Evocation

[Opening for a proposed longer work.]

As my father instructed from behind me, I held the mirror at arm's length.

"Now," he said, "look at yourself. You at a distance. Can you see yourself as I see you from here, over your shoulder?"

I confessed I could and followed his every word despite not seeing the point.

"Tilt the mirror so you can see me. There. Now you see me. I am a different image. Because I am me, of course. But also because I am not you. Now, move it back so you can see you. It is not you in the mirror. But it looks like you. It is the image of you, but it is something or someone other. Here now, then gone. Get it?"

I confessed I didn't. And so it went like that. He had infinite patience. But I didn't have his gifts, his way of looking at the world out there as some kind of object that he could focus on, or not, and understand, by his way of seeing, that there was both sameness, unity. And there was difference. Other. And that, he contended, helped him in his personal life, which he said was all we had, our personal lives. The roles of father, businessman, friend, all of them, they were just different views of him but not him. It was this divorce from everything that helped his sanity, particularly in the final years when he became less, I would say, acute. And he said it had helped him since his mid-twenties when death, he was certain, stalked him. To keep that specter at bay or in perspective, my father returned to the mirror or some other method he had and the reminders of who he was and was not. He was able to categorize the images and the identities that went with them, he said, and he found peace, mostly, throughout his life. It was a quiet, distant, and sometimes lonely existence, from the outside anyway.

I am afraid the lessons didn't take all that well. But now and again I look out there as if in a mirror to see what it is that is there, or appears to be there. I try to see it separately, distantly, and not as a part of me. But I have not had the peaceful moments my father said he had. I look over my shoulder now, and I know he is there even though I cannot see him in detail anymore. I know he is there. And clinging to that, I suppose, has led me to try and try again to get it, that elusive subject or object or image lesson.

I think today he would be proud of me. But he would have advised against starting like this, talking about the mirror and all. He was a private but not a judgmental man, except in some compartments he had created to get along, he said, in this vale of tears. Practical reality, as he called it, tormented him and kept him from being and doing what he thought was more important. What that was I never became aware of specifically. I only have the exercises like the mirror one that he would put me through up till I was about sixteen. But I have come along far enough to have taken what he tried to teach me and bring it under my own way of being, my own way of, can I say, understanding. So bringing up trite matters and metaphors and measures that he would not have used or talked openly about in front of strangers does not bother me, not now, not because he is gone but because I have become more of my own person. I live with my own shades, no longer his. And I get along pretty well, seeing wholes mostly. Well, I say I get along as good as the next guy. I can judge at least that.

So let's begin. I can try to listen to the story as if it were an object in view and quite separate from me, so much so that they can tell the story as if I am not part of it, although it will look like I am, and sometimes it will feel pretty close to home I'm sure.

RO

Academic exercise

[Prior to your interview, we would be grateful if you would complete the attached pre-interview task. The task will provide a basis for discussion in the interview of academic writing and your approaches to academic skills in general. Please only refer to the text rather than any other outside sources and do not spend more than two-three hours on the task. Please complete the essay within two days of receiving this message and e-mail it to. . . .

The prospective employer cleverly "revised" a text, the above mentioned attachment, the original for which seems to be "Salvaging Liberalism from the Wreck of the Enlightenment," available as of this date at http://www.crvp.org/book/Series01/I-26/introduction.htm.

Here is the response with but small changes from what was submitted, provided here as a writing sample and illustration of selected principles (highlighted below)for beginning academic writers. Also, the response is an example of sifting through the jell-o, before you can get to the good stuff.]



Cultural Creation of Free and Equal, A Critique

In his paper, entitled "The Cultural Creation of Free and Equal Individuals," Professor ??? argues that liberal democracies need a form of civic education which produces and sustains people "who identify themselves and one another as free and equal individuals." This education rests on a civic culture, "a culture supportive of citizenship" with clear, coherent, articulated central ideas. Professor ??? claims that in the absence of sufficient numbers of citizens with the requisites for proper citizenship, liberal democracy itself is in danger. States built on this model thus need to ensure a properly democratized citizenry.

