Why we (the LIST) welter in the parching winds of words

[public domain]

Words are signs of natural facts. The use of natural
history is to give us aid in supernatural history: the
use of the outer creation, to give us language for the
beings and changes of the inward creation. Every word
which is used to express a moral or intellectual fact,
if traced to its root, is found to be borrowed from
some material appearance. Right means straight; wrong
means twisted. Spirit primarily means wind;
transgression, the crossing of a line…

--Emerson

A new name may provide a new kind of truth -- a new
way to define the reality of a person or an object. At
the beginning of The Deerslayer, Hurry Harry and Natty
engage in a long philosophical discussion about Lake
Otsego: "Have the governor's, or the king's people
given this lake a name?" asks Deerslayer, partly
answering his own question by noting that, as the area
has not been explored or mapped thoroughly, "it's
likely they've not
bethought them to disturb natur' with a name." The
implication is clear: a name, implying knowledge,
understanding and hence control, is a disturbing sign
of human power.1 Harry's response, with a wilderness
dweller's laughter at the ignorance of map-makers, is
to recount how he once deliberately confused a
surveyor who asked him about the region:

     "I'm glad it has no name, resumed Deerslayer,
"or, at least, no pale face name, for their
christenings always foretell waste and destruction."
(II, 524)2

http://webserver1.oneonta.edu/external/cooper/articles/ala/1990ala-morton.html

First, those that read GR as a Zeitgeist novel may in
fact be in the majority here, but they are fast
becoming a minority everywhere. At least we hope this
is true. That being said, I have always argued that
the guys that read GR when it was first published
(Doug, for example) have something very important to
teach us about Pynchon. Of course, Doug and Co. think
they know what only they can know ("those that know,
know") and this political "wisdom" is what Pynchon
wants us to know too. Even if Doug & Co. are correct,
their pedagogical methods are so "teacher centered"
and arrogant that they have little chance of success.
Unless one defines success in the classroom as a small
group of obstreperous boys sitting in the back of the
room making farting noises. 

For Doug & CO. 

Shor, Ira (1996). When Students Have Power:
Negotiating Authority in a Critical Pedagogy. Chicago:
University
of Chicago Press..

Reviewed by Tom Heaney

Dr. Shor has written a literary and detailed
description of life in the undergraduate classroom,
warts and all, viewed through the magnifying lens of
social and pedagogical theory. The work complements
earlier, more theoretical studies--Freire in the
Classroom, Critical Teaching and Everyday Life--which,
although replete with illustrations, lacked the
cohesive, integral narrative of a case history.

http://www.nl.edu/ace/References/Shor1.html
 


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