A Brief Note Concerning Anonymity

Just a reminder - due to my anonymity on the mothergoat forums and on this blog, I am able to post certain kinds of information as long as a few things remain constant:

1. I do not disclose my name
2. I do not disclose the names of my students (or any identifying information)
3. I do not reveal too many specifics about the class, tests, grade values given, etc.
4. None of my students can trace me back to this blog. Ever.

A lot of you have questioned (and chided me about) my desire for anonymity, almost to what you have called a "paranoid" level, when it comes to the mothergoat bulletin board and on my blog. Well, quite frankly, without it I would not be able to be as honest as I am about particular subject material, such as how I may be feeling about a class I am TA-ing and the like. That's just the status of having a teaching position in a public university. I want to share as much as I can about my life as a Graduate Student, but I must be cautious.

To make it clear, I will never disclose any information that I am bound by law to keep confidential. Furthermore, I will never violate anything told to me in confidence by any of you by posting it on this blog (this was a concern expressed recently, and I believe that it is very appropriate to address it).

What I am referring to is information concerning how my classes are going, what I think about them, etc. No, I am not talking about gossip. I'm talking about me thoughtfully considering things that I'm learning from my students, how I may feel bad at how a recent test went for them, how frustrating the grading process can be at times when you want a student to do well and they're not, etc. I think it is clear why anonymity is best if I am to share my feelings on such topics.

My anonymity on the mothergoat bulletin board and on this blog is my freedom to post thoughts like this. The instant it disappears, so will posts of this nature in both places. And I do mean in both an anterograde sense as well as a retrograde sense.

That would truly be sad, as I think many of you enjoy my candor about such things, and I find it very cathartic to just get a lot of this stuff off my chest. I would deeply hate to lose the ability to do that. I am posting this message both here and on my blog for two reasons:

1. To explain myself
2. To emphasize the importance of NOT REFERRING TO ME BY MY NAME AT ALL WHATSOEVER IN THE COMMENTS SECTION OF THE BLOG.

Please work with me to maintain this anonymity so we can all enjoy the benefits of it. Thank you.

A Reply: Drowning in Progress

In response to Vivaquijote's post on his blog...

I think you make some good points in presenting an optimistic view on progress, hermano. However, I think you both missed my point and played perfectly in to my hands with your response.

Yes, the Temeraire was old, and replacing old technology with new technology is a good thing. I dearly hope that our aims of improving everyday life by building better technology are successful.

But that's not just the type of progress that I'm concerned about. Recall, I am not an economist, and I spent much of my time studying the impact of a progressive/materialistic/hegelian mindset on the mindset of mankind.

While progress is greatly beneficial in the field of improving our material surrounds, progress has also proven deadly in a philosophical sense as those important concepts that "have nothing to do with progress" are swallowed whole, digested, and replaced with new (and frightening) views of morality and the human condition.

For example, the free love movement was seen as progressive, and look how well that turned out. The same is true for hippie culture, and we all know how that turned out.

The fact of the matter is that not all that is done in the name of progress is, in fact, beneficial to mankind as a whole. Lewis, Schaeffer, Boice... all of them had a healthy distrust for the idea of progress because they saw it as more than mere technological and social advancement. They saw it as the opportunity for human nature to do what it does best: take an excuse to ignore what is good and right and replace it with warped values and erroneous standards of perception.

As for the fact that we still have Cervantes and Turner with us, I could not agree with you more. Yes, it is wonderful that we still have these powerful symols with us to remind us not to lose our values in our march towards progress (or is the march progress itself?). And I am glad that you and I both see that.

But that's just the trouble. We are but two men who realize the purpose of these powerful symbols. Now think of how many do not.

Frequently, in the Old Testament, God charged Israel with one task: Remember. Remember the things that I have done for you. Remember the miracles I performed in the desert. Remember all the awesome wonders that your own eyes have beheld. But they forgot. Again and again and again. And as a result, history kept repeating itself.

Not all forgot, of course. Many prophets tried their hardest to stir the rabble to remembrance (and ultimately to repentance), but they resisted. And we all know what happened in the end.

