the_quest:reflections_on_research
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the_quest:reflections_on_research [2015/01/26 13:00] – [You don't win friends with salad] Ryan Schram (admin) | the_quest:reflections_on_research [2021/06/29 02:27] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1 | ||
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# Learning from Lisa # | # Learning from Lisa # | ||
- | Lisa Simpson [[Revising|revised her essay]] when she went to Washington ("Mr. Lisa Goes To Washington" | + | Lisa Simpson [[Revising|revised her essay]] when she went to |
+ | Washington ("Mr. Lisa Goes To Washington" | ||
+ | she walked into the auditorium and said, "I would like to read a | ||
+ | different essay, if I may." | ||
+ | for the editors of Reading Digest.((I actually like to think of Lisa | ||
+ | speaking to the Optimist Society, a vaguely Ronald Reaganesque US | ||
+ | organization which holds public speaking competitions for children. I | ||
+ | went to a regional final in Fargo, North Dakota while riots broke out | ||
+ | in Los Angeles in response to the Rodney King verdict, and, perhaps | ||
+ | inspired by Lisa, changed my essay. It didn't go over so well, but heh | ||
+ | heh, that's kind of like winning anyways.)) | ||
- | Lisa had the best essay by far, way better than “Lift High Your Lamp, Green Lady” and “USA A’OK.” She knew this even though she didn’t win a prize. She wasn’t praised | + | Lisa had the best essay by far, way better than "Lift High Your Lamp, |
+ | Green Lady" | ||
+ | prize. She wasn't just praised | ||
+ | concluded herself that she had succeeded. She saw the reaction she got | ||
+ | from the audience when she delivered her key argument: | ||
- | > The city of Washington was built on a stagnant swamp some 200 years ago, and very little has changed. It stank then, and it stinks now. Only today, it is the fetid stench of corruption that hangs in the air. And who did I see taking a bribe but the " | + | > The city of Washington was built on a stagnant swamp some 200 years |
+ | > ago, and very little has changed. It stank then, and it stinks | ||
+ | > now. Only today, it is the fetid stench of corruption that hangs in | ||
+ | > the air. And who did I see taking a bribe but the " | ||
+ | > Arnold! Don't worry, Congressman, | ||
+ | > you need with your dirty money! And this will be one nation, under | ||
+ | > the dollar, with liberty and justice for none. (#8F01) | ||
- | OK, so the [[Stating a thesis|thesis statement]] could be clearer, and it could more directly answer a [[Asking a question|why question]], rather than just muckrake. Still, Lisa had a realization. When she saw the congressman take the money, she not only had new information, | + | OK, so the [[Stating a thesis|thesis statement]] could be clearer, and |
+ | it could more directly answer a [[Asking a question|why question]], | ||
+ | rather than just muckrake. Still, Lisa had a realization. When she saw | ||
+ | the congressman take the money, she not only had new information, | ||
+ | [[Choosing a topic|a problem]]. In a sense, her essay is a solution to | ||
+ | that problem. So she knew that she had succeeded because, in the end, | ||
+ | she saw that she herself was changed by this discovery. She couldn't | ||
+ | see the world the same way again. | ||
+ | |||
+ | At the same time, the episode also ends on an ambiguous note when Lisa | ||
+ | says "The system works!" | ||
+ | reaffirms a lot of conventional wisdom about democracy (e.g. The | ||
+ | American people are the " | ||
+ | Uncle Sam," etc.). | ||
+ | thought it was, we ultimately have to ask why Lisa concludes "I don' | ||
+ | believe it! The system works!" | ||
+ | she sees the government for what it is, not what she wants it to be. | ||
## Lisa the citizen? ## | ## Lisa the citizen? ## | ||
- | If Lisa has learned that the world isn't what she thought it was, we ultimately have to ask why Lisa concludes "I don't believe it! The system works!" | + | In this respect, I differ from another claim about this episode made |
+ | by Lauren Berlant (1993). Berlant describes a genre of texts she calls | ||
+ | " | ||
+ | that these stories are instances of an American cultural myth, and as | ||
+ | such, they not only represent Washington as a beacon of freedom, but | ||
+ | they draw people into a particular way of seeing themselves which she | ||
+ | calls " | ||
+ | citizen not merely by teaching one to think about American | ||
+ | in a certain way, but teaching one to see oneself as a person who is | ||
+ | incapable of independence without government, and thus one who is | ||
+ | dependent on the state as a parent. Thus the stories reinforce the | ||
