientations lead to different outlooks on the objective of education. One outlook is the individual-based theory, which puts individual values before social values and accentuates the individual need for development. In this theory, the objective of education is determined based on individual development, and education should promote free and all-round development of individuals. The other outlook is the society-based theory, which holds that individual development must cater to social needs and emphasize the political and economic functions of education. In this theory, the objective of education is determined based on social development, and education should provide the society �Special issue Insights into the Essence of General Education with people that follow certain social norms, making individuals social and keeping the stability and continuation of the society.[21]More specifically, one theory suggests that individual development should push social development forward, and the other suggests that social development should drive individual development. The former is more concerned about harmonious all-round development of individuals and proposes liberal education, general education, and humanities education. The latter is more concerned about citizens' morality and political quality,[22] emphasizing specialized skill education that facilitates social development. In some sense, general education is a kind of education that puts people first, not things or tools first. General education cultivates "complete people", instead of "utility people" that serve the society, economy, politics, or all kinds of utilitarian purposes. 2. General Education as Education Content A deep understanding of general education is the precondition for implementing general education. Making clear the content of general education is a major step to take general education from an ideal to reality. Otherwise, general education remains a vague and weak concept that is impossible to implement. When people talk about general education, they often mean the content of general education. Then what is the content of general education? Which basic areas of knowledge should it cover? The content of general education can be understood in a broad sense, an ordinary sense, and a narrow sense, as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1．The content of general education In a broad sense, general education should include all content beyond specialized education. Just as pointed out by Harvard Redbook, education can be roughly divided into two categories: general education and specialized education. General education is neither education for universal knowledge (if this kind of knowledge exists at all) nor the entire content of education. General education normally refers to one part of education that a student receives -- the part that cultivates the student so that he or she can become a responsible citizen.[23]Put another way, general education in a broad sense includes formal courses (G1) and informal courses (G2), which include club activities, social practice, lectures, campus culture etc. The purpose of G2 is to cultivate complete personality. The content of general education usually refers to the part of the undergraduate education program that is intended to achieve the objective of general education (G1).Undoubtedly, this is the main �[键入文字] channel and core content for higher education to reflect the philosophy of general education. In the United States, the content of general education also mainly refers to general education courses that are outside the specialized education that students major in. In a narrow sense, the content of general education only refers to the courses for general education (G12).In mainland China and Taiwan, universities set elective courses for general education when they first start to implement general education. The courses often carry 6 to 8 credits. Therefore, some people equal general education to the elective courses for general education.Actually, just a small number of elective courses are inadequate for achieving the objective of cultivatingcomplete people. Therefore, it is not desirable to understand the content of general education in this narrow sense. According to general education's objective of cultivating complete people, the content (courses) of general education should cover the basics of humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. That includes language, math, literature, arts, history, culture, ethical thinking, technology etc. In teaching practice, more attention should be paid to cultivating personality, training thoughts, and instructing students on methods. This is the basis for follow-up specialized education, the answer to the need for adapting to social changes, and the fundamental requirement for being complete people.[24] 3. General Education as a Model for Cultivating Talents The model discussed here is not a uniform template or standard for general education. Instead, it means that a system needs to be set up to ensure that the philosophy of general education is reflected in the content and methodology of teaching, thereby guaranteeing that the objective of general education is achieved. This way, a standardized model for cultivating talents is formulated. In other words, the model is an institutional reflection of the philosophy and content of education. In the case of general education, a series of supporting measures and systems must be in place once the philosophy and content of general education are made clear. This is the only way to go if general education is to transit from theory into a model for cultivating talents. Then, general education can get rid of the difficulties that it is mired in, such as a low position and hard implementation. When this is done, the objective of general education is really achieved. The general education model is called this way as opposed to the specialized education model. Universities always have general education and specialized education, which complement each other to form the whole of higher education. However, as two talent cultivating models, general education and specialized education are quite different (see Table 1)6. It can be seen that the two talent cultivating models differ significantly in education philosophy, education content, and education methods. Table 1 Comparison between the general education and the specialized education models Aspect 6 General education (United States) Specialized education (former Soviet Union) The general education models of the United States and the former Soviet Union were chosen, because they are quite typical. Data source: the table on Page 66 of Theory of General Education by Yang Dongping, Liaoning Education Publishing House, 1989. �Special issue Insights into the Essence of General Education Education Putting individual development first, Putting social development first, collectivism and philosophy and individualism and democratism nationalism Emphasizing people's coordinated Emphasizing people's intellectual development development and capability training for and knowledge transfer, cultivating utility people complete people who can only work Intended to lay a foundation and prepare Intended to train highly skilled experts objective for career Education content Giving equal emphasis to humanities, Paying extra attention to natural sciences, and method preferring sciences to arts social sciences, and natural sciences, valuing the integration between science and engineering and the interplay between arts and sciences Focusing on basic education, with a wide Focusing on specialized education, with a narrow scope of knowledge and strong adaptability scope of knowledge and strong pragmatism Centered on students and the society Centered on the classroom and subjects Valuing research, promoting studies Mainly relying on classroom teaching through research and practice Cultivation system Using a credit system, which provides Using a school-year system, which ensures strict etc. flexibility and uniform teaching management Giving prominence to comprehensive Mainly relying on specialized colleges under the universities, providing diversified management of industrial ministries management systems In mainland China, to establish a general education model is far more difficult than to discuss the philosophy of general education. Since the former Soviet Union set up the system for specialized education in China, cultivating specialized talents has been reflected everywhere at universities: education philosophy, curriculums, content and methodology of teaching, cultivation systems, operation mechanisms, and organizational structures. On the surface, general education is about setting some relevant courses and activities. In essence, in-depth implementation of general education will surely involve reforms in the talent cultivating model and the university system. III. Conclusion The philosophy, content, and model of general education mutually affect one another, as shown in Figure 2. If the philosophy of general education is a beautiful ideal, then the content and system of general education are the key to materializing that ideal, which will finally become institutionalized as a talent cultivating model. Considering the three aspects, the relations between specialized education and general education are as follows: As the philosophy for higher education, general education includes specialized education. As part of higher education, general education goes hand in hand with specialized education. They are not mutually exclusive. Instead, they must coexist to construct the whole of �[键入文字] undergraduate education. As talent cultivating models, general education and specialized education are called so just to be distinguished from one another. They are not mutually opposing. In any model, general education and specialized education both exist. Their difference lies in the standpoint for cultivating talents. General education emphasizes putting people first and pursing all-round development, while specialized education emphasizes meeting the society's needs and developing skills that help make a living. Actually, if specialized education just enables students to have a good career and lead a cozy life, without adequate responsibility for the society and the entire human race, specialized education is incomplete. If general education fails to give a good career and life to educated people, general education is defective. Figure 2 Relations between the philosophy, content, and model of general education Higher education should be an organic combination of general education content and specialized education content under the guidance of general education's philosophy. Considering general education from the three aspects, universities of different types at different levels can be explained as follows: In terms of philosophy, general education applies to everyone and every university. Becoming a complete person is everyone's lifetime goal. However, in terms of content, universities of different types at different levels can implement general education in different ways and to different degrees. Some elite universities can spend two years providing a large number of general education courses and finish specialized education in postgraduate years. At vocational schools, it is acceptable if they just provide students with a few general education courses. The key is to ensure that students, while mastering necessary skills, learn how to think about problems, solve problems in comprehensive and complete ways and how to behave in good manners, instead of becoming "robots". In terms of models, different universities can have their own unique features in general education. There is no need for uniform standards. In the practice of general education, mixing its philosophy, content, and model or failing to figure out the relations between these three aspects easily leads to misunderstandings about general education. If all attention is paid to the philosophy and general education is depicted as a beautiful ideal, the implementation of its content and the support from the system are ignored, making general education an unreachable delusion. If general education is understood only from its �Special issue Insights into the Essence of General Education content, general education is thought to be just some elective courses, common sense, or cultural and sports activities. This is superficial and far from the essence of general education. If there is no recognition that the implementation of general education requires a transformation of the talent cultivating model, policy and measures are inadequate, and general education is unlikely to go deep and last long. This paper believes that the right understanding of the essence of general education cannot stop at the beautiful philosophy or simplified as a few general education courses. General education cannot be generalized as mastering all knowledge, nor can it be relegated to studies for ordinary knowledge and practical skills. The right way to understand it is to consider three aspects: philosophy, content, and model. Only by doing this can one really know about the rich essence of general education, look at the relations between the ideal and reality of general education, and deeply comprehend the straits general education is in. With only philosophy, general education is empty. With only content, general education is superficial. Without being a model, general education cannot be enduring. References [1]Guo Weifan. Method of Implementing General Education [A].Paper collection from General Education Symposium of National Tsing Hua University [C]. 