The beginning of a prolonged diatribe on order & chaos

To speak generally, this class has evoked many responses from its participants. Some have been eager to challenge their inclination towards structure--the most basic aspect of their worldview--while others have been a bit hesitant. I'm not here to say that either choice (or any perspective on the continuum in between) is correct or incorrect--that's not my job. I am here, however, to reflect a little on my own progress throughout this course. 

I've changed, to say the least, and this is my attempt to begin to capture some of that change. I intend to do this over several consecutive posts (which I will generate in a so-far uncharacteristic regularity), but before I do so, allow me to briefly explain what could be considered my only real frustration with this course. 

I'm a fairly easy-going person, in general. When it comes to anything academic, however, I'd prefer to have a grasp of the material before making my opinions public. I suppose it's an intense need for some sort of conceptual grasp, backed by extensive textual evidence, to support my position. 

You may be saying: "Wait, Kevin, stop one second. This course wasn't designed to memorize material. It was meant to unravel a thought train, to illustrate an inherently biased perspective " Yes, I understand, and that is the primary impetus for my blogging delay. 

I entered this class knowing that I would change. I expected the way that I process sensory information to change. I expected the way I perceive events to change. I expected the way I understand my surroundings to change. That it did, that it did.

So what is the grand purpose of this short narrative? Basically, I intend to say as follows: I didn't want to blog, I didn't want to espouse my views, until I felt that I had experienced enough of a perspective change to voice them. I wanted to say something truly of substance, something that I knew would be a worthy contribution. Personally, this is the research-based style that I prefer to operate in. It works for me. Sometimes I wish it weren't that way, but it is, and I have to embrace it. And now that I have this newfound perspective, I feel that I am capable of speaking and of being heard. 

I didn't want to talk into the wind, I wanted to talk with it. This is my attempt to do so. 

Ordering this blog: Part II.

Before delving into the innermost essence of humanity, an explanation for why this blog came to be is in order.*

This project is inspired by National Endowment for the Humanities “Enduring Questions” grant awarded to Dr. Joanne Robinson, a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The “Enduring Questions” grant ”supports faculty members in the teaching and development of a new course that will foster intellectual community through the study of an enduring question. This question-driven course will encourage undergraduates and teachers to grapple with a fundamental concern of human life addressed by the humanities, and to join together in a deep and sustained program of reading in order to encounter influential thinkers over the centuries and into the present day.” The aforementioned prompt inspired the development of a course on human attempts to organize the world as it is.

The course description for this course and the major impetus for this blog is as follows:

What is order? Is order inherent in nature or is it a human construct (or a mix of both?) When is order appropriate and when is it restrictive or even oppressive? What assumptions form the foundations for classifying and categorizing things, people and ideas? This class will examine theoretical foundational cosmological myths alongside various historical approaches toclassification.Students will have ample opportunity to delve into classification and order schemes outside the classroom.

Human beings are constantly involved in making, unmaking and maintaining order, yet we rarely have time to reflect on what order is and why it matters. We unthinkingly accept many ordering schemes (such as age-based grouping of children in traditional classrooms) and consider others the concern of specialists (such as botanical nomenclature.) Yet concerns about order and the threat of disorder have pervaded Western thought and practice. Many humanities courses explore specific ordering systems related to race, gender, religion and social class; consequently, students tend to have asensitivity to how race and class are "ordered," but they rarely have a chance to explore other ordering systems. This course will examine order as an abstract concept with very tangible and pervasive results. Above all, student in this course will examine how the orders we posit or acknowledge shape our understanding of ourselves in the world.

Using these questions to begin, I attempt to question order, structure and the human need for understanding, utilizing this blog as a means to present my thoughts. (Or, rather, order my thoughts…)

Over the course of this blog, I will attempt to ferret out my thoughts, ideally in the Talkeetna Mountain Range of Alaska. 

* Author's note: the almost unnoticeable compulsion to explain why I created this blog illustrates the very reason that this blog exist.