An Apology: Yes, Virginia, There is a Sanity Clause

Young lady, before identifying the clause in the title, and as a preface to the
apology you desire, let me review the two articles of impeachment which you
have preferred against me. First, there is the one count of buttfucking; second,
there are the three counts of blow-job. The first charge all by itself, I must
confess, would inspire squeals of protest even from the most asinine, the most
cheeky. The second charge, on the face of it, is more than your average
mouthfull. I marvel at your courage in bringing notice of these alleged outrages
to the proper authority, and I am amazed by the modest remedy you require.

In short order, I was summoned before the college's highest tribunal where the
grand inquisitor himself, with the support of sundry assistants, subjected me to
rigorous cross-examination. I was not informed beforehand as to the specifics
of this interrogation, apparently because the examiners were after the truth of
the matter and probably felt that the element of surprise would tend more
profitably to that end. Professors are rather like politicians: give them ample
time to consider any question, they are apt to expatiate ad nauseam. I did
know, because of your "formal complaint," what the fundamental charge might
be: sexual harassment. But, as that might be anything from gang rape by a
branch of Hell's Angels to an indiscreet plucking at one's own wedgie, I
couldn't imagine what witches' spew might be brewing.

Consider, Virgmia, the second article of impeachment first. Had you voiced
your exception to blow-job in class, two things would have occurred. First, you
would have been given credit for class participation, according to our academic
contract; second, I would have reminded you of the orientation I announced on
day one. To wit, however idiosyncratic it may seem, I take all of the English
language as my medium or as an opportunity for scrutiny--I do not make
"political" or "moral" or "social" distinctions between one word, one phrase,
and another. (I will make note that others do, when such notation is
instructive.) The only distinctions worthy of critical attention pertain to sense,
or meaning, and thus to communication. (On rare occasions, where three or
more students have expressed common discomfort, I have acceded to such a
significant minority. The intent, after all, is to teach--not to posture or to
proselytize.) I leave the subjective categories of "obscene" or "profane" or
"vulgar" to Goody Twoshoes and to

the bizarrely schizoid courts. The latter understand that flag-burning is
legitimate symbolic expression, and that neo-Nazis and racial supremacists
must be allowed to voice their hatred. Violence is as homespun as Oklahoma
City and Waco; we know how, and have a will, to protect our own. Try
making allusions to sexual or other body flinctions? Let's hear how you sound,
buddy, with your tongue torn out.

Furthermore, I probably would have pointed out that "blow-job" is a
euphemism, and an absurd one at that. There have been blow-jobs galore
executed on campus nearly every day of this unseasonably mild autumn.
Young men, with gasoline-fueled engines strapped to their backs, have
repeatedly disrupted my daytime classes via the cacophonous blow-jobs they
administer to the reverberating quadrangle. (Those who maladministrate this
college apparently deem a tidy milieu more critical than intramural discussion
or lecture. Perhaps we should indict those responsible: for "environmental
harassment," for perpetrating an aerial and auditory pollution far more
egregious than any of my dynamic ejaculations. But there is little justice,
Virginia, on this campus or in this world--only officious straining at gnats whilst
camels hump through.)

Speaking of worldly injustice, I understand that my blow-jobs were peculiarly
reprehensible, mayhap even criminal, because they were allusions to the
spectacular entanglements of a William Jefferson Clinton and one Monica
Lewinsky. What, the grand inquisitor wanted to know, could I possibly adduce
to justiy the discussion of political science in an English class? (I have
subsequently been informed by students that at least two of our math
professors also entertained this topic during class time. Mirabile dictu. Yet, I
must concede, proliferation of crime does not absolve any isolated criminal.) It
says, after all, in the cover letter to the college's "Revised sexual harassment
policy" (July 30, 1997) that "Regular use of profane, vulgar, or obscene speech
in the classroom which is not germane to course content (and thus educational
purpose) as measured by professional standards will lead to the imposition of
discipline."

But you see, Virginia, this sort of legalese is variantly known in the grown-up,
adventitiously sane, world as bullshit. Profanity, vulgarity (I'm especially fond
of this one, since it ensnares virtually everyone in its aristo-anal-cratic web;
look it up, and you'll see what I mean. You will think: sump'n' ain't right here,"
and you'll be right, and wrong, altogether.), and obscenity (this one's a doozy,
too. "Inciting lustful feelings; lewd," is the

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second definition. The other applications are reminiscent of "vulgar." The only
persons in my classes who are stirred, in any antisocial sense, by my diction
are either the very unfortunately "wired," on the one hand, or the very young,
Virginia, on the other.)--all these are in the eye of the beholder. That's why
even so august a body as the U. S. Supreme Court has continually tied itself
into comical knots trying to sort out the sordid, parse the putrid, and teet the
totter. That which is "germane to course content" is best left to the professional
(more on "academic freedom" later), while "imposition of discipline" is
reserved for the amusement of inquisitors.