1987: 155-165. [2]Gao Mingshi. China's Traditional Politics and Education [M]. Taipei: Wen Chin Press, 2003:148-149. [3] (UK) C.P Snow. Two Cultures [M], translated by Chen Kejian and Qin Xiaohu. Shanghai: Shanghai Science and Technology Press, 2003: 2-4. [4] (US) John S Brubaker.On the Philosophy of Higher Education [M], translated by Zheng Jiwei et al. Hangzhou, Zhejiang Education Publishing House, 1987:80-82. [5] (US) Robert M Hutchins.The Higher Learning in America [M].translated by Wang Libing. Hangzhou: Zhejiang Education Publishing House, 2001 :5-51. [6][12] [23] Harvard Committee.(1945).General Education in aFree Society.Harvard University Press, 103-176, 65-72, 51-52. [7]Wang Yingjie. Reforms and Development of Higher Education in the United States [M]. Beijing: People's Education Press, 1993:219-221. [8]Zhang Canhui. Preface [A]. Overview of General Education in Hong Kong [R].Department of General Education, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. [9]Dong Junmin. Research into General Education in Adult Higher Education [D]. Wuhan: Central China Normal University, 1999. [10]Liu Xiubo. Intensifying General Education at Vocational Colleges [D]. Shenyang: Northeast Normal University, 2006. [11] (UK) Newman.The Ideal of a University [M].translated by XuHui. Hangzhou: Zhejiang �[键入文字] Education Publishing House, 2001:4. [13] (US) Henry Rosovsky. American Campus Culture [M]. translated by Xie Zongxian. Jinan: Shandong People's Publishing House, 1996: 90-92. [14] Gao Mingshi. China's Traditional Politics and Education [M]. Taipei: Wen Chin Press, 2003:154. [15] Shen Junshan. Foreword [A]. General Education Quarterly. 1994 (first issue). [16] Department of General Education, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.Overview of General Education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong [R]. 2005. [17] Overview of General Education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong [EB/0L]. http://www. hku. edu,2006-09-18. [18] (US) Dewey.Dewey's Lectures in China [M].translated by Hu Shi. Hefei: Anhui Education Publishing House, 1999: 167-178. [19] Wang Shouchang. Philosophy in the Western Society [M].The Eastern Publishing Co., Ltd. [20]Huang Junjie. Theory and Practice of General Education at Universities [M].Taipei: Taiwan General Education Society, 2005:7-12. [21]Wang Cesan. Modern Education Theory [M]. Beijing: People's Education Press, 1996:222-223. [22] Jin Yiming. Research into China's Policy for Quality-Oriented Education [M].Jinan: Shandong Education Publishing House, 2004:100-104. [24] Pang Haishao. General Education: Difficulty and Hope [M]. Beijing: Beijing Institute of Technology Press, 2009:41-45. Pang Haishao Telephone:0086-13520341310 Email: panghaishao@163.com � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "What is Liberal Education For?" 2014 Conference Papers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make these items available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 13 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Insights into the essence of general education Description An account of the resource Paper presented on October 17, 2014 by Pang Haishao at What is Liberal Education For? : a conference at St. John's College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Haishao, Pang Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Education, Humanistic Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 24004542 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/f0ce4bfc7fc3aa6e37ec4ce2e0b8dbcb.pdf ee42cd1cff3e384d4cd950b33f0e203d PDF Text Text Julie C. Park Lecturer, Collegiate Seminar Saint Mary's College of California Panel: Religious Texts within the Liberal Arts Title: Homer's Polytheism Questions It is difficult to teach religious books in a liberal arts classroom. The difficulty has to do with the way they are read outside the classroom, where reading religious books is often a form of devotion. This devotion assumes a belief in the God of the book, and a faith that the book is true. Students tend to bring this assumption with them into the classroom. So they have a hard time seeing the point of reading the books of other religions. Why should they read books they don't think are true? What is the point of their reading stories about gods in which they do not believe? One common answer appeals to mutual understanding and respect. Reading the books of other religions helps students understand and respect other people. This is true. But approaching religious books in this way prevents us from engaging in an actual dialogue with the books. Rather than approaching the books as possible sources of truth, this approach reduces them to sources of interesting information about other people's errors and delusions. The difficulty is especially acute in the case of Homer. When I teach Homer, students tend to ask two basic questions. My theist students ask why they should read Homer if they do not believe in the Homeric gods. And my atheist students ask why they have to read Homer if they don't believe in any gods at all. If we do not believe in the gods of a religion, how can we engage in a genuine dialogue with its books? How can we read such books as possible sources of truth? Two Steps The first step toward an answer to this question is simple: We have to shift from the question of belief to the question of understanding. Understanding in the most basic sense is prior to belief. In order to either believe or disbelieve in a god, we have to first assume a basic understanding of who or what a god is. This basic understanding may be shared by both believers and unbelievers. �For example, theists in the Abrahamic traditions affirm the existence of God, and atheists in the Abrahamic traditions deny the existence of God, but both theists and atheists take for granted an understanding of the nature of the God whose existence they affirm or deny. Questions of understanding at this level precede questions of belief or unbelief. This is especially true in reading Homer, who did not "believe in" the gods in the sense that Christians believe in God. Eva Brann makes this point in her book, Homeric Moments: "The mode of belief or disbelief is in fact quite misapplied here. The Homeric gods are not 'believed in'" in the same way that the God of Abraham requires (Homeric Moments, 36). So the first step is to show our students that, before we can meaningfully believe or disbelieve in the existence of the Homeric gods, we first have to understand the nature of the Homeric gods--we have to understand who or what they are. A second step is to show that to understand Homer we have to suspend our understanding of divinity--our assumptions about the nature of the gods. If we uncritically assume an Abrahamic understanding of divinity, for example, we will never be able to take the Homeric gods seriously. A perfect example of this lack of seriousness is the article on atheism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The article informs us that the gods of Homer are so far from the God of Abraham that they are not really gods at all. I quote: "Atheism" means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God. I shall here assume that the God in question is that of a sophisticated monotheism. The tribal gods of the early inhabitants of Palestine are of little or no philosophical interest... Similarly the Greek and Roman gods were more like mythical heroes and heroines than like the omnipotent, omniscient and good God postulated by medieval and modern philosophy. 1 In other words, the gods of Homer are so ungodlike, so unworthy of being taken seriously, that there is no point even bothering to deny they exist. This is a textbook example of ethnocentric blindness. We cannot understand Homer if we uncritically take for granted an Abrahamic understanding of the divine. In order to engage in a dialogue with Homer--to approach Homer as a possible source of truth--we have to try to explicate and clarify the understanding of divinity implicit in Homer's work. To do this we have to suspend our assumptions about the divine, and ask very simply: Who or what is a god in Homer? What for Homer is the essence of the divine? �The Gods in Homer When we first start reading Homer we are struck by something strange: Homer considers divine a number of beings that we don't consider divine at all. First, there are the supernatural beings who live on Olympus, who to us seem more human than godlike. But second, he sees as "gods" the kinds of beings that we consider natural phenomena, such as the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, and the winds. And third, he also sees as "gods" the kinds of beings that we would call psychological, such as Sleep, Dream, Persuasion, Conflict, Panic, Rout, and Grief. Why does Homer see these beings as gods? What for Homer makes them all divine? What are the core traits that all these gods share in common? I think the meaning of divinity, for Homer, is implicit in the epithets he gives to the gods. Homer uses three main epithets. The first epithet is that the gods are "the immortals." The second epithet is that they are "the stronger ones." And the third epithet is that the gods are "the givers of gifts." These epithets point to the three traits that for Homer are essential to divinity. The first trait is immortality. A being is not divine unless it is immortal. The second trait is superhuman strength. A being is divine if it is stronger than human beings, and if human beings are under its power. The third trait is generosity. A being is divine if it gives to humans what humans cannot give to themselves. The gods are the source of our gifts and of the givens of human existence. This is why the Sun is a god: it is immortal; it is stronger than us, and it gives us light. This is why Sleep is divine: it never dies; it's a power that overcomes us; and it gives us rest and rejuvenation. This is why Eros is a god: it has been around forever; it's a power that takes possession of us and drives us insane; and it is something we cannot summon at will, and that comes over us whether we want it to or not. This account of the Homeric gods helps students see how the question of understanding precedes the question of belief. The challenge of Homer is not that we do not believe in the existence of the Homeric gods. Everyone believes in the existence of the Sun, and of Sleep, and of �Eros. The challenge of Homer is that he has a different understanding of divinity, and a different vision of the place of gods in human existence. So the question is not: Do we believe that the Homeric gods exist? Instead the question is: How does Homer understand divinity and humanity? And to what extent can we retrieve and share this understanding? What does this understanding of gods and men illuminate about human existence? How does it shed light on the world in which we live? Four Dimensions of Homeric Thought I would argue that Homer's understanding of the gods has four distinct dimensions. At different moments he understands the gods in four distinct but related ways. There is an explanatory dimension of Homer's thought; there is a descriptive dimension; there is an ethical dimenion of Homeric thinking. And a fourth dimension of Homeric theology I would call contemplative. Let me go through these four dimension of Homer's thought one at a time. The Explanatory Dimension of Homer's Thought The most obvious aspect of Homer's thought is the explanatory dimension. Homer invokes the gods to explain why events happen as they do. The gods in this sense are the invisible causes of otherwise inexplicable events. If something happens for no obvious human or natural reason, that happening is explained as the action of a god. For example, at the start of The Iliad the Greek soldiers are dying of sickness. Why? According to Homer, it is not because their food is rotten and they are living in filth. It is because Apollo is angry that Agamemnon disrespected his priest, and the plague is Apollo's punishment. Notice that the explanatory dimension of Homeric thought is confined to the Olympian gods. Homer describes only the Olympian gods as acting in this way--taking the initiative and intervening in human affairs.2 It is true that the non-Olympian gods, such as Sleep or Dream, also intervene in human life, but they do so as agents of the Olympians. When Delusion comes over Agamemnon, �for example, Delusion is acting as the agent of Zeus. Likewise when Eros and Sleep come over Zeus, for example, they are merely the agents of Aphrodite and Hera. When the West Wind keeps the fleets at Aulis, it is acting on behalf of Artemis. Homer never attributes agency to anything that we would call a natural or psychological phenomenon. The Olympian gods are always the cause of anything extraordinary done by the non-Olympian gods. Today we find it hard to take seriously this side of Homer's thought. Science offers better explanations than stories about the gods. If the Greek soldiers got sick, it was probably because they were living in filth and eating rotten food. If they blamed Apollo for their sickness, it was probably because they were scapegoating Agamemnon. Gods had nothing to do with it. At the level of explanatory thought, it seems, we understand the Greeks better than they understood themselves. I would argue, however, that even in the explanatory dimension, Homer's theology sometimes holds insights that are worth taking seriously. But to see this we first have to understand the other dimensions of Homer's thought. The Descriptive Dimension of Homer's Thought There is also a descriptive dimension to Homer's thinking about the gods. Homer uses stories of the gods to describe certain kinds of experience. We often have the experience of powers that come over us and overcome us, that take possession of us and alter our attunement to the world: sleep, dream, persuasion, delusion, lust, eros, inspiration, and