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alansmithee: i had hoped that you would not take what i posted as you did.
i did not mean anything patronizing by it--it you read the other posts in this thread, you'd maybe have seen that i included myself in this dynamic of being and undergraduate and trying out political positions.
my particular relation to students where i teach is conditioned in part by the fact that i remember how i went through this period---so i have no problem with debate, no problem with a diversity of political positions coming from students---i simply assume that developing a political position is as much a process as any other, that it is spread out across time, and that what you experience in terms of debate during an undergrad experience may function as one of the few periods during which you get to experiment explicitly with politics, debate various outcomes etc.
when i was younger and more politically militant, i worked from the assumption that political choices made by students were definitive, would have effects later. as i got older i came to see this as a mistake and with that i changed my understanding of politics in that context-----now what matters to me politically in teaching is getting students to read and think critically for themselves, to take chances intellectually and creatively and not be afraid of awkwardness or failure. the process of assembling a political viewpoint--which does not end, by the way, which shifts across time--and if it does not shift, there is a problem---is not in itself something i particularly worry about--i am interested in prior dispositions and/or skills.
what i am really interested in is trying to give students who engage in creative work a sense of the importance of understanding their work as process and the importance of refusing to give up. but that is another matter.
your understanding of the political environment on the campus where you are may be correct insofar as it is your perception of that environment: but it has no correlation to anything i have experienced on any of the 5 or 6 universities through which i have passed as a student then as faculty. based on what i have seen in these places, it looks to me like you are shutting down the possibilities of debate, and maybe of reflection, that may be around you. but this as far as i can go.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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