Home: Humanities talk series at the library this Thursday.

Straight up: My brain went slightly akilter when I saw Jan Van Eyck's "The Arnolfini Portrait" on a library Facebook post previewing a series of talks about being human.

Right here, in New Gahania, where Democrats are Dixiecrats and sheep are scared?

Thankfully, sense and sensibility still exist. Maybe we should be thankful that the library is a county institution, not subject to the idiocy of the monetizing ruffians.

Following is the website listing. It seems that a third subject for discussion is not mentioned: "There's No Place Like Home in Popular Song Lyrics."

Apologies for not paying sufficient attention to this series earlier. I'd actually been toying with the idea this Thursday of attending the final city council meeting of the year.

Silly, silly me.

Being Human: A Jefferson College Humanities Talk Series

Presented in partnership with the Floyd County Library

Each month's "Being Human" program features 2-3 speakers from the Jefferson College humanities department giving a 20 minute talk each, on a central topic. This series of talks is free, but advance registration is recommended.

DECEMBER 19: HOME

• Constructing Home as a Perpetual Traveler/Jonathan Montgomery & Quanisha Charles, English
• Down to Earth: At Home with the Flemish Primitives/Brenda Edgar, Art

Date: Thursday, December 19, 2019
Time: 6:30pm - 7:30pm
Location: Auditorium
Campus: New Albany Main Library
Audience: Adults
Categories: Adult Education

Tuesday night, we chewed on THAT.

Photo courtesy of Indiana Humanities.

When Julie Schweitzer first mentioned her wonderful idea to stage Chew On This, and I saw Indiana Humanities at the organizational pyramid's peak, it all combined to remind me of this column from May of 2017.

ON THE AVENUES: Are dissidents born or made? A humanities major examines his life and locale.

... You know, if dastardly parasitic humanities majors like me didn’t combat the angst with alcohol and stick around places like Nawbany, confident that any reasonable definition of leadership includes transparency, the ability to hear opposing viewpoints, to weigh available options and to filter the incessant bilge before charging across open ground toward the machine gun nest – tell me, would anyone bother challenging Wendy Dant Chesser and Bob Caesar when they begin spinning those “our way or the highway” whoppers?

That’s okay. You needn't answer. It’s my conscience, and it’s not for sale. However, I’m not going anywhere, and you can buy me a beer any time you like.

The dinner went very well, and hats off to the newspaper for sending Brooke to report it.

New Albany event discusses how to connect across boundaries, by Brooke McAfee (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — The theme of the evening was "division."

But as attendees exchanged thoughts over drinks and a three-course meal at Pints & Union in New Albany, they were united in their goal to build connections between community members of different backgrounds, identities and opinions.

The event, called "Chew on This: What Divides Us?" was one of 10 simultaneous conversations that occurred at restaurants throughout Indiana on Tuesday to explore issues of polarization. The series is part of Indiana Humanities' new INseparable initiative, which aims to connect Hoosiers across dividing lines.

ArtSeed in New Albany was the host of the event, and Roger Baylor, local blogger and beer programmer at Pints & Union, served as the conversation's facilitator. The divisions identified in the conversation included differences of values and political opinions, along with differences between rural, suburban and urban communities.

The dinners took place in Bargersville, Batesville, Carmel, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis (where there were two separate dinners), New Albany, Rensselaer, South Bend and Warsaw ...

Performance review: One Southern Indiana's "Fund Us Well" tour brings the Chamber Heads to Jeffersonville along with their pot(s).

Apparently One Southern Indiana's annual tour of legislative bodies is underway, and the Tom May Picayune sent new reporter Brooke McAfee to cover the performance before Jeffersonville's city council.

1si provides economic development update for Southern Indiana

JEFFERSONVILLE — One Southern Indiana reviewed its cumulative economic successes in a recent report of jobs, projects, annual payroll and new capital invested in Clark and Floyd counties since the organization's formation in 2006 during a presentation to the Jeffersonville City Council Monday.

Come again?

"One Southern Indiana reviewed its cumulative economic successes."

This seems to imply that 1Si seeks credit for the entirety of economic activity in Southern Indiana since 2006.

That can't be right.

On second thought, it's probably intentional. The Green Mouse sent an e-mail about guileless suckers to the ghost of PT Barnum, and we'll let you know the answer as soon as it arrives.

