Conference

A practical entry. Conference is always annoying, but today it was especially so. Now I am going to comment in more detail on my impressions after I write this, so before any of you say, "He's a jerk! What a cad!" -- hear me out with patience, the one necessary.

Whenever I say anything in my conference, I'm sure that people don't listen to what I have to say. I make a speech and by the end everyone is crowding in to contradict me. Otherwise I'll state my opinion and the entire conference will move on, in effect ignoring me.

These are things that have happened. Now we shall take upon ourselves the unhappy task of finding causes. I am writing this because conferences have been, for me, an always rather unpleasant aspect of the Reed experience and because I think, by publishing my concerns along with my conceits, I will be able to improve myself, and we will all be able to begin thinking rationally about improving (if in no way else than self reform) on an aspect of the Reed experience that should be most beneficial but is often most banal.

Now first, I believe that I have a tendency to ramble in conference, as in writing. When I say ramble, I do not necessarily mean that my "monologues" are lacking in direction. I rather mean that I enjoy expanding my point, polishing it, rounding it, adding in unnecessary examples: I like the feeling of authority that comes from giving a lecture, and also the manner in which various possibilities open themselves up in my mind the longer I talk.

Now someone accused me and I have furthermore more than once been accused by others of making extraneous references to unassigned readings. For example today I compared Prospero to Faustus and claimed that Elizabethan playgoers might have been able to recognize Faustus as a prototype for Prospero in Shakespeare's Tempest.

So the first thing I'd like to say about this is that it is extremely relevant and interesting to me. I anticipate this objection: "Keep those things to yourself if you like them, but we don't care; if you must, save them for later" -- well yes. Ideally I would keep those references to myself. I wouldn't raise my hand (I hope) to make a completely extraneous point, and especially not in order to be merely extraneous. But, on the other hand, these things occur to me in mid-flight, in mid-monologue, as it were, and I can't help but to say them simply because I'm speaking as I think, so what I think tends to be what I say. And furthermore the parallel is never my main point, but always simply something drawn up to support what I'm really getting at in the first place -- though it does fill me with wonder and happiness to have discovered this parallel, and it deepens my interest. Furthermore, I often explain the parallel in such a way that it does not feel to me knowledge of the original is exceedingly crucial. I am alluding to Faustus, but I am not *analyzing* Faustus.

The problem becomes deeper at this point. Because even though I may be able to understand myself that the reference to Faustus is interesting and relevant, I will never be able to prove it to the conference. Furthermore, to others there, I'm already engaged in a long monologue, which is in its way self-indulgent and conceited, so that to add touches like obscure references to works that not everyone in the conference has read seems, in this person's words, truly rude, and not a little conceited.

Do I mean to be rude? Is there some deeper conceit behind my failings? In high-school, I regarded most of the other students in my class as competitors. There was a teacher whom I wanted to engage, who knew the answers to my questions, and the other students didn't appreciate the subject or else had nothing insightful to say. I consistently dominated discussions and it was always my highest desire to grab at the teacher's attention, to get the teacher interested in me, to, on a low level, be recognized for my "brilliance," but on a higher level to engage in a good conversation about the topic with someone who knew it well.

In conference, I maintain the same respect for my professors, but I think my central failing, my tragic flaw, is that I don't have any respect for my fellow students. I'm not interested in their opinions on the subject, because I wonder what opinions they could really have. Now to admit this is to admit to being a misanthrope and a bastard, but please see what I'm trying to do: I'm trying to address a shortcoming in my character and make it understandable, make it clear to myself and others why I would do something low and dishonorable and why the action is wrong but the impulse is good. I believe that I don't truly wish myself harm, and because to make others dislike me is to harm myself, by extension I don't truly wish harm to others. That's the most pragmatic way of putting it, but I like to even think that I don't want to hurt others, that I don't want to lord over them, that I don't want to seek my own advantage at the price of another's pain.

The reason, ultimately, that I think I am deficient in conference is that I am not interested in the conversation. I am not apart of it. Is that a failing in myself? Is that a failing in the others? Is that a failing in the professor? I cannot with any justice blame anyone but myself. But how am I supposed to reconcile my own interests with the interests of a group without somewhat giving them up? And especially when those interests are by nature subjective, being intellectual? How can I be happy about pursuing questions that seem to me dead and unimportant? How can I learn something from answers that don't even engage my questions?

Suppose I read the Tempest, and the thing that really strikes me is that its like Faustus -- and this is my sole interest in the entire play, or rather, the only spark that, for me, keeps it alive. Am I supposed to put my insight away as irrelevant and listen to others make dull analysis that doesn't touch me, that doesn't engage me with the play, that ultimately is meaningless to me? This is not an insignificant problem, and I hope to the dear universe that it is not a problem inspired simply by some heinous and Satan-like conceit on my part -- it is rather the basis of a very important question: how in the world can we learn anything during a conference?

I could briefly expand on this by noting that the impressions I have about a work or an author that are interesting to me are often the most frowned upon things in the context of the class. On Shakespeare, today's discussion began with a question I asked, "What is his style?" The reason I asked this question was because, in my opinion, people in our culture sometimes idolize Shakespeare as a stylistic God and I myself simply don't see it -- I see nothing of genius, though some things very good, but I dislike the very idea of genius when it applies to that man, or any. Now this problem interests me, but it is beyond the scope of the conference. But at the same time, those things which are covered by the conference ("How does The Tempest reflect 18th century ideas of rulership?") I find to be either straightforward or obsolete, and they do not strike at my core, and unless someone can convince me that they are more worthy of discussion than my own questions, I think that to learn about these others is to waste my time on merely "scholastic" pursuits.

Or perhaps I should put it in the meannest and most conceited way possible: if we are a bunch of students who know nothing about the text, how in the world are we supposed to learn anything about it or overcome our ignorance of it if we simply discuss it among ourselves for some four odd hours with a teacher? Tremendous amounts of scholarship, commentary, hover over each and every word we read -- do we dare to think that our efforts to explore the text will dig nearly as deep as the hundreds of brilliant men and women who have been exploring the text for as many years, if not more?

So I submit this paper that is nothing more than damning evidence against myself before you, my inquisitors. I ask that you strike at me with the hottest and truest words you can produce from the very back of your throats. But I also ask that if you strike, please tell me who you are and how you know me. I have taken offense at comments in the past that make me feel reprehensible but give me no sense of the occasion wherein I offended (of which I am often most lamentably ignorant -- our errors, which are most glaring to others, are sometimes least obvious to us) and thus no hope of correction. I damn myself knowing full well that experience tempers our imperfections, and hoping to strike against my own. And may I always be the most bitter and acrimonious witness against myself, so that I am ever in conspiracy against my wicked natures that would themselves confer to overthrow me.