The Moulton Journal: Shifting Baselines, a Couple of Moose, and Skiing as Story

Shifting Baselines
It's a scary thought: all us skiiers are raving about what a great snow year this is. Yet, when you look at the last hundred years or so of data, it's really very average. But as humans (or Americans, anyway), we forget the lessons of history and only the recent past is our basis for comparison. Thus all of those so-called "drought" years from 1998 to 2007 are now normal, and the winter of 2007-08 looks exceptionally white and cold.

This is a good example of the classic phrase "shifting baseline," coined by biologist Daniel Pauly to explain how fisherman (and fisheries biologists) came to accept declining fish populations. In other words, it's all a matter of what you are used to. But no, it isn't: whether declining fish populations or global warming, there are real human impacts on the environment. If we do not appreciate their severity, we will end up like the Greeks or Romans or all those cultures that caused their own demise by ruining their environment [cf. Diamond (2005) Collapse].

But the snow is here, and I will get out there and enjoy it.

Moose
Since December, I've been seeing The Moulton moose cow and her calf separately. I thought that, as it seems to happen each year, the cow had driven the calf away or it had left on its own to stake out its own willowy territory. But this morning, there they were together again, feeding in the willow bottom near the Downy place (a mile or so below the parking lot), and bedded down as I returned:


Skiing as Story
Cross country skiing the trails of The Moulton is a performative act. It is something like Walter Ong and others thesis about Homer's Illiad and other oral traditions: they were never told the same way twice. Instead, the poem or song is stitched together from prefabricated parts, each with its own memorable thoughts, rich sensual metaphors, and other distinguishing features. And it's not a book that you read just once.

And so it is with a ski at The Moulton or with similar performances such as a hike through a familiar area. Each performance is a new story. In part, this is trivially true in a Heraclitean sense that "You can't step in the same river twice:" the snow, wind, temperature, light, wax, the pair of skis you're on, mouse tracks, and so forth are all different each time.

But in an equally interesting sense, each ski or hike is unique because of the way we stitch together familiar elements. Climbing across the ridge and skiing down the Buzzy Trail with its Single Jack and Double Jack is one day's introduction to The Moulton story, whereas another day might be introduced by way of a trek across the meadow, up the Orphan Girl hill, and down Wake Up Jim. Like Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, there is no one right order in which to read the chapters.

Sadly, I think, many residents of Modernity believe in and seek The One True Order. They seek the linearity of alpha-omega from beginning to end in an invariant way. They march into Iraq determined to transform diverse cultures that do not share "our" values into a democractic, "one nation under capitalism" neo-con version of Amerika.

This is exactly why we need the disorder, diversity, and complexity of nature and wilderness. It is a counterpoint to our daily experience of culture and technology, it challenges us to surrender our rational linearity, and it helps us discover the beauty of our relationship to the earth.

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The Moulton: Montana's Finest Cross Country Ski Trails

My College & Late Onset Realism

A midwinter fable:

I blame it all on Martha Montgomery, my beautiful, charismatic, and brilliant philosophy professor. In a sophomore-level ethics course, she turned me on to Immanuel Kant's Metaphysics of Morals. From there I turned to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason--first with the old English translation by Mueller, then on to N.K Smith's translation and commentary, and finally (as a PhD candidate) auf Deutsch. It was a dirty, rotten, Enlightenment trick: the idea that we might shape a new world of reality based on the transcendental application of pure concepts.

So here I am, a broken post-Kantian in a decidely un-Kantian world. Hell, most allegedly college educated people don't even know who the fuck Kant was; let alone do they care what Kant said, or what the hopes of the Enlightenment were. At least I've finally admitted my Don Quixotean tilting at windmills, and resolved to stop it. My wife calls it "late onset realism."

The roots of this conversion lie in my 17 years as a professor with the little college known as My College. When I hired on, I fell in with a like-minded (i.e. delusional) bunch of faculty that actually thought we could change our college for the better. By "change for the better," I don't mean realistic notions such as increasing enrollment or making it easier for students to take a degree.

Though we were a dedicated bunch, we had very limited and narrow experience. Dave had been a liuetenant in the jungles of Vietnam, taken a couple of psychology degrees from diverse Californian universities, and worked as a statistician for the Forest Service. Bill had ruined himself with unrealistic expectations through his time at various high-powered colleges in California, Hawaii, and Colorado. In my case, there had been engineering & humanities (that should have tipped everyone off!) at Drexel, a MS in Science, Technology & Values (huh?) with the Human Dimensions Center (oh, pulleeeze!) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, five years running a lab with a million dollar budget at an oil refinery (well, at least that was promising), and then a PhD in the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology (yikes! who hired this guy?) at Cornell.

