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photo by Johnathan Gooch
The Gadfly
02 The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the student newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadfly reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. Staff Nathan Goldman • Editor-in-Chief Ian Tuttle • Editor-in-Chief Hayden Pendergrass • Layout Editor Sasha Welm • Illustrator Andrew Kriehn • Staff Robert Malka • Staff Sarah Meggison • Staff Contributors Lucinda Dukes Edinberg Daniel Harrell John Himes Jerry Januszewski Shayna Jenkins Patricia Locke Micaela MacDougall Tim McClennen President Nelson Zeke Schumacher John Verdi
!"#$%&'(%)*+&#",-
J
ohnnies: Many thanks to those who contributed to our previous issue on the Siegelvision “rebranding” effort. Much has transpired in the intervening weeks, and we are glad to publish here continued reflections on the project, including two from tutors. Of course, the seriousness of this effort must be countered by at least a little fun—so don’t miss the back page! We also commend your attention to the letter, at right, from President Nelson, on campus finances, and to the fact that this weekend, September 27-29, is Homecoming Weekend. Network, make friends, get nostalgic. We’re all Johnnies here. And to any alums who might stumble into our pages, welcome home! !
!"#$%&'(%)"(*+,(-&... President Christopher B. Nelson
D
SF’70
ear Members of the St. John’s College Polity,
I am frequently asked how the College’s operations are financed and how the money is spent. As our financial model has changed considerably since the economy went into its downturn in the fall of 2008, it seems appropriate to address this question broadly to our community. What is the principal change in our model? The need for financial aid has climbed significantly in the last five years. This has caused us to rely more heavily on philanthropic support than ever before. As we are committed to making this education affordable for all who belong at the College, we have also committed ourselves to reducing costs and seeking alternative funding. This is how it looks today: The Annapolis campus has a budget of nearly $36 million, of which $10 million is used for financial aid to students. Of the remaining $26 million, less than half ($11 million) is funded by tuition actually paid by our students. Nearly $1.5 million comes from federal and state support of financial aid programs. About $4.5 million comes from auxiliary revenue (room, board, and revenue from the book store, print shop, and outreach programs for the community, all of which cover our costs of those operations). This leaves a balance of $8.7 million, roughly one-third of our operating revenue, that comes from gifts and gift income (i.e., distributions from our endowment —the College’s savings account). Most of those gifts come from grateful alumni who want to help St. John’s continue to offer the education that helped them make happy and fulfilling lives for themselves. So much for the sources of revenue. How is it spent? Eleven million dollars, more than 40 percent of the $26 million budget, is spent directly on instruction and academic support (tutors, the Dean’s, Assistant Dean’s and GI offices, laboratory, library and music library). Another $3.4 million is spent on student services (from the offices of Career Services, Student Services, Health Services, and athletics, to student clubs and the Admissions and Financial Aid offices). Nearly $6.4 million is spent on institutional support (the Business Office, Public Safety, personnel, Advancement, alumni relations, corporate and foundation relations, Communications, Information Technology, telephones, office services, and the President’s office). Less than $1.3 million is spent on debt service to pay down a relatively small amount of debt used to finance some of the building construction and renovation. The remaining $4 million supports our auxiliary expenses (dormitories, grounds, food service, book store, and print shop.) We are indeed fortunate that the College has the increased philanthropic support we need to maintain our class sizes, lively campus life, and financial aid program in these more demanding times. And this coming weekend, we welcome home our alumni who are most responsible for this gift of life to our College. Please join me in thanking them for all the good they do in the interest of our College and our students. Sincerely, Christopher B. Nelson President
The Gadfly
03
!""#$%&$'%()*+$,%-.*%/011*2*34*%5+66*2$% John Verdi
A
Tutor
mid the discussion about the central activity in which we engage at St. John’s—talk about books or talk about ideas—we have forgotten our authors. Now, this might sound disingenuous. After all, how well do we get to know the authors in the first place? We pay little attention to the facts about their births and deaths. We know virtually nothing about their personal lives. (How many of them were married, for instance? What would you guess?) We eschew information about the places and times in which they lived and flourished. Aren’t their names merely ciphers, just a way to organize the books? We could replace their names with numbers. The author of the first seven seminar readings of freshman year could be number 1. Then “The Following Teachers Will Return” would introduce a list of numbers, determined no doubt after some debate. (For example, how many numbers should be assigned to the Bible?) But we don’t do this. We all sense that it is simply of the utmost importance that a book has an author, a person like us, who takes responsibility for what he or she writes, and tells us, person-to-person, “I think this is important.” That human voice compels us to take notice, makes us sleepless, thrills us. Whether the book be written on stone, paper, or my The heart of a liberiPad, what distinguishes it from “an idea” is that someal education as St. one wrote it. But, you obJohn’s understands ject, the books we read are it is not merely full of ideas. In class, don’t confronting great we talk about those ideas, ideas or eternal the ones that delight, enrage, puzzle, liberate us? questions naked. It Of course we do. The ideas is making contact we encounter in the books, with great minds. however, are not like apples on a tree, waiting for us to pluck, examine, and either consume or discard. They are more like the petals of a flower, which derive their beauty only from being a part of something greater. Ideas are more like musical tones or the colors of paint, charged with meaning while part of a melody or a painting, but thin and pale and deceptive when out alone. We should no more say that today, we discussed the idea of justice, than we would say that today we talked about F# or Van Gogh’s yellow. Because the books have authors, because people write them, books are wholes. They express the minds that created them. If we don’t celebrate the author over the idea, then we risk becoming one of those who view books as merely vehicles for something else, as if the Cheshire Cat were only a way to deliver a smile. The heart of a liberal education as St. John’s understands it is not merely confronting great ideas or eternal questions naked. It is making contact with great minds. It means discussing with our peers what those minds have expressed in their work. Our goal is not to appropriate the “value derived from the books,” but to understand the books as beacons of human
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possibility. We can only attempt that because the authors have names, not numbers. It is important that Dante wrote the Commedia and that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, even if we know scant little of their lives. All the authors have worked hard at making sense of things, for themselves and for others. Whether what they say makes sense to us, whether we can make it our own, even for two minutes—well, that is the question. That question never goes away. !
