Great weekend, last. Venerable Jack came over, and we (he, Linda, and I) ate at the old bus station in downtown Weirton, now called the Fun Cafe, or something. The most difficult waitress ever, nice when she's not hip checking you off your chair. Anyway, J. was talking Marxism, while my son is currently reading Adam Smith for Honors. (I, for my part and commentary play the lottery, which is probably a sin in both worlds. God doesn't let me win, either, so I guess I'm 0-3.)
I was thinking, amid all the corker-iculum melee at school, that philosophy is really just white men talking. Our emphasis on white-hoodedness, and the emphasis of other conservative orthodox institutions perhaps overstates our need to be so steeped and dependent in Western Man (sticking his chest out), though JP II and our philosophers certainly don't think so. (Most Catholics, after all, in the next century will come from Africa and the Far East.)
I asked a dear fellow from philosophy if he valued Plato over Li Po. His answer was unsurprising. But then again, I suppose the powers that be want to raise "thinkers," not poets. (I put that in quotes because I feel pure discursiveness is not a whole enough approach.) Besides, maybe the universities should be trying to create poets, not philosophers.
The machine moves at its own pace, needs none of us. God's will be done. (Not too long ago, I heard some guy on Catholic radio droning on as he taught Aquinas. It was physically painful just to listen. He was pleased with his comprehension and with the fact that the material was more important than any consideration he might have given to actually sounding interesting. I would not be able to go to the college I teach at! It's designed to break creativity. . . Okay, I'm lying about the last part, but only a little bit.)
So what, you say? Who cares if you could go there? And you'd be right!
Poems are their own little world, as is my office, as is my life. Thank God for all three! The forecast for tomorrow is good.