In retrospect, I should have been much happier (and successful, which after all equals happiness, right?) had I started teaching with the MS and then, if necessary, picked up a Dr.Ed. Ah, but we can't go back, can we?

Well, anyway, back to the story: there we were at My College--a bunch of individuals who thought they were just too smart, a bunch of individuals with a very narrow view of the world, a bunch of individuals with unrealistic expectations.

I should have listened when my Dean and Department Head, dear dear Tommy, told me: "No, you really don't need to be doing any research and publishing. In fact, I think it will harm your teaching. You can't serve two masters." Tommy was a homeboy. He grew up on the mean streets of Butte at a time when Butte really was a tough town. Tommy had played sports, taught K-12, and went on to become a college professor, dean, and department head. He never published anything, either. Smart guy. Happy guy.

As the expression goes, "No man is a prophet in his own land." That is true. But lots of non-prophets do just fine. If Thomas Wolfe hadn't got all caught up in all that fancy-schmancy literature and tried to be a prophet, he could have went home again and done just fine. Disney had it right, folks: Hakuna Matata,--don't worry, be happy... Remember, George Bush (The First) using the song in his 1988 campaign? Happy guy. Kindler, gentler. It's a vision thing. Puppies. A scintillating kind of fellow. A man who steps out of the shower to take a pee. Best president we ever had.

Well, anyway, back to the story: there we were, and just because we wanted to change things and make things better and all that crap we started a new program--an MS in Technical Communication. The idea had been kicked around for years, but the old guard in the old Humanities & Social Sciences Department would have none of it. The college president didn't like the idea either--it would be just another program that might accelerate the mission drift of the insitution away from its identify as The School of Mines. Foolishly, we sought allies at the mother ship--the University of Their College down the river at Missoula. Oh yeah, we won a lot of friends with that move. Nothing like going over your colleagues and your boss's head to get what you want. Won the battle. Lost the war.

And then came the creation of a new undergraduate program in Technical Communication, along with the formation of a new department as an act of seccession. Oh boy. More friends won. As a department born of a long agonistic process, we not only made enemies: we also inscribed our identity. Yes, we were the progressives, embodying metamorphosis, leading My College to a new, bright future. Maybe not. Maybe we were mere changelings, caught up in some self delusion of "progress" and "enlightenment."

Agonistic identity. It has not worked, and it has made us unhappy. It is not fun to be perceived as "negative" by your colleagues and by management. Never mind that in this Age of DisEnlightenment no one distinguishes between "critical" (oh, my dear Kant) and "negative." Yes, perception is reality. It's time to shed that identity, and to embrace something happier, something more realistic. Pretty simple: shut up and be a team-player; otherwise, you're negative.

When I first hired on at My College, I thought it remarkable that so many department heads and other management-types were homeboys. And when I think of the three most recently selected department heads (that I know of), they too are homies. There is good reason for this, primarily because it works. People who are locally embedded, share cultural markers, and "speak the same language" can network together effectively. In the local culture, Montana Tech is IT. There need be no silly comparisons with how things are done at other colleges. That which is foreign makes no sense, is not possible, has no intelligenge--like the bar-bar sounds of Persian language to the classic Greek ear. WE are the world. Whatever happens "away" is irrelevant. Autopoiesis.

Because I did not take any of my degrees at My College, I cannot really be native. But I have been here long enough as a sort of cultural anthropologist to figure things out. Here's a simple example: I cross country ski. But cross country skiing is not a Butte thing. As I traverse the trails of The Moulton, I meet Paul from Vermont, the Stierles from California, the guy from Austria, the Stickneys from Missoula, the Smiths from Texas, Rossi from California/Oregon, sundry young folks from Bozeman or Helena... You get the picture. I can recall meeting only one Butte native on the ski trails--and he has largely given up the sport. Cross country skiing, though it lends itself marvelously to the geography of the place, marks you as someone from "away." To the Butte ear, it is like the bar-bar nonsense to the Greek ear. Best you don't talk about it too much.

Well, when in Rome... Or Athens... Or Butte... Those who are from "away" can work at My College, but generally it is very difficult to become truly part of the institution in a way that allows you to change it. Unlike many other colleges where one rarely meets a homie, at My College it is a general rule. That is the reality. A small group of agonistic faculty is not going to change that.

With a new Vice Chancellor and, soon (according to the rumor mill--which at My College is an authoritative source), a new Chancellor, agonistic faculty who base their identify on how things are done elsewhere and who expect My College to conform to their model should wise up. There is a new slate, and a new opportunity. Embrace the force. Go with the flow. Don't worry, be happy...