“Rebellion without a rigorous alternative vision is just a feeble spasm. If I could offer advice to a young rebel, it would be to rummage the past for a body of thought that helps you understand and address the shortcomings you see… Effective rebellion isn’t just expressing your personal feelings. It means replacing one set of authorities and institutions with a better set of authorities and institutions. Authorities and institutions don’t repress the passions of the heart, the way some young people now suppose. They give them focus and a means to turn passion into change.” — David Brooks, “How to Fight the Man,” New York Times, 2/2/2012.
Duke professor wants to replace term papers with blog posts. -
Having written both myself, this is totally absurd. The academy exists to teach people how to think critically and express those thoughts in a clear, nuanced way. Blogs exist to persuade and convince through rhetorical force. Clear and nuanced arguments can contribute to this end, but rarely constitute the core of a post. From the article:
Because, say defenders of rigorous writing, the brief, sometimes personally expressive blog post fails sorely to teach key aspects of thinking and writing. They argue that the old format was less about how Sherman got to the sea and more about how the writer organized the points, fashioned an argument, showed grasp of substance and proof of its origin. Its rigidity wasn’t punishment but pedagogy.
Exactly right (aside from the strange reference to Sherman, which doesn’t make sense even in the full context of the article). But there’s no reason blogs and papers can’t coexist. From a professor at Standford:
Professor Lunsford is playing to student passions. Her writing class for second-year students, a requirement at Stanford, used to revolve around a paper constructed over the entire term. Now, the students start by writing a 15-page paper on a particular subject in the first few weeks. Once that’s done, they use the ideas in it to build blogs, Web sites, and PowerPoint and audio and oral presentations. The students often find their ideas much more crystallized after expressing them with new media, she says, and then, most startling, they plead to revise their essays.
I like this approach, which helps to ensure that the arguments being made in those blogs and tweets are well-considered. But, then, I didn’t compose a 5-page paper before writing this post, so I could be wrong…
(Source: jeffbridges)
“The officer repeatedly punched the left side of my face for long enough that I had time to pray that the crunching sounds I heard were not damaging my brain.” — Rev. John Helmiere, on his encounter with Seattle Police at an Occupy protest earlier this week. (via jeffbridges)
(via jeffbridges)
nawasaka:fuckyeahmoleskines:nawasaka.tumblr.com
I still don’t know how something I scribbled in a hurry at 3am got so many notes in the space of a day? Shakespeare is clearly too awesome. I spelt “bated” wrong, awk :) Someone said this looks like a serial killer’s notebook, which made me laugh a lot. They’re not wrong, I’ve been a sleep deprived zombie lately.
(via NPR)
Isn’t he, though?
(via jeffbridges)
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart…. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” — Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Speech, 2005. Godspeed. (via jeffbridges)
(via jeffbridges)
If you’re not disturbed, you aren’t paying attention. The only thing that should be too big to fail in this country is the middle class. Where’s Teddy Roosevelt when we need him? (Banking Bracket via Michael Bowman)
(via jeffbridges)
(Source: jeffbridges)
“By 2030 China’s share of global economic power will match America’s in the 1970s and Britain’s a century before.” —The Economist
Well that’s kinda scary.