Snippets of the Good Side of Hillsdale

Because for all it's nutso problems, there's plenty of reasons why I'm sticking around up here.

Discussing the book Amusing the Million (about Coney Island) in HIS 307:

Dr. Kalthoff: "Well...Americans have NEVER been particularly good about philosophizing, about thinking deeply about things. We're a very practically oriented people. This, I would venture, is very closely tied to our frontier founding -- if a pioneer finds a river in the middle of his path, he's not going to sit there and write a poem about walking through the forest. He just wants to figure out how to get across the damn river!

But when the time comes that we can reflect, when we can read Plato and Virgil and what have you, we're not able to. If we can't find a practical, utilitarian purpose for something, we're liable to just dismiss it as useless And saying "you're improving your soul, living up to your potential as a human being made in the image of God" -- huh??? What's that mean? Where's the cash?"

Dan: "I worked third shift this summer at a factory, making boxes. And honestly...by the time I was done, I just wanted to get wasted. The last thing I wanted to was read Plato, or go to a symphony -- not that the symphony opens at midnight, but still..."

Guy-whose-name-I-don't-know: "With agricultural production there's also the sense of bringing order out of chaos. Something you don't get with industrial work, maybe."
Dan: "Hey -- you start with flat sheets of cardboard, and they become boxes! What are you talking about?"

Dan: [some comment about how the reformers had a bit of a vested interest in making the city life work; if they could alleviate the problem enough to keep the status quo, they could keep their own privileged position in society]
Dr. Kalthoff: "That's probably the most cynical interpretation you can give to it...but often cynicism is the right response to reality."


And Fairfield Society was pretty cool this week, too. Basically another discussion about iconoclastic views of God. And some rather funny stuff as well:

Dan S.: "When I tell people I'm studying 'death of God' literature and philosophy, the first response is overwhelmingly negative. But if people actually took a look at some of this, what it's actually about, they'd realize that a) they're either already in the process of doing it themselves, or b) that they ought to be doing it. If you've got the same picture of God you had in kindergarten, something's wrong, there."

Dr. Reist: "So -- what I'm wondering is...how come we never hear about this kind of stuff in the Hillsdale commencement addresses?"
Dan S. "It doesn't get us any donors?"

And there followed much uproarious and knowing laughter.