It seems the point of MacIntyre's exercise is to locate a premise of “unity” in the ways we have come to identify virtue and extend its moral, intellectual traditions (186). Nevertheless the implication of his work is that virtue often serves as a marker of difference and hence value between different kinds of activities and people: the broader, organized practice versus its mere metonymic action (187); those who let virtue breed goodness to sustain practices both internally and to a lesser extent externally versus those who let virtue breed vice as well as the disruption of practices and communities. Thus we can perhaps approach projects of enlightenment in a world often generally dubbed “post-modern” by questioning if virtue is a narrative of necessary difference, complex unity and integrity sought through pluralistic debate.
What makes education both a good and qualitatively "good?" How do we in respect of and sometimes in opposition to our university’s regulations take up MacIntyre’s crucial concern for what the notion of virtue entails? In other words, how does virtue operate in academic communities? Moreover, which virtues are privileged as being integral to practices of becoming a “whole,” self-knowing, successful citizen? In Humanities classrooms are we more caught up in the activity of delineating common ideas of virtue in opposition to other possible terms: i.e. investigating how each of us, in light of our respective material realities, can re-conceptualize potentially confining, elitist, uniform traditions of art, sport, intellectualism, science, etc.? Or are we educated to preserve traditional espousals of virtue, as MacIntyre does to a certain degree with Aristotle?
In "Morality Versus Ethical Substance" Jameson summarizes MacIntyre’s view: “individual conceptions of morality are dissolved in a vision of collective ethical substance; and indeed for MacIntyre the one great deficiency of Aristotle from any modern standpoint is the absence of from classical thought historicity” (151). Based on the short texts we have read this week, it appears unsound to judge virtue apart from tradition insofar as history itself is given the role of a temporal, aesthetic virtue for which complete adherence is not the absolute rule but rather a principle with which any artist, poet, philosopher or educator creating anew must exist in a state of tension. In T.S. Eliot’s words this is a relationship of “responsibili[ty]” and mutual “conformity” ("Tradition and Individual Talent" 15). If this is true, what occurs during transitions from one theoretical movement or critical mode to another? From modernism to post-modernism? From new criticism to new historicism? From feminism to post-feminism? From Marxism to Marxianism? Are these shifts somehow the work of virtue? Do we respect historical practices when we dismiss past methods as being outmoded and thus no longer indicative of today’s intellectual excellence?
What does it mean to enjoy a “whole human life” (MacIntyre 203)? MacIntyre himself admits that a complete understanding of virtue cannot be achieved by discussing practices and their effects (200-01). Arguably the question of wholeness may be approached through the topic of process. Whether it is the pursuit of “a certain kind of life,” a je ne sais quoi intrinsic to art (MacIntyre 190), or the “transmutation” (Eliot 19) achieved by the poet who gives away particular expressions of his/her ego to produce art which is generically emotional (22), clearly process and not product is attributed, here, with great ethical weight. Learning how to transform words, images and ideas is equated with not just the process of becoming human but with the work required to render this activity as “telos” (MacIntyre).
But why must there be violence involved in this transformation of the self into something that is other-than, more-than but less-than? However esoteric, Eliot’s concept of “depersonalization” (17) brings to mind fears of reification. The pained yet liberated artist/thinker trope has currency in academia, and it is even institutionalized: i.e. funding—or lack thereof— often determines how busy, how introverted and how social we will be, to what extent we will fulfill expected roles, uphold competing communities and potentially deprive ourselves of a so-called balanced existence: “a man may be so engrossed by his painting that he neglects his family…” (MacIntyre 200).
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Scholarly Narratives?
Jameson notes that “…one of the other striking features of MacIntyre’s book is one of the newest and most profound tendencies of contemporary thought in general, namely the increasing foregrounding of narrative itself as a fundamental instance of human understanding” (152). While I find myself inclined to agree with the argument for the value of narrative, I wish, for a moment, to lay this conception of narrative alongside the following:
Yet it is precisely from the standpoint of anti-Utopianism that MacIntyre renounces the active part of his Marxian heritage – as well as repudiating the Nietzche-an Utopia of the Ubermensch and indeed all overtly political movements and causes generally (152).
