Two weeks into the new semester, and I am working as hard as I ever have. Although I took short breaks over the weekend, I never really had substantial time off. My philosophy classes are going as well as ever, but my Contemporary Cultures and Arts class…well, I’m still learning how to teach this class.  My hopeful hypothesis that I would be able to use the same class structure I use in my philosophy classes in this one is wavering. I can’t anticipate the conversations like I can with the philosophy classes. I don’t understand the full merit of the subject yet. And, I’m not in love with it, like I am with philosophy. Fortunately, there is a strong philosophical component here, and I just need to strike the right balance with the level of philosophy I bring to the class.

Unlike my philosophy classes, I feel like I don’t have a guiding philosophy for the class. That needs to change, but I’m still learning so much about the subject, still observing and tinkering, that I’m too much of a neophyte to make this class really soar. At least this week. I often learn by revelation, so maybe next week.

If McCain somehow wins in November, my apathy is going to reach new heights. I’m just going to have to focus all of my attention on teaching well.

Classes begin in five days. I’ve been spending the majority of my days holed up in my apartment, trying to relax and save money. This has been the leanest period of my life, and the next few days are going to be rough. I can barely afford a loaf of bread at this point. Ah well. I’m sure there’s a lesson in this… perhaps, “don’t spend all your money on beer and eating out, and save some of it next time.”

Maybe.

But I’m here to teach philosophy, not business, or even prudence. I’ll learn these lessons, let it influence my philosophy, and maybe it will enhance my understanding of things. In a way, by being more poor than I’ve ever been before, I’m doing my job.

Philosophers: masters of rationalization.

Anyway, the poverty can’t last too long. Once classes begin, paychecks will follow soon. I won’t be rich, but it will be enough to catch up on some bills, rent, food, and leave a little extra. By October, I should be able to start stashing it away for next summer.  I guess I’m on a squirrel schedule, except the squirrel’s winter is my summer.

I’m going to give this blog another shot, because I like the concept of this blog and the activity of blogging. But, obviously, I haven’t been dedicated to it at all.

It’s been an interesting, full year.  Around the same time I began this blog, I started teaching philosophy classes at two of the community colleges in and around Chicago.  At the time, I was only teaching two classes (Ethics and Introduction to Philosophy), but because it was my maiden experience, the effort took up most of my free time. The spring brought a much heavier work load, teaching a total of six different classes, only one of which I had taught before (Ethics, and although I taught Intro both semesters, I had completely changed the course).  That semester was the most challenging thing I have ever done for a sustained period. There were times at that semester where I was barely holding on emotionally, let alone keeping up with the work. I did it, although I let the administrative duties of my position slip at times. There were days when the class itself suffered due to my over-exertion and stress. But I believe I was able to pull it all together and finished the semester strong in all classes. Overall, it was a success and a great learning experience: boot camp for philosophy teaching.

This summer has been relaxing: I taught one full course, Ethics, again. I also taught an independant study on the philosophy of religion.  This gave me the opportunity to spend a lot of time thinking about how to teach and the structure of the course, rather than constantly preparing for class. In other words, I was able to draw upon the experiences of the last year and my readings about education to do a little theory making of my own. And if there is one thing I love, it is philosophizing for the sake of utility: and in this case, I was philosophizing on philosophy and teaching. My love and understanding of the subject increased, I believe, and my students’ reaction to the subtle changes I made in the course were positive and encouraging.  

Classes ended three weeks ago, and since then I have been relaxing, withdrawing from society somewhat (somwhat), and exploring more of Chicago’s northside and northwest neighborhoods. Without much work to do, and with the satisfaction of knowing I have completed a year of good work, and am looking forward to another year of improved work (I aim), I have been perhaps in my best and healthiest mind set since moving to Chicago three years ago…

Independant studies are radically different than a standard course, although i may get this impression because of my emphasis on classroom discussion and and student led discussions: a feet that is impossible with a single student. Regardless, I was at the point of thinking that I ought never teach an independant study again: my teaching strengths seemed entirely impotent in that arena. However, I remember feeling that I was a poor and useless teacher in the standard course last fall and spring (at times), and yet after thinking and re-thinking, I found and made some effective changes.  I think in the future I could do the same thing with an independent study, although the disadvantage here is that I get so few opportunities to practice independent studies, whereas the standard course gives me an over-abundance of opportunity. It was the extreme demands that forced me into becoming a better teacher. I will likely never find myself in a position where there will be an extreme demand from the independent study quarter. (It also pays squat– one-tenth– in comparison to a standard course, and the standard course pay is already squat enough).   