7"6.038%7*9%:*2* Daniel Harrell
I
Tutor
spent several hours on a lengthy and impartial summary, intended for the Gadfly, of the faculty forum with Claude Singer from Siegelvision two Fridays ago. Then I scrapped it. I scrapped it because nothing really happened. Singer made a presentation that not only included no current work on the project, even as he showed slides of mockups in passing to suggest otherwise; I’m told the slides gave little indication even of the direction of the current work. What we got instead were a recounting of Siegelvision’s recommendations about the College’s “message” to prospective students that any reader of the Gadfly a week before already knew; an assurance that the student survey results from the summer mockups supported those recommendations; and finally a series of exchanges between Singer and faculty members about his presentation as if it were what it wasn’t: a straightforward accounting of the project as it presently stands. What we got, again in a word, was nothing. About Singer’s presentation itself, its outdated relation to the current work notwithstanding, I can only say that there was nothing in it that our students have not already envisioned in jest, as a provocation to remain serious about who we are in this time of challenge. The April Fools’ issue of the Santa Fe Moon last year, for example, was devoted to a rebranding of the College, as was a 2012 Senior skit video in Annapolis. There was also nothing in the presentation that indicated any tension between the College’s interests in being known as uniquely suited for anyone who wants to learn, and Siegelvision’s interests in being known as an innovative branding agency. There was finally nothing in the presentation, especially when compared with the “Question the Rebranding” letter drafted by concerned students, to explain why the College has entrusted its rhetoric to the one rather than the other—unless persuasive speech were a matter of expertise rather than education, unless those we make free through education were incidental rather than essential to the endeavor, unless the College had lost a confidence in education—yes, liberal education—that its students still possess. I wish the conclusion of this project well, having nothing but contempt for the evident premises. !
The Gadfly
04
!"#$%&'(%)*+(,*-(.%#/%0#+("-*&1 Mike Lacy
A’12
A
t my job in Nashville, TN, at a non-profit, I get to work cause of the “Contemporary Crisis in Western Civilization.” with young men in the juvenile justice system. I’ve helped The first is the publication of Luther’s 95 Theses in 1522 (“On develop the program along with a former drug kingpin. To German Nihilism,” Strauss, 1941), and the other is the reinterother non-profits that want to learn from us, I use Homer to pretation of enlightenment with Descartes’ Method in 1637 explain the wounded warrior archetype that gang members (“Progress or Return?” Strauss, 1952). Strauss explains that manifest, crystallized in the character of Achilles 3200 years the problem is that these moments led to the belief that evago. So you might say I am not one of those Johnnies who be- eryone could learn “the method,” and this caused a “leveling” moans, “Our diploma is useless these days!” There is, however, of the greater faculties of the mind. Before this point, Strauss a certain mindset—one that it is very easy to hold when one claims, “the sciences and philosophies were the reserve of the graduates from St. John’s—that is useless. few.” They were only supposed to be studied by “those with Death is not a foreign concept to the young men with whom good natures,” who are now called “gifted.” They alone were I work. It is an immanent specter that, under the right circum- entitled to be made free men by use of books and scales. stances, lends gravity to every motion of their consciousness. In the days since Strauss’ great mentor Heidegger was the “Changing the way your mind works,” the former gang banger leading crest of philosophy, many wonderful minds emerged I work with often says, “will be the difference between life that we do not study at St. Johns, and many schools teach from and death.” In the face of constant gun violence and senseless exclusively those sources. There is a notion, which we regumurder, a genuine way out creates two possible outcomes. larly admit in casual conversation, but have difficulty articuThere is either an awakening of the dialating when we are trying to speak both prelectical yearning for psychical growth and an cisely and groundedly, that says those other I’m not saying that abandonment to the greater, less limited inschools are “doing it essentially wrong.” This St. John’s has to carnations of the Self that lie beyond, or else actually gets close to the heart of the matter. there is a bitter, wounded, Achilles-like resigThere are two St. John’s. One St. John’s, change its program. nation, which brings death down upon itself the Leo Strauss St. John’s, believes itself to But the claim that by choice (in an attempt to maintain control be uniquely special. This St. John’s believes: we are doing some- “We are categorically different. We, as Johneven at the expense of one’s very own life). thing ‘inherently I am eager to see which route is taken by St. nies, because of our education, are essentialdifferent’ from other ly different from other students.” Believing John’s as the specter of the College’s potential death visits our two campuses. schools is precisely ourselves to be privileged is being unadaptI personally believe there is good sense in able and incapable of integration, and that what is killing us. every suggestion made by the firm Siegelviwhich cannot integrate and adapt will die. sion. I believe the school should focus on The mysterious wave of time has crashed ideas rather than books. I think this is both good marketing upon the proud prophets who wrote the great books, and their and good philosophy. I do not think Siegelvision was speak- song has been warped in an Achilles-like whimper that watching from a post-foundationalist perspective when they made es modernity from the sideline, cursing the loss of his Briseis. this suggestion, but it is true to Scott Buchanan’s view of the Do not misunderstand me: the shape of the modern spirit is usefulness of books and liberal education. The New Program certainly not perfect, overly curious, or complete. Modernity’s founder said that he rarely finished books, and that the pur- Agamemnonish tyranny is sure to be lost to a successor, but pose of liberal education was to awaken the “never sleeping not even Achilles was brash enough to think that he was next intellect,” which can be stirred from its sleep in an infinite in line. variety of ways. Yet, from our founding, this view was chalAnd then there is the other St. John’s, which has another lenged by those like Jacob Klein, who saw the liberal arts as fate. This is the path we hope our juvenile delinquents choose, the means by which the torch of enlightenment was kept alive. the path of Odysseus. The impromptu philosopher who sufWell, which one is it? fers and endures, who learns from the people and cities he visLet me teach you one trick I’ve picked up—whether on the its, and whose deceptiveness turns out to merely be wiliness, campus of St. John’s or not, I can’t remember. Make the Great the indecision of the young Self about which costume it shall Minds into straw men. They won’t mind. They are very much wear. He is both Achilles and Agamemnon, and so much more. dead. Leo Strauss, the “he-who-must-not-be-named” of St. St. John’s can learn from “Integral Theory,” from the moveJohn’s, can be a very helpful straw man. He is, as a straw man, ment led by our contemporary Ken Wilber, which embraces the demigod of those who believe in the right of the privileged ancient wisdom and modern truths. It can learn from the early few over the leveled many. His essay “Progress or Return?” 