I missed a few New Albany city council meetings, and perhaps 1Si has come already with hat in hand, but no matter. Here's an excerpt from ON THE AVENUES from May 18, 2017.

---

ON THE AVENUES: Are dissidents born or made? A humanities major examines his life and locale.

 ... Coincidentally, 1Si’s President and CEO, Wendy Dant Chesser, spoke to my (Leadership Southern Indiana) class last week during our concluding Community Leadership Day.

Ostensibly Dant Chesser was there to outline steps for effectively leading a non-profit organization, and this she managed to do with requisite efficiency.

However, the second half of her presentation quickly digressed into the customary advertisement for 1Si, although this time with a novel twist.

According to Dant Chesser, the large manufacturing conglomerates most eagerly courted by 1Si (as opposed to independent local businesses and grassroots entrepreneurs, who must settle for trickle-down scraps) prefer employees holding one of the six “top earner” university degrees, including engineering, computers and electronics.

However, according to her PowerPoint slide, higher education insists on disgorging twice as many graduates who’ve been awarded the six least “useful” (and lowest paying) degree choices: English, philosophy, history and the like.

It would seem that both Dant Chesser and the fluffed and subsidized multinational beneficiaries of the neo-liberal order, upon whom 1Si depends to make payroll for 14 staffers, are offended by this ratio.

She made no effort to conceal her disdain for those viewing education as anything other than glorified vocational training, and considering the fact that I wasn’t the only humanities major in the room, her summarizing anecdote of choice was tellingly errant.

Dant Chesser told us of her recent chat with an art history major who was having trouble in the job market. Well, what did he expect? Art history? What sort of guidance counselor would recommend studying subjects as perennially useless as art history?

Well …

Perhaps those guidance counselors grasping that the object of education isn’t always to match obedient hamsters to their proper wheel, but to produce humans capable of thinking. The fact that “fake” news is such a concern these days might enter into this paradigm, wouldn’t you … think?

Seemingly nowhere in Dant Chesser’s narrowly defined (read: confined) world exists the type of broad, individually tailored choices of human aspiration that depart from economic development of the “we’ve always done it this way” variety, which by breathtaking coincidence is the type best calculated to advance the specific capitalist format to which 1Si has attached itself like a leech – hence the blood money of its council funding request.

The real problem might be that humanities majors have been made aware of different trends in the history of thought, and as such, they’re the ones most likely to question Dant Chesser’s premises.

Which I did, aloud and joyfully.

Bizarrely, another of her slides testified to the critical importance of every Southern Indiana resident meekly accepting 1Si’s version of the Regional Cities Initiative, so as to provide unanimity in pursuit of a “collective” path forward – and yes, “collective” is precisely the word this crony capitalist enabler used.

Irony is dead, but Trumpolini didn’t kill it.

As a direct result of past concerns proffered by anti-establishment dissidents, at least the money 1Si is requesting of our council will be put to a specific, directed use: WorkHub, a workforce training initiative.

That’s all well and good, but is this workforce training available to art history majors, or must we collectively denounce the pursuit of non-vocational education before disbursing the dollars to applicants?

Until Dant Chesser answers this question (a contrite public apology would be more suitable, but I’m a cynical realist), I recommend to council that the money be withheld. It won’t, and I can hear the backslapping already.

(2 of 2) My comments at tonight's city council meeting, during public speaking time prior to A-17-02 (funding for One Southern Indiana).

What I'll be saying tonight during regular public speaking time for agenda items. It is a repurposed extract from a recent ON THE AVENUES column. Part 1 is here.

I’m a member of the Leadership Southern Indiana’s Discover class of 2017.

The presence of A-17-02 on tonight’s agenda is ironic, given that in May, One Southern Indiana’s President and CEO, Wendy Dant Chesser, spoke to our class during Community Leadership Day.

Ostensibly Dant Chesser was there to outline steps for effectively leading a non-profit organization. However, the second half of her presentation quickly digressed into the customary advertisement for 1Si, although this time with a twist.

According to Dant Chesser, the large manufacturing conglomerates most eagerly courted by 1Si (as opposed to independent local businesses and grassroots entrepreneurs, who must settle for trickle-down) prefer employees holding one of the six “top earner” university degrees, including subjects like engineering, computers and electronics.