+ | cultural representation of the state by presenting it not only as the | ||
+ | best form of government, but in fact as the only possible | ||
+ | government. Berlant claims that Lisa is one such infantile | ||
+ | citizen. Her discoveries lead her to reject her democratic piety, but | ||
+ | in the end she accepts that there is a " | ||
+ | allowed | ||
- | In this respect, I differ from another claim about this episode | + | Berlant' |
+ | representations of its government, which this episode | ||
+ | and reiterates. Because she focuses on the content | ||
+ | she fails to see the various processes of learning with which Lisa | ||
+ | engages | ||
+ | move beyond them. One of the most powerful themes of //The Simpsons// is | ||
+ | an unrelenting critique of formal education | ||
+ | Western model of learning. It is in this context that we must read | ||
+ | Lisa's trip to Washington. This trip, which begins with what is | ||
+ | essentially a school project, ends with Lisa's intellectual | ||
+ | transformation. While Lisa ultimately concludes that "the system | ||
+ | works," | ||
+ | are different ways to make the system work. Lisa begins | ||
+ | write an essay for a Reading Digest contest, an extracurricular | ||
+ | activity based her interests, but also, as it requires | ||
+ | pro-American" | ||
+ | formal schooling (#8F01). In struggling with her first draft, she goes | ||
+ | for a bike ride to a national park, and finds her inspiration. Her | ||
+ | first version was a good effort, but probably relied too much on the | ||
+ | sources available | ||
+ | effective metaphor as its main claim, it failed to consider | ||
+ | alternatives, | ||
- | Berlant's main interest | + | When she finally discovers corruption first-hand, she faces a genuine |
+ | intellectual problem. | ||
+ | essay and " | ||
+ | disagree. This is a cartoon and thus the story is necessarily told | ||
+ | through visual shorthand. When Lisa tears up her draft, this is a | ||
+ | visual code for an internal change in her character. She is revising | ||
+ | her thinking, and she does this by tossing out her old writing | ||
+ | generating new prose. In practice, we do this all the time, but just | ||
+ | because we dramatically crumple up a paper and shoot a free throw into | ||
+ | the wastepaper basket, that does not mean that the ideas are simply | ||
+ | forgotten. Rather we work on them and eventually they take a new form | ||
+ | as part of a new draft. Berlant also remarks that Lisa turns to the | ||
+ | " | ||
+ | think Berlant neglects the role of dialogue in the formation and | ||
+ | improvment | ||
+ | she perfectly happy to talk to Thomas Jefferson, and earlier she | ||
+ | sought | ||
+ | still highly unpopular). Finally, she presents a new paper which | ||
+ | exposes the corruption, but also puts forward | ||
+ | conception of how the system works. (As Berlant notes, this comes to | ||
+ | Lisa in a vision of Washington | ||
+ | parody where Orwellian walking pigs eat money.) Just because she | ||
+ | recognizes that the congressman has been punished | ||
+ | Lisa does not thereby revert | ||
+ | Lisa's remark as a kind of humiliation which all subjects must | ||
+ | internalize to become citizens. I believe that, placed in the larger | ||
+ | parody of education which is so much a part of the //The Simpsons//, | ||
+ | we can see that this story is in fact a very genuine celebration of | ||
+ | the scholar, the auto-didact and the freethinker. | ||
- | When she finally discovers corruption first-hand, she faces a genuine intellectual problem. Berlant remarks that Lisa "tears up" her first essay and " | ||
## Lisa the scholar ## | ## Lisa the scholar ## | ||
- | Several | + | In another episode several |
+ | the town's founder, Jebediah Springfield, in preparation for | ||
+ | Springfield' | ||
+ | a visit to the Springfield Historical Society, she finds evidence that | ||
+ | Jebediah Springfield is actually Hans Sprungfeld. She concludes from | ||
+ | this that the origin of Springfield is not what she learned in | ||
+ | school. Rather than a city on a hill, it was a den of pirates. When | ||
+ | she consults with historian Hollis Hurlbut((Hurlbut is played by | ||
+ | Donald Sutherland in perhaps one of the finest roles of his career.)), | ||
+ | he rejects her argument out of hand, and her evidence. Teacher and | ||
+ | student, guru and disciple, mentor and mentee are all very rewarding | ||
+ | relationships. But they are defined by a tension that cannot be | ||
+ | removed. So, Lisa has to break away, and keep going on her own. She | ||
+ | knows what she is saying makes sense. The pieces fit. | ||