20th century psychologist and sociologist James Mark Baldgets to the heart of St. John’s’ current dilemma, and no amount win, who demonstrated the universal patterns which the indiof bickering over Siegelvision’s rebranding strategies will get vidual and society follows, and the rank that all of us, beyond us any closer to this dialectically potent seed. Continued On Pg. 05 During his life, Strauss pointed to two moments as being the
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The Gadfly Continued From
05 Pg. 04
exception, have of being equally part of the micro and the macro. These thinkers embraced “Integration,” a mode of being which Achilles did not live long enough for, which in education means a sublation of modernity and antiquity and a surrendering of imagined privilege for actual presence at a table of equals. I’m not saying that St. John’s has to change its program. But the claim that we are doing something “inherently different” from other schools is precisely what is killing us. Believing they are “invincible” is precisely what is killing the young men I work with. Only when we open ourselves to the other forces at work in the world, to the other spirits and Daseins with which we are entangled, can our spirit grow into those spaces. It is only when we are compared to other schools that our strengths can be seen. But—and this is what makes many of the wounded warriors I work with falter in their path towards choosing life—openness and vulnerability will reveal flaws which we would rather not see. The reason we should try to look at Great Minds as straw men is that once we try to flatten them, they spring right back. “Integration,” the openness to other ideas and other projects, was not foreign even to Leo Strauss. Though he once said that we shouldn’t study the Chinese because “we can’t learn every language,” he later changed his song. He spoke: “We can hope beyond technological world society, we can hope for a genuine world society, only if we become capable of learning from the East, especially from China.” !
!"#"$%&"$&'$&(#)*+&,)-.* Tim McClennen
T
A’14
here is a phrase—“the ivory tower”—and many phrases derived from it. It is (almost) never a phrase used self-referentially, but one used about someone other than the speaker, almost always pejoratively. People accuse others of being “in an ivory tower,” or they accuse an idea of being “from an ivory tower.” They mean that a person (or idea) is disconnected from reality and obscures his (or its) meaning so that anyone who is not a cryptographic analyst or another intellectual will not be able to recognize how useless the he (or it) is. he image arrises from a medieval fortress, very good at keeping people out; specifically real people, who do real work, and are therefore actually important. The real people have been locked out, but they cluster around the gate, and beseech, pray, weep and beg for redress to their grievances. But not only are they not let in, the tower is so tall that the people inside of it, who all live at the top, could not even hear these real people if they wanted to—which they don’t. The thing about tall towers is that you can see a very long distance from them. They also have sally ports, where you can stick your head out if you are willing to climb Our tower can be down the long spiral staircase to do so. When called ivory, but it you stick your head out of that sally port, you ought not to be. Our can hear the grievance of the people. From the tower is made of patop you can see all of them, and the lands that they have journeyed across to get to the base per, cardboard, linen of your tower. and ink. The books, Perhaps the people are complaining about each upon the previfamine. But maybe from the top of your tower ous, lift us up. you can see the bumper crop that your neighbors are growing. Or maybe the famine is being caused by a blockage in the river, which you can see from the top of your tower. Seeing it, you can suggest to the petitioners at the base of the tower that they form a work party and go clear the river blockage. In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” the characters enter an alabaster tower to turn away from the problems besetting the rest of the people, but those problems follow them into the tower. But a tower can also be used to coordinate an assault upon the sources of the problems, saving both the people below and the residents above. Our tower can be called ivory, but it ought not to be. Our tower is made of paper, cardboard, linen and ink. The books, each upon the previous, lift us up. As we climb that stack we can see farther and farther if we look out, or we can hear less and less if we look in. Let us consider the effect which Peo ascribes to looking in, and do the opposite. !
T
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!"#$%&#'&()#"*#+$,#-"%)./#0"11&2&3 ! John Himes, A’17
I
’ve been compelled to write to you by my questioning of the rebranding, and I’ve felt that my voice may be valuable to your search for understanding and portraying the “Johnnie” identity to the world. I went to the forum earlier today, and what really struck me most was the moment when we all raised our hands, affirming that we came here for the stack of books hanging over our beds, telling us that they would be our teachers in the coming years. Please don’t de-emphasize the books. Don’t accept the notion that they are an archaic form of expressing infor-
mation; they are alive through us. I’ve only been here for a month or so, but I sincerely believe that the reason I feel so at home here is that same reason that convinced me I needed to come here: I walk out onto the Quad and see people reading. We are a college of books, and I firmly believe that you, as a soul dedicated to St. John’s, will understand the feeling I share with scores of my peers that no matter how you translate the language of our college, we must stay true to the books to which we are so loyal—the books that bring us together into one community of bookworms.
The Gadfly
06
The Politics of the Polity Constitution Zeke Schumacher
A
A’15
s you can no doubt tell from the byline just barely above be given that power by those who constituted that Constituthis sentence, my name is Zeke Schumacher. It’s pos- tion in the first place—that is, the Polity? sible you may not know me. It’s possible you may, even now, You see, the College Charter defines the Polity in this way: be confusing me with the new Zeke, who is a fine freshman “The Students of St. John’s College shall constitute the Stufellow also from California. (If there was a name on campus dent Polity of St. John’s College in Annapolis and in Santa Fe.” I was expecting to be repeated, it was certainly not “Zeke.”) [Article XII (2), Polity of St. John’s College]. And similarly, the It’s also possible you do, in fact, already know me, and have College Charter states that the “Student Polity in Annapolis… been awaiting with bated breath my next may establish for itself a government Sophistry column—though I strongly which is representative of all Polity While I applaud the Coun- members.” [Article XII (3), Polity of St. doubt this latter bit. cil for taking the initiative John’s College]. I wanted to introduce myself in as personal a fashion as can be afforded by The student Polity did not vote for to do something to correct print, because I am a representative of this constitution. It was not even repthe shortfalls of the previthe Polity, elected by 20-something of my resented by its representative governous constitution, they have ment: For once the constitution under peers, sitting on the Delegate Council. inadvertently set a danger- which that government was constituted You see, those 20-something people ous precedent of autocratic ceased to exist, how did it have power to who voted for me make me more legitimate as ruler of the Polity than the Polrule, and have threatened institute itself again under a new constiity Constitution. This statement is quite tution? It needed to be constituted once to make the Delegate bold, and I make it for the following reaagain by the Polity. Council even more deson: 17 people (on the Council) voted for Further, even if the Council, as “reptached from the Polity. the current Polity Constitution, and it beresentatives” of the Polity, voted to insticame Law. tute a new Constitution, how could they This was immediately preceded by the Council single- be representing the will of the Polity if only three students handedly voting to give itself the power to constitute a new showed up to discuss the constitution? Constitution. While I applaud the Council for taking the initiative to do I believe this to be fundamentally wrong. something to correct the shortfalls of the previous constituThe Delegate Council did its duty and studiously informed tion, they have inadvertently (here rises the terrible head of the Polity through community emails that the constitutional the Law of Unintended Consequence) set a dangerous precamendment process had begun, and gave the Polity the chance edent of autocratic rule, and have threatened to make the Delto come comment on two proposed amendments: One that re- egate Council even more detached from the Polity. quired a vote of the Polity to approve any new Constitution, This highlights a critical need for another topic of great imand one that required only a vote of the Council to approve a port for a following column: the Delegate Council must begin new Constitution. to engage the Polity at large in dialogue and in the events ocBecause only three people (total) showed up to any of three curring on campus that, in one way or another, affect us all. different discussion meetings, the Council interpreted the will To that end, I invite anyone and everyone on this Campus to of the Polity to be thus: No one cares about the Council, the approach me and ask me any questions they Constitution, or what we do; so as long as we are changing may have regarding the Counit for what we think to be better, let us act as cil, or anything else that goes on we will. around campus, and to tell me what Now, there are two fundamental probthey think about current College lems with this line of thinking: events. 1) Silence does not equal consent. I also call upon all St. John’s Just because the Polity did not students to examine themselves, respond to esoteric language of and this college, and ask what the Polamendments and constitutions (and ity means—what sort of involvement it a Delegate Council that remains an requires of us, and how we all afunknown entity in many ways) does fect each other insofar as we are not mean that the Council can do bound to this place and this Prowhatever it wants; and gram. And I strongly encourage 2) Can a body created by a all of us to begin to take an active role Constitution give itself the in our own government and direction, power to remove and replace for, as we have seen, if we do not act that constitution? Or must it for ourselves, others will act for us. !
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The Gadfly
07
!"#$%&'()*#+, Jerry Januszewski
M
Counselor
y first alcoholic drink changed my life. It was the sum- when told how I annoyed people with my argument about the mer of my 14th year. merits of disco, and I didn’t even like disco. And yes, I was Our town held a festival every July called The Feast of St. mortified when I woke up on my friend’s sofa, having passed Anthony. It was not so much a religious event as a raucous car- out and pissed on it. And no, I didn’t like having to apologize nival, the kind where the normal rules of conduct are loosened. for my obnoxious behavior the day after some heavy drinking. At a booth I managed to knock down the milk cans with a But drinking was great, right? baseball, and the grown-up running the booth, a classmate’s Fast forward to age 21. I was at a bar with my drinking budfather, put a bottle of wine in my hands. Normally he would dies, eight of us. We were the best of friends and knew each never have given me alcohol, but this was The Feast, so even other well, or so I thought. There were three pitchers of beer though I shouldn’t have been surprised, I was startled to now on the table. As I refilled the cups around the table, the guy be the owner of this cool, mysterious bottle. I cradled it in my next to me, Harry, said no thanks. arm like a football and hurried through the crowd to find my “Not drinking tonight?” I asked. two close friends. “No, I never drink,” he said. After hacking through the cork with a I was surprised. “What do you mean pen knife, the three of us drank the whole you don’t drink?” I was amazed that I had bottle. A happy, rosy glow overtook me. “I don’t drink.” been out in bars and at “Ohhhh, I get it now,” I said to my friends. “Why not?” parties with Harry for “This is why people drink.” Until that mo“I don’t care for it,” he said. ment it had never entered my mind to I was amazed that I had been out in many months, and I never seek out alcohol. If you asked me what I bars and at parties with Harry for many knew he wasn’t drinking did for fun, I would have said going to the months, and I never knew he wasn’t right along with the rest drinking right along with the rest of us. beach, sports and reading. I didn’t know of us. Just because some- Just because someone at a social event such elevated emotions were available to one at a social event has has a cup in his hand, doesn’t mean he has me. This wasn’t merely an insight, but a discovery. a cup in his hand, doesn’t alcohol in the cup, I discovered. I was confused by the phenomenon of Ridicule is often a form of questioning, mean he has alcohol in drinking alcohol because it seemed mostly and so I poked fun at Harry at the time. the cup, I discovered. negative, making grown-ups I respected But secretly I admired him for being so act stupidly. I was embarrassed for them self-assured, for following his own star. when they drank. Stupid was the one thing I knew I didn’t The truth was, I didn’t feel comfortable with the way I drank, want to be. But now, having felt the buzz, I determined that the but I lacked the self-possession and wherewithal to follow my next chance I had to drink alcohol, I would do it. star, or even see it. That moment came about two years later, at age 16. A reYou may be expecting me to say how I eventually stopped cently graduated high school friend was able to sneak me into drinking and found a better way of life. I did find a better way a college bar. The drinking age was 18 then. He bought me a to manage my emotions, and that did involve “breaking up” beer and then left me alone as he went off to talk with other with alcohol, in a sense. But the road to honest examination people he knew. of myself —who I was, what I wanted, and why my life matI stood off to the side and surveyed this bar scene in wide- tered—was more complex than deciding I no longer wanted to eyed wonder. People were happy and having fun, Eric Clapton use drinking as a spiritual and social crutch. music was playing, and there were pretty girls everywhere. Did I now see that from the beginning I was on a path of disthat one just smile at me? This was awesome. I drank my beer covery, but for me that path led far beyond the primitive like water. Pretty soon my friend came by. and unmanly bounds of seeking to get “Hey JJ, you gotta nurse that beer along. “buzzed.” My path had to do, not only Don’t drink it fast.” He bought me another. with the large questions of truth, goodI felt manly, thinking I had found an essenness and beauty, but also with quotial ingredient for a life I would really love. tidian questions such as, “How can I The bar scene added a thrilling social dicomfortably interact with people and mension to the buzz. Whatever made me feel still be myself?” and “Why do I care so like an awkward outlier in life ceased to exist in much about what others think of me?” the festive drinking scene, as long as I drank. So I and simply, “What makes a good day?” sought it out whenever I could. Drinking became a hindrance to me, so I Even when people started reporting back to me merely chose to take alcohol out of the equaidiotic things that I had said or done the night before, tion as I sought answers to those compelI thought the drinking was worth it. Yes, I winced ling questions. !
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The Gadfly
08
!"#$#%&'(#%)%*##+, Patricia Locke
A Tutor’s Account of the Eastern Classics Program
Tutor
Z
huang-zi dreamt he was a butterfly. When he awoke, he in the last semester after reading many Indian and Chinese could not tell: was he a man who dreamt he was a butter- philosophical/religious texts. The last term revolves around fly? or was he a butterfly who dreamt he was a man? Japanese books, and Genji feels to me like a culminating I feel a bit fluttery myself, upon my return from three years work. Here is the Shining Prince, emperor of Japan, irresistible in Santa Fe. I went there, in part, to see what the Eastern Clas- to the ladies (or so he thinks). This doorstop of a book follows sics program is all about. If you are thinking about turning into his love life, within a highly aestheticized milieu that fully disa so-called Super Johnnie, here are some reflections on the ex- plays the effect of the Buddhist traditions on high culture. The perience of doing the EC. first time I read this, I mourned the loss of hand-written letThe program is organized with a language tutorial, a set of ters. When intending to write a letter in his exquisite calligrafive preceptorials, and a continuing seminar. All EC students phy, Genji would select his stationery to reflect season, time of study either literary Chinese or Sanskrit, and put in consider- day, arc of the love affair, and sensibility of the lady. Could we, able time on this endeavor. Unlike the GI, where students take I thought, have some kind of stationery tray in our printers, so segments in different sequences, in the EC all students begin that we could print out meaningful emails on dove-gray cedartogether and take classes through three semesters. This is a smoke scented paper? But I digress.... tight-knit group, with roughly 20-30 students all told. Over one I also did preceptorials on Zhuang-zi, Confucius, Dogen,and third of the Santa Fe faculty has taught in the EC, so your tutors Chinese landscape painting. Students have two elective preare a varied lot, some having lived in Asia for many years. The ceptorials, and I imagine it must be as difficult to choose for queue for doing seminar is so long that I never did get to do the EC students as for the undergraduate juniors and seit. Instead, I had the coveted preceptorial assignment, so I set niors. For me, one of the highlights was a spring preceptoto work to read several of the books from the rial on early Buddhist sutras. When we seminar list in slow motion. Preceptorials in reached the Heart Sutra, which continues These very old texts, to be a very popular text, especially in the name and shape (eight week long classes on one book/topic), three of the five of them are Zen tradition, we set our table with a dualcarried across long mandatory for all EC students. distances orally or in language manual. On facing pages, we read Everyone reads the Mahabharata, an epic together the Sanskrit and Chinese versions a variety of media, so epic it is ten times longer than the Iliad line by line. Students had enough language handed down careful- skills and vocabulary under their belts to and Odyssey put together. It brags about ly, responsive to local read one side fairly well, and listened and itself that everything worth knowing is in there, and it devotes less than one paragraph inflection, are present asked questions of their classmates when to the conquering of Greece and Rome. It is we turned to the other language. It was so and fresh and starso shocking to think of Greece as an outpost revealing of the different capacities and emtlingly alive for us. of civilization. I wanted to dwell in the MB, phases of Sanskrit and Chinese languages, and so followed up with an elective precepand the task drew us back to reflect on the torial on the chapter called the Bhagavad Gita. This is a hal- contours of English. These very old texts, carried across long lucinatory moment when the battle is suspended: our hero distances orally or in a variety of media, handed down caredebates whether it is morally right to use the weapon of mass fully, responsive to local inflection, are present and fresh and destruction held lightly in his hand—against his teachers and startlingly alive for us. relatives facing him on the field. His charioteer reveals himAll in all the Eastern Classics was a fabulous experience self to be Krishna, a god in full glory, and the protagonist now for me, and brought me back to Annapolis thinking through makes his choice within a deeper understanding of the cosmic what kind of questions I now want to ask. I feel a bit like a context. How can you top this? butterfly, just out of the chrysalis, waving my wings slowly as Perhaps with Sima Qian’s history of the wars shaping na- they dry. Or perhaps like a woman just waking up, rubbing my scent China? It reminds me a bit of Thucydides, yet Sima Qian eyes as the room comes into focus. Where am I? What time is does not organize the material into a chronological sweep. We it? Who am I? follow one side, one character for a while, convinced that the If you think the EC might be right for you, now or after a few enemy is despicable. Turn the page. Now we hear about the years sojourn in the wider world, get in touch with David Carl. battles from the other person’s point of view; how could we As director of the EC, he can sketch out the financial support have been so hasty in judgement? Beyond the biographies of designed for graduates of the College, as well as other practical heroes and villains, who often are quite complex when infor- details. Choose the Eastern Classics, if you do, not as a default mation coming from several directions is knit together, I was for not having planned your next step, but because you anticistruck by the importance of geography. The land itself, and pate beginning again to wonder about what makes us human, particularly the rivers, have key roles to play in turning events. what kind of world we live in, and how we treat each other in The third mandatory preceptorial is The Tale of Genji, taken our families and wider community. !
