The Bodhisattva Organic Intellectual… Sorta
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 1 In many ways, it’s difficult for me to write this. It’s not that I’m not in touch with my feelings or anything along those lines: I’ve been writing my feelings for years now. It’s also not because I find articulating my personal beliefs regarding education and my position in the wider field to be inherently difficult; I’ve just recently written up a teaching philosophy statement for another class, and it was most certainly not the first time that I’ve written such a document. No, for me the difficulty comes in incorporating the theory and readings into such a statement.
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 I do understand theory and readings. Or at the very least, I would like to think that I do. It’s hard to imagine someone getting this far without having at least some understanding. I can read and understand various discussions about it, and I’m fairly certain I grasped certain key concepts expressed within the works. Yet at the same time I get the feeling that the shame affect that Sedgwick repeatedly references is hobbling me. It’s as though I’m utterly terrified that I might be erring in my expression of the critical materials we’ve tackled thus far. Sedgwick argued over and over again that shame is one of the driving affective forces in our lives; it hovers on the end of a continuum and serves to drive a good deal of our actions. This does seem to ring true to me, especially when considering academic communities and my position.
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 1 I have come to recently see myself as what I believe is Gramsci’s organic intellectual. Though, in all honesty, given the way Gramsci presents the various intellectuals, I’m not sure that anyone would want to claim to be anything else, especially in the current academic clime. But I come from humble origins: my mother and father are both working class, albeit highly paid ones. My grandparents on one side held such blue-collar occupations as park ranger/trapper (I’m not kidding), airforce pilot, and insurance agent. I come from that background, yet I believe that I have, to some degree, risen to the official status of intellectual (even if I struggle with the terminology and criticism from time to time). The organic individual, as I understand it from Gramsci, is one that not only acknowledges this origin but also works back in the interest of that class. This is how I see myself, and how, in many ways, I elaborate on who I believe I feel beholden to. I believe that at least part of our jobs as academics is to turn around and help others.
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 This rings true with the Bodhisattva idea presented in Buddhism that I believe Sedgwick loosely touched upon at the tail end of her writings. The basic premise is that a Bodhisattva is someone who has achieved enlightenment but gone back and helped others along the path. It does ring somewhat with the whole emotional, affective idea, though Buddhists operate in strange ways with regard to emotion (you’ll have to forgive me; my study of Eastern religions was all in my Undergrad). Yet this basic principal, this idea of being somewhat enlightened and needing to reach back, is how I express my operation. I have gone so far as to work toward a Ph.d in order to become as “enlightened” as possible, but my long term goal is, as it ever was, to teach.
¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 1 Thus I grow increasingly less and less interested in the “highfalutin” dialogue that encompasses much of upper academia. Again, I understand much of it, and I would argue that it has a great deal of importance. Something important and essential would be lost without the works of Eve Sedgwick or Paulo Friere. Yet at the same time, this type of writing seems to often move us further and further from what I see as our main goal. It’s not the ideas expressed, but the language, this seeming necessity to speak in jargon that quite often results in what I perceive to be little more than academic self-praise (I have coarser words, but I’m already suspecting that I’m about to be stoned as is. Then again, I often perceive my writing as more inflammatory or damning than it actually is).
¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 So in the end, I think that why I’m here is to be a Bodhisattva Organic Intellectual, or at least the bastardized version I have attempted to cobble together here. I am not certain if that makes me a member of some Undercommons or greater movement or anything along those lines. I do believe that analyzing our culture is necessary; that’s part of why I’ve moved in the direction I have for my studies and selected what I have. In fact, it seems odd to me that I haven’t mentioned Culture at some point. Perhaps it’s because that while that’s what I want to teach: the interconnectedness of culture and what literature as cultural artifacts and its interpretations and our experience of them means (and wow, I cannot believe I seriously managed to articulate that in a short burst), it’s not really the core of why I’m here. Or who I believe I’m responsible toward. Maybe it explains what I think makes academic labor useful; I think I have sort of danced around that idea without directly expressing it. What I do know is that I believe part of our mission as intellectuals is to look back and try to help others and decode, though honestly, that seems almost more our mission as human beings than anything.
¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 I want to end by mentioning Sedgwick’s reiterated idea of shame as I understand it. Throughout her writing, Sedgwick routinely mentioned different critics who situation the affect of shame as part of what drives us and helps us make theory. This is something that I think I get on some level, and for me, it seems to explain a lot of academic writing sort of in general. It also probably explains why I feel that so much of what I’ve written here is apologetic: I’m simultaneously proud of and ashamed of my position and feelings. I cannot say how academically sound any of this is, but I believe that it makes sense and expresses a philosophy that extends to pedagogy and other areas of life. Or, in other words, I’m who I am because of where I’ve come from, and I’m as confused about that as anybody.
Oh, dear… it’s like you’re in my brain
I completely sympathize with the shame and uncertainty around the reading of theory. I have also had such experiences, that I think I know what it basically is, but constantly feeling in error, like what I understand isn’t the same thing everyone else is talking about. It is much easier for me to announce what I’m thinking or reading, than try to report on and incorporate other people’s theories. (my cheat-fix is make up my own…still in progress though).
You’re tying together gramsci and buddhist teachings? oh my, that is wonderfully done. I can see the care you have for the people of your past and your class, and that care, and choice, makes a lot of sense in what we got of buddhist attitudes towards teaching.
And, again, I agree with you that the high, technical jargon of academia, while important, isn’t exactly something most students will find useful in the classroom. A lot of the ideas and theories are doing good work, but they’re at the wrong end of the learning process for most students to start with. I myself am a fan of clear, understandbale language…and while I see how some terms and technicalizing is needed, sometimes it just seems to be used to make the author sound smart, or acaemic, and sometimes how ‘difficult’ a piece is, is seen as a substitute for how intellectual or knowlegable it may be. (and if it comes to throwing stones, you and I are on the same side of the firing line in this).
Given your philosophizing, I can see why culture is where it is on your priorities list. I also agree that it is one of the things that makes our work meaningful, that interconnectedness. (and, you managed that in a very nice articulate burst I may quote elsewhere. Well crafted!)
I can definately see the realationship between academic writing and shame – and I completely understand that moment of being both proud and ashamed, knowing that the things you believe may not be exactly what others expect, but proud in your hard-won belief. And it looks coherent to me, philosophy and pedagogy and history and the future. I can tell you that I see nothing here for you to be ashamed of (though that rarely helps me).
And your last line is gold. We are all shaped by our pasts and contexts, but that doesn’t mean we understand them any better than anybody else. (aka, I’m just as certain and confused. yay!)