I confess this passage is largely unintelligible to me. I have a vague sense of what Utopia is, and therefore an equally (if not more) vague sense of ‘Anti-Utopia’. However, I have no understanding of the particularly ‘Nietzche-an Utopia’ Jameson references, nor do I have any idea of what sort of Marxism MacIntyre is in particular indebted to for his heritage. Perhaps none of this matters; after all, despite offering so many particulars, Jameson suggests that MacIntyre ‘renounces…all overtly political movements and causes generally.’ But I think it’s worth questioning why Jameson writes in such a fashion. Who is his intended audience? (I am certainly not it – if so I’m sure he would never have used such specific rhetoric.) What is the intended goal of this short paper? (I assume it is to point out MacIntyre’s debt to Marx – but what I don’t understand is why that in and of itself is important.) I have no doubt that to his intended audience these detailed references carry weight, and that the meaning of his article is far clearer for the inclusion of them (perhaps those among you to whom these all make sense think my relegation of terms like Ubermensch to ‘details’ is absurd). I don’t suggest Jameson should be broader in his description or approach. But I do wonder whether his argument – even his key point – would be clearer were it delivered with a greater degree of narration.
Partly I offer this suggestion because I am frustrated by the format of the scholarly article in general. The specific passage I’ve outlined offers a microcosm of some reasons why: the chosen tone and the specifics offered divide the audience into those who really struggle to understand the argument and those to whom it is crystal clear. Yet I have a feeling that those to whom this passage is murky far outweigh those to whom it is crystal clear. While I recognize the value of communicating with a specific audience, I wonder whether it is possible for the same message to be communicated to a broader audience? Or if it is indeed necessary to the advancement of Jameson and MacIntyre’s joint audience that this article be written exactly as it was. Perhaps more importantly, if it was not necessary for the article to be written exactly as it was, why was it written in this way?
Partly I offer the question about narrative because I think my own response to these articles would be of more value if I felt it were acceptable for me to write a narrative of my own response. But previous efforts to offer narrative in my academic work have generally (admittedly not always) been met with disdain, the typical criticism being that they are neither critical nor analytical. Given that I think most clearly in narrative form and understand other people’s ideas best when they are delivered with some story-telling aspects, I wish to challenge the assumption that good scholarship avoids narrative.
I think Jameson does this as well, to some degree, in the second full paragraph on page 152. Yet his choice to write his article in a more scholarly form suggests that, much as the idea of narrative as a form of ethical or philosophical argument piques his interest, he is not actively in support of it (or at least, he isn’t here). To bring this back to ethics: what are the implications of choosing to write in a certain style? Do Academics have a responsibility to make their writing intelligible to a broader audience? Should the consideration of private vs. public funding impact this decision? Where do we situate this particular article?
Yet it is precisely from the standpoint of anti-Utopianism that MacIntyre renounces the active part of his Marxian heritage – as well as repudiating the Nietzche-an Utopia of the Ubermensch and indeed all overtly political movements and causes generally (152).
I confess this passage is largely unintelligible to me. I have a vague sense of what Utopia is, and therefore an equally (if not more) vague sense of ‘Anti-Utopia’. However, I have no understanding of the particularly ‘Nietzche-an Utopia’ Jameson references, nor do I have any idea of what sort of Marxism MacIntyre is in particular indebted to for his heritage. Perhaps none of this matters; after all, despite offering so many particulars, Jameson suggests that MacIntyre ‘renounces…all overtly political movements and causes generally.’ But I think it’s worth questioning why Jameson writes in such a fashion. Who is his intended audience? (I am certainly not it – if so I’m sure he would never have used such specific rhetoric.) What is the intended goal of this short paper? (I assume it is to point out MacIntyre’s debt to Marx – but what I don’t understand is why that in and of itself is important.) I have no doubt that to his intended audience these detailed references carry weight, and that the meaning of his article is far clearer for the inclusion of them (perhaps those among you to whom these all make sense think my relegation of terms like Ubermensch to ‘details’ is absurd). I don’t suggest Jameson should be broader in his description or approach. But I do wonder whether his argument – even his key point – would be clearer were it delivered with a greater degree of narration.
