GRGR(15) - Correct Reading (was: a thread too long)

[Josh Kortbein]

Gary Thompson writes:
>This is perhaps my third end-of-year w/ e-mail and listservs and such, but
>(being an academic) I've noticed how much of an increase there is in the volume
>and quality of posts to the P-list. Is this a general phenomenon? My delusions?
>The reading recently has been wonderful, but with end-of-semester stuff to do
>there's no way to pitch into it . . . or perhaps that's the point, perhaps
>people have more incentive to evade that work, and then there's buying gifts,

It varies. Over the years some lists I've been on only really heat up
during breaks. For others, it's near the end of a semester, or near
holidays. For others, near the _beginnings_ of semesters.

Avoidance of work seems to be involved in all cases, though. :)

>Welcome, Josh. This may not sit well with Doug's reminders about the Real World
>but there are those who see the shoe on the other foot--rather than using texts
>to justify one's pet theory about literature or culture or anything else,it may
>be that we are possessed by theories, or rather we are who we are as the result
>of being raised and ejucated and conditioned into certain ways of configuring
>that real world. It's only when we are reminded of this process by coming into
>conflict with another, conflicting way of configuring--because of another
>person, because of another text, because of figures we thought we knew such as
>the Mad Scientist or the Nazi Rocketjockey--that we have a chance to see those
>strings. And then the first impulse and easiest explanation is to blame the
>others' conditioning.

Not _only_ - some of us are interested in the strings, themselves. :)

>artifacts, are also goads to me to look at our own beliefs. We did, after all,
>elect Nixon and Reagan and Clinton and the rest.

Aside from the fact that I didn't vote in the last presidential
election, _I_ never elected anyone president. :)




Josh

-- 
Following the tour, Mercury Rev again went their separate ways; its
members found menial jobs, moved in with their parents, or earned
money by participating in medical experiments.
     - from the AMG