Nevertheless, I was somewhat taken aback by this "germanity," and possibly
failed to make the fullest explanation. That is, while the preponderance of my
classroom time focuses on the "analysis of the function of particular words,
phrases, or images" that appear in our texts, I don't want my students
mistakenly presuming that such analytical skill is germane only to literature.
You may recall that we also examined statements offered in the "media" or in
other printed sources. For example, apropos the President and the Intern, I
probably commented on a CNN reporter's language early in September when
she said: "The president was involved in another prickly face-off vis-a'-vis the
press this morning." I may well have pointed out that the cunning linguist who
wrote this script failed to tripp up the straight-faced journalist who had to
deliver so slyly veiled an allusion to fellatio. James Joyce, who flourished in an
era almost as neurotic as our own, and who was a consummate word-smith
enamored of pun and innuendo, would have loved this broadcast moment.

By the bye, Virginia, you may be pleased to learn that fellatio is the preferred
articulation of the grand inquisitor. He used this variant at least twice during
cross-examination of my person. Fellatio, being Latin, is deader than
Cleopatra's asp. When dragged into English dialogue, it constitutes a
euphemism which does for communication what blurring does for lenses, what
"snow" does for TV, what static does for radio. As such, it reminds one of
William Faulkner's character Snopes, who'd step on the gas pedal and the
brake pedal at the same time, generating considerable noise but scant motion. I
can recall my own mother posing ambiguities when she yelled at me:"Don't
touch that! That's ca-ca!!" I couldn't tell if she was referring to the dog turd on
my right or the attractive, E-coli-free-but-used condom on my left. (Giving the
latter a blow job, I was thrilled at how rapidly and easily it filled . . . . Years
later, when she lay dying of colon cancer, I would irrigate her stoma betimes
with my bare finger; it definitely

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was shit, but it wasn't ca-ca.) Wherever the grand inquisitor's pettifogging
fellatio may have drified or tended, he might have been talking about sucking
cock anyway. Hard to say.

I am sorry, Virginia, that you find your own language, the English language, so
painful.

What about the other charge, that I committed one buttfucking? I was invited
to reconstruct the context for that one, that snappy trap, since it apparently
didn't dovetail with the political "digression." I'm depressed to admit I stumbled
here, too; I was more fascinated by the collective inquisitors' scribbling in
reaction to my affirmative, my admission; and, though I labored, I only
vaguely remembered the circumstance. Now, however, I seem to recall that
we--the class--were discussing the Greek word philia, and its multiple
manifestations in modern English. I believe we covered "philosophy," love of
wisdom; and "Philadelphia," love of the adelphoi, the brothers; and
"pedophile," love ("love?!"--how absolutely absurd, we agreed) of children;
and, finally, after several others, we wandered toward "necrophilia," love of
death or, erotically, of the dead. Then, because I assume I am among adults
who are students of life as well as of language, we talked about a notorious
instance in Detroit some fifteen years ago wherein an Indian Village gardener
murdered his girlfriend, buried her body on the estate grounds, then dug it up
two weeks later and fucked the corpse--because he was certain "she" must
have gotten lonely. To lighten things, after the gasps (no one regurgitated his or
her supper on the floor, so I presumed some of the gaspers were emulating one
of my traits: reveling in the histrionic), I used a Sam Kinison skit for comic
relief. You know, the one where he imagines he's a corpse lying face down in a
mortuary cooler, chilling out, congratulating himself for having fought the good
fight, noting the looming presence of, what, the mortician? Why is he pulling
Sam's fantoid's pants down?! What's he-Oh no!! NO!!

I miss Sam, the ex rev(erend). Life can be such a pain in the ass. It takes
comic genius to conjure: is death also? I am sorry if you didn't appreciate my
Samitation (don't look that up; it's a neologism, same as "fantoid" before it.
We're not supposed to indulge creative urges such as this unless we're famous.
But, hell, I'm pushing sixty, and legitimate license is eluding my grasp.) You
know, Virginia, my very caring, very percipient wife, speculates that this is
what flipped you out, that perhaps someone important to you had died not long
before. Is that true?