Partly I offer this suggestion because I am frustrated by the format of the scholarly article in general. The specific passage I’ve outlined offers a microcosm of some reasons why: the chosen tone and the specifics offered divide the audience into those who really struggle to understand the argument and those to whom it is crystal clear. Yet I have a feeling that those to whom this passage is murky far outweigh those to whom it is crystal clear. While I recognize the value of communicating with a specific audience, I wonder whether it is possible for the same message to be communicated to a broader audience? Or if it is indeed necessary to the advancement of Jameson and MacIntyre’s joint audience that this article be written exactly as it was. Perhaps more importantly, if it was not necessary for the article to be written exactly as it was, why was it written in this way?
Partly I offer the question about narrative because I think my own response to these articles would be of more value if I felt it were acceptable for me to write a narrative of my own response. But previous efforts to offer narrative in my academic work have generally (admittedly not always) been met with disdain, the typical criticism being that they are neither critical nor analytical. Given that I think most clearly in narrative form and understand other people’s ideas best when they are delivered with some story-telling aspects, I wish to challenge the assumption that good scholarship avoids narrative.
I think Jameson does this as well, to some degree, in the second full paragraph on page 152. Yet his choice to write his article in a more scholarly form suggests that, much as the idea of narrative as a form of ethical or philosophical argument piques his interest, he is not actively in support of it (or at least, he isn’t here). To bring this back to ethics: what are the implications of choosing to write in a certain style? Do Academics have a responsibility to make their writing intelligible to a broader audience? Should the consideration of private vs. public funding impact this decision? Where do we situate this particular article?
On Ethics . . .
Perhaps because of our introduction to research ethics in last term’s proseminar, Eagleton’s and Jameson’s discussions of ethics grabbed my attention. Some of you bloggers have touched on ethics, virtue, etc., but what is this curious thing called ‘ethics’? (I am not convinced that either Eagleton or Jameson provide an answer to this question... nor do I think that this is necessarily an answerable question) Is ethical behavior collectively determined and enforced, or is it more of a personal matter? (Jameson touches on this point more than does Eagleton.) Perhaps most pertinently to us, what role do ethics play in the academic environment?
The OED Online (“the definitive source”) provides multiple definitions for ‘ethics’, predominantly connecting the term with morality. In his article, Jameson challenges such a link. Rather than being interchangeable conceptions, for him, morality and ethics are distinct. Likewise, Eagleton’s consideration of ethics deviates from the ‘definitive’ denotations that the OED proffers. Examining the work of Derrida and Badiou, Eagleton foregrounds the connection between politics and ethics (as opposed to morality and ethics). Specifically, he points to Badiou’s belief that ethics “have now come to displace politics . . . as a bogus humanitarian ideology of victimage, otherness and ‘human rights’ thrusts aside collective political projects (157). Further, he observes that the later Derrida considers ethics to associated with the collective, as they are “a matter of absolute decisions” (156). Eagleton’s analysis of ethics leaves more questions than answers, as the only conclusion he draws is that “There are problems, then, with Badiou’s ethics, as there are with anyone else’s” (160); but, to move to the second question that I posed, to what extent are ethics an individual or collective matter?
As I have noted, Eagleton indicates that Derrida’s conception of ethics is potentially a collective matter. For Derrida, Eagleton contends, “ethical choices are at once necessary and ‘impossible’, wholly mine yet ‘the decision of the other in me’, a kind of implacable destiny for which, like Oedipus, we are nevertheless entirely to blame” (156). The ‘other’ is not clearly explicated, but is suggestive of an external force which acts upon the individual. Jameson similarly indicates that ethics is a collective matter (151). Indeed, ethics are collectively determined, and internalized and enacted individually. In the university, a very specific guideline for ethics is established, imposed, and enforced, and the individual students must adhere to the ‘collectively’ established prescriptions.