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elcome, freshmen and returning Johnnies! For those of you who have never been in the Mitchell Gallery, consider this the written invitation. The Mitchell Gallery has opened its 24th exhibition season with the exhibition “Karl Schrag: Memories and Premonitions,” and remains on view through October 16. I confess, Mr. Schrag, a German-American artist (19121995), was not a household name in my art history. And it is my loss to have been unaware of his talent. Schrag, like many behind-the-scenes artists, did not have the big self-promotion star power of the artists with whom he collaborated, such as Joan Miró and Jackson Pollock. After having studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva and the Académie Ranson in Paris, Schrag’s first solo exhibition in Brussels launched a promising successful career. Due to the political turmoil in Europe, this success was brief, and Schrag moved to New York City to began printmaking at the Art Students League. In 1945, Schrag became the director of the world-renowned printmaking workshop, Atelier 17. This experimental workshop, founded in Paris by Stanley William Hayter, had been re-located to New York City and was a place for collaboration by artists from all over the world, including Calder, ChaSchrag’s primary gall, Picasso, Rothko, and othmuse was naers. Printmaking, which had been relegated to mass reproture; this subject duction technology for books, is depicted in newspapers, and advertising representational media in the 19th century and ways—abstractearly 20th century, was once ed and definable, again recognized as an artistic creative medium through the but also elusive. efforts of this and other important ateliers. So what makes this artist distinctive and worth showing in the Mitchell Gallery? Schrag’s primary muse was nature; this subject is depicted in representational ways—abstracted and definable, but also elusive. Schrag felt that the artist’s soul is inextricably linked with nature, and that link, when realized, is the work of art itself. Aggressive lines in bold colors, and play on light, suggest the influences of Matisse and Van Gogh. (This is certainly an understandable connection, since Schrag would have been in mid-career when Matisse died in 1952.) Schrag’s creativity is fortified by his experimental but masterful technique in etching, engraving, and lithography. The mechanics of his work are often at the forefront of discussion and are, admittedly, difficult to ignore. Schrag abhorred the discussion of technique; he would not have the creativity of the work overshadowed by the technical process. Schrag’s artistry in paintings, prints, and drawings is recognized among the major museums, and his works are included in the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian American Art, and other institutions and private collections. The collection of 44 works on view in the gallery is on loan from the Syracuse University
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Art Collection and contains landscapes and portraits in prints, paintings and sketches. Visiting an art gallery is more than a passive activity, so here are two suggestions for a visit: 1) Although the Art Society will be hosting an event with this exhibition, come see for yourself. Get inspired by Schrag’s sketchbooks! We have one sketchbook and another on a touchscreen. (Aren’t you freshmen sketching magnolia leaves and other subjects?) 2) Participate in a seminar with Mr. Townsend and Ms. Ebby Malmgren (AGI’88) on October 8th. (Free, of course, but you need to register to save your place, as this fills quickly!) See you in the gallery! !
