Writing as a means to clearer thinking

When I began this blog, one of the things I wanted to explore is the notion of how we can clarify our thoughts simply by writing them down. This is a deceptive and misleading idea; there is absolutely nothing simple about writing down your own thoughts. Therein lies the value of that process.

It is no accident that I use the word process, as it is the very essence of process pedagogy that is involved in writing to learn more about what’s rattling around inside our brains. It’s interesting to me that Elbow and Murray had already written about this. Being unfamiliar with the pedagogy of writing, I thought these were my own ideas. :blush: Little did I know…

I have had a very difficult time focusing on my academic pursuits this semester and I have found my scapegoat: the 2008 Presidential Election campaign. It has dominated my thinking unlike any other in my lifetime, and that goes back to the 1980 election. I have worked for campiagns as a volunteer, canvassed door to door in previous campaigns, and felt very strongly about my choice before, but I’ve never found myself this engaged in the day to day news and chaff coming out of the campaigns. I’m no more partisan than I was in a number of other years, but this one is more interesting because of the sheer volume of information and opinion that is available via the internet.

That led me to subscribe to a number of feeds from political blogs in my Google Reader. Big Mistake. Thanks Prof. R! I wish I’d have pared it down to just a couple of blogs as I’ve done now, but I found myself chest deep in political opinion and loving it! Problem was, the small matter of, say, assignments, papers, exams that kept getting put off…and put off. I’ve solved that problem for now, though I am still searching for an approved 12 step program to deal with the lingering effects of the addiction to the political blogosphere.

I had lunch with a friend a couple weeks ago and we talked about politics and then specifically abortion. He asked me where I stood on the issue and I tried to articulate it without using any of the labels that we hear most often, beacuse they don’t seem to fit my views exactly. What I realized is that the labels don’t work in part because I haven’t really taken the time to sort out all the nuances that the issue demands. So, guess what?

Yep, I sat down and tried to write it out, step by step, why I feel the way I do. But the arguments just don’t stand up to scrutiny; I find myself writing in contradiction to what I wrote 2 paragraphs ago. Back to the drawing board. In fact, I’ve had to go back much further than I dreamed I’d have to in order to deconstruct the myths and straw men I’d set up in order to make my model work. It’s a little bit like having to show your work on a math test; you know where you ended up, and you’re sure of your conclusions (fairly sure, at least), but haven’t the faintest idea how you got there.

I’m not finished with it yet. I don’t expect to be anytime soon. But it’s been a real eye-opener into how we can fool ourselves into thinking we know what we know about something only to find that knowledge (or meta-knowledge) a mirage once we get closer. A blog I found in my feeds relates a talk by one Dr. Ronald Takaki, who delves into this at greater length. The most salient quote:

He posed an epistemological question: “How do we know what we know?” And he told us that the how is more important than the what. And then led us on a rhetorical journey showing us how he once knew what he knew and how his knowledge changed after time and experience.

The how is more important than the what. I believe that is true. Ive also found that the how is much more difficult to get at than the what. However, it’s also much more fun to try to find.

Happy hunting.