The Tyranny of Very Good Writing

A Post-Academic in New York City has an interesting post up about thesis statements and how they undermine good writing.

I don't disagree with this, nor with PAINYC's conclusion: "It’s better to teach students – and to remind ourselves – to admire ambivalence and contradiction and to think of writing as a way to cultivate those things, not abolish them. That is what very good writing – a rare and beautiful thing – should be: a reflection of a commitment to knowing nothing at all and to writing forever into that void."

To be clear: I am not currently teaching writing and don't ever expect to be doing so again. However, I did teach it for going on a decade, and one of the things I never really resolved was how to teach students what "very good writing" is at the same time I was teaching them pragmatic ways of tackling the kinds of writing tasks that would most likely be required of them in other college courses and beyond.

Because "very good writing" as PAINYC describes it above -- and I basically agree with this definition -- is not the kind of decent, clear, concise, good-but-not-great writing nonacademic, nonliterary, non-artistic, non-scholarly writers need to practice.

When I was transitioning out of academe, before I started the secretary gig at Think Tank, I had a few interviews for writer/editor jobs. When these would-be employers asked for writing samples, I was somewhat surprised that they didn't want examples of "very good writing." They wanted mundane things. They wanted to see my course policies, assignment sheets, one-pager handouts, not my published academic papers or creative experiments. They didn't want ambivalence and contradiction. They wanted clarity, simplicity, and precision.

When I write today at the Petting Zoo, ambivalence and contradiction are not the goals. While I'm certainly not under the tyranny of a thesis statement or any other such formulaic bullshit, I also do have specific things I need to communicate. Putting together a report starts with a question or set of questions. With collaborators, I collect data with the objective of answering those questions. We analyze the data and draw conclusions. Writing the report requires communicating what we found -- answering the questions. While answering those questions might lead to other questions and other research and other reports, the task of writing itself in any given report is the opposite of generating ambivalence and contradiction, unless the research itself is inconclusive, in which case we still have to communicate that inconclusiveness in clear and understandable language.

So, as someone who appreciates and values and studies "very good writing," I struggled, as a writing teacher, with reconciling how to get students to at least recognize "very good writing," if not practice it, and how at the same time to cultivate the kinds of "decent" writing skills they would most likely have to practice in the rest of their college and professional lives.

Staring into the void of writerly oblivion is a beautiful thing, but it's also dangerous, especially if your goal is to get out of academe. It's a lot like staring at the sun. Before you know it, you won't be able to see anything at all.

"Isn't there anything you're passionate about?"

At a happy hour, one of my new Petting Zoo colleagues asked me this question: "Aren't you passionate about anything?" I was somewhat taken aback. Why, what could ze mean? Do I have to be passionate about something? If so, am I supposed to proselytize?

 I'm not sure I've been passionate about anything since my earliest years as a graduate student before academe's shine wore off. I think there was maybe that paper I wrote back in 2004. I was very passionate about turning that into my very first peer-reviewed publication. And then I published a few more and nobody cared. The butterfly flapped its proverbial wings and nothing happened. Oh, and I was pasionate about teaching, too. For a while. Until it became impossible to continue doing it without being a financial burden on other people.

 YaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwawnZzzzZzzzzZzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzzz.

Passion hasn't really been particularly useful as a life strategy for me.

 My goals these days are much simpler and less stressful than being passionate about something: 1) not be bored, and 2) earn a living wage while not being bored.

 So far so good!

All in all, not a bad show ...

The conference is officially over. I managed to escape the closing reception after only two drinks and early enough to get a full night's sleep before heading out in the morning to fly back East.

Schmoozing went well. Met some potential collaborators who are interested in just the things the Petting Zoo is hoping to develop in months to come. And learned -- as I've been suspecting -- that the Great Problem of Our Time is social, cultural, and political rather than scientific. The Problem isn't a lack of information or understanding but a lack of credibility and trust.

Why? And what to do about it? Those are the questions we need to be asking ...

