Now THAT's Crazy

I suppose certain sports lend themselves to matches like this better than others. I wouldn't mind pitching to an elephant, but I wouldn't be willing to play American football against one.

"It's very difficult. When the elephants had the ball, it was quite risky to attack. . . . I could end up in a hospital."
Kriangsak Nachawee
a university student who played in a man-vs.-elephant soccer game yesterday in Ayutthaya, Thailand. The match ended in a 3-3 tie.

Responsible Teaching

This is an interesting analysis of the situation at Harvard with the infamous president and Cornel West, though it's lengthy if you're pressed for time. I find it particularly insightful when Mr. Renehan articulates the privilage and heavy responsibilities of teaching, which I've posted here.

West . . . finds it agreeable to cultivate the image but seems impatient with the substance: the mundane mental disciplines of a liberal academic. Excellent teachers inspire with their passion for the conscientious pursuit of (true!) truth, not merely with their passion. They help students learn to come by their views wisely – that is, carefully and independently. West’s teaching style, by contrast, is a wink to students who would wholesale adopt his views. We know the truth, you and I. We’ve done with thinking – now what are we going to do?

These are the tools of regressivism and prejudice. And however “progressive” West’s intent in wielding them, his effect can only be to encourage his students’ worst intellectual tendencies – deep and perennial human tendencies that are not compatible with liberalism, and which it is the highest purpose of education to temper. A man of the left oughtn’t need to be reminded that liberalism seeks to dissect traditionalism, not to mime it. . . .

An idea, wielded by an ideologue, becomes a blunt instrument that pounds sharp and discerning intellects into dull agglomerations of prejudice. . . . The university, bizarrely, has been more effective at doing this than any fundamentalism or fad – perhaps because intellectuals, not content simply to have and adore their prejudices, seek to justify them with reason. In the worst circumstances, this process of “rationalization” (ha) can be intensely conducive to evil and totally suppressive of the basic urgings of conscience. (The Cambodian intellectuals who would later distinguish themselves with the murder of a fifth of their countrymen were educated at Western universities. In Paris.) In a world driven, finally, by ideas, poorly rationalized prejudice can become grandly realized catastrophe.

I'm easily reminded of James, who cautions that "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness" (3:1). It seems that teaching students irresponsible scholarship is more than laziness - it is an act of dishonesty. This article is an interesting examination of a person who seems to have believed the praise thrown his way - to his students' and his own detriment.

This Heavy Silence

Nicole Mazzarella’s This Heavy Silence is a good read, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to write anything so vivid in detail intriguing in plot, but as a reader, I was admittedly pestered by a couple things as I progressed. The first was what I would call heavy-handed symbolism. Early in the book a ewe needs to be forced to accept its lamb, and at the end Dottie (the protagonist) grows a flower, and each of these seems unnecessary outside of its role as a symbol. I like a symbol to be tied into the story so subtly that one might miss it as a symbol if not paying attention – that’s how it is in real life. These symbols more remind me of the talk in To Kill a Mockingbird, when Atticus explains to his kids that they are not to shoot mockingbirds – the scene’s role is only to set up the coming symbol. It interrupts the story rather than flowing with it.

The second thing that bugged me was that I had trouble accepting the protagonist, Dottie, as real. I am not sure why this is, but I was willing to admit that my own narrow-mindedness might have been the cause – maybe I’d never met a woman like Dottie and so assumed that no one could be like that. But even after being willing to admit that, doubt tracks me. What is it about this woman that does not seem to make sense? The part that doesn’t click for me is that she is a bull-headed woman telling a reflective story. At times I saw her insight restricted by her personality, but more often it seemed like Dottie made observations and generated insights that were insightful enough that I had difficulty believing her trouble – how could a woman who is able to reflect on that experience so effectively not have had a glimpse of that insight while going through it?

I enjoyed the characters and found the conflicts intriguing, but I think this book would have worked for me better if it were told from a third-person point of view.