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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 6, 1980)
«S oBej rmott ^>cp>lo depths of being By LIZ NEWLIN Battalion Staff Only the dead sleep through John J. McDermott’s lectures. As one student testified going into a class on a recent Thursday morning: “If you’re asleep, his rant ing and raving will wake you up.” He does keep your attention. His New York City accent spews across the classroom like water hit ting a fan: A drop sparkles, catches and reveals the light, then is fol lowed by another drop and another. Frequent side-trips through history — like tracing the development of the East-West divison of the Catho lic Church from the 12th Century to Pope John Paul II in two minutes — make note-taking all but impos sible. It’s fortunate that he places half a dozen new pieces of chalk in the blackboard tray before calling roll. Many end up on the table or in his pockets, and others shatter on the blackboard as he scribbles — often in Greek, Hebrew or Latin — to de fine his lectures. Punctuating his quick sentences are gutteral “Ehs?” and jabs in the air. After instructing more than 20,000 students in his 28-year career, McDermott, the head of Texas A&M’s Philosophy and Humanities Department, has learned how to teach. His ability was recognized by the E. Harris Harbison National Award for Gifted Teaching in 1970. He taught at Queens College for 25 years, as well as publishing some 25 articles in journals and volumes of essays. He’s trying to break through the mind-set that many of his Texas A&M students grew up with: a con servative, self-satisfied attitude that rarely sees beyond suburbia and a pleasant childhood. It’s not evil; it’s just limiting. He makes that point in almost every lecture. For example, in a discussion of early Christianity McDermott said, “I myself am highly dubious about the existence of God. But I’m not an atheist. That would be the height of pretense, ft would involve areas of experience to which we do not have access, all that is known and all that is unknown.” Then he pauses and smiles slightly. “Even being here at Texas A&M does not do that.” The students laugh with McDer mott, and maybe, he hopes, begin to see beyond their cultural blin ders. (Later in the lecture, he tells the students there is only one reli gion to practice: a deep religion, one they seek to understand and believe.) Students are not his only target: In his recent Faculty Lecture, spon sored by the University, he aimed directly at Texas A&M and other universities. “We stand today on the edge of another great battle,” he told the ALVAREZ Highest standards in accoustical guitars. M m 4 i* 4 Guitars for the beginner and the advanced player. jam-packed lecture hall in Rudder Tower. The battle, he said, is be tween studying philosophy, huma nities and the other “liberal arts,” and studying only engineering, business and other “vocational arts” with an eye to a money making career. Don’t get McDermott wrong. He doesn't want everybody to devote his life to philosophy as he has. He just wants them to think, to discover that thinking can reveal the depth of being human. “Philosophy teaches us that ev ery day,” he said at the University lecture. “Everyone has access to the depth of being human. We should not await salvation, while the parade passes by. “The nectar of a guaranteed hu man future is illusory and the height of self-deception. Our death is im minent.” Philosphy, he says, can make the life before that death mean ingful. McDermott’s words are strong. But he is not simply a man of words. “I’m committed to two things,” he said from his book-lined office. “It’s a double-pronged fork — improving the quality of liberal arts and, secondly, to bring the importance of John J. McDermott the liberal arts to the University at large." To those ends, during his three years here he’s sen/ed on several of the University committees that oversee education and curriculum, as well as brought more than 200 philosphers to Texas A&M from across the country. “They are extremely impressed with the size and quality of the phy sical plant (campus),” he said of the philosphers. “They are also im pressed with the cooperation of the University administration and the college administration with the phi losophy program here.” Texas A&M — through its philo sophy department — comes across as a place where ideas are taken seriously, displacing its image as a cow-college, he said. While at Texas A&M, the profes sors usually present a lecture on philosphy and meet with the philo sophy professors here. Few stu dents are involved, he said, simply because they don’t come. But the missionary effect, as they attempt to broaden interest in philosophy on this campus, is still impressive. “I broke stereotypes one after another,” he said, chuckling. “Especially with my Jewish friends from the East, you could hear the stereotypes breaking like crystal.” Linda Ragsdale • Esthetician KcyboARd Cente -U- MANOR EAST MALL .713/779-7080 BRYAN, TX 77801 Waway A ow *<*** prime time ^kristmas delivery FJ Non-Members Welcome Call for Appointment 3710 E. 29th St. Make-up application Manicure Pedicure Eyelash Dye Massage Wax Hair Removal 846-3794 McDermott is something of a risk for the University because he does upset conventions. For example, he has led the fight to include a group of free electives in all University cur- riculums. Another professor at Texas A&M, Dr. Norman Grabo, said of that risk: “The administration ought to be commended. This is part of a very concerted policy on the part of the administration to bring into the Univeristy and encourage things they don’t always understand and aren’t always comfortable with — like McDermott.” Grabo said McDermott’s Univer sity lecture was remarkably enjoy able for such a scholarly work. In a little more than 50 minutes, McDer mott traced the development of Western thought from Plato to Wil liam James. He made the case for philosophy and its function in the world. “He’s an outstanding lecturer — very dramatic, almost acting out parts of it because he feels them so strongly,” Grabo said. “What struck me about the lec ture ... was that the crowd showed great diversity. It was divided about evenly between students and facul ty and his acquaintences. “Some of what he said might appear surprising to an A&M audi ence in that he insists on the central importance of Karl Marx as the most important thinker in the world.” But, Grabo said, he was getting people to think in a new, surprising way. "That is the end of philosophy, to make people's minds more fle xible.” Grabo and other faculty mem bers who attended the lecture agreed it was an event good for Texas A&M, that it shows Texas A&M can pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. “Anyone who teaches liberal arts who was there came away reinvigo rated,” said Dr. Michael Levy, a theorist in the political science de partment. “One friend of mine said he wanted to go home and revise all his lectures. McDermott translated a love of his subject.”