Conservative Butterflies Caught In The Education Web

Saturday March 10, 2007 Did you ever notice how many Political Opinion Blogs of a distinct Dexter Alar Rampant type (right wing...rampant) are manned by Captain Nemos who are Ph.D.s? Furthermore, many are still behind restraints in, or are recently sprung from, the sacred hoosegows of Academe? Frightening. What have they gone through? (I have decided to try something new out. I will publish this post...then add to it as time goes on. It shall be a "work in progress" as the intelligentsia are so fond of saying. )

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Sunday, March 11, 2007

O.K. Now about this topic....oops! forgot! Let me stop this particular thread......

>>End Weird Rant<<

O.K.

Ooops. The Bold font setting is still on.

There. (Is it a Russell paradox if the expression "Bold Font" is in regular pica?)

I have already received a comment on this posting in its unfinished, barely conceived state. I count this phenomenon to be so very odd, that I am filled with forboding. So I shall write what I have in mind to write before opening up that little IED of Opinion from a friend or foe.

If you do not hear from me, I shall have thrown myself upon it as it exploded. That, or something like "I fall upon the thorns of life..."

There are many blogs of educators. Some are what the boobs call Rightie, or Conservative; some are Leftie, or Liberal.

I actually do not try to call them anything at all. I am serious. If I do happen to read them, I try to recall a emblematic posting that struck me.

This I put into the storehouse of the mind...frighteningly like that one in Stephen King's Dreamcatcher. Right, eh? Jonesy?

I try to remember the Blog from the emblematic, or typical, post. Then I either shudder, smile, go "oh, yes.", or laugh out loud. Nurse Memory can go away, knowing she'd done her bit.

I cannot really use this phenomenon in my "favorites" section of my Microsoft VirusMotel Internet thingey, so I am forced to rely on Rightie and Leftie. To be quite honest (and my better judgement points out that it knows no reason why I should be), I use 'conservative' and 'liberal' for standard blurbs of literary pretensions, and I use 'rightie' and 'leftie' for blogs.

My nephews say this shows my underlying snobbery. I say does not. They say does, too.

(They also refer to my posts as a 'Blob' rather than 'Blog', as in "What did you write in your Blob today?", thereby feigning interest, feigning care, feigning esteem...all their sarcasms are like an infinite Matrushka doll.)

Now, where was I?

Oh. I have also some sections labelled 'far right' and 'far left' and one general one named 'oddballs'.

I really do not have to try and save a typical post for the 'oddballs'. I pretty well know what they are.

Now, as to blog by Ph.D.s in Extremis Educationis...

I have read many.

Some are good, some mediocre, some poor. Some are rightie, some are leftie, some are decidely oddball.

In short, they are like humanity as a whole.

However, I receieve the distinct impression that Academia can be quite the battle zone. There seems to be a war going on between what we may vaguely call 'lefties' and 'righties'.

I say vaguely, because I have no assurance that these labels mean anything close to what I primitively think them to mean. To clarify this, I do not know what the pay-offs are in Academia for each group. If, for example, group A wants some sort of radical course C, and group B is opposed to it, I do not see why in terms of what are they fighting for, other than ideals.

Well, maybe it is the ideals. I can relate.

To bring this posting, in its inception infinite, to its end, I think it is enough to observe

Quot homines Tot Sententiae

which means that there are as many opinions as there are men. Or how many men? so many the opinions. (Ask Cicero. I'm busy.)

I state candidly and honestly (good judgement to Montag: there's that word again!) that I believe...no, not believe...I sense that there is something very important in the Multiplicity of opinions. I have sensed ever since I first read Lanternari's The Religions of the Oppressed.

It is almost as if the state of nature is diversity.

What do we make of Diversity today?

There are many meanings.

However, I think the USA was founded on Diversity, Diversity is the basis of freedom- each man free to his own opinion, and Free Markets are based on Diversity.

(In fact, in Free Markets we see that the potential Chaos we sense in a different opinion for every person may actually lead to a higher or different type of grouping.)

Enough of this Rump Parliament of a posting!

In the name of God, end it!

Fiat Finis.