- | Finally she wins over Hurlbut, not with her own logic, but when her persistent critique forces him to admit his own irrational commitment to an illusion. | + | Finally she wins over Hurlbut, not with her own logic, but when her |
+ | persistent critique forces him to admit his own irrational commitment | ||
+ | to an illusion. | ||
+ | to publish her work and destroy this illusion altogether. She says, | ||
+ | "The myth of Jebediah Springfield has value too" | ||
+ | symbol. I accept this more than "The system works!" | ||
+ | about the relationship of knowledge to reality. She doesn't say that | ||
+ | she will deny what she knows, of course. More importantly, | ||
+ | that the conclusion she reached changed her, and so it doesn't matter | ||
+ | whether people know what she knows, or agree with her, or tell her she | ||
+ | is right. Again, the value of her research was to bring her to a point | ||
+ | where she cannot ever see the world the same way again. | ||
## You don't win friends with salad ## | ## You don't win friends with salad ## | ||
- | Lisa is often a vexing figure. When the teachers at her school go on strike, she teaches herself, but this teaching consists of reproducing the atrocious intellectual conditions of Springfield Elementary: | + | Lisa is a vexing figure. When the teachers at her school go on strike, |
+ | she teaches herself, but this teaching consists of reproducing the | ||
+ | atrocious intellectual conditions of Springfield Elementary: | ||
+ | gum? Is that gum?" | ||
+ | [[Brainstorming# | ||
+ | (Mehan 1979: 285). Later she panics and Marge can only mollify her by | ||
+ | writing an A on a piece of paper. I prefer to think of her when she | ||
+ | learns, publicly, that she is failing gym: "Gym? That's the stupidest | ||
+ | thing I ever heard!" ("Lisa on Ice" 1994 [#2F05]). | ||
- | Her relationship to knowledge is often troubling. We see her smarmily correcting adults. (“It’s not foilage, Mom. It’s foliage.” in " | + | Her relationship to knowledge is often troubling. We see her smarmily |
+ | correcting adults. ("It's not foilage, Mom. It's foliage." | ||
+ | Baby Burns" 1996 [#4F05]) At times she obsesses over her cultural | ||
+ | capital, showing off her knowledge of fine art and literature. She | ||
+ | pleads with Stephen Jay Gould to support her position on some matter | ||
+ | ("Lisa The Skeptic" | ||
+ | Bart, offering | ||
+ | [#1F05]), or silently providing a rocket for a message ("This Little | ||
+ | Wiggy" 1998 [#5F13]). Other times, though, she shows her friends tide | ||
+ | pools (" | ||
+ | of archaeology ("Lost Our Lisa" 1998 [#5F17]). Those moments, and her | ||
+ | research((And her early support to end apartheid in South Africa, as | ||
+ | well. In early episodes, scene's in Lisa's room featured a prominent | ||
+ | "End Apartheid Now" | ||
+ | (1991 [#7F19]), " | ||
+ | favorites. This is where she models true education. | ||
- | Berlant' | + | Berlant' |
+ | the context | ||
+ | interested in this kind of cultural critique, I approach //The | ||
+ | Simpsons//, and especially Lisa, as an educator. So it is from this | ||
+ | position that I conclude that Lisa models what I consider to be key | ||
+ | virtues of the educated person. | ||
+ | [[Asking a question|Lisa and Aristotle would have a lot to talk about]]. In | ||
+ | some ways, I think Berlant and I would probably agree in the end that, | ||
+ | as a bearer of these classical virtues of liberal education, Lisa's | ||
+ | lessons are particularly relevent for the contemporary late-capitalist | ||
+ | era. Today we are inundated | ||
+ | Thatcher used to say, "There Is No Alternative" | ||
+ | order. More now than ever, we need someone who shows us how to ask, | ||
+ | "How do you know?" ("The Boy Who Knew Too Much" 1994 [#1F19]). | ||
## References ## | ## References ## | ||
- | Berlant, Lauren. 1993. "The Theory of Infantile Citizenship." | + | " |
+ | |||
+ | Berlant, Lauren. 1993. "The Theory of Infantile Citizenship." | ||
+ | |||
+ | " | ||
+ | |||
+ | "Lisa on Ice." The Simpsons. Fox Broadcasting Company, 13 Nov. 1994. Television. | ||
+ | |||
+ | " | ||
+ | |||
+ | "Lisa the Iconoclast." | ||
+ | |||
+ | "Lisa the Skeptic." | ||
+ | |||
+ | "Lost Our Lisa." The Simpsons. Fox Broadcasting Company, 10 May 1998. Television. | ||
+ | |||
+ | "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington." | ||
+ | |||
+ | " | ||
+ | |||
+ | "The Boy Who Knew Too Much." The Simpsons. Fox Broadcasting Company, 5 May 1994. Television. | ||
+ | |||
+ | "The PTA Disbands." | ||
+ | |||
+ | "This Little Wiggy." | ||
+ |
the_quest/reflections_on_research.1422306009.txt.gz · Last modified: 2015/01/26 13:00 by Ryan Schram (admin)