In a few weeks, I will mark my first year as a philosophy teacher.  I have yet to start preparing for the new courses, but I plan on doing so soon. Again, I teach six courses. I anticipate this will be significantly easier because, A, five of the courses I’ve already taught, B, three of these courses are the Introduction to Philosophy, which, because of its more general and less technical nature, requires significantly less preparation per course, and one prep will cover three classes (this is not exactly true since I shape my course throughout the semester based on the direction of student participation, so the classes will likely diverge in the middle), and C, I know what to expect in terms of work load. However, there is one course that is going to challenge me, and, I predict, drive me to thinking once again that I suck as a teacher: This is a humanities course on cultural changes of the last 50 years, including music, cinema, visual art, philosophy, politics, television, theater, values, literature, etc. It’s wide open, and it will be a very different course from ones I have taught in the past.  However, I am also thrilled by the challenge and the lessons I will learn.

That’s all for now. I want to sit down sometime in the near future and do some thinking about this next semester so I don’t try to think with poor habits when the semester hits. Perhaps the ideal enivornment will be a bar with free internet.  Bucktown’s “Maproom” beer bar will be ideally suited for this.

 

Scenario A: A team of four people assemble, and they have a common goal. They all wish to share in the responsibility. However, soon after the project begins, one member finds that the other three are not participating in the planning stages. They do not contribute to the decision making. The one member, finding no reason to engage with the other members, begins doing all the plan making on her own.  Eventually, a decision is made that the other members of the party dislike. They become pissed off and accuse the one of taking control of the group.

If you were in the position of the one engaged person, would you behave differently?

Scenario B:  A team of four people assemble, and they have a common goal. They all wish to share in the responsibility. However, soon after the project begins, two members appear to have very different ideas about how the group should proceed. But both sides are convinced that they are correct, and so they’re only objective with the other person is to criticize the other’s views; they do not question their own beliefs nor attempt a compromise. This does not get anything accomplished, so each individual ceases to speak to the other individual and begins the working and decision making on his own.

 

 

I’ve just begun reading a book called World War IV, by Norman Podhoretz. If you don’t know, he’s a neoconservative—he calls himself one on page seven of the prologue. According to wikipedia.org, he’s been a neocon since the 1970s and is sometimes considered the ‘godfather’ of neoconservatism. Currently, he’s Guiliani’s foreign policy advisor and is an advocate of an attack against my first homeland, the Islamic Republic of Iran. The book’s title refers to the interpretation that the Cold War ought be considered WWIII, and the current episode WWIV.  

 

If you know me, you know I’m a liberal. But I find again and again that once I’ve read too many pieces of literature from one paradigm, I forget that it’s a paradigm. So I’m reading this with an open mind, and, one chapter in, my mind is already opened. A few important things have occured to me already:

 

1. Simply because we recognize that the two political factions operate under a different paradigm–simply because we can say that and say, “yes, that is true,”–it doesn’t mean we understand the extent to which that paradigm affects the way we, and the other ‘side,’ thinks.

 

2. I am led to believe 1, because the vast majority of criticism that comes from the left to the right seems to assume that the right is operating under the same paradigm that the left is.

 

3. That the left assumes the right is operating under the same paradigm as the left is an implicit paradigm, not an explicit one: the critics on the left are unaware that they are even making this assumption.

4. The paradigm that masses of the neoconservative movement adopt is not the paradigm that the intellectual leaders of the neoconservative movement hold. And the intellectual leaders do not have the same paradigm as current Republican leaders or oil tzars.

The book is frightening, but not because Podhorotz has evil motives. His paradigm makes sense internally, and as far as I can tell, it has the same end-goal as most of us do: to acquire as much peace, stability, and democracy in this world as possible.