'+#(,&-+.$ Shayna Jenkins
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efore I left for college, my cousin told me that the next time I came home, I would feel weird, because everything would still be the same, but I would be different. My blue comforter, my messy desk with years of issues of Seventeen and Cosmopolitan strewn around it, my little black nunny, my mother’s warm and inviting arms, the loud commanding voice of my best friend—all these, she told me, would be the same, but I would have changed. There is something Ptolemaic about this understanding of the movement of life, that all these bodies and lives would remain stagnant while I grew; I would come to measure the world through my own steps, rather than see it in concordance with those around me. This seemed wrong, almost self-involved, but who was I to disagree with her four years at the University of Maryland? So I believed my cousin. This might have had something to do with the fact that she had long hair and a cute boyfriend who seemed nice, but there was also something else attractive about the idea. I wanted to know that everything would be frozen the way I left it. I wanted to know that my little sister would never start flirting with boys and that my dogs would always be able to amble up the stairs with the dexterity of an 11-year-old boy forever. I wanted to be able to come home and adapt myself to the world that I knew I fit into, since I wasn’t sure whether I was going to be able to fit into the crevice that was waiting for me to slip myself into at St. John’s. But to be honest, both possibilities scared the shit out of me. I wanted to find a home at St. John’s, I wanted to find a family in the friends I would make there, and I wanted to be able to keep myself warm and comfort myself with the safe and happy relationships I would become a part of here. I wanted to replace my blue comforter with something less tangible, something that I did not fold up when I was done with it, something that didn’t tear and get
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stained if I dropped a ripe strawberry on There’ll be a constant, a blue blanket or a am is given a story—very much depends it. However, simultaneously, I wanted decade-old issue of American Girl maga- on where I am. to be able to hold my high school boy- zine lying around to make you think that So does all this mean that what my friend’s hand with the same tenderness everything is the same, until you try to cousin said is true? That when I got back that I had during our interact as your- from college everything was different, post-prom celebraself outside of the that I had changed while everyone else Sure, we all change. tions, and I wanted We all grow, adapt, and context of the past. had stayed the same? Yes, I have grown my mother’s homeYou’ll try to bring the and changed considerably during colhold onto new beliefs made cookies to renew in with the old, lege thus far, but this has also happened that propel us forward. and then you’ll real- to everyone I know. We have all been main as delicious as they had always ize that something forced to re-evaluate who we are based But it’s not a measurbeen. And my cousin able process. It’s subtle; changed. Something on how each of our environments tested made these wishes in a conversation is us and caused us to question ourselves. the change wiggles sound irreconcilable. that crooked picI guess that when we grow up, it’s not itself into our lives, and ture on the wall: no that we fail to connect or understand I was going to have to before we realize it, choose between the matter how many each other, and it’s not that we change freedom of my newtimes you push it so so much that who we were is consumed nothing is the same. found friends and the it hangs straight, it by who we are—it’s more that different raw love of my mother’s chewy molasses always hangs at that awkward angle that things become important in terms of cookies. makes you uncomfortable when you be- who we are. The fact that you can see my But after being home again for an- come aware of it. bra in every shirt or dress I wear, though other summer on my pink sheets, lying I noticed this over the summer while still true, is no longer an essential part in bed listening to my neighbors brush enjoying some mediocre sushi at a lo- of my identity and understanding who I their teeth and watch reruns of Saturday cal Japanese restaurant with a friend am. Who I was has not disappeared as Night Live on a Wednesday night, I can of mine from high school. While we time has changed, rather the aspects of I still feel the light summer breeze dance caught up over raw fish and seaweed, am have shifted as they form a different across my cheeks as an 18-wheeler bar- I couldn’t help but notice that the con- completed puzzle. rels down the road on the way to Price versation lagged; it got stuck on points I grew up with five best friends. We all Chopper, or wherever it is that giant that we would have seamlessly passed have light-colored hair, and we’re all gotrucks of bananas go. And in remem- over on the drive home from school in ing separate paths. Some of us know who bering all this, it strikes me that maybe years past. We tried to make conversa- we are and what we want to do. Some of nothing ever changes. I mean, of course tion over topics that us know what we things change, because all of a sudden were irrelevant to want to wear toYes, I have grown and I’ve stopped complaining about that ter- the story of our life, morrow and what changed considerably rible haircut I got (meaning that it has as if we were unwe’re doing next finally grown out), and my sister has able to understand week. But there’s during college thus far, stopped asking me to turn down my mu- the important parts something we all but this has also hapsic (meaning that she now listens to Bon of the story, so we know: each other. I pened to everyone I Iver at the same irrational volume). So latched onto whatstill connect to my know. We have all been things do change—maybe not so that I ever seemed graspbest friends, who forced to re-evaluate who recognized all the can hold up a yard stick to them and say able. We were failthat my best friend is now at least eight ing to notice the pieces of me—still we are based on how steps closer to being a making-her-own- other person over each of our environments present, just reardinner-that’s-not-Ramen adult, that my the din of the story, ranged—and I still tested us and caused us ex-boyfriend is four steps closer to being the noise of trying to connect to them, to question ourselves. an “I-can-buy-gas-without-complain- make conversation too. We remain ing-about-the-price” adult, and that I’m over something that close, even as one three and a half steps closer to being a lacked a background, an understand- of us becomes a nurse, one an engineer, terrible-driver-with-awful-taste-in-mu- ing, or, to be honest, an interest. I guess one a neuroscientest, one a traveler with sic adult. But things change, and in a way we’d both changed too much. Our lives a path still to be discovered, and one a that has an independence about it. had drifted apart. We had each adapt- wandering writer. So, yes, my cousin Sure, we all change. We all grow, ed around a different life; we had each was right. I came home changed, and it adapt, and hold onto new beliefs that come to fit ourselves into the different felt like everything else had stayed the propel us forward. But it’s not a mea- molds that college had shaped us into. same. But she was wrong to say that this surable process. It’s subtle; the change As much as I am and always have been would prevent me from ever finding a wiggles itself into our lives, and be- myself, the way in which I am who I am home in the past while still living in the fore we realize it, nothing is the same. is projected—the context in which who I present. !
