Liberal Rhetoric as Romantic Fiction
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The Joy of Lectures
"I wish I was back in college," he said, after an evening spent with Julia Ioffe and the stuffy students of Colorado College.
There's something magical about the space created by an elitist, private, liberal institution. It truly holds the power to transport you away from your present existence as only good fiction can. I was privileged to partake in that fiction this evening as I attended a talk on the condition of Russia's politics and media, as told from someone who has lived in and reported on the country in the last three years. Julia Ioffe, a Senior Editor at The New Republic, shared her experience studying and living in the day-to-day reality of Moscow, Sochi, and the Kremlin in such concise diction, that I was almost moved to tears. I am grateful to the accompanying audience for their attentiveness and respect, which helped to solidify the atmosphere of engagement I was hoping to feel.
I will not attempt a summary of her talk, as I am so little acquainted with even the background dynamics to know what she said that was novel and what was repeated. I will say that, in the moments of the talk and immediately following her remarks, I felt a fullness of peace--the peace that comes when you let go of your own physical presence (for, it would be impossible for me to let go of my critical function). I love listening to individual's share messages and feelings that they have considered, researched, prepared, and polished for hours on end, for only the desire to share what they hold dear. Only a few spaces in the world offer the asylum to perform such presentations. I would have been happy enough listening to someone read from a meaningful book, let alone hear Ms. Ioffe's thoughtful words on the state of the Russian people.
There is a reason some individual's would love to stay in college for the rest of their life. At least in part, it is because some schools offer that safe space where you are encouraged to share and participate in the presentation of sincere individual messages, for the sole purpose of existing in an abstract moment, lost from the grounded realities of your own meager existence. The gift of a private liberal institution, unfettered by state rubrics or storied tradition, is the gift of not only reading a story dramatized and editorialized around a central representation of reality but, in very fact, to live the fiction oneself.
The Joy of Lectures
"I wish I was back in college," he said, after an evening spent with Julia Ioffe and the stuffy students of Colorado College.
There's something magical about the space created by an elitist, private, liberal institution. It truly holds the power to transport you away from your present existence as only good fiction can. I was privileged to partake in that fiction this evening as I attended a talk on the condition of Russia's politics and media, as told from someone who has lived in and reported on the country in the last three years. Julia Ioffe, a Senior Editor at The New Republic, shared her experience studying and living in the day-to-day reality of Moscow, Sochi, and the Kremlin in such concise diction, that I was almost moved to tears. I am grateful to the accompanying audience for their attentiveness and respect, which helped to solidify the atmosphere of engagement I was hoping to feel.
I will not attempt a summary of her talk, as I am so little acquainted with even the background dynamics to know what she said that was novel and what was repeated. I will say that, in the moments of the talk and immediately following her remarks, I felt a fullness of peace--the peace that comes when you let go of your own physical presence (for, it would be impossible for me to let go of my critical function). I love listening to individual's share messages and feelings that they have considered, researched, prepared, and polished for hours on end, for only the desire to share what they hold dear. Only a few spaces in the world offer the asylum to perform such presentations. I would have been happy enough listening to someone read from a meaningful book, let alone hear Ms. Ioffe's thoughtful words on the state of the Russian people.
There is a reason some individual's would love to stay in college for the rest of their life. At least in part, it is because some schools offer that safe space where you are encouraged to share and participate in the presentation of sincere individual messages, for the sole purpose of existing in an abstract moment, lost from the grounded realities of your own meager existence. The gift of a private liberal institution, unfettered by state rubrics or storied tradition, is the gift of not only reading a story dramatized and editorialized around a central representation of reality but, in very fact, to live the fiction oneself.
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