Ambivanthropology -or- "Hell Is Other People"

Brothers and sisters,

I am relieved to be back attending to my duties as the curator of AmbivAnthrope, our collaborative weblog. I had a heck of a two weeks prior, covering for a coworker who fell ill, and have had little rest in my auxiliary (albeit bill-paying) duties of expertly preparing espresso drinks (or what basically amount to xanthine-laced cups of steamy milk flavored with the tiniest bits of diligently harvested, transnationally shipped and carefully roasted coffee, the deliciousness of which is then negated by abominable proportions of tooth-decaying sugary syrups requested by our esteemed ivy-league-university-enrolled patrons, because they cannot abide, much less savor bitter complexity in any form, be it coffee or life).

Now that I've got that off my chest; onward, and upward.

This week's entry is about our name, AmbivAnthrope, because, as my former professors have informed me, I am far too happy to make up words and then conveniently forget to define them, leaving the less-intuitive reader up the proverbial creek. Believe me, it's actually a load of fun for precisely the same reason. Of course, as I suspected, those few of you who have talked to me about the name have avidly thought up your own definitions using your good old SAT-prep context clues. But here's what I had in mind for those of you still wondering.

Ok, so, to be completely honest I didn't have anything in mind. In the first place, what I really required was a blog title that hadn't already been taken, and seeing as the entire lexicon of the English language has been made a website (official, and as-yet-to-be-recognized slang inclusive) and seeing also as "philoso_raptor70048.blogspot.com" simply would not do for obvious reasons, I enlisted my old habit of word invention, and decided I could just tack on any old definition ex post facto, because, well, this is America ain't it?

The idea came to me when I was trying to develop an overarching ethos of what this clearing we've slash-and-burned into the internet was to be all about. Of course, the primary drive of AmbivAnthrope is to specifically not prescribe an overarching ethos, and I wanted a word to reflect the the openness of this space, unhindered as I hope it is of political polarization, thoughtless theologism, pretentious pontification, or abstracted obfuscation. Of course, regarding the content of our contributions, one can be sure to find all (even the obtusest) degrees of slant in these categories, their authors being real, opinionated people in a world of words, but the blog itself is to have an air of laissez-faire, ideologically speaking.

So it struck me. Every time we read one another's material we do our very darnedest to suspend our own presuppositions momentarily in order to give another's ideas a fair shot. It's more than a mere courtesy to do so. It's a requirement for the transmission, creation, and flourishing of ideas. We pour ourselves into them after all, and outright dismissal of any thought in bad faith is worse on the soul than the most scathingly honest criticism made in good faith. It is not a ethic devoid of judgment or critique, but one that prescribes the method of such critique in a way as to foster mutual respect among ourselves.

When you behold, engage and respond to any contribution on this blog, you are an AmbivAnthrope.

The word itself, if you haven't guessed, is a portmanteau of a few existent terms. The first two, from which we borrow our suffix, form a sort of dualism between themselves. They are, according to a paraphrase of the Oxford American:

misanthrope - n. a person who dislikes humankind and avoids human society

&

philanthrope - n. (archaic) a person with the desire to promote the welfare of others

If you'll note, as I did, that there lie before us only two options regarding how to feel about the entirety of humanity, situated at the poles of hate (gk. misein) and love (gk. philein) you might be, as I was, a tad disappointed with the English language for failing to provide not only a mediated option (well, maybe I feel so-so about humankind) much less an option that doesn't devolve into either useless Calvinist cynicism or vapid humanist optimism, and lets us take a fair view of our world before we make a one-word judgement about the whole damned lot of us.

The third term, whose prefix we have borrowed is:

ambivalent - adj. having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone

Bingo!

Put it all together and what do you get?

ambivanthrope - n. a person having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about humankind and human society

Now there's a term that sums us all up neat and tidy like and wouldn't cost anyone's firstborn if I felt like purchasing a domain! For you linguistics types out there, kindly forgive the bastard union of a German prefix with a Greek suffix, because, once again, say it with me, with feeling: this is America.

I want to stress of course, that ambivanthropy is not at all a new concept. Some of the greatest unwitting ambivanthropes have written things, that unlike my own works, have actually contributed to the development of society and our ability to comprehend its unending problems. Karl Marx comes to mind, what with his fatalistic view of class warfare offset by the gleeful prospect of a freer future. Otherwise, I think of Flannery O'Connor, who reveals that human grace prevails, if often dormant, in a sterile and hostile world of banality and evil.

