Loury & McWhorter Have Tea With Ellison, Moynihan & Wax

The Book Fair at UCLA was sponsored by the LATimes, an organization from which I feel I learn nothing. And on my way back home I overheard a kind of recital of facts that could only come from an older man who had spent a good deal of time learning facts in such a way as to teach them. And so it occurred to me having spent a couple hours browsing stuff of which had less interest and efficiency than a trip to Amazon.com that he was a walking dinosaur. There is a way he has come to be important that has everything to do with how people learned to learn in his day, that old man with the beard. And what did he know anyway?

McWhorter and Loury are too, stuck in amber. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant thing to witness the degree to which their chosen professions compel them to nail certain artifacts of knowledge with precision and alacrity. There is the necessity of mnemonic context - of intellectuality and facility in banter - a formalism/collegiality which is on display. But really, the core of what they're saying is practically binary. Moynihan was right. How many people are on the wrong side of that? Hard to know. But surely in 10 minutes you can get to the meat of that position. I know it, I get it. I figured it out. It took me forever because I didn't have access to such bloggingheads before bloggingheads. I couldn't leverage the pre-digested information they contain and absorbed over the course of their careers learning how to learn and meliorate. But now I'm at the same place, independently and I wonder how much time it's going to take.

So I am interested and find it curious to witness how much and from which directions we have such academics who have spent so much time absorbing what is necessary to know to make sense of American life. If I ever manage to get out my essay about my fatigue with urbanity perhaps the context will be complete. But I stand and watch these guys say with precision what those possessed with clear minds should have figured out for themselves. Are they a necessary antidote to noise pollution that is always with us, or are they part of the problem of overlearning?

At the end of my book "Up From Freedom" which I may never write, I will be watching the sun rise from my front porch. It will be an unobstructed view to the horizon over property which I own. I will be fighting back the tears that remind me how long it took me to get out of the shadow canyons of the Big City and all of those sociological Zagats. Facing the rising sun of that new day begun, I need none and heed no marching orders or anthems. That would be freedom, enjoyed.

So here's one final toast to that Tea Party madness. Speak on that if you must.