“Now, the disciple’s consciousness, when he starts, I would not say to dispute, but to engage in dialogue with the master or, better, to articulate the interminable and silent dialogue which made him into a discipline—this disciple’s consciousness is an unhappy consciousness.”
Jacques Derrida, “Cogito and the History of Madness”
Yesterday I had the good fortune of talking through my upcoming conference paper with a fascinating guy. His wife is an academic at the uni. He has a PhD, but is employed in an administrative role. He is not a specialist in my discipline, far from it. But he is a specialist in performance – useful when considering how to deliver a paper.
It restores your hope in dialogue when you can discuss in depth, with someone who is not well read in your discipline, the results of your research. Good listening skills, good questions (what is your point? Why is it important? Why is it more than just ‘interesting’?) provide good conversation. It’s intense. My interlocutor had no interest in my paper, other than that he had offered to help grad students with their presentation skills. And yet, by forcing me to articulate forcefully (rather than timidly) why I thought what I did was important, he shed light for me on the necessity of making one’s point with vigour, not pulling away from criticism, from the possibility of being wrong. And if someone tells you are wrong, well then, at least they’ve told you.
Now, part of this could simply be my own character and issues coming through, of not stepping on people’s toes, and so on. But hey, it’s also built into the student or child’s experience, as Derrida (and Hegel. And Plato.) shows so eloquently.
The disciple must break the glass, or better the mirror, the reflection, his infinite speculation on the master. And start to speak.
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