Posted by The Happy Tutor
Well, we know what happens when a mirror confronts a mirror. If you're making the spectacle, you're not breaking it. Tom's stuff is so good I clicked on his sitemeter and saw that I was his only visitor this hour. Something is dreadfuly wrong with the idea that the net is a collaborative filter through which excellence is recognized. In a just world some philanthropist would give convention bloggers a scholarship to study the rudiments of their craft under Tom for 15 or so years, before being released on their own recognizance.
The quote from Paz is gorgeous, but it's besides the point.The spectacle is an manifestation of highly developed capitalism.Nothing metaphysical or poetic about it.
Posted by: et alia | July 30, 2004 at 11:52 PM
Excellence scares the daylights out us. It can't be bought and sold. The moment of insight that comes when we're faced it, and the laughing Buddha who says "you're a schlub" at that moment, runs counter to the dialogue we've adopted for self-protection.
Posted by: Harry | July 31, 2004 at 12:08 AM
Excellence is undemocratic. A hierarchy of sorts? A real issue for me, since most of what teaching is all about is cultivating excellence, at least it should be, in the humanities. Does that make us elitist? Would we do better to retreat into the control room and put some schlock jock out in front, to boost ratings, and give people what they want? The pyramid broadens as you reach the base. Bigger market.
Posted by: Tutor | July 31, 2004 at 12:25 AM
I am in favor of unlimited excellence and would cheerfully take a seat in the classroom.
Excellence doesn't become elitist until the authority that goes with it is abused. Remember, you are a mortal.
Is it immoral or cruel to puncture the balloons of illusion? Only if you do it with malice. A careful teacher trains himself to deflate the lout gently. It's basic street smarts, and the other louts won't feel the need to form a militia or put frogs in your desk drawers.
Posted by: Harry | July 31, 2004 at 12:38 AM
Excellence is yes hierarchy of the best sort, and its most noble and effective use imo is that which you have proposed - mentoring.
And esp. in journalism, media where ethics and purpose have lost their way in the face of Mammon
We here in NA face constant cognitive dissonance. Competition is everything, and excellence is in most organizations' mission statement as well as in peoples' personal mission statements, and yet we do "excellence" fir the wrong reasons, the wrong purposes.
The questions "why excellence" and to what end in the context of building a civil society would be helpful to us, kinda like "how ought we to live" ... excellently, I suppose.
I too am surprised that Tom does not have more readers. perhaps it is because his thought and its expression is so clear that you only need to read it, and what's left to say ?
Yes, excellence scares us, cause we then (as Harry pointed out) stand naked in front of it, and that takes courage that comes from deep inside.
Posted by: Jon Husband | July 31, 2004 at 12:47 PM
Perhaps Tom, like other brilliant men, has a morality that's scarier than even his excellence.
There should be an award for such individuals, and the traditional cup of hemlock won't do.
Posted by: Harry | July 31, 2004 at 01:17 PM
Tom sees more than he says, being a man of great self-restraint.
Posted by: Tutor | July 31, 2004 at 11:48 PM