The New York Sophist

There’s nothing like it. Bukowski really nailed it when he wrote about it. It’s my second day here at the Saratoga Public library doing some work and it’s overflowing with joy for me.

I’m in Saratoga Springs with my partner as she is here attending a state teacher’s meeting. I tagged along for support, good dinners, to fetch coffee from time to time, and to enjoy a new town together. But when she is in meetings, I have to find something to do. The public library is always a good choice, wherever you are.

The Saratoga Public Library on November 3, 2024

I like writing and working from home but this comes with a test of willpower: Can you stay seated, typing and reading, for a long enough time to get a boil going and then for the boil to actually cook anything properly? Chances are, no. There are myriad things to attend to at home such as cleaning, supplying the house, taking care of a whiny little dog, and various other chores. For example, today I spent a long time on the internet and the phone making doctor’s appointments (or trying to). This wasn’t the case when you are out of pocket and in a space reserved for a very specific kind of work – the work of words.

Charles Bukowski said it best about the library. For him it was a respite from the continuous torture he faced from his parents and from the other students at school. He would often skip and go to the public library instead where he would read a lot of the works that would inspire him to become one of the greats himself. He wrote a couple of odes to the library:

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When I was dying of hunger and nobody wanted to publish me, I spent even more time in the library than I have ever since. It was wonderful to get a seat by a window in the sunlight where the sun could fill my head with music. (1965)

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and from a poem “The Burning of the Dream” about the destruction of the library that saved him during high school:

it is
thanks to my luck
and my way
that this library was 
there when I was
young and looking to 
hold on to 
something
when there seemed very
little about

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The relationship with the library is a layered thing. It was for me a place to find fun books on a weekend, then it became a weapons plant – something like Q’s lab when James Bond is being equipped for a mission. Many summers I would be asked to be dropped at the public library in Lakeland, Florida when visiting my Dad. There wasn’t a lot to do that interested me so being there was great. I could read and listen to CDs. They had quite the collection. I could also just look at whatever book caught my attention.

High School debate brought about the weapons lab, where the library was transformed into a place to sharpen iron and learn new spells to cast against one’s opponents. A grimoire of potential magic words for debate became a place to then write my own, drawing from it to create depth and flow for my own writing from high school to college. Since graduate school to today, the library is the place I go first when crafting ideas. I draw as many books as I can from it and then see where they can take my words. So far, so good. I’ve written a lot, and I’ve written many things that I think people like. Although I haven’t really written anything that is at the level of moving attitude and feeling that I would like.

Practice with writing is essential and I don’t do it as often as needed. Finding a space to dedicate to it is hard. I think I’ll try my own library now that I’m home from my fun trip up north. Working in your own space is a bit more challenging as there are distractions galore and priorities that can easily dethrone the practice of writing. Trying to draw upon old books to find new ways to say (or cast) the magic words about takes energy and time, two things that capitalism does not like to share. You should be consuming! That consumption shouldn’t inspire you to create, but to consume more! It’s a formidable foe.

Tomorrow will be a trip to a new library to me to donate books. Even this can be a distraction from writing. Reading can be a distraction, although a significant amount of reading is needed to be able to write anything decent. The energy for this art is enormous. And we think AI drains energy. Think about how much you are fighting against to write just one simple paper for a class. Your mind wants to think about a ton of other things. You feel anxious about all the other things that need attention. And also, what are you trying to say? What do you want to say? What does the paper want to be? What does the audience (aka the teacher) want the paper to be?

It’s a lot and too much at once. One thing at a time. A place and a means and a mode are what are needed for practice. And the writing will never be very good. But it will be done and contribute to a future writing, a future engagement that maybe someone will like.

The ancient question of what topics are appropriate for students to speak about, debate about, or write about is evergreen. I think about this at the end and start of every teaching term.

I see several approaches to this question that are well-warranted. It doesn’t mean that I agree with any of them though!

The Word Bank Model

Remember being in primary school and sometimes you’d have a test or exam that would feature a “word bank?” You were meant to take the words from the random collection in a box and use them to complete the test questions. It really helped a lot if you were stuck, and probably forwarded an idea of learning relationships and meanings rather than rote memorization.

The Word Bank Model as an answer to this question is when the instructor selects the potential topic areas, and the student selects from these areas in order to complete the technical or structural requirements for the assigment.

For example, in public speaking it’s quite popular to assign something like a “policy speech.” This assignment requires the student to propose and persuade an “audience” that a particular policy should be adopted or should be chosen over some set of competing policies either in place or in consideration.

An instructor might write, “Select one of the following policies: The Green New Deal, Medicare for All, Tuition-Free Higher Education, Assault Weapons or handgun ban. . .” etc.

That was a very American list wasn’t it? The point though is that the typical instructor should draw on things that are circulating, current and happening right then in the society so the students have ample discourse to root around in, embrace, and explore on these issues.

Most instructors might not feel comfortable wtih not “knowing the right answer” to some of these policy questions, but that’s ok – we are teachers of persuasion and rhetoric, not facts and truth. Instructor discomfort with such suggested topics is more indicative of instructors feeling like they are losing their classroom authority (read: authoritarianism) by not being able to definitively say what the right answer is on these questions.

The downfall of this model (there are many) is that the instructor is often only educated on controversial issues by the mass media (CNN, NBC, etc.) and does not have a grasp on the nuance or depth of these controversies, nor how to access the deeper arguments on these questions.