insight. Under the influence of these powers, and in light of their presence, the world appears differently to us, and we do things that we would never do if we were not under their sway. When Homer speaks of the gods, he is sometimes merely describing these experiences of being subject to powers beyond our control. The obvious example is Hypnos, which we call sleep. Sleep is a power that comes over us and overcomes us. We cannot summon it at will, but we cannot resist it for long. When we deprive ourselves of sleep the world starts to seem crummy and depressing. When we surrender to sleep, after weeks of deprivation, we wake up and the world seems wonderful again. At the start of each semester, my students have a hard time understanding how sleep could be seen as a god. But at the �end of the semester, after too many late nights, they understand that sleep is divine. Another example is the Muse, the source of what we call "inspiration." When he speaks of the Muses, Homer is simply naming the powers that inspire great art. We cannot summon these powers at will, but we can create the conditions under which they are most likely to come over us. And when inspiration comes to us, it alters our vision and enables us to do what we could never do through willpower alone. Nietzsche gave a very precise description of this experience in Ecce Homo.3 A third example is Aphrodite, which we call "sexual attraction." Remember the story that Homer tells in The Iliad of Aphrodite coming to Helen in the person of her maid, who uses her words to arouse her desire for Paris. It is clear that the presence of Aphrodite simply stands for the power of desire. In this story we recognize a description of a universal human experience--the experience of being overwhelmed with lust for a person one does not respect or even especially like. A last example is Athena, the name Homer gives to what we call skill or insight. Think of the time when Athena came to Telemachus in the person of Mentes, an old friend of Odysseus. The words of Mentes ignited a moment of clarity for Telemachus, who suddenly saw himself and his situation in a new light: "[S]he left in his spirit determination and courage, and he remembered his father even more than he had before, and he guessed the meaning, and his heart was full of wonder, for he thought it was a divinity" (1: 320-323). This descriptive dimension of Homer's thought has nothing supernatural about it.4 Each of these stories of the gods simply describes a common and recognizable human experience--the experience of being overcome by and under the influence of powers beyond our control. Homeric theology illuminates this part of human existence as much today as it did thousands of years ago. The Ethical Dimension of Homer's Thought There is also an ethical dimension to Homer's vision of the gods. The ethical significance of Homeric theology is hard to see, because the gods do things that are obviously immoral. And not �just immoral according to our moral code, but immoral according to the morality of Homer himself: Aphrodite cheats on her husband; Hera lies to Zeus; Athena deceives Pandarus. The Homeric gods are not morally perfect; if anything they are bad role models for human beings. But while they are ambiguous with respect to moral behavior, the Olympian gods are superlative with respect to human excellence. Their home on Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece, implies that they are "higher" than the other gods, that is, greater in virtue, honor, and blessings. Each Olympian god exemplifies the highest virtues proper to a specific domain of human existence. Athena exemplifies superlative wisdom. Aphrodite exemplifies superlative beauty. Hephaistos exemplifies superlative craftsmanship. Hera exemplifies superlative sovereignty within the domestic sphere. Together the Olympian gods embody a vision of human life at its highest. This dimension of Homer's thought is both strange and familiar. It is strange since Homer obviously values moral rectitude less than excellence. For Homer the highest thing that humans can aspire to is not righteousness but greatness--doing or being something better than anyone else: a great warrior; a great athlete; a great beauty; a great poet. But this side of Homer's thought is also familiar because many people still live by Homer's values: they have a code of morals, but the focus and meaning of their lives is in their aspiration to greatness. Today this aspect of our lives is largely obscured by the language of the Abrahamic tradition, which values righteousness over excellence. Homer's theology is relevant today because it illuminates and clarifies this aspiration to greatness. Homeric theology also helps to clarify the meaning of devotion. Homer clearly understood that human beings cannot achieve greatness through willpower alone. In order to do or be something better than anyone else, we need the gifts of the gods: talent, charisma, inspiration, the surge of skill and strength that athletes call "flow." We cannot give these powers to ourselves. We cannot summon the gods at will. But if we devote ourselves to something we love--family, craftsmanship, music, erotics, or wisdom--if give ourselves to it, if we arrange our lives around it, if we cultivate its virtues and engage in its practices, we can create the conditions under which it is most likely that a god will come over us. A musician cannot summon inspiration at will, but if he devotes his life to music, then inspiration is more likely to come. An athelete cannot choose to be in the �flow, but if she devotes herself to a sport then moments will come when she effortlessly performs at the highest level. A philosopher cannot make herself wise, but if she devotes her life to the search for wisdom then at times wisdom may come as if of its own accord. To be devoted to a god is to cultivate the conditions under which the god may come over you. To achieve greatness, we each have to sense what we love most, what inspires and enthuses us, and we have to choose it and devote ourselves to it with an undivided heart. The ethical dimension of Homer's thought is illuminating in another way. Each of the Olympian gods exemplifies the good proper to a distinct domain of human existence. All the Olympian gods are equal--no god or goddess is higher than the others. And the gods sometimes come in conflict with each other. If we take the descriptive dimension of Homer's thought seriously, this means that to be human is to be drawn towards a plurality of goods, which are all equal, but which may come into conflict with each other. Erotic love is good, marriage is good, wisdom is good, but these three goods are not necessarily conducive to one another. At the deepest level of his thought, Homer offers us a vision of human life: to be human is to be drawn toward and torn between a plurality of goods. I think this vision of human existence is implicit in the myth of the judgment of Paris. Three goddesses--Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite--each claimed to be the most beautiful, and asked Paris to judge between them. Each offered Paris gifts: Hera offered power; Athena offered wisdom; Aphrodite offered him beauty. Later, when Helen met Paris she had to make the same choice: she could choose domestic life (Hera) and wisdom (Athena); or she could choose to leave her family and elope with a beautiful stranger (Aphrodite). Her choice mirrored the choice made by Paris when he judged the three goddesses. The story says: to be human is to have to choose between different and conflicting goods. At this point we can now see more clearly the explanatory dimension of Homer's thought. Since the story of the judgment of Paris is about the causes of the Trojan War, it is also part of the explanatory dimension of Homer's thought. The story explains the origins of the war, not in a pseudo-scientific way, but in a mythical way. It says the Trojan War started because humans and �gods tried to exclude Eris, the goddess of conflict or strife, from the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. Eris came to the wedding anyway, took revenge for her exclusion by overcoming the gods and setting them against each other. This story is not a superstition but a myth. And the myth points to a real insight, which is that Eris, Strife or Conflict, will not be excluded. The myth tells us that Strife is a god--a power to humans are subject, and which we fail to recognize at our peril. If we try to exclude conflict from our lives--if we don't make a place for conflict--then conflict will overcome and destroy us. The Contemplative Dimension of Homer's Thought There is a fourth side to Homer's discourse on the gods. Homer often shows the gods on Olympus contemplating human life. The classic example occurs in Book 17 of the Iliad, when Zeus looks down the immortal horses that belong to Achilles, and the warriors fighting over the dead body of Patroclus. Zeus says to the horses: Poor wretches, why then did we ever give you to the lord Peleus, a mortal man, and you yourselves are immortal and ageless? Only so that among unhappy men you also might be grieved? Since among all creatures that breathe on earth and crawl on it there is not anywhere a thing more dismal than man is (17: 442-447) By telling a human story from the perspective of the gods, Homer invites us to imaginatively put ourselves in their place, to contemplate human existence as though from above and outside human life, to see our ephemeral lives from the perspective of eternity.5 Goethe recognized the contemplative dimension of Homer in a letter he wrote to Schiller in 1798. He wrote: Your letter found me...in the Iliad, to which I always return with delight. It is always as if one were in a balloon, far above everything earthly; as if one were truly in that intermediate zone where the gods float hither and thither. (Hadot, PWL 238) The Iliad has the power to raise us above everyday life and let us contemplate human existence as though from above and from the outside. In his book, Poetry and Truth, Goethe wrote that this power is essential to all true poetry. True poetry can be recognized by the fact that, like a secular Gospel, through the �inner cheerfulness and outward pleasure it procures us, it can free us from the mundane burdens which weigh upon us. Like a hot-air balloon, it lifts us up into higher regions, along with the ballast that clings to us, and lets us see, from a birdseye-view, the mad labyrinths of the world spread out before us. (Hadot, PWL 239) I think that Goethe here is only half right. It is true that the Iliad lifts us up and lets us contemplate human life as though from Olympus. But it also shows us the world from the perspective of Achilles, who knows he has only a few more weeks to live. The emotional power of the poem comes from this stark juxtaposition of perspectives, so that it lets us see the world from the perspective of eternity and from the perspective of men on the threshold of death. Conclusion Let me conclude with my original question: How to teach religious texts in a liberal arts classroom? How can we approach texts from other religious traditions as possible sources of insight? My answer is that we have to take two steps. First, we have to shift our focus from questions of belief to questions of understanding. Second, we have to suspend our inherited understanding of the divine, and to be open to radically different views about the meaning of divinity. If we approach Homer in this way, we find that his theology illuminates human life in a number of ways. First, Homer's descriptions of divine possession illuminate a kind of human experience--the experience of being overcome by powers that exceed our control, in whose light the world appears differently to us, and under whose influence we act in ways we would never act on our own. Second, Homer's stories of the gods convey not just a general ethos but a number of specific ethical insights. They illuminate the aspiration to greatness, our inability to reach greatness through our efforts alone, the meaning of devotion, and the tragic necessity of having to decide what to devote ourselves to. These insights belong to an ethos that illuminates a condition of human existence--that to be human means to be drawn toward and torn between a plurality of equal but conflicting goods. Third, the figures of the Olympian gods articulate the power of human self-transcendence-our power to see human life as though from outside and above, from the perspective of eternity, and also to see life as though from the end of life and the threshold of death. �By shifting our focus from questions of belief to questions of understanding, by suspending our assumptions about the meaning of divinity, by opening ourselves to and making our own a different understanding of divinity, we can approach religious texts from other traditions as partners in a genuine dialogue, that is, as sources of genuine self-understanding and truth. Notes 1. Smart, J. J. C., "Atheism and Agnosticism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/atheismagnosticism/). 2. A non-Olympian god in Homer hardly ever acts on his or her own initiative. One exception is when Odysseus swims ashore in the Odyssey and the river listens to him. So the non-Olympian god can sometimes have some kind of agency. Eris, or Strife, is also an exception, one that, I would argue, proves the rule. 3. Nietzsche writes, "Has anyone at the end of the nineteenth century a distinct conception of what poets of strong ages called inspiration?... The concept of revelation, in the sense that something suddenly, with unspeakable certainty and subtlety, becomes visible, audible, something that shakes and overturns one to the depths, simply describes the fact. One hears, one does not seek; one takes, one does not ask who gives; a thought flashes up like lightning, with necessity, unfalteringly formed" (Ecce Homo, p. 72). 