Michael Glassman asked if anyone out there still buys the Cartisian
dichotomy. I doubt that many xmca subscribers do. But I think
that it's still the dominant view of people outside the academy.
The "headedness vs. handedness" idea still runs strongly in
most public schools I spend time in. Classes such as home
economics, agriculture, industrial arts--where kids make things
that are important to them and that they find useful--are
devalued by the faculty at large, and even regarded as lesser
courses intellectually by the teachers who teach them. Such
classes tend to be located on the periphery of the buildings,
away from the core of the building where you'll find the
administrative offices and "academic" subjects such as English,
Math, History, and Science.
Concern #2: Thus far this discussion has been cast as "anti-Cartesian."
While it's common practice to set up schools of thought in opposition
too one another (e.g., modernism vs. postmodernism), it can also
be counterproductive in that it promotes thinking in terms of
dichotomies which tend to be false. So I hope that this discussion
can begin to be pro-something rather than anti.
Peter Smagorinsky smagor who-is-at aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu