Notes on Convocation and Michelson House Culture
I exercised the duties of my office today, mainly shepherding a group of bewildered computer scientists through the obsequies of taking their master's degrees. The address was by Chris Faraone, reminding us all of the importance of full intellectual engagement not only with the materials we study but with our colleagues in intellectual and professional endeavors. The themes of a University of Chicago Convocation always seem to be the continuity of communities of scholars and educated people, and the need for professionals to exert themselves for the common good. Even the Dean of Rockefeller Chapel prayed in the Invocation about "the cloud of witnesses who surround us," a conflation of the communion of saints with academic tradition that I did not find disagreeable. Oh, and I was wearing a lovely maroon robe and mortar board, giving me my necessary dose of academic pageantry and officiousness until I actually graduate from this University. I also was pleased to see a friend of long acquaintance graduate from the College. And I heard ill news from the east...
Today, at lunch, some of the grandees of Michelson House discussed a change in House culture. Now, House culture is a fine thing, and I am pleased to be in a House with such a vibrant culture. Michelson House culture of my generation was certainly an intellectual one where the life of the mind was treated with seriousness when seriousness was required and with great humor when that attitude was necessary. Michelson House culture, however, is changing to an anagathic one, in which those things kalon kai agathos , as the Republic has it now fall in disrepute as the absurdity of intellectual and artistic endeavor is worshipped to the point of obsession. New Michelson House culture still will be an intellectual culture, because people still will seek to engage complex ideas and will not fear the strange and will despise the banal and the empty. But New Michelson House culture likely will value only novelty and absurdity. But I will depart, depart, depart in peace.
ESA(20041210.1)
I exercised the duties of my office today, mainly shepherding a group of bewildered computer scientists through the obsequies of taking their master's degrees. The address was by Chris Faraone, reminding us all of the importance of full intellectual engagement not only with the materials we study but with our colleagues in intellectual and professional endeavors. The themes of a University of Chicago Convocation always seem to be the continuity of communities of scholars and educated people, and the need for professionals to exert themselves for the common good. Even the Dean of Rockefeller Chapel prayed in the Invocation about "the cloud of witnesses who surround us," a conflation of the communion of saints with academic tradition that I did not find disagreeable. Oh, and I was wearing a lovely maroon robe and mortar board, giving me my necessary dose of academic pageantry and officiousness until I actually graduate from this University. I also was pleased to see a friend of long acquaintance graduate from the College. And I heard ill news from the east...
Today, at lunch, some of the grandees of Michelson House discussed a change in House culture. Now, House culture is a fine thing, and I am pleased to be in a House with such a vibrant culture. Michelson House culture of my generation was certainly an intellectual one where the life of the mind was treated with seriousness when seriousness was required and with great humor when that attitude was necessary. Michelson House culture, however, is changing to an anagathic one, in which those things kalon kai agathos , as the Republic has it now fall in disrepute as the absurdity of intellectual and artistic endeavor is worshipped to the point of obsession. New Michelson House culture still will be an intellectual culture, because people still will seek to engage complex ideas and will not fear the strange and will despise the banal and the empty. But New Michelson House culture likely will value only novelty and absurdity. But I will depart, depart, depart in peace.
ESA(20041210.1)
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