One lesser known ambivanthrope, in a work entitled Pedagogy of the Heart, has inspired much of my ambivalence on the subject of human nature. His name is Paolo Freire. He was a Brazilian educator, activist and writer on political and sociological theory. I wish to leave you tonight with his words. Before I do I'll leave you with a question or two to get your mind going for the comments. Who else can we term an ambivanthrope? Where else have you seen a refusal to capitulate one's view of humanity to a dualistic black-or-white paradigm? Do you hate this word and its definition? Speak up!

guilelessly,
b. guiles 

From Pedagogy of the Heart by Paulo Freire:

It is not very difficult to invert Sartre's sentence and state that happiness lies within others. In large part, more-or-less artificial political divisions touch on this generally nonexplicit belief that man is either naturally good or naturally evil. Today, we know the extent to which contexts that pitch man against man generate hell, whereas contexts that generate solidarity build environments where people feel more fulfilled (27).

on the right foot (paw?)

While I was dalliantly assembling what was to be the first--and therefore most daunting--post of our nascent parcel on the 'blogosphere' (how hip am I on the lingo!) most of you voiced your ire at my molluscan pace with getting this boat on the road.

One of you, however, had the presence of mind to simply do my job for me.

And so, I express my humblest gratitude to our friend, who wishes only to be known as The Obstinate Badger--and so he shall--for this poem: "Unmediated Mystical Meditation #3."

(And did a voice on the wind just suggest it may become a series?)

Unmediated Mystical Meditation #3

By The Obstinate Badger

I pine just like the Fathers for theosis,
To bridge the barren barge between our closeness

(But preferably to bypass all the requisite kenosis).

If Jerusalem has much to do with Athens,
Then I’ll need concepts for the interactions

(But as it stands, I’m weak in Greek philosophy and classics).

Should I partake more oft in anamnesis,
Or forfeit fervent prayer for poesis?

(Will life afford me time enough to process every thesis?)

I’ve strived to strip myself of ill intention
For purity of heart and strict attention

(But it seems I’ve lost my ladder built for spiritual ascension).

our forty acres of cyberspace

Dearest Comrades,

I welcome you to AmbivAnthrope, a collaborative web log (or as the kids say, "blog") about nothing in particular and everything all at once.

As most of you whom I have invited to contribute are recent college graduates trying, even at this very moment, to hack it in this rather dumb world I'm sure you, like me, miss the days when you could camp out a room in the library with your friends during finals week from open to close doing anything but studying much to the ire of better scholars; or perhaps when you were thanking whatever stars got you home to a beer and some good company after a terrifying inebriated bike ride home in the snow; or maybe it was those times you staved off the sleep you so desperately needed and stood around underneath the summer stars trying to hash out the finer points of just one of your friend's recent existential crises.

We've all been there, folks. We look back with gratitude for the abandon others have shown in giving up time, sleep, coffee money, prescription amphetamines, studying, and precious mental resources to contribute to the sort of stimulating palaver that shows nowhere on our transcripts, yet to each of us surely represents what we consider the real education that we practiced, constructed, created and anything but "received" during our too-short time together.

This brings me back to AmbivAnthrope. A collaborative web log (blog, remember?), in which some of my personal favorite minds and myself could once again chit the chat about... you know... stuff again, has been a hare-brained idea rattling around my skull since sometime in mid-2010 and that I never got around to until just the other day when I came to the awful realization that I wished I had a paper to write or something to cold start this already rusty brain.

I suspect that you, too, have felt such a longing. Now, granted some of you went right to grad school, so you're writing more in a few months than you did your entire undergrad careers. OK. Whatever. You can just follow along. But something even slicker to do would be to use this space as a forum to hash out your fancy-pants grad school ideas, eh? I mean, you've got set before you no dearth of minds whom you respect willing to give free, Creative Commons-licensed feedback on all your grad school hoight, and yes even your toight. That means you, Mr. Ebersole.

As far as format and content is concerned, I would like to not be the only one writing short pieces for this blog. The method of this collaboration will be as follows:
1) We will cycle through piece writers, perhaps semi-monthly, or as we grow in contributorship, even weekly. I will post a schedule if we agree on it with (gasp) deadlines. Topic is the piece-writers choice. Length is also just a matter of discretion. Note the NICE WIDE COURIER NEW FONT and the skeeeeny margins! Your words go far here, my friends.
2) The rest of us will carefully read each piece and comment, making sure not to be too nice, because lets not just get all soft on each other now that those jerkoff prof's aren't taking off 10% for every APA violation! AHHH THAT FELT GOOD.
3) Commence discussion and brain stimulating, er, stimuli!

Hurrah! Now hop to!


My very best regards,
b. guiles