4. Eva Brann similarly argues, "nothing is ever done that could not have been done by the humans themselves" (Homeric Moments, 43). 5. See also Book 1: 498-499, Book 5: 753-754, and Book 11: 79-83. Secondary Sources Eva Brann, Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad (2002) Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (1985) Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly, All Things Shining (2011) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, as quoted in Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (1995) Gregory Nagy, The Ancient Greek Hero: In 24 Hours (2013) Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo Seth Schein, The Mortal Hero: An Introduction to Homer's Iliad (1984) Jean-Pierre Vernant, The Universe, the Gods, and Men (1999) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "What is Liberal Education For?" 2014 Conference Papers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make these items available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 11 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Homer's polytheism Description An account of the resource Paper presented on October 17, 2014 by Julie Park at What is Liberal Education For? : a conference at St. John's College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Park, Julie C. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Homer -- Religion Education, Humanistic Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 24004549 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/2b6b534fe7ea70bbf705a399bf4d8fdc.pdf aeca03cc2d9227151d528f6721fe5fc9 PDF Text Text Piety, Knowledge, and Critical Inquiry in Plato’s Euthyphro (with reference to Plato’s Apology) David Shiner Shimer College For those of us who are deeply committed to the practice of critical inquiry, few if any texts are more valuable than the dialogues of Plato. Indeed, the conventional emphasis on the role of critical inquiry in Plato’s dialogues, justified though it unquestionably is, may at times lead to us to undervalue their many other virtues. The signal importance of those other virtues is brought to light when it becomes clear that they are bound up with the very raison d’etre for the sort of critical inquiry that Socrates employs in most of the Platonic writings. To illustrate this, I shall in this paper briefly examine the relationship between Socrates’ practice of critical inquiry and the virtues of piety and a proper approach to knowledge claims in Plato’s Euthyphro, while also referencing his Apology. The Euthyphro begins with the title character greeting Socrates outside the court where he (Socrates) is about to be tried. Each man tells the other why he is there. Socrates recounts some of the charges against him, charges which will be familiar to readers of Plato’s Apology, the action of which occurs directly after the events presented in the Euthyphro: he corrupts the youth of Athens by inventing new gods and failing to acknowledge the old ones (3A). For his part, Euthyphro says that he has come to the court to prosecute his father for manslaughter. When Socrates expresses surprise at this, Euthyphro, claiming to be an expert in religious matters, responds that he is undertaking this action in accordance with divine law. Socrates responds by proposing that he become Euthyphro’s pupil so that he can argue in court that he regards it to be “of great importance to know about things divine” (5A), which will presumably undermine the charge of impiety which his accusers have levied against him. The remainder of the dialogue consists primarily in Socrates questioning Euthyphro, presumably as pupil to teacher. Euthyphro proves unable to provide an account of piety that satisfies the standards of Socratic inquiry, and the dialogue ends without any such account having been given. That is to say, there is no overt account of piety in the dialogue that is to be regarded as satisfactory. Is there, however, a covert account, an implicit conception of piety that reveals itself upon deeper investigation? And, if there is indeed such an account, how might it be related to the sort of critical inquiry that Socrates undertakes within the dialogue? We’ll begin our exploration of these questions by examining the textual evidence concerning Euthyphro’s claim to be a religious expert. As was previously noted, Euthyphro 1 �justifies his prosecution of his father by referring to divine law. In explaining this to Socrates, he acknowledges that all of his relatives disagree with his action, likewise on religious grounds; they have unanimously told him that “for a son to prosecute his father as a murderer is impious” (4D). Upon hearing this, Socrates asks Euthyphro whether he has “such an accurate knowledge of divine things” that he has no fear that he might in fact be committing an act of impiety (4E). Euthyphro reaffirms his confidence in his decision, claiming that his knowledge of divine matters makes him better than “the general run of men” (5A), presumably including the rest of his family. Plato provides ample evidence that Euthyphro’s claim should be regarded with suspicion. Earlier in the dialogue, Euthyphro tells Socrates that he (Euthyphro) has the gift of prophesy, boasting, “I have never made a prediction that did not come true” (3C). Shortly thereafter Socrates says about his court case, “[T]here is no knowing how the case will turn out. Only you prophets can tell.” Euthyphro responds, “Well, Socrates, I dare say that nothing will come of it. Very likely you will carry your case” (3E). Given that any reader of this dialogue would be well aware of Socrates’ subsequent conviction and execution at the hands of the Athenian court, Plato could hardly have made Euthyphro’s lack of prophetic ability plainer. This episode casts considerable doubt on subsequent claims Euthyphro makes concerning his religious expertise, which in turn implies that his confidence in those claims is unwarranted. After proposing that Euthyphro become his teacher, Socrates asks him to state what piety is. Euthyphro replies by recounting the well-known story from Greek mythology in which Zeus bound his father, Cronos, in chains for wronging him, just as Cronos had previously castrated his father, Ouranos, for similar reasons. Socrates responds by asking Euthyphro whether he thinks that he (Socrates) is being brought to trial because he “somehow” finds it difficult to accept such stories of the gods. He then concedes that he might be wrong to doubt those stories, stating that if experts on religion, such as Euthyphro claims to be, believe them, he (Socrates) will be duty-bound to believe them as well. This, he says, is because his is “ignorant about these matters” (6B). Thus, Socrates’ awareness of his own ignorance leads him not only to doubt received wisdom, but even to doubt his own doubts. With this response, Socrates tacitly draws a clear distinction between Euthyphro and himself. Euthyphro claims to know everything worth knowing about piety. Socrates, on the contrary, claims to know nothing about it. On the basis of his claim to possess religious knowledge, Euthyphro is certain that he is practicing piety in prosecuting his father, in part on the basis of the analogy of himself with Zeus, the all-knowing. On the basis of his claim to lack religious knowledge, Socrates professes his uncertainty not only about the veracity 2 �of the traditional stories of the gods, but also about his doubts about those stories. Therefore, as Socrates states explicitly, if Euthyphro actually has the knowledge that he claims to have, his knowledge will trump Socrates’ ignorance, and Socrates will be dutybound to follow his lead. The key word here is “if.” Socrates sets forth all of his conditions hypothetically, setting the stage for him to try, throughout the rest of the dialogue, to discover whether Euthyphro can demonstrate that he actually has the knowledge that he claims to have. In so doing, Socrates doesn’t simply accept Euthyphro’s stories, or for that matter anything Euthyphro says about piety, “on faith,” as we might put it. Such acceptance would constitute an appeal to exactly the sort of unquestioning certainty which Socrates rejects, since he, as a professed non-knower with respect to such matters, wouldn’t have any basis on which to accept it. By asking Euthyphro whether he thinks that he (Socrates) is being prosecuted for impiety because he has difficulty in believing the traditional stories of the gods, Socrates shifts the conversation from a declarative to an interrogative mode. He also subtly and skillfully shifts the subject of the conversation from piety itself to the status of knowledge claims about piety. In doing this, Socrates paves the way for critical inquiry, which entails a shift in the conversation from statements of traditional belief to hypotheses. Statements of traditional belief, such as those Euthyphro favors, are authoritative and presumptively non-disverifiable propositions. The hypothetical approach, on the other hand, regards such statements as assumptions, and thus as subject to critical inquiry. In highlighting the shift from traditional belief to critical inquiry, Plato regularly makes it clear where Socrates doubts, and where Euthyphro – and we – should do likewise. For example, when Euthyphro exhibits confidence in the veracity of the traditional stories of quarrels between the gods, Socrates notes that this characterization of the gods would put them in the same position as human disputants “if they really do have quarrels about right and wrong, as you say they do” (8D). The key word here is, again, “if.” This and subsequent instances of classifying statements about the disputes of the gods as assumptions, rather than as statements to be accepted on the basis of authority and/or tradition, clearly differentiate Socrates from Euthyphro with respect to their approaches to the kinds of knowledge claims that Euthyphro routinely makes. Euthyphro professes certainty that the gods engage in disputes with each other; in fact, he tells Socrates that he knows much more about those disputes than the ordinary Athenian does (6B). Socrates, on the other hand, exhibits the intellectual humility appropriate for a professed noon-knower by neither 3 �affirming nor denying this claim but rather regarding it as an assumption and therefore in need of further investigation. Critical inquiry depends upon the hypothetical mode championed by Socrates; the recounting of traditional myths set forth as matters of fact eschews it. Euthyphro evidently fails to recognize the disjunction between the two in agreeing to submit his beliefs to critical inquiry. His consent and even encouragement of critical inquiry throughout the dialogue, while simultaneously preserving confidence in his infallibility with respect to divine matters, indicates that he has no real understanding of the nature of the hypothetical realm. He is evidently unaware that submitting his beliefs to critical inquiry potentially undermines them by converting them into hypothetical statements – that is, assumptions which could be otherwise. This lack of awareness on Euthyphro’s part appears to be a byproduct of his confidence in his claims of knowledge, and Plato gives us ample evidence that this confidence is unwarranted. That evidence includes Euthyphro’s demonstrably false claim of unerring prophesy, his presumptuous assertion that he is permitted, indeed expected, to act in the same manner as the king of the gods, and his manifest inability to present a definition of piety that can satisfy the rigors of critical inquiry. Euthyphro continues to proclaim confidence in his knowledge of divine matters throughout the dialogue, and the fact that he is still making this claim as the dialogue approaches its end (13E) indicates that he has learned little if anything along the way. Socrates’ final statements to him demonstrate this in several ways, not the least of which is – again – their hypothetical character. First, he exhorts Euthyphro to tell him the “absolute truth” about the gods because “if anyone knows, of all mankind, it is you” (15D). This statement, we can reliably conclude on the basis of Euthyphro’s utter failure to satisfactorily demonstrate his alleged knowledge, invokes an implicit conclusion based on the logical form known as modus tollens. The content of that syllogism is this: If anyone knows the truth about the gods, Euthyphro knows it (as Socrates states); Euthyphro doesn’t know it (as the dialogue makes abundantly clear); therefore no one knows it. Next, Socrates turns Euthyphro’s claim to possess religious knowledge into another hypothetical: “If you didn’t know precisely what is pious and impious, it is unthinkable that...you would ever have moved to prosecute your aged sire” (15D). This statement implies a sort of modus ponens: after all that has transpired, Euthyphro should recognize that he does not in fact know what he claims (or claimed) to know about piety and impiety, the consequence of which is that he should not have prosecuted his father in accordance with what he thought were the dictates of piety. The fact that Euthyphro has made no evident progress during the course of the dialogue leads Socrates to say to him, “I am sure you think you know exactly what is pious and what 4 �is not” (15E). This phrasing acknowledges the fact that Euthyphro continues to think he knows what he claims to know, although it is by now equally evident that he does not actually know it. Euthyphro has been shorn of his knowledge claims – not by Socrates, but by his own shortcomings as disclosed by critical inquiry. From this examination of the Euthyphro we might be