But there are differences. First, it reduces individual people to points in a system that can be adequately explained down to a handful of their explicit beliefs and definitive actions. Podhorotz is analyzing the situation, and he’s doing it well.

No analysis can account for all qualities that a person possesses and all the factors that are involved in a system while still maintaining any sense of clarity: analysis is how we think, but analysis works on ideas, not on actual things: actual things are too complicated for an idea to capture outright. 

Because an analysis is required to achieve clarity about a situation and make conclusions, and because an analysis is necessarily limited in the scope of things it can account for, then theories about what sorts of analyses are best are developed. But while theories can be more or less accurate, our meager minds are simply too limited to have a completely adequate, objective analysis.

Back to Podhoretz and the neoconservative paradigm: the analysis reduces individuals to a certain set of qualities: a group of their most explicit beliefs and definitive actions. Osama bin Laden is someone who wishes to destroy America and the freedoms that we possess and that which America stands for. This is, in fact, true. But it’s only a limited understanding of Osama. There is no need to take into account his social status, the affect his education and upbringing had on him, the affect his religion and random experiences had, or the things that he wishes to do that he legitimately believes are acts of good will. Not only is there no need, but to investigate these things has often been criticized as being traitorous; not by Podhoretz as far as I know, but certainly by others less crazy than Coulter.   

I’ve just finished reading Anthony Swofford’s book Jarhead (made into a movie starring Jake Gyllenhal a couple years back). As a former Marine, it hit home, emotionally, many times.

In short, I recommend this book to anyone who has limited exposure to the insides of a modern American infantry unit at war, even though the book will resonate with former Marines more than it will for life-long civilians. Swofford does an excellent job illustrating the brutality and naivety of the average Marine trooper; an impression that matched my own time as a peace-time Marine.

 It was also enlightening in showing me how little I once knew about the world, how far I’d come in wizening and growing up, because I saw myself in the stupid brutality of Swofford’s Marines. But it also reminds me something about my current students, who, while on a very different path than these Marines, are generally not any more wizened or educated about the world than we were.

Also, while the movie was excellent and did a good job at representing most of the ideas in the book, it is no replacement.  It’s an enjoyable read to boot (no pun intended).

Last night (Halloween) most of my friends decided to go out and celebrate with an all-night Halloween themed pub crawl. I declined, because I’ve got to teach a class tomorrow, and no matter what I may think, I just can’t talk about philosophy very well when I’m recovering from a hangover. Fortunately, we also celebrated last Saturday night, so no big deal.

So I stayed in, studied, went to bed early, and hoped to get a good night’s rest. Except I woke up feeling like crap and cancelled class anyway. 

Dear God: if I thought you existed, I would be shaking my fist at you.

 

 

About a week ago, I promised a showdown of two beers: Two Brothers’ “Heavy Handed IPA” vs. Dogfish Head’s “60 Min. IPA.” Actually, I did the test about a week ago with the help of my roommate. But, for your benefit, I will perform the test again, right now, as I write this. 

First, I should warn the reader that no one in their right, informed mind should call me a beer connoiseur, simply because my taste buds are quite dull and unpracticed. However, I guess I am undoubtedly a beer connoiseur in relation to all those hapless “Guinness is the greatest beer on Earth” sorts of people. Yes, I was among those unwashed, unbaptized infidels a few years ago. But since then, I have seen the light, and it was shining through a pint-sized glass of truly artistic beer.  Guinness is bland. It is not heavy. It is not a meal. It does not have a deep, rich flavor. I suppose if you are so pathetic that Miller Lite is your normal fair, then yes, Guinness has a deep, rich flavor, and yes, it is “Brilliant.” And if worms were the only species that had ever existed on Earth, then the sudden appearance of a lemming would be brilliant as well. You get the idea. Drink better beer, you poor, poor soul.

 First of all, there is a clear difference between these two in sight, smell and taste. When doing the blind test, administered by my roommate, I did not smell or taste the beers beforehand. I used my vague memories from weeks ago as my only reference point. I could tell one smelled much, much stronger than the other, which is what I didn’t pay attention to before. My first inclination was that the stronger smelling beer was the Heavy Handed, since, you know, it’s heavy handed with hops. But the great richness that entered my nose made me think that this, certainly, was the Dogfish Head. Then I tasted the beers. The relatively mild-smelling beer had the powerful, pure, but uncomplicated taste of hops, whereas the richer-smelling beer filled my mouth with an army of flavors: still with a strong hoppy taste, but not quite as strong, and not overpowering the distinctive flavors in the 60 min.

