REACTION TO LAST NIGHT'S "BASIC PROGRAM" OPEN HOUSE
It was fantastic. We did a mock class with of the staff teachers, and then the head of the program explained the history, intentions, and logistics of the program. As I walked back to my car, I crossed the Michigan Ave bridge over the east branch of the Chicago river. The lights from the cars and the surrounding skyscrapers glimmered brighter, deeper. The waves on the river below me were more palpable, vibrant. The bridge I walked on a more remarkable feat of engineering. I know this is cornball and no, there was no string section anywhere (internal or external), but it is what I felt, and how nice was that. Mind you, I was an English and Creative Writing major in college, so there were feelings of "oh I remember how much fun this is" all over the place for me. And, today, when I bought the course books from the UChicago bookstore — oh, how much fun it is to buy beautiful, clean, thick books in preparation for class readings; it had been a while on that.
A couple things struck me.
1) In the mock class, the teacher (who'd been in the program for 15 years) asked "what is history?" He then wrote down various ideas we offered (we, being the 25 or so adults there, ages maybe 32 to 60). Things like "author bias" (and about eight different ways of saying that), "human events", "1st and 2nd person accounts", "chronicle", "relevance", "remembrance", and more. Then we looked the first sentence from Herodotus' classic History, which is book held to be the first of its kind:
This is the display of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, so that things done by man not be forgotten in time, nor that great and glorious deeds, some displayed by the Hellenes, some by the barbarians, lose their fame, including among others what was the cause of their waging war on each other.
Everything that was listed on the board was already in the text, including the first words, which revealed the author was aware of his own bias. So much for French theory! (Folks: Most.Theory.Is.Naive.And.Stillborn, especially when put between you and text.)
45 minutes later, the mock class ended because it was time for the program head to speak. Else, we would have kept on talking, about just this sentence, and its implications. This is discussion-based stuff, the simple but infinitely rewarding method of "close reading", where the inner logic and and internal properties of the text, as it is on the page, reveals itself and unfolds through close examination and discussion. You empty your cup. The teacher, crucial in the ability to be subtle, not interfering, but near invisibly guiding, helping light the fire in the students, helped quite a bit by calling upon his knowledge of original Greek definitions of certain words. But it is really just this: a group of students all with the same text, with an experienced teacher. Reading. Discussing. Focusing on what is on the page. Allowing connections to form, from what already happened in the work, as well as those from the great conversation that exists across time between great thinkers. And I really loved that this is a class of adults. We all bring our life lived, and living, to bear, with a kind of maturity. The patriarch of this "Great Books" approach, said:
The great books do not yield up their secrets to the immature...Most of the important things that human beings ought to understand cannot be comprehended in youth...To read great books, if we read them at all, in childhood and youth and never read them again is never to understand them.
Perfect.
2) My fears of theory (of Foucault, Derrida, or anyone) interfering were quelled when the program head, responding to this kind of question from one of the students, said that bringing some writer's or thinker's critique/theory into class is a no-no. It goes against the grain of close reading, allowing the works themselves to shine. It is also unfair to the rest of the students, who can't participate in any kind of discussion about this theory or critique unless they've read it. She did say that if someone wants to reframe the theory/idea/critique in their own words, that sort of thing is fair game, but you better be prepared to defend its validity as arising from the text. This overall approach/attitude to theory seems exactly right. Theory is useless unless it reconciles with the living tradition embodied as the discussion itself. Criticism and theory cannot be understood, anyway, by the reader unless he/she has some kind of good grasp on the text on its own terms. The experience of the teachers, as well as my own back at school, agrees that imported theory kills discussion and dialogue. The class foster a DIY attitude, only with the Classics. Were it that the rest of intellectuals took this view, we'd be all much better off. Anyway, fears of French theory erased. Phew!
3) The program head, a classy woman named Clare Pearson, revealed that Robert Maynard Hutchins, the patriarch I mentioned above, felt an obligation to create this "Great Books" approach because under his watch as university president, the University of Chicago first developed the atomic bomb. The Basic Program, he felt, was the other side of that coin. Perfect, huh? One catastrophically destroys life; the other radically expands consciousness. After all, he did feel that "The purpose of the university is nothing less than to procure a moral, intellectual, and spiritual revolution throughout the world."
if we got enough artists to do something like this, reconnecting with the conversation great thinkers and artists have had with each other across the ages (i.e., reconnecting with the Canon on its own terms), we would create a revolution that reattachs artistry to its own timeless roots. That, in part, fuels everything I do publically, including POLYSEMY as well as the artist school I want to start at some point in the future.
Today I signed up for the Year 1 Autumn course. We are reading Antigone, by Sophocles (this edition), Plato's Apology, Crito, and Meno (this edition), and Crime and Punishment, by Dostoevsky (this edition). Over 11 weeks. Meno is given quarter-long treatment, the other three about 3-4 weeks each. No papers, no assignments except to read and come to class to discuss intelligently, and listen attentively.
This class is completely non credit (though completion of 2 and 4 years bears a certificate, plus you get alumni status from the U of Chicago, which brings certain perks). This means that the only reason people take the courses are to for the inate benefit of digging into the great works with others. The reading list, over the program's four years, hasn't changed much, we were told, in its 60 years of existence. There is a reason for the text selections from one quarter to the next. (I'll be curious to experience this first hand). The Great Books approach was made to ensure and support a democratic citizenry. All of which is completely sympathetic to Paglia's prescriptions to renew the Humanities. It is my feeling that he Basic Program provides the template for this renewal, and it can be not only used to dig into other mediums and disciplines of art, through close examination of object on their own terms, but can be jiggered in age appropriate ways, from grade school all the way up through graduate school.
Texts on their own terms. Objects on their own terms. Guided discussion, even debate. Civility. To dig into the conversation great thinkers have had with each other across the ages and epochs. Once a week, after work, one block away. I know the death of any aesthetic experience is expectation, so I must suspend disbelief and let it organically arise. But, I'll be damned if this isn't going to be a particular slice of heaven. The first class starts in 11 days, around the theme of "What is virtue?"
What is virtue?
Right now, I don't know. But I'll let you know what unfolds as I collaborative dive into the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. Is this going to deepen and clarify my awareness and thinking at discreet depths? Perhaps not as much as being a husband, father, and composer. But, yet, I absolutely think it will, permanently.