inclined to infer that critical inquiry and piety are at odds, and that the former has trumped the latter in this dialogue. More specifically, since it appears that an uncritical piety such as Euthyphro’s cannot be maintained in the face of critical inquiry, we might wonder whether critical inquiry must perforce be impious. Such a conclusion would be unwarranted. In order to understand the proper relationship between the two, we must turn from the Euthyphro to its sequel, both in time and, we might say, complementarity: the Apology, Plato’s account of Socrates’ defense in court. Early in the Apology, Socrates endeavors to account for the reputation that has rendered him subject to prosecution on the grounds of impiety. As he tells the Athenian jury, “I have gained this reputation, gentlemen, from nothing more or less than a kind of wisdom. What kind of wisdom do I mean? Human wisdom, I suppose. It seems that I really am wise in this limited sense” (20D). By way of contrast, concerning “wisdom that is more than human,” Socrates says, “I certainly have no knowledge of such wisdom” (20E). How, then, does Socrates know that he has any wisdom at all? Because “the god at Delphi,” presumably Apollo, had famously told his friend Chaerephon many years earlier that no one was wiser than Socrates (21A). In Plato’s account, Socrates’ reaction to the oracle’s declaration is typical: he wonders about it. As he tells the jury, “I said to myself, ‘What does the god mean? Why does he not use plain language? I am only too conscious that I have no claim to wisdom, great or small, so what can he mean by asserting that I am the wisest man in the world?’” (21B). So he wanders about Athens trying to better understand the truth of the god’s declaration by asking questions of people who claim to be knowledgeable about various matters. In other words, Socrates responds to a knowledge claim by wondering about the meaning of the claim, asserting the insufficiency of his own knowledge, and investigating the claim by means of critical inquiry – that is, by undertaking the same process he effected with Euthyphro. The only significant difference is that here, unlike in the Euthyphro, Socrates seems to take for granted that the oracle’s claim must be true if properly understood; as he says, the god “cannot be telling a lie” because “that would not be right for him” (21B). In other words, piety demands that Socrates treat a truth claim by a god differently from a 5 �truth claim by a human being. Nevertheless, intellectual humility and critical inquiry are present in essentially the same way in both dialogues. Why, then, does Socrates initiate critical inquiry with his fellow Athenians? A number of passages in the Apology leave no room for doubt: he sees it a religious quest (“I pursued my investigation at the god’s command” (22A)). Once Socrates discovers the meaning of the oracle, namely that “real wisdom is the property of God, and…human wisdom has little or no value” (23A), his response is “to give aid to the god” by “undertaking service on the god’s behalf” (23B). This service, which is prominently displayed in numerous other Platonic dialogues, consists in this: “[W]hen I think that any person is not wise, I try to help the cause of God by proving that he is not” (23C). He even goes so far as to affirm that “God appointed me…to the duty of living the philosophic life, examining myself and others” (28E). Critical inquiry is therefore a religious obligation for Socrates, one that he willingly takes on even though he, as a mere mortal, does not know exactly what the divine law is – and, unlike Euthyphro, does not claim to know. Socrates does not profess complete ignorance about divine matters. Indeed he cannot do so, for that would render his claim to be undertaking a religious quest nonsensical. The basic truths about the gods that he claims to know include, for example, that they are responsible for all the good things that we humans possess (Euthyphro 15A) and that they cannot lie because it would not be right for them to do so (Apology 21B). But, unlike Euthyphro, he also believes that our understanding of the nature and activities of the gods is extremely limited, and that recognition of that limitation is a sign of the proper intellectual humility which is an essential feature of both piety and human wisdom. And so Socrates’ wisdom is the result of a religious quest, a demonstration of his piety as well as of his intellectual humility. This stands in stark contrast with Euthyphro, whose lack of wisdom is manifest in the opposite traits, as well as of Socrates’ accusers in the Athenian court. To conclude: In both the Euthyphro and the Apology, Plato demonstrates that Socrates doubts the traditional stories of the gods not because he is not pious, but because he is. In conducting his investigations, Socrates provides a model of the proper relationship between piety and critical inquiry. The lynchpin between them is intellectual humility, which stands in stark contrast to the vacuous arrogance demonstrated by Euthyphro, as well as by Socrates’ accusers. In order to follow the model of the quest for knowledge that Plato proposes and Socrates personifies, one need not practice piety or critical inquiry in precisely the way that Socrates does; but one must set out on that quest with an uncommon level of commitment, and with genuine humility. This is where liberal education begins. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "What is Liberal Education For?" 2014 Conference Papers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make these items available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 6 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Piety, knowledge, and critical inquiry in Plato's Euthyphro (with reference to Plato's Apology) Description An account of the resource Paper presented on October 16, 2014 by David Shiner at What is Liberal Education For? : a conference at St. John's College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shiner, David Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Plato. Euthyphro. Education, Humanistic Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 24004550 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/0df0a4ae974316e995debf1ab5686ba5.pdf e38b1d2f0079bf80536626efd516e4a6 PDF Text Text Having the Capacity for Theoretical Reason Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics examines what human virtue (arête, excellence) is, how one becomes virtuous, and how being-in-activity virtuously is related to achieving the good that can be realized in action (1096b33), “that for the sake of which everything else is done” (1097a18-19). 1 Aristotle chooses to ground his approach to this question in the “function” (ergon) of human being, which is the kind of work that is distinctive of the human being (I.7, 1097b23 ff.). He identifies three kinds of activities (energeiai) of which human beings are capable, which he then associates with three parts of soul: nutrition and growth (threptike … kai auxetike), perception/sensation (aesthesis), and what he calls “rational action” or the “being-in-action of the part that has reason” (“praktike tis tou logon echontos”) (1098a1-4). His thought seems to be: human being has a certain constitution or structure, as do all beings; if one wishes to know what is the best work or activity human being can achieve, one should start by understanding what work or activity is distinctive of the human being, and then proceed to discover what the greatest excellence or perfection of that might be. Stipulating that putting a capacity into activity (energeia) is better than merely possessing it (1098a6), and assuming that, since only human beings, among natural beings have reason, Aristotle concludes, “Thus the proper work [ergon] of a human being must be the being-at-work [energeia] of soul in accordance with reason [kata logon], or at least not without reason” (1098a7-8). Since Aristotle grounds his exploration and account of virtue in the functional structure of the human soul, the Nicomachean Ethics, as it explores what virtue is and how human beings may attain it, offers a compelling account of the capacities the human being has to be-at-work and to be-in-activity. For today, the particular question I wish to explore is what Aristotle means by the phrase “with reason” (kata logon), in particular with regard to his discussion and account of ethical virtue (ethike), and what his investigation of ethical virtue tells us about the capacities of human being to achieve the good. In chapter 13 of Book I, preparatory to launching his investigation of virtue, Aristotle redraws his outline of the soul. He replaces “perception” with “desire” (epithumetikon kai 11 Most passages from Aristotle’s text follow Martin Ostwald, Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics (Prentice Hall, 1962). When I borrow from other translations, I will note that. Occasionally, I will amend Ostwald’s translation, striving for a more literal rendition. 1 �holos orektikon) (1102a32 ff.; 1102b30), because perception per se does not move us to act, whereas desire does (see VI.2, 1139a19). He also characterizes both the nutritive part and the newly recast desiring part as irrational (1102a28). The third part remains, for the moment, simply rational. He then drops the nutritive part, as it plays no role in action. Aristotle explains why he characterizes desire as irrational (alogon), saying that the desiring part “fights against and resists the guidance of reason” (1102b17), and it “opposes and reacts against reason” (1102b24). Yet he also says of the desiring part that it “participates [metechei] in reason somewhat [pos]” (1102b30-31) because it is capable of “complying with reason and accepting its leadership” (1102b32), and it can “listen to reason as [a child] would to a father” (1103a3). He then turns to explore how the desiring part of the soul—which he will identify with our disposition or character (hexis)—can become or be made excellent. Someone who has an excellent character or disposition desires what is truly good. Human beings are born with the capacity (dunamis) for this excellence, but the capacity has to be developed. It is developed, claims Aristotle at the beginning of Book II, by the person engaging in habitually doing good actions for, he says, “ethical virtue (ethike) develops out of habit (ethos)” (1103a17). This means that we become just (i.e., come to have a just character, a disposition that desires what is just) by habitually—repeatedly and consistently—doing just actions, and self-controlled by habitually practicing self-control. “For from similar energeiai come-to-be [similar] dispositions (hexeis)” (1103b21-22). At this point, Aristotle is emphasizing the irrational, or, perhaps better stated, the childlike nature of desire. Character is molded or trained, not intellectually taught, and this seems in keeping with his saying earlier that desire has the capacity to listen to and follow reason as a child listens to a parent. 2 In light of this, it seems perfectly fitting for Aristotle to say that the goal in ethical training and education is “not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good” (1103b28). If indeed habituation is what shapes our character, that suggests that we are products of our upbringing, shaped and molded by our parents and our teachers from a very early age— before we are able to think for ourselves. By the time we come to be thinking beings, our characters will have been largely determined. It also implies that a good upbringing is key: 2 One is reminded here of Socrates’ education of the guardians in the city in speech in the Republic (esp. Book III). 2 �commands to do good actions, consistently and repeatedly offered, supplemented with either reward or punishment, will shape our character into something good (see 1106b10-12). What remains then to do is to acquire experience and understanding of the world in order to be able to exercise or express our good character by doing truly good actions. To be sure, Aristotle later in Book II raises several questions about whether habituation is sufficient to makes us be truly virtuous persons and agents, wondering “if they perform just actions and exercise selfcontrol, [must they not already be] just and self-controlled” (II.4, 1105a18-20). And yet, almost immediately he appears to dismiss the difficulty saying that, “without performing [just and selfcontrolled acts], nobody could even be on the way to becoming good” (1105b10-12). Given that desire is for some end, and the shape of our desires constitutes our character, our character is what determines the ends toward which we direct our choices and our actions. For action begins with some target—a desired or wished-for end. If we have a good character, our desired target will be good, for virtue “makes us aim at the right target” (VI.12, 1144a8). The way Aristotle has been developing his account, it presents us with a grave difficulty, which he leads up to by first discussing whether human beings are voluntary or involuntary agents, or, in other words, are we justly held responsible for our choices and our actions. What Aristotle wants to claim is that we are, indeed, voluntary agents, in virtually all circumstances. Considering the commonly offered extenuating excuses of force and ignorance, Aristotle concludes that only in the most extreme case—where the agent contributes nothing—may one say one was forced and acted involuntarily (III.1, 1110b15-17). With regard to ignorance, Aristotle allows that we may be ignorant of certain particulars, but we are never excusably ignorant of the universal, which is, presumably, the good (1110b30-1111a1). That seems to mean that we are responsible for knowing that we should be aiming for the good