To respond to the final question I posed at the outset--how does ‘ethics’ factor into academics?--is to also invite responses from my colleagues. Ethical behavior (responsible research practices, avoiding plagiarism, etc.) is central to academic life. Knowledge of (and adherence to) research ethics is a requirement of our doctoral program. A blurb on ‘academic integrity’ is included in the course syllabi we receive and will soon be distributing as teachers. But how have such ‘ethical lines’ been drawn and do academics truly buy into them? Does it become difficult to adhere to prescriptions for ‘ethical academic behavior’ when the concept of ethics is, as Eagleton argues, so problematic?
The OED Online (“the definitive source”) provides multiple definitions for ‘ethics’, predominantly connecting the term with morality. In his article, Jameson challenges such a link. Rather than being interchangeable conceptions, for him, morality and ethics are distinct. Likewise, Eagleton’s consideration of ethics deviates from the ‘definitive’ denotations that the OED proffers. Examining the work of Derrida and Badiou, Eagleton foregrounds the connection between politics and ethics (as opposed to morality and ethics). Specifically, he points to Badiou’s belief that ethics “have now come to displace politics . . . as a bogus humanitarian ideology of victimage, otherness and ‘human rights’ thrusts aside collective political projects (157). Further, he observes that the later Derrida considers ethics to associated with the collective, as they are “a matter of absolute decisions” (156). Eagleton’s analysis of ethics leaves more questions than answers, as the only conclusion he draws is that “There are problems, then, with Badiou’s ethics, as there are with anyone else’s” (160); but, to move to the second question that I posed, to what extent are ethics an individual or collective matter?
As I have noted, Eagleton indicates that Derrida’s conception of ethics is potentially a collective matter. For Derrida, Eagleton contends, “ethical choices are at once necessary and ‘impossible’, wholly mine yet ‘the decision of the other in me’, a kind of implacable destiny for which, like Oedipus, we are nevertheless entirely to blame” (156). The ‘other’ is not clearly explicated, but is suggestive of an external force which acts upon the individual. Jameson similarly indicates that ethics is a collective matter (151). Indeed, ethics are collectively determined, and internalized and enacted individually. In the university, a very specific guideline for ethics is established, imposed, and enforced, and the individual students must adhere to the ‘collectively’ established prescriptions.
To respond to the final question I posed at the outset--how does ‘ethics’ factor into academics?--is to also invite responses from my colleagues. Ethical behavior (responsible research practices, avoiding plagiarism, etc.) is central to academic life. Knowledge of (and adherence to) research ethics is a requirement of our doctoral program. A blurb on ‘academic integrity’ is included in the course syllabi we receive and will soon be distributing as teachers. But how have such ‘ethical lines’ been drawn and do academics truly buy into them? Does it become difficult to adhere to prescriptions for ‘ethical academic behavior’ when the concept of ethics is, as Eagleton argues, so problematic?
Practice: Discussing
I would like to take up MacIntyre’s “The Nature of the Virtues” via Brianna’s discussion of the oscillation of internal and external goods that accompanies our chosen practice of study: her post strongly parallels my own experiences justifying my studies, and I would appreciate a discussion of how the (corporate) university and larger western society privilege the achievement of external goods over internal ones as well as how we perpetuate this valuation through our discussion of the study of English. Here’s my interpretation:
In suggesting that “[t]hose who lack the relevant experience are incompetent thereby as judges of internal goods” (sorry, I have no page numbers), MacIntyre emphasizes that outsiders’ under-appreciation of the internal goods of particular practices is inevitable. However, I wonder what models we as insiders to the practice of studying English literature, have of those who have attained the internal goods of study, or better yet, what models we have of those who have not.
I can think of several professors I admired during my undergrad, but I have no means by which to assess their achievement of internal goods except to say that I felt the manner in which they conducted themselves, the ways in which they could discuss literature and edify hinted at some level of pleasure and gratification in their accomplishments as scholars. I interpret this as a marker of success and achievement of internal goods, yet because the evidence internal goods is only empirically observable, their presence must be taken in academic faith. We can only guess at who has achieved such internal goods, and we discuss such achievements only in private and seemingly never as a collective. Can we talk about our internal goods to one another? To those not engaged in the same level or area of study without the risk of pontificating? Or should we pontificate?
