I have been rooted out
I have been rooted out. Interesting. Remember my last post on World View Prejudice? A student of the unit actually found this blog and filed a complaint to my department. There is no need to rehearse the implications of this act. My initial reaction was shock. How the hell did that student manage to find me? Am I that Googlable? It is a very interesting situation. My department has asked that I censor all that links to the university and the course unit. That was, of course, mentioned in the blog heading: Guide to Practicing Independent Learning. I have also been advised that any indication to the person that I criticised should be deleted. This is indeed an interesting situation.
I am pissed-off at being rooted out. This blog was never meant to meet the eyes of anyone that did not have an interest in my writing. It was never to meet any eyes that did not care about education. It was never to meet any eyes that I did not anticipate seeing. I was a foolish bastard.
Here is a space of contemplation, of madness, of the carnivalesque dance of language and schizophrenia. Here is a demense of affectivities that are never justifiable under the standards of social acceptance. Here is where one is free to be the son-of-a-bitch, the jack-ass, the fool, and the bastard that everyone loves, and the prick that everyone hates. In this hyperspace of significations are tantrums and fits of delusion. It is my space. Who the fuck has the right to tell me what to say and what not to say?
The institution has that right. Bodies never have such rights, only disembodied eidolons have the power to discriminate. For the institution is finally an illusion made real, it is a phantasm of our fantasies and desire for order and law. Thus it is set into the codes and standards of meaning; the institution becomes the wraith that sucks the life out of our identities, our corporeal subjectivities. We fear the institution; we fear with our lives that it would make us disappear. Hegemony enables the organisation of disembodied monsters to rule and censor creativity. This fiend with a heated maw breathes in our imagination, always cautioning that we do not transgress - always to censor our thoughts.
I am afraid to disappear. I am afraid to meet the breath of the institution.
I have censored myself.
Ironic isn't it?
I am pissed-off at being rooted out. This blog was never meant to meet the eyes of anyone that did not have an interest in my writing. It was never to meet any eyes that did not care about education. It was never to meet any eyes that I did not anticipate seeing. I was a foolish bastard.
Here is a space of contemplation, of madness, of the carnivalesque dance of language and schizophrenia. Here is a demense of affectivities that are never justifiable under the standards of social acceptance. Here is where one is free to be the son-of-a-bitch, the jack-ass, the fool, and the bastard that everyone loves, and the prick that everyone hates. In this hyperspace of significations are tantrums and fits of delusion. It is my space. Who the fuck has the right to tell me what to say and what not to say?
The institution has that right. Bodies never have such rights, only disembodied eidolons have the power to discriminate. For the institution is finally an illusion made real, it is a phantasm of our fantasies and desire for order and law. Thus it is set into the codes and standards of meaning; the institution becomes the wraith that sucks the life out of our identities, our corporeal subjectivities. We fear the institution; we fear with our lives that it would make us disappear. Hegemony enables the organisation of disembodied monsters to rule and censor creativity. This fiend with a heated maw breathes in our imagination, always cautioning that we do not transgress - always to censor our thoughts.
I am afraid to disappear. I am afraid to meet the breath of the institution.
I have censored myself.
Ironic isn't it?
posted by Insouciantfemme at 11:17 pm
4 Comments:
Dear Insouci,
This has the taste and smell of “The Theatre of the Absurd”
I am interested in the determination of the institution and for that matter the “unknown student” to find both the blog post and the anonymous blogger in the huge wasteland of the net. I think it says something about the power and provocation of your writing. You must not censor your insight and your flamboyance, you must not bow to the blandness of “allowed” institutional speak
I am also darkly amused in that your “unknown student” post was an argument for ethical teaching – an argument for assessing a student’s assignment on the basis of the structure of the argument –
"Many years ago my supervisor said this to me: "Sweetheart, you're going to get one of those students sometime in your careeer. When you do, remember this: Mark the argument." I pondered her advice and I have always brushed it behind my naivity - until now. We mark the argument because we are not ideological gatekeepers of the community."
and your institutions response suggests that in the same situation they would fail a student/teacher whose views do not match their own. They would act unethically.
I want to thank you for writing like you do in your blog. I find each post a glorious irritant to new thinking – I am in truth addicted to the new learning you provide.
Artichoke
I think that "freedom of speech" is becoming a bit of an urban myth. "Remember when we had freedom of speech. Ah, those were the days....." I have to admit that I've backed away from writing certain things in my blog because of the fear of the system, in a weird way, I want people to read my work but I worry about who is reading and how they may be misinterpreting it. I received a phone call from someone higher up in my education system shortly after I had exchanged like views with Artichoke on the topic of Learning Objects, and my immediate reaction was, "Someone is upset about what I wrote and I'm in trouble." That wasn't the case but it is scary that my gut reaction was one of fear and apprehension. It's a fine line between being true to your real innermost thoughts and opinions and not wanting to rock the boat and lose grip on your own role in the education system. Most educators are there because it is part of their inner fire, certainly not to become rich or infamous. So, I don't have any advice or even much in the way of insight except to say, I hear where you're coming from.
Thank you. Thank you for the support. I cannot tell you how much this means to me. I felt isolated and somewhat victimised. But perhaps it is in this moment of being lost and confused that the drive to write again, the drive to be irrate again, gives fuel to more epistemological madness. I cannot be insouciant. I must be antithetical to my name. Thank you arti. Thank you Graham. You are my ammunition to education. :)
I.F.
are you sure you're not a bit of a poofy? Yo u like to play wit da balls of udder men, bu t you have da hairy gelatis youself? I tink it banal dat I scratch by de arse of da gypsy, but from whose horse do I speak? Were it not for basarchie dat were coated on da skins of de dead children, it would be pasted on de crusts of our heavenly underwear.
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