and—at least on some general level—we are responsible for knowing what that good is. Applying his recurring example of medicine and health, this is analogous to saying that, though not everyone is a doctor, and therefore not everyone has the science or knowledge of medicine and its mastery of particulars, nevertheless everyone should know that the aim of the doctor is health (the good), and one should also know, at least in a general way, what health is. 3 �The difficulty, which seems to stem directly from Aristotle’s claim that ethical virtue, and therefore good character, comes to be by habituation, is that that appears to make us mere products of our upbringing rather than responsible, self-ruling or independent, agents. Aristotle highlights this difficulty when he says, But someone might say that all human beings pursue what appears good to them [tou phainomenou agathou], but they are not in control of [ou kurioi] how things appear; depending on the kind of person each man is, that is how the good appears to him [hopoios poth’ ekastos esti, toiouto kai to telos phainetai auto] (III.5, 1114a31-1114b1). If, as the objection suggests, we are merely products of our nature and our upbringing, with no control over how the good appears to us, then it cannot be the case that we are truly voluntary agents. For since the end guides and thereby to a great extent determines the means, we should be pitied and pardoned for our choices and our acts, but not held responsible, or blamed or punished (see III.1, 1111a1-2; cf. 1110a17-18). On the other hand, if Aristotle is correct in his claim that we truly have the capacity, and therefore the responsibility, most particularly to know what we are doing and to know that it is good (1110b30-1111a1), then it seems that something more than habituation—even if it is good habituation and good upbringing (see 1105b10-12)—is needed in order for us truly to achieve ethical virtue and to become truly good. 3 In short, the question the objector raises is whether or not, and to what extent and how, human beings truly do have the capacity to alter or overcome either their upbringing or their nature, such that they may justly be held responsible for knowing the good. For Aristotle to uphold his argument and defend it against the objector, he must show that how 3 In a lot of contemporary debates, the discussion is presented as an opposition between nature and nurture. Aristotle is presenting something quite different. Whether our dispositions are molded by nurture or (pre)determined by nature, both possibilities would seem to align with the “opponent” Aristotle is citing. For, while he focuses largely on habituation and training, he also acknowledges in a few passages that different individuals have different innate dispositions or characteristics, and that these may cause them to approach and to see the world differently. For example, some by nature seem to be more timid, whereas others seem to be more daring; some perhaps might be more angry whereas others might be more pacific. (See, for example, Aristotle’s discussion about how the mean appears differently to different people, II.7, 1107b27-1108a1; 1108a32-35; 1108b4-6.) In the end, both those who have been habituated and those who are predisposed are determined in their view of the end, and it is this that Aristotle wishes to challenge and, ultimately, reject. 4 �the end appears to an individual depends (to some extent at least), and is within the control of, the individual himself. And though he does say in Book III that we must be [held] responsible because we are in some way [pos] co-causes [sunaitioi] of our disposition or character (1114b22-23), he does not explain there how this is so. That task he appears to leave to Book VI. Aristotle begins Book VI stating that he has completed his discussion of the ethical virtues and that it is now time to discuss the other virtues, by which he means the virtues of the thinking or rational part of the soul (dianoia; peri tou logou echontos ) (1138b35-1139a3; 1139a5). The reader is inclined to think at this point that Aristotle has completed his discussion of virtuous character (hexis) and is now turning to examine the intellectual virtue (dianoetike) that he had mentioned at the beginning of Book II (II.1, 1103a14), in keeping with the apparent sharp divide he had drawn earlier between the desiring part of the soul and the rational part, and the distinct functions and corresponding virtues of each. What Aristotle actually does, however, is rather different. While he does indeed examine the rational part of the human soul (the part having reason: to logon echon), he claims from the beginning that the choice necessary for truly virtuous action requires that the desire be correct (orexin orthen) and the reasoning true (logon alethe) 1139a25), that “what reason affirms, desire must pursue” 4 (“ta auta ton men [i.e., logos] phanai, ten de [i.e., orexis] diokein,” 1139a25-26), and that “the good state for the [part] that thinks and acts is for truth to be in agreement [homologos echousa] with correct appetite” (1139a29-31). And, when he arrives at the end of Book VI, Aristotle announces: “We must consider virtue yet one more time (palin)” (1144b1). He then proceeds to distinguish between what he calls “natural virtue [phusike arête]” and “virtue in the strict sense [kuria arête].” 5 Natural virtue, Aristotle says, is in us since our birth, manifest in us since childhood (1144b4-5, 8). 6 And yet, he says, “we seek (zetoumen) something more, the good in 4 Here I follow W.D. Ross’s translation, from “The Basic Works of Aristotle,” ed. by Richard McKeon (Random House, 1941). 5 Ross’s translation. Ostwald translates “kuria” as true, but Ross’s translation seems closer to the sense of “authoritative” implied by the Greek. 6 Whether Aristotle means that each of us has all of these inclinations—for justice, moderation, etc.—in us already from birth, or whether some of us have some and some, others (accounting for the different natural dispositions or temperaments he seems to be referencing at the end of Book II. See II.7, 1107a28-1108a8; II.8, 1109a13-14; 5 �the strict sense [kurios], and to possess these qualities in a different way” (1144b6-8). In order to achieve virtue “in the strict sense” and to come to possess a virtuous character (the virtuous characteristics) “in another way,” according to Aristotle, we need the addition of nous (intelligence or mind) (1144b9). At first glance, it appears that nous should play no role in ethical virtue. For just as Aristotle had initially drawn a sharp divide between (irrational) desire and reason (I.13 ff.; see also 1139a3-5), so too at the beginning of Book VI he draws a sharp divide between practical reason and theoretical reason: practical reason is concerned with things that “may be otherwise”; theoretical reason, with “things whose first principles do not admit of being otherwise” (1139a6-8). Action takes place within the sphere that is the concern of practical reason; good choice and virtuous action require both ethical virtue and phronesis. Nous, on the other hand, is knowledge of unchanging first principles (see 1140b34-45), and is thus an excellence of theoretical reason. And yet without including theoretical reason in virtue, we would remain forever either as children (1144b8), or at the mercy of the chance effects of our nature and our upbringing (III.5, ca. 1114b1). In fact, although Aristotle opens Book VI with the ostensible purpose of defining virtuous practical reason (phronesis) in part by distinguishing it from other kinds of intellectual excellences, by the end of Book VI he is articulating the necessary role that theoretical reason has to play in phronesis and for human beings to become truly good and to act truly virtuously. And it is as he arrives at this conclusion that Aristotle truly answers the objection from Book III. For the objection implicitly denied that human beings have the capacity for theoretical reflection on and investigation of the good, insisting instead that we are slaves either to our upbringing or to our natures, or both. Even more importantly, however, it is especially fitting—and telling, in order to refute the objection from Book III—that Aristotle assigns nous as the kind of thinking and knowledge that we need to transform our natural dispositions into true ethical virtue. For nous is knowledge of the truth of ultimate first principles (we find Aristotle attributing to nous knowledge of “to eschaton” as well as of “archai”; see, e.g., VI.6, 1141a8; VI.11, 1143a29). In II.9, 1109b2-28), he does not make clear. The point, however, is that the natural inclination or disposition alone does not constitute the “orexin orthen” necessary for ethical virtue and truly virtuous action. 6 �the case of a universally acknowledged topic of theoretical reason, such as geometry or mathematics (see VI.8, 1142a13), nous would know the first principles (as opposed to science, episteme, which must simply presuppose them: NE 1139b30; Meta IV, 1005a12-14); science would know and be able to show apodeictically what follows from those first principles; and one would have sophia when one had both nous and episteme together (see VI.7, 1141a17-18: “it is necessary for the wise man to know not only what follows from first principles, but also that he have the truth concerning the first principles”). But what kind of knowledge is “nous”? Aristotle says that it is knowledge (or, many wish to claim, intuition or insight) into “ta eschata”—“ultimate particulars,” which may mean either ultimate facts (a particular in all of its idiosyncratic particularity) or first principles. Nous is the knowledge of both (1143a35-36). It is not, however, as science is, apodeictic. For many interpreters, what this leaves is that it is a kind of intuition, as Aristotle speaks of “the eye of the soul” which “sees” the end, which is the guiding principle (arche) of the truly phronimos decision and virtuous action (1144a28-1144b1). To understand this “eye of the soul” as [mere] intuition, however, seems to fit more with the way Aristotle spoke in Book III than with the account he is developing in Book VI. For in Book III, when Aristotle was giving voice to the skeptical objection about whether we could ever know the true (now called “kurios”) good, or whether we were confined to only the seeming good, he did his best to develop and support the objector’s contention as much as possible. Thus, we hear him saying there that “the aiming at the end is not self-chosen [authairetos], one must be born, as it were [hosper], having the vision [opsin] by which to judge beautifully and to choose what is truly good; and he is wellendowed by nature in whom this grows beautifully” (1114b6-8). Here in Book VI, however, the keen “vision of the soul” is not a gift of nature, but an achievement of theoretical reason (nous). To understand this, we need to recognize, and Aristotle does draw our attention to this, that deductive thinking or demonstration is not the only kind of thinking that is possible; there is also inductive thinking (epagoge): “induction is the principle (arche) of [knowledge of] the universal; whereas demonstration proceeds from universals” (1139b28-29). 7 One is reminded here of Socrates’ description, when he is discussing the divided line in Republic Book VI, of how 7 Following Ross’s translation. 7 �one proceeds in the highest part of the intelligible realm: beginning from hypotheses, one makes one’s way to the unhypothetical archen (Rep VI.510b6-7). When one arrives at the end of epagoge (induction), one “sees” the principle (arche), which seems to mean, it is obvious, it can be nothing else. And this might be why Aristotle calls nous a perception (aesthesis) at one point (1143b5). As he explains, it is not perception literally, namely, the kind associated with our five senses. Rather, it is the kind of perceiving we do “when we perceive that the triangle is the ultimate [figure]” (1142a27-29).8 To arrive at nous requires a process of thinking, a process of moving from particular to universal (see Post.An. II.19, esp. 100a14-100b3), “and this process does not cease until the indivisible concepts, the true universals, are established” (Post.An. 100b2). This is the kind of thinking, Aristotle seems to say by the end of Book VI, that is essential if one is to have the possibility of achieving true virtue, kuria arête, which involves knowledge of what is truly good. But investigation into what is truly good is precisely what Aristotle is engaged in in the Nicomachean Ethics, as he explores the question of what is the highest human good, the highest end of action. The Ethics, therefore, offers both an account and an example of what one must consider and how one’s investigation must proceed if one truly wishes to come to know the first principles, or the archai, and it makes it clear that what we need to do is to investigate and examine our hypotheses (or opinions or experiences— whatever we have gathered) if we are to arrive at these first principles. In the Metaphysics Aristotle calls the kind of thinking that investigates archai “philosophy” (1005b7). Many take this to be an exclusive category, available only to a few. And perhaps in the highest sense, philosophy is only available to a few. But beginning as he did in the Nicomachean Ethics with the function of human being, the work of which human being as human being is capable, Aristotle seems to be offering to us at the same time a more comprehensive account. For his argument suggests that human beings in general (that is, as a genus) have the capacity to wonder whether their understanding of the good is in fact correct (see 1144b6-7: though we are born with some natural virtue, nevertheless “we seek something more…”). We have this capacity because we have theoretical reason: this allows us to begin from particulars and arrive at universals; we desire and pursue particular goods, but are also 8 Here, I follow Ostwald. See also his note 37 about this passage. 