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Literature and language, then, are my main concern, but analysis of same is not
all I teach. Analysis is very important--but so is synthesis, the harrnonizing of
everything one is learning in formal situations such as the classroom with
everything else that one has discovered--with everything that one is Becoming.
As I often say (do you remember?), the characters that you meet in novels and
stories and dramas and poems are not specimens on a Petri dish, remote,
dissociated, unutterably alien. They are your kin; they are your reflection; they
are you. The best artists are awesome gifts to us; Shakespeare, some say, is
the finest psychologist who ever lived. Just so. And if you're not seeing your
face in these mirrors, at least one of two things is true: you are not reading the
literature very well, or, and this is far worse, you are not reading your own life
very well. And there goes the Socratic challenge, his quintessential invitation:
"to lead the unexamined life is not fit for a human being."

That Socratic test prods us to make every effort to raise to the fullness of
consciousness all the forces and influences that have formed us, whether in the
narrow confines of family or the broader world of friends and fellow citizens.
Everything (including linguistic prejudices) we have learned, have found
imprinted on our souls, is subject to review, regardless of source. Not the
parent or the peer, not the preacher or the pedagogue, who has altered us is
above scrutiny. Test all things, and only then hold fast to what seems true.

We all start out as figments of others' imaginations, stuck with a
cluster--usually contradictory--of derivative beliefs, values, opinions, biases,
and "knee jerk" behavior. The more ancient a personal modifier, the more
suspect it is: "I have believed thus-and-so all my life!" exposes not some noble
constancy but, rather, the squawk of the parrot. Having, being, merely such a
borrowed persona, the Self is always vulnerable: every alien idea, every weird
or wild word, shakes such selves to the prefabricated core.

When we discuss, then, these masters' literary opera (that's a more charming
plural--don't you agree?--than "opuses," which sounds like a disease, a
suppurating sore; even dead Latin can sometimes afford us, the living, a
chance to sing, a chance to play), you have observed that I often include
personal anecdotes, illustrations from my own life of Walter Mittyesque
incompetence, of "Open Window"-like coups laid upon stuffy adults, of Little
Chandler- or Bob Doran-like sexual fear and sexual fumbling. (For some
reason you only cited my "sexual escapades;" weren't my nonsexual escapades
interesting or memorable? I must try harder.)

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When I recount such anecdotes, I, as is true of most fine teachers, am offering
a species of "modeling," practicing what I preach. See, student, this fictional
jerk, buffoon, hypocrite, craven, etc., etc--that was, hopefully no longer is,
your teacher. I essay to make it safe for you to see your face, too. And many
do. I can summon in fond memory those who've said: "This is more like a
class in psychology!" or "a class in philosophy!" or "a class in history!" or "a
class in comparative religion!" or "a class in . . science" is what I wish someone
someday will say. No one has, and the silence is eloquent. Because I don't
deserve better. But, you know--well, only a very few could guess--this is my
darkest, deepest passion, to be a scientist. I expound on Shakespeare and
Joyce, but I dream about Galileo and Einstein. Go figure (I never could, math
being my vanquishing dragon). Consider the most intriguing "definition" of
humanity that I have ever heard: we are the process of the sun becoming
conscious of itself. There, fellow Milky Wayf'er, is stuff enough to dream on
for a googolplex of lifetimes.

I am so very sorry, Virginia, that you find my language, the English language,
so painfull.

I am also sorry that you grossly misrepresented an important aspect of our
classroom experience: you allege that I "used [my] teacher position as a
platform for authority to intimidate [my] students not to complain about [me].
Mr. Bonnell repeatedly made fun of students who had expressed offense or
disgust and he also laughed at them. This is one of the reasons why I did not
come forward sooner." This reminds me of what David Schippers said to the
other witch-hunters in congress today (Dec.10, 1998) about Clinton, that his
lies were worse than mere lies "because they were half-truths." You make it
seem that there were actual students that you witnessed actually being mocked
or ridiculed by me. Paradoxically, this one of your allegations is the most
obnoxious (to me, not to the majority of administrators, who babble rhetoric
about "student needs" and yet give neither fig nor rat's derriere for real
students' interests except for the few who come sidling over with fashionable
complaints), because it is the one so alien to my nature, to my habits of respect
and nurturance for the people I know I am privileged to meet.

