Im a college professor - one of my puzzling identities - (and by the way, not especially good at it!) - but: a creative writer, rather than a PhD-ish literary scholar, and so I havent had the training in rigorous discourse that most other academics have had - and academicians are swell! Some of my best friends are, etc. Nonetheless, Ive noticed over the course of a twenty-year immersion in academic strategies and practices (I was on a bunch of college-professor-hiring-committees, I tried to absorb the PhD-ish lingo, to learn their rules of engagement): I have observed that one of the effects of depth training in academic discourse can be that you become expert, not only in hearing what the other person has to say, but in listening for the holes in her or his or their argument, such that you can begin immediately to refute what she or they or he is saying. So you sometimes jump to rebuttal before you have fully acknowledged the argument you are rebutting. This can become a professorial style, and I think its what I do: listen for what is inevitably going to be wrong in what you havent finished saying. Okay, maybe this is not what college professors do ever or at all, maybe its only what I do, and Im projecting it onto others (which is my favorite way of practicing self-deception). (And my favorite way of projecting!) In any case, Facebook is certainly a non-stop and irresistible chance to practice this kind of discourse: to say, not, I hear you, but rather, Let me tell you how youre wrong. And whats more satisfying than people who are wrong? I *love* them. Still, though: and so I have to remind myself to hear what people are saying, and to take them into account, before I lesson them about their faulty claims and bad ideas! And its very hard to listen! Just listen. And then ask questions about what you just heard. I am not good at this at all! But it seems increasingly important to do.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 07:57:33 +0000
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