class notes 3/17

3/17 CLASS NOTES, YO

Reading William James chronologically

For Monday- read The Will to Believe

Wai Chee Dimock says she was surprised by how smart her students were, via creeping on their online posts

Discussion of Wai Chee Dimock discussion- how literature can be mode/means for some other end, but doesn’t equal the end

Fabelhaft- interesting how literature is not necessarily at the center, looking at literature sideways

Calamity- issue w/ description of how lit can be read and then tossed away, disposable. If you’ve read it, then there is some impact

Anne- stop valorizing literature, use it for what it’s worth and then MOVE ON; displacing literature as the valued end product of how we use it (?) will have longer shelf-life if it is peripheral to projects and not in the center

Jrlewis- articulates what we do already w/ it, gap in understanding in science, assumed words meant something different in the different context, couldn’t organize terms into coherent narrative; all skills from humanities translated into natural sciences- translate literature into other useful context; we do it implicitly, unconsciously

Anne- she wants to heal the world; Using literature to think about war, peace, conflict resolution; if we get it out of closed conversations, can be more helpful

Kkazan- not there, but feels in lit class the book isn’t the end b/c we are asked to see how it interacts w/ our world

Anne- b/c WCD’s Facebook is not hierarchical, become freer, the format encourages one to read slowly, evenly, and not just respond to most recent

Discussion of “Habit”

Anne- what is your r/s to the habitual? Do you think of yourself as a “creature of habit?” what does the word “habit” mean to you? Images prompted?

Calamity and kjmason- think of nuns

Anne- what is relationship between habit and education? Literature?

MissArcher2- relates more to “Habit” than “Stream of Thought”

Anne- did you suspect written by different people? Different times in his life? Both are from the same text, paper; however, “Habit” may have been written to be more accessible; connection b/n habits and developing these streams

MissArcher2- example-= we are all creatures of habit, do things accidentally like walk in the wrong direction, parking in a certain spot and realize that you parked somewhere else b/c that specific spot was full. Unconscious

Anne- is that positive or negative? Comforting or disquieting? Operating on automatic

MissArcher2- before reading this had negative view of habit, wanted to make new ones, better ones; magazines talk about habit in conjunction w/ diet, etc; time it takes to form a new habit (3 weeks), some take longer to form

Aseidman- past 3 years go to gym every day, if she doesn’t go for a day, she gets sick but no medical basis; psychological habit?

Anne- so this is what happens when you develop this habit, and what happens when you don’t follow it

Aseidman- there is good and bad habitual- brushing teeth = positive; drawing a picture of a cat the same way every day = not positive?

Kjmason- OCD has comfort in habit, certain things she likes to do in a certain way; wake up, shower, then brush teeth; her bf brushes his teeth before he showers and it drives her nuts

Anne- so the comfort of the predictable, saves time, provides freedom, the habitual creates a structure for freedom;

Kkazan- harder to implement habit, when I am trying a diet, trying to change something, never b/co natural b/c always consciously thinking about it and what she’s trying to change; as she does it thinks about how this is the habit she’s supposed to be starting

MissArcher2- line about failure, if you fail once you keep failing, a vicious cycle

Anne- (quote from James) is this an optimistic or pessimistic view?

Exsoloadsolem- never bit fingernails, never smoked, never twirled hair= all came from anxiety, awkwardness

Anne- what would James say?

MissArcher2- it takes up to 250 days to stop/start a habit, can’t fight it forever, have to hang on

Anne- a regular, habitual life creates spaces of freedom; problem is if higher thought center hardly knows about the matter, then habits depend on sensations we are not focusing on, must force it to reenter the unconscious

MissArcher2- huge problem w/ essay is that is does not address/allow for flexibility (she brushes her teeth IN the shower, say what?)

Anne- do the rest of you agree? Is he saying we cannot change our habits? What about plasticity? He’s trying to break this down to a mechanical process, nothing but a reflex discharge

            So. Your Pringles addiction is a mechanical discharge- try picking up a carrot instead

Jrlewis- replace cheetos w/ carrots on road-trips; 2 horses: an old one who knows all kinds of stuff and a younger one in which she can feel the effects (he would stop and smell a jump and then try from a standstill, she obliterated that habit)

Anne- ability to change habits is like the training of an animal?

Kjmason- Pavlovian response

Anne- breaks it down to physical response… does will.i.am think that you can’t teach an older person new tricks?

Marina- I’m a habitual person- biting nails for as long as I can remember, probably never stop

Anne- what advice is James giving? Is he telling you to really try? What is the pedagogical point of this essay?

Marina- need to make a path stronger, try to replace, substitution

Anne- he provides 3 great maxims.