It is true--this is your half of a truth--that I talked about previous hassles with
the college administration over some students "lining up" (an obvious
exaggeration for comic effect) at some dean's office to complain about the "bad
man" with the "potty mouth." And, yes, a semester or more after the

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fact, I probably dismissed such folks (especially the cowards, the ones who
never broach their disaffection in class or at any time to my face) with a gibe, a
jeer, a hiss of derision. I tend to get a tad defensive when people don't just
disagree with me, my values, my behavior, but who would also campaign for
and delight in my utter destruction. Disagreement is fine; I welcome it and
always remember to reward it. The clash of ideas and values is usually both
exciting and illuminating. But I have never "dressed down," attacked, insulted,
or ridiculed any actual student in any actual class. And you know that; you
know there can be no corroboration for your arrant lie. (Shame on
you,Virginia--so very young and yet so devious.)

Much is made, at least by the grand inquisitor and his ilk, about the power a
teacher has, the power to grade, the power to humiliate. I cannot speak for my
colleagues, but I know this to be a grave distortion where I am concerned.
Those few students who poise a knife at my back are, indeed, afraid of
something, but it isn't I. What they fear is the wrath of their peers, their
classmates--other human beings put at risk, betrayed, by the craven treachery
of one or, rarely, two. All their cowering behind the inquisitor's hooded robe
cannot conceal this truth. But, irony of ironies, because of the contract I made
with you at the commencement of the term, and because you'd earned
sufficient credit before demanding my head on a platter, I am morally obliged
to record on your account a passing grade. It is as much my integrity, and none
of your terrorist's tactics, which prospers you.

Again, have actual students ever gotten uncomfortable in my classes?
Certainly. I am not a "post-modernist," a flaky "relativist" who thinks any idea
is just as wonderful as any other. I definitely do not respect lots of folks'
beliefs, values, ideas, notions, prejudices, customs--but, curiously enough, I do
respect the people. As Pope John XXIII put it back in 1958: "error has no
rights, but those who subscribe to the errors do." A horde of Catholics weren't
happy, back then, with such a mealy-mouthed sentiment; they hankered for
the consignment of all "them comm' nist bastards and hair- ticks" to eternal
flames, at least. They would have gleefully done to their enemies, Virginia,
what you would do to me now. The only defense people such as I have against
people such as you is in your hands: my words.

My language, my words. While broadly distinguishing between what I call "the
discourse of reason" and "the discourse of passion," I take all language as my
world, since the gradations between the antipodes are often so subtle. (This
very apologia, you will perhaps notice, has a bit of reason

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amid the rush of passion. C'est moi.) Sometimes, in a classroom, I become so
enthused (en theos, the god within: beware, beware; his flashing eyes, his
dancing hair!), so animated, so caught up in an exigent flow, the stream of
words pours forth like molten gold that hopefully heats and informs as it
dazzles--or, at other times, tumbles and cools like a high waterfall. (I'm also
very modest.) If I had to check this flow, constantly monitor its force or
direction, I would be, I would have to become, a radically different, a wholly
diffident, teacher. Sure, I can be, and often am, the calm pedagogue, precisely
measuring out the cadences appropriate to pure reason. But if I had to be that
always, a very important part of me would die. (The only way the inquisitors
of the world can ever ensure "germaneness," good Germaneness, is when all
the classes are on-line. There'll be no messy spontaneity then, in their dreary
Dystopia.)

It's to avoid such death, to withhold "the chilling effect" of self- censorship,
that our culture has evolved the practice of "academic freedom." This is not
some bonus, some perk designed to comfort teachers. And its bestowal does
not depend upon the pleasure of administrators or colleagues. It exists, rather,
for the benefit of students, your colleagues, your peers. They require authentic,
truthful guides, mentors, sources--to question, to push against, to grow with.
And one day, hopefully, to rise far above. This can't happen with robots, with
company men, with even the very best of good Germans.

So, then to conclude this my apologia. I am sorry, almost ineffably sorry, that
you find our language, the English language, so paintul. You will never have
the power, of course, to restrict it, or to kill part of it as you wish. Nor am I
possessed of the tongue of men and of angels, so as to protect it from you or
all the tribe of its detractors. It will continue to wend its way and may even
find complete vindication, one day, from its shaky jurisprudential custodians. I
will probably not see that day, as it lies somewhere beyond the frenetic
millennial epoch. But you may. Hopefully, by then, you will have learned to
appreciate it. Maybe, then, you will understand that life without the fullness of
your language's energy would be like that life Khalil Gibran says languishes
without love: life where you may still laugh, but not all of your laughter; where
you may still cry, but not all of your tears.

Oh!--the sanity clause! Virginia, I almost forgot! Here it is: "Congress shall
make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . . ." This has driven the
thought police, the language censors, and all deputy inquisitors beyond despair,
into madness. If I had access to your Christmas stocking, I would stuff it there.
When, at length, you grow up, you will cherish it above every other gift, save
love itself.

Cheers.
 

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