However, according to her, higher education insists on disgorging twice as many graduates who’ve received the six “least useful” (and lowest paying) degree choices, like English, philosophy, geography, history and the like.

It would seem that both Dant Chesser and the often subsidized multinational beneficiaries of the local branch of the neoliberal order, upon whom 1Si depends to make payroll for 14 staffers, are very offended by this educational ratio.

She made no effort to conceal her disdain for people who might view education as something other than vocational training, or that differs from what employers want, and considering the fact that I wasn’t the only humanities major in the room, her summarizing anecdote of choice was tellingly misplaced.

She told us of a recent chat with an art history major who was having trouble in the job market. Well, she said, what did he expect? Art history? What sort of guidance counselor would recommend studying subjects as perennially useless as art history?

Perhaps those guidance counselors grasping that the object of education isn’t always to match obedient hamsters to their proper wheel, but to produce humans capable of thinking. The fact that “fake” news is such a concern these days might enter into this paradigm, wouldn’t you … think?

Seemingly nowhere in Dant Chesser’s narrowly defined world exists the type of broad, individually tailored choices of human aspiration that depart from economic development of the “we’ve always done it this way” variety, which by breathtaking coincidence is the type best calculated to advance the US Chamber of Commerce-approved, specific capitalist format to which 1Si attaches itself.

The real problem might just be that humanities majors have been made aware of trends in the history of thought that differ from hers and the oligarchs she serves, and as such, humanities majors are the ones most likely to question Dant Chesser’s premises.

Which I did, and am doing so again tonight. Because, how did I manage to stay in business 25 years without an engineering degree?

Dan Chesser also informed us that every Southern Indiana resident should unquestioningly accept – notice a pattern yet? – 1Si’s version of the Regional Cities Initiative, so as to provide unanimity in pursuit of a “collective” path forward – and yes, “collective” is precisely the word this crony capitalist enabler used, proving that while irony is dead, the Great Trumpolini didn’t kill it.

As a direct result of past concerns voiced by anti-establishment dissidents, at least the money 1Si is requesting tonight of our council will be put to a specific, directed use: WorkHub, a vocational training initiative.

But first we need to answer two questions: Is this vocational training available to art history majors, or must we collectively denounce the pursuit of non-vocational education before disbursing the dollars to applicants? Can art history majors be cured of their wayward choices, and restored to harmony with multinational corporations?

WorkHub probably is a good program, but absent a public apology by Dant Chesser to humanities majors, which I sadly know isn’t forthcoming, I’d recommend that council withhold the money until my questions are answered. You won’t, so instead I’ll urge you to think carefully about what 1Si is, and what it does. Not all your constituents view it as a panacea.

Thank you.

More Sunday reading: "What role will the arts and humanities play in this brave new world?"

Accompany with black coffee.

Matt Burriesci: The Arts and Humanities Aren’t Worth a Dime, by Matt Burriesci (Guernica)

“The object of the education system, taken as whole, is not to produce hands for industry or to teach the young how to make a living. It is to produce responsible citizens.”
-Robert Maynard Hutchins, The University of Utopia

As one of the editors of the Great Books of the Western World, Robert Maynard Hutchins believed that Westerners were all participants in a Great Conversation that began in antiquity. Over the course of several thousand years of that conversation, Western civilization experimented with many different modes of political and economic organization. We have been a polis and we have been an empire; we have lived in feudal monarchies and free republics; we have been capitalist, mercantile, and socialist; we have been democratic and tyrannical. None of these systems has been permanent. Each model has given way to a new one.

The Western World once believed, as Aristotle did, that the political unit preceded the economic one. We changed our minds in the 17th century. John Locke argued that in order to have a government at all, one first had to embrace the concept of private property, and so political freedoms were dependent upon economic liberty. Governments existed for limited purposes, with the consent of the governed, and primarily to defend the property of free citizens. This economic freedom is also what Adam Smith meant when he wrote of the “Invisible Hand.” Smith argued that if individuals were free to choose their own labor, they would choose the most profitable labor possible. By doing so, each individual, guided by a force he or she did not understand (“an Invisible Hand”) would maximize the wealth of the nation.

Today we have come to understand economic metrics as the only units of measurement. We talk about “the marketplace of ideas,” as we “vote with our dollars.”