The open-eyed portion of the test confirmed what I was already beginning to understand.

Visually, the Heavy Handed is foggy, reddish, and relatively dark for an IPA. This, I suppose, is what one would expect from a beer than fetishizes the hops. It is not quite as red as a Killian’s, but it is darker, and there is more variation in the color than, say, Guinness. Without a doubt, it is attractive. If you swing that way.

On the other hand, the 60 Min. IPA is light and clear. Keep in mind that I am color blind, but it looks like it could pass for a wimpy lager on sight alone. The color is a tad darker than a budweiser, and there is no active carbonization occuring as far as I can tell. I like the color better than a Budweiser, but without a Budweiser in front of me, I can’t tell if this is a true difference in quality, or my personal biases influencing my perceptions. Shoo, stinky biases! Be gone!

 Now for the odor. Strangely enough, the Heavy Handed, despite it’s heavy handedness in other aspects, has a very mild odor. For some reason, I want to say it has the faint hint of Rasberries, but there is no mention of Rasberries from the brewer.  Whatever it is, it is mild, but good nonetheless.

On the contrary, the 60 Min possesses a rich odor. Ironically, I can smell more hops coming from this one than the Heavy Handed. Also, it seems to have a small variety of fruity smells that mix together nicely. Greenish Apple most stronly comes to mind, but so does watermelon, something citrusy (like the rine of a lime, maybe), and maybe rasberry.

 (By the way, the method recommended by “experts”–which I use– is to first smell the beer with the nose directly over the beer, and the mouth shut. Then, open the mouth and continue to inhale through the nose. Third, and finally, breath in through the mouth.)

Finally, the taste: The Heavy Handed is true to it’s name. It delivers a powerful, hoppy taste that is relatively uncomplex. It goes down smoothly, but it leaves a mild, hoppy aftertaste that I’m perfectly alright with, although I would understand if some think it’s a bit too much.  In this way, it is very consistent with it’s look, it seems, but inconsistent with it’s smell. Not that that’s a bad thing. It seems that the flavors of this beer stay trapped within the liquid, which is fine for tasting, but not so fine for smelling. But beer isn’t really about smelling, is it?

The Dogfish Head, true to it’s odor but not it’s looks, has an amazing, complex, slightly sweet but mostly rich and hoppy flavor. The relatively high alchohol content (damnit…think it’s around 5.5-6%) comes through, but certainly doesn’t overpower the flavor: quite to the contrary, it enhances the flavor (unlike some of the 10-11% beers I’ve had at Goose Island).

So, which beer is better? In my younger days, when I liked the thrill of powerful flavors, and couldn’t pick up on the more subtle flavors, I would have preferred the Heavy Handed. Only in my very earliest days of beer drinking (when I was an underage Marine and usually drank Bud Lite from a contraband keg, resulting in me low-crawling in front of the barracks, naked, with my underwear operating as a helmet, and loving it), I would have wrinkled my nose at the bitter hops. So, if you also can’t stand the flavor of hops (you poor, pathetic soul), I would avoid this. On the other hand, if you think Guiness is the greatest thing on Earth, it’s time to upgrade your taste (it’s cheaper, too!). 

Now, on the other hand, I’ll leave the crown for Dogfish Head 60 Min, reigning champion of Natural Causes. But you can count on me to be ever vigilant in my search and exploration of new contenders.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m currently teaching two philosophy classes on my maiden voyage as a college teacher. This is great, but it doesn’t pay a lot of money. I just got word from one school that they’re upping my load from one to three classes in the spring time. I don’t know about the other school, but it looks like I might get offered three there as well. My money problems will temporarily disappear, for sure, but six classes? I might have to discontinue my drinking problem  hobby and start working my butt off ’till my brain bleeds philosophy. So, shall I face the lion and see what I can take, or run for the hills? I’m just crazy enough to do it. This will truly be a combination of all my Marine Corps training (except the literal combat training) and philosophy training.