            Very much a can-do essay

Kkazan-not about NOT DOING the old habit, but doing a NEW ONE

MissArcher2- maybe instead of eating Pringles, or instead of saying NO, just eat something else, create a formula of “go do this” when you think about doing something else, an override

Jrlewis- you have a will, one objective, no room for indecisiveness or adjusting, restrictive, very depressing read

Anne- lets connect habit w/ stream of thought… Penguins?

Penguins- I am habitual, esp. in the morning, in HS would try to memorize schedule by trying to memorize what way she walked to class (cannot remember prior schedules)

Anne- what was argument of “Stream of Thought”- what is it like inside our mind?

Kkazan- something that keeps moving, fluidity

Anne/Calamity- difficulty of communicating from one stream to another, each stream owned by one person, distinct from one another

Anne- so how do you understand relationship between brain/fluidity and rigidity

Exsoloadsolem- notion of the tension comes to mind- despite knowledge that stream is constantly moving there are things brought to ones attention; habit is something that can function w/in the stream w/o it being brought to the attention, the current perhaps, in order to influence, change a habit it must be elevated to an attentive level

Anne- the habitual is an unconscious stream? Very nice, you need to bring what is unconsciously streaming to the attention of the conscious, rework that bitch, and then send it home in shame; notion of attentiveness is important

            What about fashioning of character? Ladies. We are here to “fashion your character” what would be your reaction? Is that part of the product of education?

Calamity- I think we still do, the honor code is about keeping everyone honorable, changing, strengthening character

Anne- did you come to BMC thinking about formation of character? Feels very 19th terminology

Kkazan- now we focus on one part of character, rather than all

Anne- how do you respond to the HC speech? That bit about thoughts b/co words, etc

Aseidman- first reaction is SYNONYMS. Reminiscent of hope for change, change for hope, etc

Penguins- drive the point home, get it stuck in your mind

Kjmason- everyone loves anaphora, while we would NEVER get away w/ that in a paper, it’s awesome

Anne- so you’d be more open if there is variation in the wording of the message

Exsoloadsolem- I think the message is crap, too rigid and too predictable; the commencement speech implies that everything must function on a conscious level (so not William's message)

Anne- particularly ironic b/c so much of James’s argument is of the interplay b/n the unconscious and conscious

Exsoloadsolem- metaphor of harvest, mental image of yield from a crop, certain veggies look unique

Aseidman- the concept is cheesy

Kjmason- James uses idea of scarring, but speaker is saying thoughts will cause you to mutate

Anne- this is really about plasticity, Hrabowski is very policing

Calamity- his removes agency, just observing, not saying ACT

Exsoloadsolem- incredibly cautious, implies everyone is capable of deviance, but he makes it sound horrible

Kkazan- destiny is unchangeable, so why is he talking about it?

Anne- if you really believe that watching thoughts will prevent you from habitual thoughts you thwart destiny

MissArcher2- thoughts can be separate from actions

Anne- this speech says that thought will be materialized

Kjmason- but not assigning proper word

MissArcher2- character is made up of thoughts/actions, but can evolve out of that and be better, you have been scarred, but they do not limit you

Kkazan- I have the power to interrupt that sequence

Anne- difference is that one is watchful; the other is acting, so there is agency in James's argument

            Gertrude Stein’s attitude towards habitual

            Habit is a stabilizing necessity in world of pure experience

Anne- what is the downside of habit?

Kjmason- when you go on autopilot you lose awareness; “this would be more effective” if thought rather than autopilot was applied

Anne- so on the one hand it creates space for freedom, on the other it may establish fixed place and place-keeping function that prevents new methods; Stein is famous for her repetitive words in order to give sense of continuous present, she was going to repeat in order not to create narrative/idea of time moving; if you are interested in progress/chance, habit can work against that

Exsoloadsolem- progress is often used to imply the betterment of something rather than just change

Anne- does progress necessarily include betterment, one of those terms does…

Kkazan- a movement in time, not necessarily for the better

Kjmason- habit is effective as long as plasticity is allowed?

Anne- habit is the stream of the unconscious, which is repetitive, to which we give no thought

Jrlewis- the mental ecosystem- how streams do change course over time, there is more going on in the mind than just the stream of consciousness, mineral deposit, weather, rainfall, earthquakes, etc the stream is easily altered by drugs

Anne- the habitual is the plastic? And the stream may run a course, but still alterable

Jrlewis- the changes appear slowly, may miss it on a daily level, but seeable after a period of time

Calamity- the reversing falls (St John’s Bay)

Anne- so like a metaphor for stream of thought?

Calamity- well that would be a mess; it’s just a wrench in the James argument: it goes both ways at once!

Exsoloadsolem- well, those people are institutionalized

Kkazan- like those ambiguous figures, you can see the lovers or the dolphins, but occasionally you can see them both at the same time