Furthermore, our discussions of the profession focus on those who are tenured and employed by research universities as if these are the only ones who have truly succeeded in achieving internal goods through their studies; all others slope down towards academic mediocrity for failing to achieve employment that will support their continued cultivation of internal goods.
This, of course, is a banal stereotype: we all have worked with sessional instructors, TAs, and college or trades instructors who disprove such hackneyed understandings, yet we are still told on a daily basis that there will be no work for us. What actually seems to be meant by such grey predictions is that there are few tenure track positions at research universities with a 3/2 teaching load for us to slip into upon graduation. This statement privileges a particular position in academia. I think it also reproduces what MacIntyre describes as Homeric understandings of virtue, which the corporate university seems to have taken up with some gusto: one’s academic position (virtue) is validated insofar as it supports one’s social role (educator). The more tenured, Ivy League, or published you are, the more you are fulfilling your social role. Internal goods are nowhere to be seen in this model nor it would seem in universities or academics that accept it.
This brings me to MacIntyre’s discussion of the institution. I wonder if the individual academic has not become (and is being encouraged to be) more like an institution in the corporate university, with a primary goal of self-reproduction and perpetuation, and less a member of a practice community (I see Elliot as protesting something similar in his discussion of how artists are problematically seen as individuals separate from a larger culture in “Tradition and the Individual Talent”).
Is the study of English literature a practice in which “we enter into a relationship with its contemporary practitioners,” or have we as individuals become like institutions “characteristically and necessarily concerned with […] external goods…. structured in terms of acquiring money and other goods” and focused primarily on “power and status as rewards”? I’m struck by how moralistic this sounds, but individual scholars are rarely discussed in terms of their internal goods so much as their placement or publications, a troubling trend that lifts the academic out of a community or culture and evaluates them as individual talents.
I haven’t touched too much on ethics here, but for those interested there is a good blog post that discusses Tom Flanagan, an tenured professor in Political Science at the University of Calgary who suggested Julian Assange should be assassinated in a recent interview on CBC’s Power & Politics with Evan Solomon, and academic freedom:
http://www.academicmatters.ca/bloggers.blog_article.gk?catalog_item_id=4589&category=/blogger/unbecoming
Flanagan’s case strikes me as an example of the institutionalization of the individual scholar, and makes me question the role of tenure in the modern university: it offers protection, but in some ways tenure appears to perpetuate the institution more so than the scholar in the corporate university, yet this is the carrot the 19 of us are supposed to be grasping for. Thoughts?
Art, Criticism, Virtues
I've always found it odd that Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" is so closely connected to New Criticism, since to me it seems to promote historicization and intertextuality. While Eliot considers poetry, I think the fine arts (painting and sculpture mostly) illustrate his argument more apparently. We can't look at modern art (or for that matter any pre- or neo- movements) without considering the tradition to which it was responding (how do we differentiate Mondrian from design, or understand Rothko or Pollack, without a sense of tradition?). Perhaps because language is arguably our most familiar and prevalent form of communication, it is less apparent that we need to look at the language arts within a certain tradition to contextualize/historize. My Derrida references should relent a bit now that the class is over, but Eliot's essay recalled to me Derrida's spectres and disjointed time. Texts do not exist in a self-referential vacuum.
I'm assuming that most of us aren't doing New Criticism in our doctoral work, but just to what extent do we have to look at the tradition in order to do justice to the text? And, of course, what does doing justice to the text mean? Anabelle brings up the issue of canons--what constitutes the tradition? Eliot talks about the poet being a catalyst and that poetry is not personal expression. More often we think of theory/criticism as impersonal. What room is there for the personal in the production and reception of art?
The virtues of an academic profession seems to be many, in terms of teaching and research as practices, or in a more synthesized way, the pursuit of knowledge "for it's own sake," that is, not for any external good (although some academics achieve fame and wealth, I doubt it's their overriding motivation to work). Perhaps we can look at the work of scholarship, the virtuousness of it, in the abandonment of the self to the social need for the advancement of knowledge. Then again, I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I would have probably taken more time to construct this response if I was offered some sort of external good, like getting a good grade, but I would justify that by saying that my desire for the external good of a grade is so I can advance my career to the point where I don't have to worry about external goods and can focus on the internal goods of scholarship--is that what they call tenure?