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Ian Tuttle
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hat the guilt of Alger Hiss remains a “controversy” is sure at great personal risk, unmasked him: Whittaker Chambers. proof that, in Faulkner’s words, “The past is never dead. Chambers chronicled his “impossible return” from the ComIt’s not even past.” munist underground in his autobiography, Witness, surely Hiss was the all-too-likely subject of a recent conversation one of the great books of the 20th century. between Karen Finney, a former communications chief for the In it he explains the Finney Phenomenon: Democratic National Committee and former press secretary Thus men who sincerely abhorred the word Communism, in for Hillary Clinton, and Hugh Hewitt, a conservative talkthe pursuit of common ends found that they were unable to show host, on Hewitt’s national radio program. When Finney distinguish Communists from themselves, except that it was compared current Texas senator Ted Cruz to 1950s-era Wisjust the Communists who were likely to be most forthright consin senator Joseph McCarthy (whence “McCarthyism”), and most dedicated in the common cause. . . . Any charge of Hewitt challenged her on the comparison. The conversation Communism enraged them precisely because they could not eventually turned to Hiss. “Was Alger Hiss a Communist?” grasp the differences between themselves and those against Hewitt asked. Finney refused to answer. Hewitt asked again, whom it was made. Finney refused again. Several more minutes of that, then Modern liberalism (as distinct from classical liberalism, the Finney abruptly hung up. The correct answer, if you’re wondering, is yes. Alger Hiss, province of many of the American Founders) is predicated on an assistant to Assistant Secretary of State Francis Sayre dur- the notion that human nature is infinitely malleable and, in ing the Franklin Roosevelt administration; executive sec- the end—if you have enough government programs, social jusretary of the Dubarton Oaks Conference, which formulated tice organizations, and Peace Corps volunteers—perfectible. the United Nations; and part of the United States’ delega- Chambers’ point is this: It shares that delusion with Communism, socialism, and fascism. Each springs tion at the Yalta Conference, where Roosfrom the same diseased philosophical root evelt, Churchill, and Stalin met in alliance Modern liberalism is and reaches toward the same unattainable against the Nazi war machine, was also a predicated on the noend, and the extent to which their means Soviet agent who used his positions and differ is frequently one of degree, not of tion that human nature connections within the U.S. government to kind. We can see the commensurability of traffic sensitive information and shape U.S. is infinitely malleable these regimes today in the cultish devopolicy to the benefit of the Soviet Union. and, in the end—if you tion to the Castro brothers, Hugo Chavez, But 65 years on, some refuse to acknowlhave enough government and Che Guevara. edge the overwhelming evidence against programs, social justice None of this is to give credence to bumhim. They insist on what columnist George organizations, and Peace per stickers with President Obama’s face Will has called “one of the long-running accompanied by the hammer and sickle. lies of modern American history.” Corps volunteers—perThe United States is not a Communist reAlas, Karen Finney’s refusal to acknowlfectible. gime, nor a fascist one; we know because edge that Alger Hiss was a Communist we can hear the stories of people who sufspy—let alone a Soviet agent with a direct hand in crafting American policy during World War II and fered, or continue to suffer, under such regimes—Mao’s Chithe crucial early Cold War years—is no surprise. During the na, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, the Castros’ Cuba. But the animating Cold War Left-leaning intellectuals, ignoring the horrors of forces of modern liberalism and history’s most oppressive the Russian Revolution, Stalin’s purges, and more, touted ideologies are not so dissimilar. The belief that human nature Communism as the wave of the future, and Left-leaning poli- is a thing open to molding, mashing, or creating anew—that cies assisted its aggressive expansion. Joe McCarthy, by con- human nature is, effectively, no thing at all—permits a bit of, trast, is a more congenial memory: an alcoholic Republican in National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr.’s phrase, senator who launched an “inquisition” to prove a baseless “immanentizing the eschaton”: Partisans of the Left, wheth“conspiracy theory”—hundreds of Communist operatives se- er DNC officials like Karen Finney, or revolutionaries like Vladimir Lenin, believe we can create a new Eden—provided cretly working against the United States, from within. Of course, there is the inconvenient truth that McCarthy enough poking and prodding. The difference between rewas, by and large, right (for confirmation, try M. Stanton Ev- gimes is the extent to which they are willing to poke. The moral vision of Chambers, and many like him, was to ans’ meticulously documented study of McCarthy, Blacklisted by History). This makes Hiss a problem: Acknowledge he’s a articulate for our age forgotten but ancient truths: that man is spy and you might have to admit that McCarthy—or, worse, fallen, that he cannot be molded to fit preconceived designs, Richard Nixon, who rose to national prominence doggedly that he must be dealt with as he is, warts and all. A politics pursuing Communist infiltration—was onto something. That that does not recognize these facts will aim for the impossible—and in doing so will disenfranchise, disillusion, or worse. would tend to blunt the attack on Ted Cruz. If Karen Finney and her ilk have a tough time labeling AlBut there is more at stake than holding onto an effective rhetorical bludgeon. One cannot—or perhaps should not— ger Hiss a Communist, it might be because he looks rather mention Alger Hiss without acknowledging the man who, like the person in the mirror.!
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Tuesday 9/24 Kunai Soccer 4 PM Wednesday 9/25 Ultimate Frisbee W v H, 2:45 PM G v D, 4 PM St. John’s Chorus, Great Hall 7 PM Friday 9/27 Kunai Soccer 4 PM Lecture: “Knowing and Ground: A Reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit” by Mr. Matthew Linck FSK Auditorium 8 PM *Homecoming Weekend* Saturday 9/28 Ultimate Frisbee G v W, 1 PM S v D, 2:30 PM Sunday 9/29 Soccer G v H, 1 PM S v D, 2:45 PM If you would like to see your event on the weekly schedule, please email sjca.gadfly@ gmail.com.
Sméagolvision’s 4 Points of Rebranding Micaela MacDougall
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1. Celebrate the value of two competing personalities. Communicate as one college in complete fixation on one object, and as two disparate, constantly conflicting campuses—Stinking and Slinking—for agonized students to waver between. One program, two discordant settings. 2. Infuse communication with perseverative phraseology. Infuse communications with a psychotic, obsessive personality and the passion to search for today’s precious. 3. Articulate relevance for enslavement to the precious. Identify characteristics prized by orcs, Nazgûl, and lords of all dark wastelands, and forge the links with a St. John’s education—first via marketing and then in programs coordinated with Shelob the Great. 4. Clarify the craving: Move from the why to the “Mine!” As Founder Sméagol passionately said: “Because it’s my birthday, my love, and I wants it!” Remember the strongest answer to the question, “Why invest in a St. John’s education?”: “Because I wants it!” Use this as a foundation and inspiration for all communications.
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