S5 EP 11 - The Gravity of Teaching (and its overcoming)

00:30 – 1:55 Gay Science Book 5 (which we hardly mention)

2:05 - 30:00   the recurring end-of-semester dilemma; applying a policy vs. making a decision; “fairness” as a way to avoid making a decision?; the desire for a calculus; Nate tries to make John feel better; absolving oneself of the responsibility of a decision; the architecture of the teaching situation is messy; accommodations and their discontents

30:30 – 45:20   diff between private and public college demographics and the way it impacts a teacher’s jobs – their real lives are heavy; vs. University’s endowment; sports as the college opiate; smaller teacher/student ratios; we need the policies to offload responsibility (for the sake of health); the calculus is also a leap of faith; probability; why do we do this job? Is it just who we are?; arguing for the nobility of our teaching and writing: to create a different world; attentiveness to alterity might be the same as anxiety?

45:30 – 55:10    Finally turn to Nietzsche? section 327; to prove the prejudice of sincerity wrong – don’t have to be “serious” to be a thinker; why do we connect learning to seriousness? It is not a necessary link; the importance (sic?) of laughter to N’s thinking: “at any master who lacks the grace to laugh at himself, I laugh”; not every teacher is a teacher for us;  the mission as emergent;

55:25 -  1:14:30 section 335-there are many styles to listen to one’s conscience; 334-love itself must be learned, generosity and patience toward what is strange - and you must be willing to change;  not just acceptance; graduate teaching is so much more interesting because it happens over years rather than weeks; responsibility is not a weight but the fun part; the delight of misunderstanding; 339 – life is dissimulation and uncertainty, and if you are patient and generous, it can be wonderful; affirmative Nietzsche vs. nihilist and gloomy; the importance of writing to a posthumous audience