Also, Enviro Shark and I did have a chance to talk, and my suspicions about the tensions between Expanding Habitats and Survival in Captivity were not figments of my imagination. While I feared I was being paranoid, in fact I was spot on. But the good thing is that Enviro Shark now "gets" where I'm coming from, and I think we have a solid alliance that will prove useful in the weeks ahead as far as settling the tensions and moving forward.

All in all, a pretty decent conference experience. Wish I had more time to see the sights, as it is beautiful out here in the mountains, but I am looking forward to going home.

Godammit!

I was hoping to make it through an entire conference for once without anyone mentioning Foucault. But godammit, somebody had to go and do it yesterday! One more day to go ...

Perverse

I cannot tell anyone at this conference that I used to work at Think Tank. They'd spit in my face or throw their drink at me or something.

I realized this yesterday when I was talking to someone, telling hir about the Petting Zoo, how I had just started there recently, and how Expanding Habitats was an awesome program. Then ze asked, "What did you do before Petting Zoo?"

I opened my mouth and was about to say I worked at Think Tank, and then I looked at hir and thought about what hir work was and what people had been talking about all afternoon, and I just said, "Oh, I was at Grad U doing a PhD and then teaching for a bit after."

It's weird, let me tell ya. And the road ahead will be difficult. Because, you see, one of the goals of Expanding Habitats is to get people talking to each other. But if people on either side of this issue loathe each other so much that someone who merely worked as a secretary, briefly, for the "wrong" side is tainted goods, that's a problem. And it is, I can tell you from having been now on the inside of both sides, a problem on both sides.

I really need to write that book I think ...

Perplexing

If your goal is to get the public to take science seriously, what difference does it make if the motives of some of the actors that help you accomplish this goal differ from yours? If your own motives are communitarian, making the world a better place, and theirs are individualistic, making themselves richer, so what? If working together nonetheless gets you farther towards this common goal than you'd otherwise get on your own, why should you refuse to collaborate?

(Note: I'm out West at a conference. I spent this afternoon on a university campus. Time for short reflections only but two things are eminently clear: 1. I'm glad I no longer work at a university, and 2. Far too many academics are well-meaning and thoughtful people, but they are out of touch with reality when it comes to what is required to get things done in the public sphere. More to come ... )

When they start to recognize you're not totally full of crap ...

After some of my whinier posts recently, I figured I should let readers know that I actually do like it here at the Petting Zoo. A lot of us post-acs, especially in English, get frustrated when the nonacademic world questions or doesn't recognize our madmadwordsmithing skillz acquired through so many long years of bad romance with that sick and twisted lover academe calls "Language and Literature Studies."

Let it be known, however, that my fellow Petting Zoo critters are beginning to realize how nice it is having an Almost English Professor at their beck and call -- especially one that once listed "animal studies" on her CV as a research interest. (Seriously, I shit you not! Could you not tell from all the recent animal metaphors and earlier animal posts?)

Here are three things I did in the last day or so that validate my existence here, at least for the time being:

• Started -- and then settled -- a kerfluffle over when to use the adjectival vs. the atrributive noun form of a certain word. The result was a change to the title of the Flaming Kangaroo Gas event title on our website and in the program and all the promotional materials. In other words, I used my knowledge of the English language to make my fellow critters look smart rather than stupid or pretentious.
• Drafted the speech that Expanding Habitats' Big Dolphin is giving at the Flaming Kangaroo Gas event. FKG has both public and behind-closed-door components, and the speech is sort of a big deal because it introduces the public part and must accomplish several goals in only about 600 words: introduce Expanding Habitats to the public, introduce Big Dolphin as EH's leader, introduce the event itself, introduce the keynote speaker (who is a former member of Congress), and please the EH major donor (as in seven-figure donor) who is sponsoring the event. That's a lot! And it was only after acomplishing a series of smaller, totally insignificant writing tasks that -- presto! change-o! -- suddenly, recent Ph.D. (go figure!) is the go-to person when other critters  want something written well and written quickly.
• Worked with a colleague -- we'll call hir Enviro Shark -- on hir PowerPoints for an upcoming presentation and had some input, from a humanities perspective, that ze hadn't thought of.

