{"id":2486,"date":"2015-06-05T08:10:10","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T12:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/?p=2486"},"modified":"2015-06-05T08:10:10","modified_gmt":"2015-06-05T12:10:10","slug":"a-professor-in-massachusetts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/a-professor-in-massachusetts\/","title":{"rendered":"A professor in Massachusetts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Thoreau and Walden by Gardner Campbell, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/gardnercampbell\/14937017702\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/c2.staticflickr.com\/4\/3854\/14937017702_e0d65a1af6_z.jpg?resize=584%2C390&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Thoreau and Walden\" width=\"584\" height=\"390\" \/><\/a>I went to the woods to see the woods Thoreau went to, hoping to feel more of the why that he felt. Thoreau didn&#8217;t erect that sign, of course. Someone else did, later. Did they betray him or his work by doing so? Did Thoreau even write those words without irony? Was \/ is\u00a0<em>Walden<\/em> a cruel hoax, an aspiration, a bit of self-indulgence, an inspiration, a record of <a href=\"http:\/\/rampages.us\/terrorism301\/2015\/06\/05\/blending-old-and-new\/\" target=\"_blank\">life-long learning<\/a>, a mass of undecidability (and then how would we know?).<\/p>\n<p>What are the essential facts of life that Thoreau assumes can be so confidently identified and proclaimed?<\/p>\n<p>What does life (if that&#8217;s the &#8220;it&#8221;) have to teach? What does it matter what life teaches if death is inevitable? Why so many negatives in that last sentence, three in total? (How would we grade such a sentence?) How can Thoreau be so sure of his motives? &#8220;I went to the woods because&#8221;: how can we accept any such direct, simple statement of motives as anything but glaring self-deception or, worse, obfuscation, sleight-of-mind? Is it a trick? (The antecedent for &#8220;it&#8221; may be unclear, I admit it.)<\/p>\n<p>I remember making many kinds of meanings as I stood behind the camera and took this picture. I imagine I would like to share the &#8220;I&#8221; who was there to take the picture, but that person is not pictured.<\/p>\n<p>With all the complexities and uncertainties and critical-thinking born-and-bound modes I can and do bring to bear upon the words on this sign, in this setting, in the larger context of an August afternoon near a public pond just last year, many years after I have read\u00a0<em>Walden<\/em>, I do believe, anyway, that I can learn from Thoreau, and not just about Thoreau. I sense his living hand, then warm and capable, stretching toward mine. Though I cannot map or fully articulate what that meeting is or will be, I do believe he is as sincere as one can hope, and that I can trust him enough to meet him, and<a href=\"http:\/\/rampages.us\/drdanielledick\/2015\/06\/04\/expect-the-unexpected\/#comment-44\" target=\"_blank\"> trust both of us<\/a> to do our utmost not to betray our meetings and the hopes those meetings <a href=\"http:\/\/rampages.us\/rgowdy\/2015\/06\/05\/glass-half-full\/\" target=\"_blank\">might yet revive<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I went to the woods to see the woods Thoreau went to, hoping to feel more of the why that he felt. Thoreau didn&#8217;t erect that sign, of course. Someone else did, later. Did they betray him or his work &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/a-professor-in-massachusetts\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22,21,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3rdspace","category-ccourses","category-vcualtlab"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4bHwM-E6","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2487,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486\/revisions\/2487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}