Increasingly, people ignore sound reasoning (most don't even know what such a thing is) and throw themselves into a deluge of pleasure and irrationality. Classic logic, moral decisionmaking, and faith are looked at as "outmoded" and "useless" artifacts of an earlier stage of man. Even the ancient philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, are viewed through an evolutionary lens.

"Sure, those ideas were great for that time period... but with what we know now, they would never hold any water."

Sadly, Plato and Aristotle knew more about the world than we did when it came to things like truth, justice, right, wrong, inquiry, education, and law.

Outdated? We have never escaped the domain of their work! In many ways, we never can.

My point (and my concern) is that others do NOT see the lessons from these symbols, and it is to those that do not that I wrote. Will they listen? Well, that's up to them. But I think you got it right in saying that your post was complimentary to mine.

Only on one point do I have to say I really, truly disagree. Within the realm of mankind's capacity for improvement, I see absolutely no hope. Left to our own devices, the world will not become a better place. (And in many ways, I wonder if it is improving at all...)

Thankfully, I do not believe that we have been entirely left up to our own devices...

A Victim of Progress

As my father has so graciously pointed out, today is an important day in history. He recently wrote in my comments section,

"Today is the anniversary of Admiral Lord Nelsons' sea battle that destroyed Napoleon and the vastly greater Spanish fleet. Nelson stole an ancient Greek idea...fireships, and using this and the tides he arguably changed the world.
Many have asked what the name of Raoul's blog was about. Recall that he lived in England for a time. No doubt on a museum tour he saw a fabulous painting by JMW Turner about a ship from the battle being towed into port for destruction. The ship is the name of this blog: wondrous art.D&M"

And Dad is absolutely correct. I took the name of this blog from my favorite painting, "The Fighting Temeraire being towed out to be broken apart," by JMW Turner, by far my favorite painter.

When I was studying in England during a summer program, one of the classes I had to take was History of British art. To make a long story short, I had to fumble about in the National Gallery and gather information on various and sundry British artists. I stumbled across Turner's work, and fell in love almost immediately... particularly when I laid eyes upon this specific painting.

The beauty and tragedy of the piece is that such an important part of British history (the Temeraire was the pivotal ship in the battle of Trafalgar... if you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, go google it and find out) is essentially being broken apart for firewood during a time in which the majestic and powerful ships of the sea were being replaced with smaller, steam powered vessels (much like the tugboat that's leading the Temeraire to it's demise in the painting).

In our society, we are constantly pushed to contribute to the progress of the human race. Old ideas are tossed out the instant something new and supposedly better is posited or produced for mass consumption. Our technology advances so quickly that a computer built six months ago can already be considered outdated. We are viciously advancing towards what we believe is a better society, a better way of thinking, and ultimately a better way of life. You know... progress.

Sadly, many important and beautiful things are sacrificed in the name of this "progress." Morality. Dignity. Modesty. History. Salience. Intelligence. Wit. Depth. Faith. Hope. Love. All of them, in one way or another, have been called outmoded, outdated, reactionary, or irrelevant by proponents of modern thought and it's constant march towards the next bigger and better thing.

Turner's painting perfectly captures all of these thoughts with the simple, haunting image of a majestic ship being towed off to it's destruction by a corroded little tugboat upon a polluted Themes river with London's industrial skyline in the background. Appropriately, the sun is setting in the coal-smoke darkened sky.

In our quest to better ourselves, have the things that make human beings human become victims of progress? Are we hollow husks of past glory being towed down a polluted river to our own destruction by the very things we built to better ourselves? May such thoughts disturb you as they did me the day I first layed eyes on Turner's painting.

My Cell died... ARGH!!!

So, I'm officially "unplugged." My freakin' cell phone is toast.

For those folks who call me regularly, just email me if you want to get ahold of me. I'll start hunting for a new phone tomorrow.

In the meantime, email and AIM.

Otherwise, don't get pissed if I don't return your calls for a while. :)