tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post6251076961372810453..comments2024-02-16T11:41:37.696-05:00Comments on Todd Seavey: Retro-Journal: Blooming of an American MindTodd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-26636073147345819202009-09-06T09:03:00.000-04:002009-09-06T09:03:00.000-04:00It was “Cinematic Coding and Narrativity” (which,...It was “Cinematic Coding and Narrativity” (which, for some reason, has a much better ring than the more prosaic “Cinematic Coding and Narrative”), and I visited the class as a pre-frosh and thought I’d entered an alternative, thoroughly loony universe. Nonetheless, you have a tendency to conflate semiotics and deconstruction, the former being popular at Brown, the latter being much more so at Yale. (Come now, don’t you wish you could still hang with people on the steps of the Green Room and casually use the word ‘conflate’?) I came home from my first semester and gave each member of my (rich DC) family a different book on the virtues of dialetical materialism. Which reminds me of my favorite Film Bulletin piece of all time (I paraphrase): “This course will examine the topic from a variety of perspectives — Marxist-Leninist, Leninist-Stalinist, Trotskyite-Marxist, Socialist-Communist and Communist-Socialist.” True genius. The difference between us, I suppose, is that I loved Brown (and wore plenty of black and majored in Lit & Society, which was a division of MCM) and I still believe in all that Brown stood for, I just think there were moments when we needed a little more sense of humor. Had I gone to Princeton or Dartmouth (where no one would have even considered that there might be a relationship between theory and praxis) I think I would STILL be denouncing bourgeois humanism as an element of the ideological state apparatus. (And just reading about the Republican party’s latest antics can revive my Marxist fervor in a milisecond). Taking life s/nc and forever true…..David Allynnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-38342705147068085852007-10-28T17:23:00.000-04:002007-10-28T17:23:00.000-04:00“Understand” is a strong word, my friend.“Understand” is a strong word, my friend.Kolinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-75334813970918865452007-10-28T16:44:00.000-04:002007-10-28T16:44:00.000-04:00So, Koli, do you feel you understand Todd better t...So, Koli, do you feel you understand Todd better through his memoirs so far. Have they helped explain some present day eccentricities? Or are you like, the rest of us, still waiting for the really juicy stuff?Brainhttp://michel.evanchik.net/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-87644164737577302162007-10-28T16:39:00.000-04:002007-10-28T16:39:00.000-04:00Speaking of relativists/perspectivists, I find it ...Speaking of relativists/perspectivists, I find it fascinating that Todd’s summary description of the characters in “You Can’t Take It With You†is that they refuse to pay taxes! They also refuse to do productive work, to conform to or engage with the outside world in any “normal†sense, and to attach much value to money and material possessions. That last fact (given the title) is what I would have found most salient in trying to come up with a one-sentence description of the Vanderhof-Sycamore family. But “taxes†stood out most prominently to Todd! Our assessments of things are infused with our own perspectives after all! (I probably wouldn’t have taken such special note of Todd’s comments about the play if it weren’t for the fact that I played Essie in a production of it during the time when I too was considering majoring in Theater.)<br><br>On an unrelated note, I don’t often hear people declare explicitly that they like others _because of_ their elitist tendencies. Wow. Not saying I like that in substance but the unapologetic expression of it is refreshing.Kolinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-25647852827875713662007-10-28T16:33:00.000-04:002007-10-28T16:33:00.000-04:00The Todd Seavey of yesteryear – like the Todd Se...The Todd Seavey of yesteryear – like the Todd Seavey of today – is an interesting tension between traditionalist and anarchic impulses. The people he speaks most highly of seem to be non-conformists, yet he is gearing up to defend tradition, even at that early age, when so many choose “rebellion†for its own sake.<br><br>There seems to be some conflation (at least the way I’m reading this) of tradition and “timeless absolutes†with rationality and the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was more concerned with rational inquiry into “timeless absolutes†than with a defense of absolutes themselves. In the 18th Century you didn’t really have to “posit†the _idea_ of absolutes. People believed in them pretty much by default. The essential rationalist argument was that the nature of things had to be understood through reason and not simply assumed without examination. What’s most valuable about the Enlightenment is not its exponents’ elaborate rationalization of presumed truths, but their insistence on the rational testing itself. We owe many if not most developments in modern thought to this concept. The idea that socialization is responsible for much of our behavior and beliefs, an idea that today’s neo-absolutists balk at, comes from the Enlightenment thinkers. In some sense, even extreme deconstructionist philosophy is a descendant of the skepticism born of the Enlightenment. It is really just skepticism taken to an absurd extreme, whereby the skeptics reject the possibility that their questions might actually have answers.