What's especially awesome is that Enviro Shark's presentation is at an upcoming conference we're both going to. It's interdisciplinary, and I would have submitted a paper proposal myself had I not started here months after the deadline had passed. The fact that they're letting me go anyway -- basically to schmooze, promote Expanding Habitats, and support Enviro Shark -- totally vindicates my choice to blow off that other conference I almost paid my own way for a few months back. It'll be fun to go to a conference without the pressure of either presenting or being on the academic job market. And it'll be especially fun to have the chance to bond a little with Enviro Shark.

Enviro Shark is a recent Ph.D., too, in environmental engineering. Ze is a type 1 leaver who only finished hir dissertation because ze couldn't stand the thought of not finishing. Ze immediately got out without ever going on the academic job market. Ze also got hir job here as a research analyst around the same time I started the secretary gig, which maybe tells you something about the relative ease with which science people and humanities people make their escapes.

Anyway, Enviro Shark is part of the Survival in Captivity crew and no doubt felt some of the sense of dislocation and irritation when Expanding Habitats took over, but ze hasn't been here all that long and seems to be adapting rather well -- not as hot and bothered as Senior Pink Elephant (who has been keeping, mercifuly, out of my way).

 So ... yes, it's been a good week, and the conference, too, which I leave for Thursday morning, will be good, too ...

New Look

Not sure I like it, but design isn't really my greatest talent. I've been contemplating moving to Wordpress, but I'm too lazy and busy to deal with it right now, so I'm experimenting here a little. I wanted to preserve the theatrical theme (I still feel like I'm role playing) and color scheme. Don't be surprised if things change again

Meetings Suck

Here at The Petting Zoo, people have a love/hate relationship with meetings. On the one hand, they like meetings enough to schedule them frequently. On the other hand, sometimes we have an hour-long meeting on Flaming Kangaroo Gas, and before not three days have gone by, we have another hour-long meeting on the same thing. As interesting as Flaming Kangaroo Gas may be and as important as it may seem to talk about it frequently, two (or even three!) meetings that close together don't accomplish anything. People go through their "to do" lists from the previous meeting, and simply state that they have started Whatever It Is but not finished. The meeting ends and everyone resolves to continue doing Whatever It Is they already know they're supposed to be doing and report back at the next meeting.

Gah. Somebody diligently takes notes (today it happened to be me, but we take turns), noting tasks for everyone, and the notes get circulated so everybody double knows Whatever It Is they're supposed to be doing that they already know they're supposed to be doing and have now just wasted another hour NOT doing.

You know you have a problem with meetings when the notes for consecutive meetings are more or less the same.

Everyone, you get the sense, feels somewhat imposed upon, but no one, including the meeting organizers, will speak up and say, "Hey, there's not a whole lot that's happened since the last meeting, so why don't people who need to do so just touch bases informally and we'll re-convene all together next week." Most people know how to send email, and, better yet, why not go drop by your colleague's office? It's right next door or maybe just two doors over.

But that gets me to the other issue. As I mentioned in a previous post, there are some tensions brewing just under the surface between the old program, Survival in Captivity, and the new program, Expanding Habitats.

There's a lot of passive aggressiveness on the part of the Survival in Captivity people, and, while I understand the reasons for it, it's really getting tiresome. After a certain amount of time, you just move on from these things, but that doesn't seem to be happening. They resent having to expend effort and time on Flaming Kangaroo Gas, which is an Expanding Habitats event upcoming in the next few weeks. They resent having to work with staff hired exclusively for Expanding Habitats, like me. And they seem to resent the general philosophical directive behind the misison and goals of Expanding Habitats. And this is all despite the fact that Survival in Captivity still exists as a program, and nobody lost their job when Expanding Habitats took over. And, really, the only thing that's changed is the leadership and a push towards creating public dialogue over policy rather than pointing fingers.

