Or is he too old?

[Paul Mackin]

On Nov 9, 2006, at 12:24 AM, Paul Nightingale wrote:

> From Paul M:
>
> 'Did Kauffmann's really mean to advance the idea that "school puts  
> me off
> thinking?"'.
>
> Well, that was my caricature (= cartoon version), which I think was  
> less
> (certainly no more?) evasive than Terrance's caricature of my  
> earlier post.

Yes, I appreciate that. I just used it as a take off place to state  
what I wished Kauffmann had been able to ennunciate better.


>
> On anti-intellectualism vs post-intellectualism:
>
> K says clearly that academic study, the packaging of film and  
> literary texts
> in the classroom, at the very least undermines a love of reading,  
> if it
> doesn't kill it off altogether. I suppose the inference, as opposed  
> to the
> actual statement, might be that academic study should, ideally,  
> support and
> nurture said love. The inference might be that students don't  
> appreciate the
> work they have done, otherwise it wouldn't stop them reading. The  
> 'killing
> if off' bit is an argument that has appeared on pynchon-l previously.
>
> The point I made was that K, although he does mention exam work,  
> doesn't
> make explicit the importance of assessment regimes in shaping the  
> experience
> of education: students don't read/watch films, they read/watch  
> films in
> order to be assessed (and by definition assessment finds you  
> wanting; it is
> designed to exclude). This point remains valid whether or not  
> you've been
> force-fed post-structuralism or anything else.
>
> I certainly think it's possible that, upon graduation, the former  
> student
> goes about their business as "general good citizens" (K's phrase)  
> and this,
> for whatever reason, excludes reading for a variety of reasons that  
> have
> little or nothing to do with the experience of education, per se. I  
> don't
> know that I'm a general good citizen, but as a wage-slave ...
>
> PS:
>
> The changed subject heading was accidental, for whatever reason I  
> failed to
> complete the phrase. In a vain attempt at self-assessment I'll say  
> that,
> inadvertently, it works.
>
> Perhaps the next version should be 'Or is he?'.
>
>
>