<br><br>p.s., not that ToddSeavey.com readers – or Todd Seavey himself – would be so unforgiving as to care, but I apologize for the typos in my previous comment. I swear I wasn’t trying to apply relativistic spelling conventions to the words “interrupted†and “Socratesâ€.Kolinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-29847213310834899692007-10-26T20:05:00.000-04:002007-10-26T20:05:00.000-04:00I never took an MCM course, but my good friend Mon...I never took an MCM course, but my good friend Monica Owusu (who went on to write for Charmed, Alias, and Lost!) did, and I’ll never forget her account of a TA taking them through the writings of a Westerner who loved how in Morocco, you could have sex with young boys (was it Paul Bowles? no clue). And the TA said, if you have moral problems with this, then you are simply homophobic. If memory serves, Monica pointed out that in fact, it was Western capital that permitted pedophilia in this instance…Brown was like that in the late 80s…but still, a great place to wrestle with ideas that the rest of the country had never confronted.Jerry Mayernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-84879543506114486002007-10-26T16:32:00.000-04:002007-10-26T16:32:00.000-04:00Fusing flirtation and philosophizing into one into...Fusing flirtation and philosophizing into one intoxicating cocktail was something Plato was very fond of. The dialectic process in “Meno” was hilariously interreupted at times by Socractes stopping to say he was distracted by his young companion’s charms!Kolinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-73831147093396113702007-10-26T12:47:00.000-04:002007-10-26T12:47:00.000-04:00I’m heading away for the weekend shortly, but that...I’m heading away for the weekend shortly, but that certainly gives people a question to debate in my absence. <br><br>(And I think for me, there is an obvious tendency for a mingling of the dialectical process and the impulse that Plato’s version of Aristophanes metaphorically described as a reunion of opposite halves of a formerly more complete being — I want to overcome stupid divisions like left and right and, as a side effect, am sometimes more pleased when friendships or romances afford the opportunity to do so than I am when finding mere likemindedness, if you follow me. More _fuse_ than _muse_ in my case, you might say — and I may as well say it now, since the Greeks and Bloom and Strauss will be less prominent in future installments of this Retro-Journal, as the Enlightenment moderns ascend in my thinking.)Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-64624136535199743742007-10-26T12:14:00.000-04:002007-10-26T12:14:00.000-04:00You’re very carelessly mixing metaphors here. I a...You’re very carelessly mixing metaphors here. I assure you, to my four year old, the rocket ship really is just a rocket ship.<br><br>: )<br><br>Did you ever notice that some of your best improvised philosophizing riffs would be when you were talking to a cute girl? The Greeks knew what they were talking about in making the muses pretty young maidens.<br><br>I wonder what inspires women intellectually?Brainhttp://michel.evanchik.net/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-39275601600861680902007-10-26T11:38:00.000-04:002007-10-26T11:38:00.000-04:00In a sense, though, aren’t you implying that the p...In a sense, though, aren’t you implying that the point of higher education is actually to _get_ someone to sit on your rocket ship?Todd Seaveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08589187886030112999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-87111954455052407222007-10-26T11:29:00.000-04:002007-10-26T11:29:00.000-04:00I am glad to hear that you at least talked to some...I am glad to hear that you at least talked to some girls your Freshman year. <br><br>You are like that character in <strong>Les Liaisons Dangereuses</strong>, gently mocked for going to the Opera to actually listen to the music. In reading your reminiscences, one gains a newfound admiration for the block-headed anti-intellectualism that is so pervasive among most American undergraduates. Earnest young intellectuals, of which you were certainly one, as was I, hadn’t gotten the punchline to the joke yet: <br><br>School has little relation to the real world. Most importantly, academics is really not the point of college, even if that is it’s stated raison d’etre. In this, the deconstructionists and the Marxists actually have some valid arguments. An extension of primary school, secondary education is more about socialization and baby-sitting that anything else. I appreciate this with my four-year old son. The hardest lessons for him to learn are not those about numbers and letters, but rather how not to throw a tantrum when someone sits in his rocket ship.<br><br>Reading your memoirs makes one want to write one’s own, but the delicate process of dredging up memories also brings up old regrets, best left undisturbed. Yours seems a cheery life thus far in the chronicling.Brainhttp://michel.evanchik.net/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-610803938756668468.post-69979292521544068162007-10-26T09:26:00.000-04:002007-10-26T09:26:00.000-04:00I just listened to the Lux Radio Theater version o...I just listened to the Lux Radio Theater version of “You Can’t Take it With You,” a few days ago.<br><br>Let me know if you want a copy.Sean Doughertynoreply@blogger.com