An invitation to a research librarian to assist the class on curating resources for these topics is definitely in order, as well as a strict ban on mass-market news sources as more than 20% of the cited sources in the presentation.

Controversy is the Source of the Topic

Even less control over the topics comes from the instructor choosing to teach the structure and habits of controversy itself rather than a particualr issue. The students are charged with finding a topic that meets the standards and definition of controversy that was defined in the classroom.

Whenever a controversy is brought up, research should be conducted by the students or participants as to what’s out there on it. This can be as broad or narrow as you want. For example, the vaccine controversy is not going to go very far as a topic for debate if you restrict it only to the scientific literature. If you expand the notion of what’s out there to include the mom bloggers and the religious folks, as well as the clean lifestyle folks, you have a debate there that becomes more about what evidence is good and appropriate, not the relatively thin and uninteresting question of “what’s the real evidence?”

Letting the controversy decide is a great way to show us how language pushes us around into the identities and positions that it wants us to hold as well. Being moved by an argument that goes completely against classroom standards of a “good source” is an experience that should be talked about as a normal part of education. Too often we get the articulation that only “stupid people” (whoever they are) will believe a position, and those on the right side of the issue understand the “facts” and “evidence.” These are all, in the end, preferred ways to understand the world and the controversy will, as it pulses along, give credibility to various positions that those opposite will be stunned by. This is what it means to argue – to be baffled by what counts in the words and meanings of your opponents.

This should also point out that those who support calls for “evidence-based debate” are not offering anything to rhetorical or debate education except a retread of a tire that just shouldn’t be driven on. Of course debate requires evidence – that’s not the controversy. It’s what counts as evidence that should be explored precisely because it moves from context to audience to situation. Contemporary debate coaches who make this appeal are simply guilty of equivocation.

The Quality Source or Professional Niche Approach

One of the defenses of teaching public speaking or debate is that it is a professional skill set that aids people in working on professionalizing. So why not have students select a controversy or disagreement from their major field and speak or debate about that?

This allows instructors to assign work for reading that might be off-base for the story they are trying to tell about their field or the topic of the course, but allows the students to discuss the differences between various publications, practicing using the thought processes, practices, terms, and culture of the field.

Such debates in class are also the heart of the model of undergraduate research, something every administrator pushes and pushes without much of a concept of what that really looks like. I had an undergraduate student who did some research for a professor that primarily involved buying him a yogurt and a banana every day from the cafeteria. Why a symbolic appointment when you can have the symbol and the work for everyone during class? Opting in shouldn’t be the model for the most important bits of education. This extends to the model of the contemporary debate team as well. If debate is such an important way to learn, why limit it to those who the coach thinks are “good,” whatever that means?

Good Citizens Can Advocate

It seems like the controversy driven model, but this model is one where larger questions about the normative, ethical, or valuable tasks or perspective on things like social issues, governance, or culture are explored. Instead of “Should we withdraw our troops from this or that place,” the topic becomes “Should governments have a standing army?”

This is a much more philosophical approach at first glance, but I’d hesitate to say that. Instead, think of this as an accounting exercise for the students where they are asked – possibly for the first time in their lives – to provide a detailed accounting for the principles of the right or the good they rely on as citizens. These are the hidden and unarticualted principles of the good they rely on for all political choices and decisions. And now we have a chance to make them plain; to investigate and examine whether they make sense when articulated socially.

Students can bring up controversies which the instructor then treats as the begged question, i.e. “What prior question must be answered before we can address this question?” Here’s an example from an assignment where I turned my whole public speaking class into a big debate

New York City should be a sanctuary city (this means that the city authorities will not cooperate with the Federal immigration authorities on any requests to detain possible undocumented people).

So the begged question is: What is the appropriate relationship between the local and national government? Or: What is the appropriate relationship governments should have to people?

You can of course derive other ones, but you can see that hidden within an answer to the sanctuary city topic there is this larger assumption there that the entire meaning of the argument or position rests on (Toulmin would call this backing for those of you still gnawing on that old chestnut – it’s December so chestnuts are the appropriate metaphor).

The practice of being a citizen should be connected to the idea that expressing your view on issues based on your own experiences is normal and welcome. It is also normal and welcome to listen to the views of others who live in your polis, whatever that might be defined as. And it’s normal and welcome to change your mind, several times, as you incorporate the lived experience and beliefs of those who share that space.

How do we encourage and get argument innovation? By allowing students huge amounts of latitude in how they articulate connections between their own experience and what they hear and read in courses. We should not be choosing topics for courses or limiting what can be said; this is the true heart of academic free expression. The ability to express ideas freely is to show one’s work, and if you are not permitting students to do this regularly within courses, you are not teaching.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library_babel_fish/how_libraries_trump_big_media

A must read for all of you Economist addicts out there. Commercial media just doesn’t hold up well when compared to public organizations that do information literacy right. Do you go to the library? Or do you leaf through the Economist on the way to the tournament? The difference is between the athlete who hits the gym, or the one who jogs to the arena after relaxing all week.

You most likely have access to a good research library if you are reading this. Why don’t you use it?

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/library_babel_fish/how_libraries_trump_big_media

A must read for all of you Economist addicts out there. Commercial media just doesn’t hold up well when compared to public organizations that do information literacy right. Do you go to the library? Or do you leaf through the Economist on the way to the tournament? The difference is between the athlete who hits the gym, or the one who jogs to the arena after relaxing all week.

You most likely have access to a good research library if you are reading this. Why don’t you use it?