Professor ??? also asserts that the citizens of a liberal democracy need members who "at least insofar as they act within the public sphere, see their membership in such communities as in some sense subordinate to their membership in the broader civic community." To paraphrase, civic education, resting on the shoulders of a civic culture, should teach citizens to think (and act?) first in the interest of the state or government and then based on their own particular identity in terms of ethnicity, class, and/or religion.

Professor ???'s paper on civic education in a liberal democracy has flaws in expression and rationale--at least one of either in almost every paragraph in the first half. The thesis, regardless of its merits as a standalone statement, thus suffers greatly. Any call to action will fall on skeptical if not uncomprehending readers.

The first paragraph of Professor ???'s paper gives general background for his argument and ends with the assertion that human beings are "made rather than found," "produced through the influence of . . . political culture." A careful reading of this assertion would suggest a glaring omission. Families as micro-political systems need to be included as powerful influences for the development of individual identity. This qualifying statement is absent here. All seems to begin and end with things political at a more macro level. Consider this omitted qualification a minor point. The author, after all, is just beginning to develop his topic.

The second paragraph claims in part that the notion of free and equal "is alien to the perspectives that most immediately shape human life." These perspectives are listed as ethnic, class, and religious. Although the author cites human development as a key to understanding human beings (first sentence, second paragraph), there is no mention of what human growth and development or other disciplines have had to say about the most obvious influence that "immediately shape[s] human life," mom! The absence of a qualifying statement about mothers and children and family influence in the first paragraph now detracts from the overall argument. There is little doubt that nature and nurture in the earliest years help shape whether or not an individual even cares to participate in society, regardless of its descriptive label or prevailing norms. To assert that shaping human life does not in the first instance include mother, parents, relatives, and so forth is to ignore the self-evident.

Hark back to a beginning English writing course. With all due respect for Professor ???, a writer should avoid omitting the most obvious questions or observations that qualify and clarify what he or she is trying to say. There is a lapse here at the very beginning of Professor ???'s paper.

The third paragraph suffers at the outset by claiming that the second paragraph's assertion sans qualification is a fact. The paper does not acknowledge or address the expected order of things again: Mothers before governors in shaping human life.

It is easy to debunk ideas by picking at details and lack of qualifying statements that an author has not deemed important enough to include. We can look at things more constructively. According to the philosopher and psychologist Ken Wilber, who coincidentally has also commented on the same matters that Professor ??? does in this essay, everybody holds at least a part of the truth. That paragraph four follows number three with flaws however important places it as suspect from the first word. Rather than focus on what might be problematic with this paragraph, we can point to its reasonableness and strength, that it holds part of the truth that should be noted.

A liberal democratic state, especially if it does not have a constituency, or only a weak one, needs to create one. The influx of civil society programs into the former Eastern (Soviet) Bloc just after the Berlin Wall's demise shows acknowledgement of this wisdom. The challenges to civil society in Iraq today can be seen as an example of Professor ???'s warnings here in paragraph four. Commonly held knowledge lends support to what this paper attempts to express.

However, the credibility of the author continues to erode in paragraph five. "Forms of government based on principles intrinsic to ethnic, class, and religious world views" do "face precisely this sort of cultural and educational challenge." Imagine instituting a governmental system based on ethnicity without precedent for it. That system would have the same vulnerability as a liberal democratic one without its support structures and procedures. If paragraph four has the merit highlighted above, then the unrevised opening statement of five contradicts it. We are no closer to giving the essay or its author a nod of agreement, nor has the notion that a liberal democracy with subordinate other allegiances been demonstrated as workable or preferred.

Paragraph six assumes that the prerequisite for governance is a kind of cultural self-understanding, particularly an understanding of the principles underlying authority. What or who is to say that democracies, liberal or not, have a populace or a portion of it that has or needs this understanding? What or who says that states deemed not liberal democracies have people who do not understand what underlies sanctioned and unsanctioned political and public behavior?

