People my age can remember some of our old college teachers pretty well. Sometimes we might test to see what's online about some of these souls. Might some of their old academic work be online? I have found that with some of these people, there is nothing there. Surely these people shared their research, ideas and analysis in writing. But there is nothing like a "fossilized" record, as it were, for some of these people in the only forum that counts today: our electronic devices.
Such devices did not exist, hardly even as a flicker in people's hopes and dreams, in the former era. We would consult the old "card catalogues" in the library. Stuff on paper was the norm.
I can cite an example of when I plumbed the Internet for evidence of a long-ago teacher. Images pop back into our heads so readily. These people had real influence over us. Today there are more channels for one's development that provide an alternative to the old "classrooms." Teachers at all levels have learned considerable humility because of this. College teachers act as if they're "hanging on" to their occupation, as they literally are in many cases.
We can say "welcome to the club" with regard to this. Welcome to the world of true accountability. Teachers used to argue they were above that. They could proclaim this because our systems then did in fact accord them latitude with power. Everything boils down to power of course.
I remember a particular professor who was actually a guest of another prof in one of my classes. This was an academic discipline that I think is on the margins, quite, for necessity now. When I type it here you might smile. The waves of college freshmen from my era would trudge into a classroom for "Sociology 101" or some such introductory classification. And yes, we endured it.
We endured the very opinionated nature of so much that was dispensed. It was obviously a left wing political viewpoint. In observing this I do not dismiss left wing thinking out of hand, heavens no. I have used the term before "paternalistic liberalism." The '70s were quite the glory time for the strain of teaching/indoctrination. Our instincts told us to listen attentively and respectfully.
A few of us would get brainwashed at least for a time. Then we'd come out of it, not necessarily to be raging contrarian conservatives but just to be more realistic and sensible. The sensible strain has asserted itself in a true victorious sense.
I remember the guest instructor with the initials L.H., about whom I heard through whispering that he was a 100 percent alcoholic with much distress hounding him in that regard. And he looked it. But alcoholism is a disease, as we increasingly were being advised had to be weighed for the sake of mercy. No it was not a character failing, according to the new CW. Some reacted with shock to the new assumption. The shock was pushed aside by the new CW.
I typed the name of the prof into my Internet device a couple years ago. Nothing there, not a trace. I have found the same with other "academicians."
Evidence of online activity is a stamp of legitimacy today. You and your thoughts matter.
The academicians of old had papers stored away as with whatever materials were needed for one's graduate degree. Stuffy papers. Papers with topics so narrow, we're puzzled how they could find an audience. Today your sheer ability to get an audience matters a lot. In the old days, academics operated in some quarters as a private club which was relevant only for giving academic people their job security.
So we're talking tenure.
Hasn't the concept of tenure gotten rather on the ropes now? Try proposing the concept of tenure for the profession of car salesman. Oh, you think these people are second-class citizens? That's an old notion. Today I'd make no assumption about a "teacher" being sharper than a salesman or even a Starbuck's barista.
Am I suggesting diminished respect? I am only suggesting that scholars show their value in a measurable way. In the '70s it could be quite intangible. We were just supposed to defer and understand, lest we reveal ignorance.
The alcoholic prof that I remember did have a fascinating point to make one day. It has always stayed rather top-of-mind with me. He talked about women and their "secondary sexual characteristics."
Dead-on with insight
Profs like to act like they know better than the rest of us. And in this case, hey I'll credit this guy for really knowing something. The guy was knocking down the established norms for how men judge women's "attractiveness." In my college days the ideal was represented by Raquel Welch. Some guys would mention Elke Sommer as something like a "close second."
The guys who talked this way probably had an impulse in the back of their minds that it really was crass. I did. Why was it a struggle to achieve the preferred outlook on this? Well, it was our hormones, our irresistible hormones.
Most of us grew up with Victorian parents: sex is an awful thing to acknowledge - it's very existence! And the older folks were horribly negligent in terms of the guilt, confusion and denial planted in boys' heads as the boys dealt with adolescence. I would argue it was a form of torture. Boys had great difficulty getting access to images of unclothed women. When we did, we were gripped by the feeling that it was taboo.
Fast-forward to today: It's a sea change with the easy and free access to this thing called "porn."
Politicians might have gotten porn suppressed if not completely prohibited, but the problem for them is that they can't. You see, the Internet is bigger than them! So they assess that reality and move on. Society has all this free porn and the old stigma or guilt has gone away.
Which means what? With the limitless amount of naked images in all their glory, well, the novelty is gone. And so men and boys have their brains totally re-configured. Because of the ubiquitous nature of porn, the secondary sexual characteristics of which the prof spoke - and let's cite "big breasts" right at the start - don't mean much if anything.
In the old days, big breasts helped women's sexual characteristics stand out, for stimulating men in a world where women were expected to be fully clothed. If I were a woman today, I'd feel totally liberated by the existence of limitless porn. Men are subdued because they can satisfy their most base impulses. They say that men become "desensitized." That's the big term.
Well amen and hallelujah. Men can evaluate women on totally reasonable criteria now and completely eschew "secondary sexual characteristics." And women should be celebrating this. They should be celebrating porn wholeheartedly.
At the same time, men have largely gotten tired of porn. Amazing. In past times adolescent boys would about go out of their minds hoping to get an occasional look at a "nudie." How absolutely quaint. Today? Sex on videos can get boring and almost puzzling, irritating. Odd how God creates our bodies this way. Blame God.
Blame God for the quintessential divisive issue of abortion too. It's the way it is. And sex is more likely to be viewed today for its primary purpose of procreation.
So we're all better off? As with all things connected to the digital age, we must conclude "yes." Overwhelmingly. Playboy Magazine! It's more than a throwback now.
The old alcoholic professor was right: "secondary sexual characteristics" were quite that: secondary. It's just that our old culture forced men to accede to them. Let's see, who was No. 3 behind Elke Sommer?
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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