Some people, it turns out, aren't very good at dialogue, even among their coworkers, it seems.

Possibly the thing that irritates me the most about these Flaming Kangaroo Gas meetings is Senior Pink Elephant's attitude and immature behavior. SPE is one of the people most loyal to Survival in Captivity. Describing SPE's tone and body language and behavior as "resentful" understates the bitterness SPE expresses. While everybody is frustrated by these stupid meetings, most behave like grown-ups. SPE, on the contrary, will go to meetings and PASS NOTES to the other pink elephants, snicker, and nod and smile at them, as if we were all in high school. The other pink elephants just look uncomfortable and, when the meeting finally ends, carefully pick up those little slips of paper -- no doubt filled with snide comments -- so as to make sure nobody else sees them. SPE never does anything really big, but these little things undermine collegiality, which is maybe SPE's subconscious goal. Like, for example, at today's meeting, somebody in Expanding Habitats said they didn't get the email about Flaming Kangaroo Gass Solids that was sent around this morning. Instead of simply forwarding the email from the iPad SPE also obsessively plays with at meetings, which would be the civil, grown-up thing to do, SPE says dismissively, "Yes, you did. It was sent to everybody. Whatever. It's not important that you see it anyway." Somebody else did forward the message, but that kind of bitchiness lingers. Did I mention how tiresome this all is? It's toxic. It's spawned this whole bitchy post, which I needed to get out of my system before getting back to Flaming Kangaroo Gas tasks (that I could have done earlier but was at the meeting).

Did I mention also that SPE especially hates me because 1) I was hired specifically to work on Expanding Habitats, 2) I am not a pink elephant, and 3) I used to work at Think Tank, which makes me, ipso facto, either evil or crazy.

So, even if I'm being a little paranoid, I feel like a fair amount of SPE's passive aggressiveness is directed at me, especially since the other two main Expanding Habitats people -- the people, also, that hired me, know my background, and respect what I bring -- are in Other City Office. In other words, my allies only participate in meetings via video or phone conference, and I really don't think they pick up on this pepto bismal colored Pink Elephant shit, even though it may almost all (except for the Think Tank part) be actually directed equally at them.

I really do try hard to be civil to SPE, because, quite frankly, I would prefer to work in a civil environment. I'm willing to let stuff slide. I go out of my way to say hello and otherwise be polite. But, really? For how long? Even in academe, as petty as people could sometimes be, I never had to put up with this crap. Maybe I was lucky, but the closest workplace situation for me was a retail job I had in college. One of my coworkers there resented me because she thought I "stole" her customers. In fact, she ignored "her" customers, but I talked to them so neither of us would get yelled at by the manager. And I was just better at selling because I was actually NICE and POLITE and CIVIL and FRIENDLY and DECENT to the customers. When I got promoted from sales associate to sales supervisor, my coworker got into all this stupid passive aggressive stuff, like leaving messes for me to clean up or actively pissing customers off by being overtly rude to them because she knew I would get blamed, since I was "supervising." Fortunately for both of us, she quit after not too long.

Maybe SPE will just up and quit, too. SPE getting fired would be even better. Are there some job gods out there who would accept the burning of a pink elephant effigy?

You know what's ironic? The environment and people at Think Tank/New Think Tank, as I've blogged before, despite our differences, were entirely civil, polite, decent people to work with. There was nothing like this situation with any of them. Ever. And you know what else? It's that kind of civility that allows people to forge valuable and loyal relationships in this small little world where Who You Know Matters More Than What You Know. You want there to be people for whom you will go out of your way and who will go out of their way for you. You never know when that sort of thing will pay off, but it's worthwhile to work at because, in the long run, it's as important as showing up and doing all the other stuff you're supposed to.

Do you know what else is ironic? At Think Tank/New Think Tank -- because it was a small place, an open office, and a collegial environment in which people could just walk over and talk to each other about Whatever It Is that needed to get done -- there were no goddammedmotherfuckingmindblowinglyborrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring meetings EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!