all progress is incremental
When I began doing this, Areté seemed like a good name. And it was, for a semester-long academic project that focused on classical rhetoric and new media. It’s never been a good name for a public blog, though. Most people aren’t quite sure what it means or how to pronounce it. Those who do know that it’s a remarkably uppity name — I mean, who goes around naming their blog “excellence”? And all this detritus certainly isn’t that.
But I’ve kept it all this time, because by the time I decided I was a-keepin’ this thing it was the way most people knew me. I tend to think of blog names as a strange confluence of brands and personal names, and am always wildly disconcerted when people change theirs. It’s a big shift in identity, and sometimes ethos.
Be that as it may, I am tired of Areté. Irked by it, even. It’s pretentious, and it doesn’t really reflect what goes on here. Henceforth, this space will be Thinkery. It’s a name that’s cracked me up for years, ever since I first read Aristophanes’ The Clouds. It’s my favorite of his farces (or at least on par with The Frogs), and features the blundering Strepsiades and a tongue-in-cheek critical portrait of Socrates and his school, here called The Thinkery:
At certain moments, this strikes me as a particularly accurate view of graduate education. Some days we’re thinking great thoughts, and some days our asses are scanning the sky. This is also true for blogs. So why not have fun with it all?Strepsiades: Throw open the Thinkery! Unbolt the door and let me see this wizard Sokrates in person. Open up! I’m MAD for education!
The ekkyklema is wheeled about to show the whole interior of Sokrates’ Thinkery. High overhead the crane supports Sokrates in his basket busily scanning the heavens. Hanging on the walls of the Thinkery are various charts, maps, intruments, etc. In the center of the courtyard stand a number of utterly pale, emaciated students deeply engaged in a rapt contemplation of the ground.
Strepsiades: Great Herakles. What kind of zoo is this?
Student: What’s so strange about it? What do you take them for?
Strepsiades: Spartan prisoners from Pylos. But why are they all staring at the ground?
Student: They’re engaged in geological research: a survey of the earth’s strata.
Strepsiades: Of course. Looking for truffles. (To one of the students) You there, don’t strain yourself looking. I know where they grow big and beautiful. (Pointing to other students who are bent completely double) Hey, and look there: what are those fellows doing bent over like that?
Student: Those are graduate students doing research on Hades.
Strepsiades: On Hades? Then why are their asses scanning the sky?
Student: Taking a minor in Astronomy.
Comments
I love it!!
Posted by: Clancy | February 3, 2006 7:22 PM
I like it too. And I know what you mean about blog titles. They carry a strange inertia...
Posted by: collin | February 3, 2006 8:39 PM
Love the new name!
Posted by: chutney | February 3, 2006 9:50 PM
The nice thing about blogs (unlike oneself) is that they can be renamed at will, and it's up to your durned readers to keep up.
Posted by: senioritis | February 5, 2006 11:49 AM