I'm assuming that most of us aren't doing New Criticism in our doctoral work, but just to what extent do we have to look at the tradition in order to do justice to the text? And, of course, what does doing justice to the text mean? Anabelle brings up the issue of canons--what constitutes the tradition? Eliot talks about the poet being a catalyst and that poetry is not personal expression. More often we think of theory/criticism as impersonal. What room is there for the personal in the production and reception of art?
The virtues of an academic profession seems to be many, in terms of teaching and research as practices, or in a more synthesized way, the pursuit of knowledge "for it's own sake," that is, not for any external good (although some academics achieve fame and wealth, I doubt it's their overriding motivation to work). Perhaps we can look at the work of scholarship, the virtuousness of it, in the abandonment of the self to the social need for the advancement of knowledge. Then again, I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I would have probably taken more time to construct this response if I was offered some sort of external good, like getting a good grade, but I would justify that by saying that my desire for the external good of a grade is so I can advance my career to the point where I don't have to worry about external goods and can focus on the internal goods of scholarship--is that what they call tenure?
I had a good title at first but then I wrote and the entire argument changed
As Brianna has suggested, I'd also like to think through what may (or may not) make what we do a practice. The first question that came to my mind as I was reading was, do excellence and virtue matter to us as literary scholars? If so, what form would that excellence take, and what virtues would be cultivated by its attainment? It is easy to understand excellence in chess or football: you win the game, or at least play very well. In the case of football, you might have collective excellence (winning the Grey Cup) and individual excellence (running x yards in a season). How do we define excellence in literary studies? Is it the amount of articles we publish? Is it how many times we're quoted by other scholars? Is it the sales record of our books? Teaching-wise, is it positive student evaluations, or a class with a high average? How do we know we've "arrived" as English professors? Is it with tenure?
In our case, the criteria for evaluation are so muddy and multiple that I find it difficult to arrive at a measurement of excellence that would work for all of us. Personally I feel like my teaching record will mean more to me than my publication record, and it will be different for each of us. Does that mean that I am more excellent in the practice of English professorship than the person with a high publication turnover but a bad teaching dossier? Should I even make these comparisons at all, and just be happy with what I've achieved for myself? But that would evacuate the collective character of MacIntyre's argument. Sure, the institution of the university recognizes tenure and publication numbers as markers of excellence, but I do think we are all aware of the often arbitrary nature of tenure, and even publication (who has not read bad, uninteresting, commonplace articles that bring nothing at all to the practice of literary scholarship?) Do we need to find alternative ways to measure excellence?
Which brings us to a question we've already touched in class: the lack of a common canon. Who am I, as a Victorianist, to evaluate the work of a post-modernist scholar? I know nothing of their language, field, texts. It seems impossible for us to evaluate each other outside of our own fields. And yet, we are expected to have interdisciplinary (and inter-field) projects. Should we then divide the measurement for excellence within sub-fields? Medievalists with medievalists, Shakespeareans with Shakespeareans, and so on. But this has the consequence of turning our discipline into little bubbles that would be even harder to burst than they are now, even with all the push towards multiple specializations. I do admit I am a believer in the concept of a common canon, and I don't think that the common canon is as exclusive and elitist as its opponents make it look, but I have not thought this through yet and I don't have anything coherent to present as support for my claim. However, in my personal experience my knowledge of a certain canon has made it easier for me to relate to work outside my preferred field.
I have now digressed a little bit. My other question, which I suppose I will leave open for the sake of brevity, is something that came out when I read MacIntyre say: "the good of a certain kind of life" (190). Is academic identity a certain kind of life? What kind of life is the academic life, as opposed to the office drone who works, as the song says, for the weekend? Is there one more virtuous than the other, or are they both equally so, but with different virtues, different goods? Should it even matter to us what people outside of our chosen life and institution do?