Two examples illustrate how these questions, and questions like them, must be addressed. Consider first, if in a liberal democracy individuals are free and equal, then you as citizen are free not to be conscious of or concerned about anything other than having a roof over your head, food on the table, and a television to watch. Second, if what is allowed and what is not determines whether or not you live or die, there is little to understand. Civic education in the first instance might be a good idea. In the second, there is little point except to know what it is that will get you killed. The first is optional and recommended civic education, a nicety in democratic societies. The second is all about survival and requisite knowledge, usually thoroughly understood without formal means of message transmission.

If careful readers are looking for evidence to support the argument of necessity, in liberal democracies, for a form of civic education which subordinates the ethnic, class, and religious identities of its citizens, they have lost sight of this idea or any support for it. Paragraphs seven through the end of the paper hold promise, but the weaknesses thus far discourage further reading. In addition, the next paragraphs continue with problems in expression, which in turn affect the effectiveness of thesis and argument. The author has difficulty saying what in all likelihood he intends. "[E]very democracy needs a countervailing culture--a culture supportive of citizenship." Countervailing is the problem word. To harken back to one of the principles of coherent writing: Proper expression leads to comprehending thoughts and answering calls to action.

To suggest how the author could salvage what has been commented on thus far and to strengthen the second half of the paper might be to focus on first things first.

If a liberal democracy is the manifestation of free and equal, then we need go no further than to focus on the meaning of this language. If we in a given state are free and equal, without restraint we can order our personal universe in ways we choose. And if we choose not to participate in the body politic, we do not need to. If we choose to make ethnic identity the center of daily life, then we can do that, just as our equals can choose to do what they choose.

According to Professor ???, this might endanger the very values citizens in a liberal democracy live by, but given the mix of all peoples in a hypothetical state, some will be stewards of the system as it is and can be. Others will concern themselves with other pursuits, such as the search for truth, beauty, or goodness. In the experiment that is democracy, some who think citizens do not know or value enough the idea of free and equal will create the opportunities needed to ensure people get the message. After all, liberal democracies defined as free also have their evangelists.

Free and equal are ideas and values that have some limits. Of these Professor ??? does not mention or develop, and they are imperative to discuss or acknowledge in any treatment. Although in the main the author is correct that for a liberal democracy free and equal are requisite, these concepts need to be carefully defined for socio-political contexts. As common wisdom says, you are not free to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater where there is no fire. There are subordinations, or limits, and these must be suggested or addressed given the Professor's topic.

In sum, the argument for a civic culture and its creation and maintenance through education, leading to subordination of other identities citizens have is not convincing. It is not in part because of flaws in expression. A reader should not easily find minor or major faults with almost every paragraph. The thesis is also not convincing because of an apparent neglect of the very tenets of liberal democracy as specified by the author himself--free and equal members of a state. In other words, one does not have far to look for liberal democracy's clear, coherent, articulated central ideas; and the meaning of free and equal includes those whose education may be deficient, or whose "preferences" may be other than civic.

Professor ??? concludes with a warning. Losing the capacity to form habits of citizenship threatens "the citizens of North Atlantic liberal democracies today." Whether an accurate assessment or not, Professor ???'s words call us to take heed. But what North Atlantic liberal democracy today needs an influx of civil society programs such as supported the socio-political (and economic) transitions in Central and Eastern Europe in the early 1990s? Or, what cultural or other phenomena are at play somewhere to give us the idea that an act of civic education needs to be performed? It would be nice to know; some might think it imperative. Professor ??? is conspicuously silent.

April 25, 2008
Cozumel, Mexico

+ Approximately 2000 words

+ Flesch Reading Ease (target audience)--college students

+ Writing principles to be gleaned from the above critique.

1. Mean what you say and say what you mean.
2. Answer questions your reader will naturally ask.
3. Do not introduce a new thesis in the conclusion.
4. Soften assertions and opinions enough so that your reader does not question everything you say.
5. Define your terms.
6. Use examples to demonstrate or explain or clarify.
7. Use changes in register sparingly.
8. Respect the author and what s/he says even though you disagree.
9. Note the difference between effect and affect.
10. If you are going to copy something from the Internet, copy the original and keep it as is. Cite the source so your reader can find it.