8 �able to wonder about and inquire into “the good life.” Theoretical reason makes it possible for us to seek to support and defend the views we already have, but it also makes it possible for us to envision and explore other possibilities. Any human being who wonders if his understanding of the good is correct has already broken out of the deterministic cave articulated by the objector in Book III. But this possibility, Aristotle seems to be saying, is within all of us, it is part of what a human being is. However long the path toward nous may be, the tools for beginning on this path are already within us: they include the innate desire for the good, together with the capacity for thinking, both of particulars and of universals, both practically and theoretically. What we need in order to develop these tools, and our capacities is not more habituators. What we need are individuals who will prod and prompt us to question and investigate, and share with us the best examples they have experienced and learned so that we too may learn from them. The journey from where he began at the end of Book I, to where he arrives by the end of Book VI, is a long one. And yet Aristotle encapsulates it in one word. Where originally he had said that “virtue is in accordance with [kata] correct reason,” he now says that “our disposition is virtuous only if united with [meta] correct reason” (1144b26-27). “In accordance with” was consonant with his likening the desiring part of the soul to a child. “United with,” on the other hand, suggests a joint purpose, a functioning-together of character and reason without which we cannot fulfill our ergon or achieve the good. --Evanthia Speliotis Bellarmine University September 2014 9 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "What is Liberal Education For?" 2014 Conference Papers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make these items available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 9 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Having the capacity for theoretical reason Description An account of the resource Paper presented on October 18, 2014 by Evanthia Speliotis at What is Liberal Education For? : a conference at St. John's College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Speliotis, Evanthia Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Aristotle. Nicomachean ethics. Education, Humanistic Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 24004551 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/24798adbe346a3d3dc4153ace6b27428.pdf 591169e1d410f1c4366a99fb8feab286 PDF Text Text Uniting Freedom and Lawfulness: Kant on the Power and Limits of Aesthetic Education Samuel A. Stoner “Each original author must be a poet.” --Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View Immanuel Kant recognized the important role of education in human life, he took the question of the nature and meaning of education very seriously, and he understood education, in its highest form, as education for freedom. In this sense, Kant was a champion of liberal education. Our guiding question in what follows will be the question of whether and how Kant’s attempt to think through education as education for freedom can and should inform our own understanding of liberal education, today. We shall approach this question by examining Kant’s account of aesthetic education. Kant is one of the first great modern philosophers to take the educational significance of aesthetics seriously, and he founds a tradition of reflection on the moral, cultural, and metaphysical significance of beauty and fine art that is carried forward by Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, among many others—a tradition that continues to shape our thinking, today. This essay explores Kant’s account of aesthetic education, its power, and its limits. We shall see that, for Kant, aesthetic education is especially concerned with the realization of freedom in and for human life. My hope is that thinking through some of the questions that lie in the background of Kant’s investigation of aesthetic education and Kant’s way of approaching these questions through an analysis of aesthetic education will help us to further our own thinking about liberal education and the status of beauty and the arts therein. I. Kant on the Problem(s) of Freedom 1 �To begin, it is important to recall that Kant self-consciously carries forward the Enlightenment’s emphasis on the importance freedom. Indeed, Kant’s entire philosophical project can be understood as an attempt to define and promote true human freedom. That said, Kant recognizes that certain problems confront our attempts to realize freedom in the world. Four such problems are especially relevant for Kant’s account of aesthetic education. First, Kant’s critique of reason uncovers an important tension between nature and freedom—“an incalculable gulf” between the causally-determined phenomenal world on one hand and reason’s moral vocation, on the other. 1 However, reason qua moral always already demands that this incalculable gulf be bridged for the sake reason’s own moral projects. Thus, reason’s self-critique seems to undermine reason’s own-most demands, thereby calling the possibility and meaning rational, philosophical inquiry into question. The question of whether and how the tension between nature and freedom can be resolved is of fundamental importance to Kant’s entire critical project and especially to his analysis of beauty in the third Critique. Second, Kant notes an important difference between external, political freedom and internal, moral and/or intellectual freedom. And, though Kant claims that political freedom is possible even in a city of devils, he indicates that the strong emphasis on the primacy of political freedom in the modern liberal state tends to overshadow the more fundamental importance of moral and intellectual freedom. Indeed, Kant ultimately concludes that moral and intellectual freedom are vital conditions of a lasting, free, republican state. The question of how to synthesize internal and external freedom constitutes the vital core of Kant’s political theory. Third, Kant recognizes a tension between tradition and creative freedom. For, Kant sees that the great artworks of the past tend to become models for imitation rather than examples of the power and 2 �possibilities of originality. The question of how it is possible to be influenced by tradition without being enslaved by it occupies a central place in Kant’s analysis of genius. Finally, Kant acknowledges an important tension between philosophical doctrine, which determines thinking from without, and philosophical reflection, which embodies the freedom to think for oneself about all philosophical doctrines. This tension emerges most clearly in Kant’s distinction between historical cognition and rational cognition in the first Critique, and motivates Kant’s famous claim that one can never learn philosophy but only how to philosophize. 2 The question of how philosophers can promote philosophical reflection is of crucial importance for Kant, both as a thinker in his own right and as an author who writes for other thinkers. In what follows, I will attempt to draw out the ways that aesthetic education, on Kant’s account, addresses each of these four tensions. II. Beauty and Moral Education Any discussion of Kant’s account of aesthetic education must begin with his claim that beauty is the symbol of the morally good. 3 Though Kant suggests a deep connection between beauty and morality, he does not identify the beautiful with the good, as if the contemplation of beautiful objects necessarily makes us better human beings. Instead, Kant argues that beauty contributes to moral formation indirectly, by preparing those who encounter beauty for moral judgment. More specifically, Kant highlights a formal similarity between judgments of taste and moral judgments—both are disinterested. By habituating us to disinterested judging, encounters with beauty prepare us to disregard our own private interests for the sake of reason’s moral law. Indeed, Kant concludes that beauty’s symbolization of morality points toward a sort of resolution to the tension between nature and freedom—“taste,” Kant writes, “makes possible the transition from sensible charm 3 �to…habitual moral interest without too violent a leap.” 4 The question of the meaning of Kant’s subtle acknowledgement that the transition between nature and freedom always requires a more or less violent leap merits careful reflection. For our purposes, though, the significant point is that Kant indicates that encounters with beauty indirectly contribute to moral development and that an aesthetic education that exposes its students to beauty contributes, if only indirectly, to humanity’s moral progress. III. Beauty and Social Unification In addition to noting its indirect role in moral education, Kant highlights aesthetic education’s social and political significance. For, strikingly, in the concluding paragraphs of his analysis of aesthetic judgment, Kant suddenly turns his attention to the great difficulties that confront the “task of uniting freedom” with law. 5 Despite humanity’s “vigorous drive toward the lawful sociability,” Kant notes that laws are made and propagated by a small subsection of society and will therefore seem alien and alienating to many of the people they govern, like external authorities that work to determine thoughts and actions from without. 6 As a result, most people will tend to follow laws out of fear, not because they respect these laws and freely adopt them as their own. But, the free adherence to law by all citizens is a necessary condition of a free, enduring, and morally good political society. Thus, we must wonder: how is it possible to unite the few, who make up the legislative class, with the many, who make up the bulk of society? How is it possible to bring forth a unified society whose members do not simply bow to authoritative laws imposed from without but rather freely adopt their society’s laws as their own? Kant reasonably claims that such social unification depends on “the art of the reciprocal communication of the ideas of the most educated part [of society] with the 4 �cruder.” 7 But, how is such reciprocal communication possible? Kant highlights the importance of discovering a shared “standard for taste,” i.e., a common stock of beautiful images. For, taste is “a universal human sense”—a natural capacity, shared by all human beings, that allows one to feel the pleasurable intellectual activity that grounds all aesthetic experience. 8 And, because aesthetic pleasure justly claims to be “valid for mankind in general,” the capacity of taste ultimately grounds the universal communicability of aesthetic pleasure. 9 Accordingly, the cultivation of a common set of beautiful images opens up the possibility of a mode of meaningful communication about these images that transcends social differences. What is more, such communication about beauty lays the ground for (1) a wide-spread recognition of the shared humanity of all members of society, (2) a “universal feeling of sympathy” with and for other human beings, and ultimately (3) the shared capacity to communicate intimately with others, regardless of their social class, about more general ideas, questions, and problems. 10 Accordingly, Kant concludes that a shared approach to beauty through a common stock of beautiful images forms a middle ground between “higher culture and contented nature” that can mediate social, political, and economic differences. 11 In this way, the aesthetic education of society can contribute to the unification of society and lay the ground for a political culture in which the rule of law is united with individual autonomy. IV. The Aesthetic Education of the Artist Thus far, we have focused primarily on the more or less universal moral and political significance of aesthetic education, and we have discovered two different ways aesthetic education might cultivate freedom in and for humanity. At this point, however, 5 �we shall take up a more particular aspect of Kant’s exploration of aesthetic education—his characterization of the aesthetic education of artists. Kant argues that “beautiful art is possible only as a product of genius.” 12 Genius, here, names “the inborn predisposition of mind…through which nature gives the rule to art.” 13 More specifically, genius refers to the natural capacity that allows an artist to select and express an “aesthetic idea”—i.e., a powerful image that provokes aesthetic pleasure in those who encounter it. Thus, genius describes the special talent that allows an artist to create beautiful art. Unsurprisingly, genius’s beautiful art plays a vital role in the education of other artists, and Kant indicates that it does so in two distinct ways. First, genius’s beautiful artworks serve as models for imitation. Kant sees that genius’s beautiful art can and often does make such a deep impression on its audience that it indelibly shapes and permanently influences its audience’s approach to art. In Kant’s terms, genius’s beautiful artworks serve others “as a standard or rule for judging.” 14 Importantly, though, judgment plays a vital role in artistic production. Thus, genius’s art will inform the creative processes of the artists it influences—if and when an artist encounters a powerful work of art, his experience of this work shapes his notion of what a great artwork should be and guides his attempts to create such beautiful artworks in the future. Accordingly, Kant concludes that genius’s beautiful art often gives rise to (1) a form of imitation, in which an artist’s productive activity is wholly determined by rules that are extracted from a genius’s artwork(s) and ultimately to (2) ‘schools’ or traditions that provide “a methodical instruction in accordance with rules” to their students in an attempt to carry forward the legacy and distinctive style of their founder(s). 