In our case, the criteria for evaluation are so muddy and multiple that I find it difficult to arrive at a measurement of excellence that would work for all of us. Personally I feel like my teaching record will mean more to me than my publication record, and it will be different for each of us. Does that mean that I am more excellent in the practice of English professorship than the person with a high publication turnover but a bad teaching dossier? Should I even make these comparisons at all, and just be happy with what I've achieved for myself? But that would evacuate the collective character of MacIntyre's argument. Sure, the institution of the university recognizes tenure and publication numbers as markers of excellence, but I do think we are all aware of the often arbitrary nature of tenure, and even publication (who has not read bad, uninteresting, commonplace articles that bring nothing at all to the practice of literary scholarship?) Do we need to find alternative ways to measure excellence?
Which brings us to a question we've already touched in class: the lack of a common canon. Who am I, as a Victorianist, to evaluate the work of a post-modernist scholar? I know nothing of their language, field, texts. It seems impossible for us to evaluate each other outside of our own fields. And yet, we are expected to have interdisciplinary (and inter-field) projects. Should we then divide the measurement for excellence within sub-fields? Medievalists with medievalists, Shakespeareans with Shakespeareans, and so on. But this has the consequence of turning our discipline into little bubbles that would be even harder to burst than they are now, even with all the push towards multiple specializations. I do admit I am a believer in the concept of a common canon, and I don't think that the common canon is as exclusive and elitist as its opponents make it look, but I have not thought this through yet and I don't have anything coherent to present as support for my claim. However, in my personal experience my knowledge of a certain canon has made it easier for me to relate to work outside my preferred field.
I have now digressed a little bit. My other question, which I suppose I will leave open for the sake of brevity, is something that came out when I read MacIntyre say: "the good of a certain kind of life" (190). Is academic identity a certain kind of life? What kind of life is the academic life, as opposed to the office drone who works, as the song says, for the weekend? Is there one more virtuous than the other, or are they both equally so, but with different virtues, different goods? Should it even matter to us what people outside of our chosen life and institution do?
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Practice: Discuss...
I enjoyed thinking through MacIntyre’s discussion of communal practices and their relations to institutions – especially as this response is due the same day that submissions for competitive awards.
It seems to me that we have (I have, at least) been oscillating throughout this colloquium between arguments regarding what Macintyre would call “external goods”: getting jobs, ideally ones that pay well, and having careers in the university – ruined or otherwise, and the “internal goods”: the rewards within our practice(s) that cannot be gained elsewhere (188). Perhaps herein lies the crux of what I’ve been struggling with this term. Internal goods are most valuable to those within a community, and in the case of my own research, difficult to “sell” to those outside of it. When we are asked “what is the point of your research” – something that I am asked frequently – I answer in terms of external goods because they seem to be more convincing non-academics (and non-opera enthusiasts) even though my more accurate answers would likely fall on the internal goods side.
Jana noted in her last post that we seem to be struggling with defining commonalities in this colloquium, and perhaps in the humanities as a whole. I would really like to spend some time considering the extent to which we as scholars are engaged in a common practice, and how we can define that.
What are our internal goods that parallel the satisfaction of MacIntyre’s chess well-played? How do the virtues of “justice, courage and honesty” (191) fit into our practice? How does our institution support, and how does it threaten our practice? Do we even have a practice? I think we do, and I’d like to explore that as a group – if others are interested of course. I seem to have a bit of space left, so below are some related thoughts on "Tradition and the Individual Talent"
For Eliot, the practice of the poet would seem to be a depersonalized situatedness in a particularly historical setting – work that he says “cannot be inherited” and must be undertaken by each individual (14). In addition to reminding me of Bourdieu’s definition of cultural capital, I wonder how this might be placed in context with our own traditions of scholarship. Certainly I think a knowledge of critical trends within our own sub-fields is important across the board, but in contemporary contexts of the university I’m unsure about depersonalization: while Eliot is of course speaking to poetic endeavour, our “texts” include autobiography and a wide range of narratives that embody specifically personal responses by our writers. Do our own practices value or even seek Eliot’s “significant emotion” (22) that exists solely within writing, and has no personal embodiment elsewhere, or is that again a value located within more narrowly defined traditions? To what extent do we as academics locate ourselves within our work?
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