David Foster Wallace: gone

David Foster Wallace, author, short story writer, essayist and teacher, found dead at age 46 in his home in Claremont. Killed himself.

Damn it.

Here's an excerpt from the commencement speech he gave at Kenyon College in 2005:

...the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and [unintelligible -- sounds like "displayal"]. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of it whatever you wish. But please don't just dismiss it as just some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.

The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.

It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

"This is water."

"This is water."

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.

I wish you way more than luck.

To read the rest, click here.

What a Tangled Web He Weaveth—the latest crisis

Oh! What a tangled web he weaves
The Goo, Hurrah!, himself deceives!

—With apologies to Walter Scott

It’s been a wild week in the district, in some corners anyway. Last week, on Wednesday, Chancellor Raghu Mathur announced that his ballyhooed “consultant,” who was scheduled to meet with all sorts of groups at both colleges over two weeks re "decision-making processes," had reported to him, after one day on the job!, that decision-making seems to be just fine and dandy! And so he (Mathur) decided to discontinue the consultation.

I forwarded Mathur’s email to the consultant, Bill Vega, who responded by stating that, no, it was his (Vega’s) decision to discontinue. During his one-day visit, Vega signaled that he might pull the plug. He also made pretty clear that he didn’t think much of the Chancellor’s involvement in college decisions. (It was evident that he had reached that assessment before he got to the 2:00 p.m. “open forum” that I attended. That is, Vega had reached that assessment before he encountered any faculty. Prior to the open forum, Vega met with classified and administrators.)

The logic of Mathur’s email was manifestly absurd: since (according to Mathur) Vega had found decision-making at IVC to be hunky-dory, it follows that decision-making throughout the district—including at Saddleback College—is also hunky-dory! So why continue with the consultation?

(And if Vega had indeed found decision-making hunk-doritude, shouldn't we include that judgment in the Accred reports? Why would Mathur not urge the focus groups to include this alleged finding? Why would he prevent Vega from writing the report?)

I’m told that Saddleback’s Accreditation Focus Group has been on this episode like white on rice, owing, no doubt, to its manifest relevance to our governance difficulties (not to mention our "fear and despair" difficulties) here in the good old SOCCCD. During Vega’s day at the district, it became clear that the college community was not alone in its abject foggitude about the nature of this consultation. Who had hired Vega? To whom would he report? How would Vega’s report connect with the two colleges’ accreditation reports? Nobody seemed to know, including Vega.

This kind of "communication" problem is, um, relevant to the Accred's stated concerns, doncha think?

And then, right after Vega bailed (last Wednesday), Mathur put out a memo containing two BIG LIES:

• That, according to the estimable Dr. Vega, our decision-making processes were in swell shape

• That, given this happy assessment, Mathur had naturally decided on discontinuance of Vega's consultation

Again, that the second is a lie is pretty clear, given (1) Vega’s having hinted that he might pull the plug already last Tuesday and (2) Vega’s having written to me that he, not Mathur, had recommended discontinuance.

That the first is a lie is less certain, I suppose. But there can be little doubt that, last Tuesday, Vega had expressed himself in a manner clearly implying that he did not approve of (in particular) Mathur’s kind of involvement in college decision-making. Those who met with Vega will testify to this.

From what I’ve been told, it appears that the trustees, too, were left largely in the dark about Mathur’s curious consultation process. Many of us guess that, for trustees, the following perception is unavoidable: that Mathur instigated this process in an attempt to lay blame for the colleges/district’s difficulties, not at Mathur’s doorstep (as per the two Accreditation report drafts), but at that of faculty and the board. Anyone who knows Mathur knows that he is exactly the kind of guy who would assume that a fellow Chancellor pal (like Vega) would spin things to help out a colleague. It's what pals do!

If that is what Mathur was thinking, he was very much mistaken.

So the upshot of Mathur’s “consultation” gambit is this: he pursued a crassly self-serving process that blew up in his face. Further, from the perspective of many members of the two Accreditation focus groups, Mathur’s gambit can only be viewed as an eleventh-hour and wholly inappropriate attempt to sneak a new element into the Accreditation reports due on October 15. (Indeed, during his visit, Vega revealed his belief that his report was to be included in those reports. He was visibly horrified to discover that faculty had not been consulted about his hire.)

CRISIS:

So this brings us to our latest crisis. Will pressure be exerted to prevent mention of this sorry episode in the Accreditation reports?

While contemplating that, please do consider this factoid: that Mathur’s latest gambit has so angered members of the two college communities that it will be impossible for the district to hide it from the ACCJC. 

That is, efforts at suppression will likely have the opposite of the desired effect.

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Have you read the editorial in the latest issue of the Lariat? Check it out: here. Also, check out the Lariat's online poll of presidential candidates. 54% of voters say they'll vote for McCain: See. Also: UCI editorial: the clueless generation?