Some years ago I was working at a job that paid the bills
and added nicely to my resume but didn’t really fit in very well with my view
of who I am. So, when the company was faced with laying some people off, I
volunteered to be one of those who would take the hit. It was viewed by several
of my co-workers as a selfless gesture but in reality, it was totally selfish.
I had been working on a degree centered on ethics at the
time and it had come to my attention through a the grapevine that a prof named
Bob Schultz was soon to retire. Now, I knew Dr. Schultz was a member of the
Friends Committee on National Legislation and had been told by another prof I’d
met and liked – Dr. Diane Gillespie – that I would probably be interested in
Bob’s take on the world. I checked the
course catalog and sure enough, the good Dr. Schultz was about to teach his
last course before retiring but it was a daytime course and I had a day job.
So, I took the hit at work, accepted my unemployment
insurance and registered for the course. It turned out to be one of the best
decisions of my intellectual life.
Bob’s course was centered on ‘professionalism’ from a conceptual
angle. What qualifies as a profession, as opposed to just an occupation or
trade? Why must certain occupations require specific education and profession
to standards of practice and a canon of ethics? Through discussion and a bit of
lecture here and there and significant reading and then more discussion, we
explored what it meant to profess. What separates MDs and lawyers and other
professionals from the rest of us working schlubs? But frankly, although I
enjoyed the subject matter, that wasn’t what grabbed me. What floated my boat was
the discussion led by a guy who understood that you can’t find good answers if
you don’t first think seriously about framing good questions.
Fast forward.
Today while sidelined by a bug I got to thinking about a
recent comment by another friend to the effect that she was sick and tired of
all the truly awful stuff out there on the Web. I have to agree with her – I find
it difficult to wrap my mind around the apparent fact that numerous people
recently used the Internet to share snarky comments about a brutal rape, even
celebrating the hideous crime itself. I find this disappointing but not
surprising - the web is replete with hate and porn and racism and misogyny and
blatant disrespect.
It doesn’t have to be that way and it shouldn’t be. The
Internet can and should become a tool of thinking people and an engine of
positive social change. But the algorithms that bring us stories to read and
sites to visit do so in large part by tracking the sites we visit and inferring
an interest profile.
After reading Sherree’s concerns (oops, I told) I got to
thinking about intentionally altering how the algorithms view me. So instead of
going to cnn.com or You Tube, I went into my favorite search engine and started
looking up more pleasant things. And as I jumped from site to site, I came
across mention of Bob’s name and looked up a couple of sites (links below) that
interested me.
Professor Bob and I were never big buddies. I enjoyed his
class and was thrilled to run into him accidentally in a Washington D.C. hotel
lobby later that year. He was there for meetings relating to his involvement
with FCNL and I was there for my work as an advocate for persons living with
disabilities. I didn’t recognize him at first and mistook him for our bus
driver. He laughed, I laughed and when he’d walked away, I found myself wishing
I could have just one more class with him.
Bob is a retired prof and a respected speaker and thinker.
But mostly, he’s just a nice guy. And I’m glad to see he’s still around being a
nice guy. There are lots of Bobs to be
found on the Net if we just refuse to let ourselves be led to filth. I intend
to search them out. Care to join me?
(NOTE: Dr. Bob wrote a “last lecture” that remains one of my
favorite examples of the written word. I truly wish I had his permission to
share it here. To learn a little about what Bob’s about, follow the links
below. Turns out it’s easy to find posts about interesting and decent people
trying to do right. You just have to know where to look.
Oh, and find some good links to send back to me, please.)
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