Headlines of the Week (Or Whatever)

Because I am a giant English nerd.


E-Prime would make language so much better.

On word spacing and incapping.

Why two spaces after a period isn’t wrong (or, the lies typographers tell about history).

The once and future e-book: on reading in the digital age.

Monster Porn Is the Latest Wrinkle in Self-Published Smut

On Education and Language

From my Honors Colloquium II mid-term exam:

“The teacher’s thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the students’ thinking. The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thoughts on them.”

–Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed: The Banking Concept of Education

Killing Warfare

From my weekly comments for Honors Colloquium:

“Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too - all his life long. The mind that judges and desire and decides - made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions... Suggestions from the State." -Director Malthus, Brave New World

This week’s topic was warfare and evil. Our class exercise on Wednesday focused on a replacement for warfare. All of our own attempts to replace warfare have accepted that warfare is a normal part of our society for which we must account; almost as a force of will, or power, because the tendency to war is seen as a part of human nature. But is it?

Me on Thoreau on Nature

From an in-class writing prompt in Honors Composition II:

Thoreau seems to see Nature as an infant see its mother; large and encompassing, a nurturing provider, and easy to take for granted. He describes Nature in almost religious terms, as an entity that is separate but still innate. His view is almost entirely non-scientific, with information gathered for the purpose of joy, rather than for critical analysis, which was the vogue at the time.

Thoreau views Nature by way of Man; his writing is a constant comparison of the two. While he sees Nature separately, he defines it in terms of Mankind; how it illuminates the character of Man, how it contrasts from Man, and what those things tell us about both Nature and Man.

Whitman & Thoreau

From an in-class writing exercise from Honors Composition II:

Both Thoreau and Whitman seem to share a firm belief in both the power and majesty of the world around us. They both seek to commune with Nature and to pay great attention to its infinite detail. Thoreau, however, seems to calmly accept the facets of Nature's visage that so disturb Whitman. To Thoreau, Nature seems to represent the very epitome of truth and honesty, whereas Whitman does not disdain to suspect or question Nature. Last, Thoreau sees himself as a part of the natural world, while Whitman views himself separately, with Nature as a frighteningly higher entity.

On Interdependence

From my weekly comments for Honors Colloquium:

“The first [interpretation] is "this arises because that is," which comes down to saying that things do exist in some way, but nothing exists on its own. The second is "this, having been produced, produces that," which means that nothing can be its own cause. Or we could say that everything is in some way interdependent with the world..” –Matthieu Ricard, The Quantum and the Lotus

The postulate of interdependence in Universe in a Grain of Sand strikes me as sort of the ultimate religious syllogism; if a then b. It is, then, a logical idea; and one of words and language. It is also a religious idea, present in Christianity, in Buddhism, in Unitarian Universalism, and others. It is an economic idea and a scientific one, because all of our actions affect the world, as a butterfly might cause a hurricane vis-à-vis chaos theory. The idea of interdependence, then, is interdependent. I find this idea delightful.

Counterbalance

Thoreau's "Economy" covers a great deal of material, with a focus on the search for self-actualization. According to Thoreau, this begins by determining the necessities of life, which cannot be found in the ordinary labor of men or the search for wealth and luxury in everyday life. Our socialization towards obtaining luxury crowds our lives and minds, leaving no room to question even the most basic premises of our existence or to enjoy the same. Thoreau questions humankind’s tendency to overshadow the minds of younger generations with trivia and tradition. This indoctrination teaches our youth to accept the values and beliefs of our older generations, without teaching them to examine the same or to require proof of any their claims. He believes age has no benefit over youth and points out that even ancient philosophers fell prey to this tendency, writing about the vagaries of nail length and forestry in addition to great works of thought. He disdains the purported wisdom of elders and relates the tale of a farmer, who spends his day staring at the evidence that disproves his long-held beliefs, without ever questioning them. Thoreau takes this as a sign that humankind would do better were we to look to the universe for counsel, rather than our elders and neighbors.

On the Topic of Love (Fiction)

From an in-class writing prompt in Honors Colloquium II:

When I think of love, I think of his taste in music, and bouncing to the same songs while in different rooms engaged in different tasks. I think of him dancing across the living room while I die of laughter on his couch. I think of listening to his thoughts regarding his day and of his interest in amusing anecdotes from my classes, not because he gives a shit about Composition or because I know anything about communications equipment, but because he gives a shit about me and because anything involving him is interesting to me. I think of his appreciation when I make dinner and of his ham-n-Brie sandwiches. I think of lightly scratching his back while we’re lying in bed.

On Multiple Intelligences

From my weekly comments for Honors Colloquium:
 

“If I know you're very good in music, I can predict with just about zero accuracy whether you're going to be good or bad in other things.” –Howard Gardner

This week, we touched upon Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Howard Gardner was a developmental psychologist who proposed that we differentiate intelligence by modalities, rather than by primarily linguistic standards. This idea was very interesting to me, and I took several Multiple Intelligence quizzes to see how I fared.

I completed three different versions of the Multiple Intelligence assessment and came up with different answers every time. (See the chart for my results.) In theory, the assessment should identify one to three categories in which I would be the strongest; where my talents would lie, essentially. In practice, no category was a clear ‘winner’, nor was there a single ‘loser’ category. I’m either pretty alright at everything, or this theory needs some work.

While his theory is very interesting, it doesn’t seem like it has very solid criteria. One of the problems that jumped out at me, aside from my mixed results, is that, based on my understanding of the brain, logical thought and mathematical thought shouldn’t be paired. Although the fact that they are paired might serve to explain the contradictory scores that I received in that category. In the end, this theory was interesting an worthwhile to read about, right alongside phrenology.

Slavery Writing Exercise

From an in-class writing prompt in Honors Colloquium II:

Slavery is an institution that weakens our entire society. It is like a virus that sickens all, though many are outwardly asymptomatic. To see another as chattel is to devalue humanity, and thus yourself. We are all worthless while we attach a price to even one.

On Language

From my weekly comments for Honors Colloquium:

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
–George Orwell, 1984

This week’s readings and discussion centered on the idea of language. We did not discuss language itself, which we would call semantics; rather, we centered on language as a concept. What species have it? What forms does it take? Into what form do we shape language and how does our language, in turn, shape our society? It was strange to think of language as an idea, as opposed to a universal constant. Having not considered language before, again rather than semantics, I found our discussion to be interesting and enlightening, and the readings even more so.

Tree Knot Writing Exercise

The actual photo looked significantly
more like an O'Keefe painting, which
is to say suspiciously like a vagina.
Until I get a copy of the original,
this placeholder will suffice.

From an in-class writing prompt in Honors Colloquium II:

 
I see it from an odd direction. Thick oil paint. An O'Keefe? No, it's a tree, solid and uncompromising. Perhaps it suffered a lynching and is filled with the noises of mortal men. Maybe initials are scratched into a hidden part of the trunk. Perhaps small items are hidden in the knot, a testament to children and mockingbirds.

It is literally a tree, with branches, trunk, and knot. It is figuratively a breadth of possibilities.