15 6 �All that said, imitation is foreign to genius. Genius, on Kant’s account, is characterized precisely by its originality—its creation in accordance with rules that originate in its own nature. By inspiring methodical imitation, then, genius’s art seems to foreclose the possibility of future geniuses. We are led to wonder: Can genius contribute to the aesthetic education of other geniuses? How can new geniuses ever arise out of an old tradition? How is the aesthetic education of genius possible? Kant argues that, in special cases, genius can provoke artists to abandon their desire to imitate great artworks in order to attend to their own natural capacity for selecting and expressing aesthetic ideas, independently of external influence. Kant names this distinctive mode of imitation succession (Nachfolge). Succession is an especially important mode of influence, for Kant, because it allows genius’s art to inform a student without undermining the student’s originality and, therefore, the student’s ability to prove his own genius. Of course, succession is difficult to achieve, and genius is an extremely rare talent. But, unlike scholastic, methodical imitation, succession holds out the possibility that genius can contribute to the aesthetic education of future geniuses by (1) freeing the potential genius from the constraint of tradition, (2) freeing him for original artistic production, and thereby (3) freeing him to participate in the tradition as a new link the great chain of genius. All that said, it would be a mistake to conclude that genius is defined wholly by its originality or that it wholly transcends scholastic instruction. Indeed, Kant is highly critical of the unreflective and unrestrained pursuit of originality. He recognizes the possibility of “original nonsense” that cannot, as such, be beautiful, and he demands that genius cultivate a form of “discipline” that allows its products to remain purposive (i.e., beautiful) for their 7 �audience so that these products can enjoy “a posterity among others…in an ever progressing culture.” 16 Thus, Kant claims that “there is no beautiful art in which something mechanical, which can be grasped and followed according to rules, and thus something academically correct, does not constitute the essential condition of the art,” and that “genius can only provide rich material for products of art; its elaboration and form require a talent that has been academically trained, in order to make a use of it that can stand up to the power of judgment.” 17 Though they cannot themselves produce genius, then, the schools are breeding grounds for genius, providing potential geniuses with the skills and discipline necessary for the production of beautiful art. To realize their vocation, however, potential geniuses must benefit from academic training without succumbing to the scholastic tendency toward methodical imitation. The aesthetic education of genius simultaneously cultivates a regard for tradition’s power and an independence from tradition’s authority. Genius’s art inherits a tradition, while at the same time transcending this tradition. Genius, in other words, embodies a freedom from tradition that nevertheless harmonizes with tradition’s lawful character. Genius participates in tradition by transforming tradition. Genius, for Kant, is the soul of living tradition. V. Beauty’s Philosophical Significance Having discussed aesthetic education’s significance for morality, politics, and art, we are now in a position to begin our approach to a fourth very important but oft overlooked form of aesthetic education in Kant, namely, the aesthetic education of the philosopher. In what follows, I will suggest that the philosopher’s aesthetic education is two-fold. First, Kant’s fundamental analysis of beauty unearths an important metaphysical insight; for, it ultimately allows him to reflect on the possibility of a “supersensible 8 �substratum of humanity,” in and through which nature and freedom are unified. 18 This reflection attains its full clarity and depth in Kant’s resolution to the antinomy of taste. Here, Kant argues that judgments of taste depend on an “indeterminate and also indeterminable” concept of “the supersensible substratum of all our faculties” because the existence of such a substratum is the necessary condition of the purposive but free accord of the imagination’s spontaneous activity with the understanding’s lawfulness, which accord grounds aesthetic pleasure and, thereby, the experience of beauty. 19 Though Kant’s critical restriction of knowledge to the realm of possible experience necessarily implies a unbridgeable gulf between nature and freedom and, by implication, the impossibility of knowledge of the ground of the unity of nature and freedom in the subject, Kant maintains that a thoroughgoing investigation of the meaning of beauty provides insight into the possibility of this unity and even an awareness of its actuality. Thus, Kant’s investigation of beauty teaches him about the possibility of the self-consistency of reason and, by implication, the possibility of the meaningfulness of philosophical inquiry in general. It is for this reason that CPJ is not only the conclusion but also the culmination of Kant’s critical philosophy. Second, in addition to providing metaphysical insight, Kant’s aesthetics also sheds light on the nature and meaning of philosophical activity, as such. More specifically, Kant’s account of the aesthetic education of genius and the process of genial succession elucidates the structure of the problem of philosophical influence and begins to point the way toward this problem’s solution. The problem of philosophical influence concerns philosophical communication and emerges clearly in the first Critique’s distinction between historical cognition, as a passive way of knowing involving memorization, and rational cognition, as 9 �an active way of knowing in which one thinks for oneself. 20 Historical cognition, according to Kant, is a form of methodical imitation (Nachahmung) and it ultimately transforms one into “a plaster cast of a living human being” formed “according to an alien reason.” 21 Rational cognition, on the other hand, is always drawn from “the universal spring of reason” and embodies philosophical reflection qua the dynamic process of thinking through a question or a problem for oneself, independently of all external authorities. With this distinction in mind, Kant notes that systematically argued and powerfully expressed philosophical doctrines tend to promote merely historical cognition rather than philosophical reflection. But, Kant emphasizes the great importance of free, philosophical reflection. Thus, the question arises: how is it possible to inherit and learn from a philosophical tradition without being determined by this tradition. How is philosophical education possible? At this point, I hope that the formal parallel between the problem confronting philosophical education on the one hand, and the problem that seemed to confront the aesthetic education of genius, on the other, is beginning to emerge—both are grounded in the question of how it is possible for a teacher to influence his pupil without simply indoctrinating this pupil and thereby undermining the pupil’s freedom to think or create for himself. We have already seen that Kant accounts for the aesthetic education of genius by appealing to succession (Nachfolge), the unique mode of influence whereby a genius inspires a potential genius to imitate his original way of producing beautiful artworks rather than the beautiful artworks he produces. Now, it is crucial to note that Kant does not limit the notion of succession to the sphere of genial influence. In fact, Kant argues that succession answers to the more general question of how the great books—“classical” 10 �works, as he calls them—ought to contribute to human thinking. 22 Kant argues that the great authors of the past must not “make their successors (Nachfolgenden) into mere imitators (Nachahmern),” but rather “by means of their way-of-proceeding (Verfahren)…put others on the right path for seeking out…principles in themselves and thus for following their own, often better, course.” 23 Kant explicitly identifies this mode of influence as a form succession (Nachfolge), which he now describes, in general terms, as “any influence that the products of an exemplary author”—and here, he means any exemplary author—have on their readers that allow these readers “to create from the same sources from which the [exemplary author] created,” and to learn from their predecessors “only the manner of conducting oneself in doing so.” 24 Succession in other words is the essence of a liberal, philosophical education that teaches its students to think for themselves in and through the careful study of the great works of the past. All that said, the crucial question remains open: How is succession possible? Or, how is philosophical education possible? Or again, how is liberal education possible? My own thought is that Kant looks to and learns from the example of genius and especially the example of poetry in his attempt to answer these questions. For, the example of great poetry reveals that poets achieve succession in and through the provocative images (aesthetic ideas) they produce. I would argue that Kant learns from the poets that philosophers must supplement their powerful logical arguments, which naturally strive to determine their audience’s thinking, with poetic images in order to provoke their readers to think for themselves about these arguments rather than simply accepting them as authoritative doctrines. Unfortunately, I cannot defend this claim here, but I will 11 �nevertheless suggest that the less on Kant learns from the poets is the vital core of Kant’s own aesthetic education in the third Critique. VI. Conclusion Kant interpretation aside, though, the question of the possibility of the mode of influence Kant calls succession—a mode of influence that allows one to learn from a tradition while maintaining sufficient freedom to think for oneself about this tradition, its meaning, and its future—seems to me to lie very close to the heart of the question of whether and why liberal education is still important to, possible in, and necessary for today’s world. It should be a very serious question for those of us who love and study the Great Books and especially for those of us who attempt to teach students through these books. This question should challenge us, and I believe its answer is less obvious than we often suspect. And if Kant cannot provide us with a final answer, he can help us to formulate the question and think through its significance. We carry forward the spirit, if not the letter, of Kant’s thought by working to answer this question for ourselves: How can we achieve succession in our own thinking and teaching? 5.175. A835/B863 ff. 3 5.351 ff. 4 5.354. 5 5.355. 6 5.355. 7 5.356. 8 5.356. 9 5.356. 10 5.355. 11 5.356. 12 5.307. 13 5.307. 14 5.308. 15 5.318. 1 2 12 �5.308, 5.319. 5.310. 18 5:340. 19 5.339, 5.344. 20 A835/B863 ff. 21 A836/B864. 22 5.282. 23 5.283. 24 5.283. 16 17 13 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "What is Liberal Education For?" 2014 Conference Papers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make these items available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 13 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Uniting freedom and lawfulness : Kant on the power and limits of aesthetic education Description An account of the resource Paper presented on October 17, 2014 by Samuel Stoner at What is Liberal Education For? : a conference at St. John's College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stoner, Samuel A. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-17 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Education, Humanistic Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 24004552 https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9c5aafb67769634f5f5871b56dcec9b1.pdf be6a9bfb24f51a321802bc1f64061640 PDF Text Text �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "What is Liberal Education For?" 2014 Conference Papers Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make these items available online. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. John's College Meem Library Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data paper Page numeration Number of pages in the original item. 11 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Heideggerian perfectionism and the phenomenology of the pedagogical truth event Description An account of the resource Paper presented on October 18, 2014 by Iain Thomson at What is Liberal Education For? : a conference at St. John's College on the 50th Anniversary of the Santa Fe campus. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thomson, Iain D. (Iain Donald), 1968- Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available St. John's College Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Santa Fe, NM Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online. Type The nature or genre of the resource text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Subject The topic of the resource Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. Education, Humanistic Language A language of the resource English Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 24004553