Deliciously Bewildering Dialectic

In the Summer 2008 issue of the Willamette Scene, the academic magazine for the collgee I attended for undergrad, there was an article entitled “Deliciously Bewildering Dialectic”.  The title comes from a quote by the President of Willamette, M. Lee Pelton, that goes:

“There is no official position to be taken except to promote—rather than squelch—the deliciously bewildering dialectic we commonly refer to as “the teachable moment.”

What’s most bewildering to me is trying to figure out what all that means.  Fromm the context, “dialectic” seems to mean a concept or discussion.  Its dictionary definition is “(1) (adj) of logical argumentation. (2) (n) the art or practice of logical discussion, as of truth of a theory or opinion.”  That seems to make sense.  “Dialectic” sounds more like an adjective related to dialogue.  It’s one of those academic words that academics like to use.

The article is about how students and faculty were encouraged to submit essays on diversity, community, and related topics.  A couple of pages featured quotes from the essays.  One quote struck me as particularly bewildering:

“. . . Increasingly atherosclerotic notions of multiculturalism, diversity, and freedom of expression . . . limit the rapprochement necessary to help us dispense with the reified notions and move forward with an inclusive and just conception of plural community.”

This comes from the essay with a mouthful of a title: “Between Freedom of Speech and Cultural Diversity of Expression: Bureaucratizing the Multicultural Imagination” by Nathaniel “Nacho” Cordova, assistant professor of rhetoric and media studies.

I’m not sure where to begin to try to understand this one.  Maybe I’ll start with the words I don’t know.  The second word of the essay, “atherosclerotic”, seems more like a medical term.  My wife learned from her medical terminology class that “athero” means plaque and “sclerotic” means hardening.  The dictionary defines atherosclerosis as “(n) a form of arteriosclerosis in which fatty substances deposit in the inner walls of the arteries.  Atherosclerotic (adj).”  It just doesn’t seem like it can be used to describe notions of multiculturalism, diversity, and freedom of expression.  Maybe it has a more figurative meaning such as narrow (due to plague deposits?), entrenched, or ingrained, or maybe limiting since arteriosclerosis limits lessons the blood flow through the arteries.

The next words I don’t know are “rapprochement” and “reified”.  The Random House dictionary I have defines rapprochement as “(n) an establishment of harmonious relations, as between nations.”  Reified is an interesting word because “re” is a prefix used in words such as “reopen” and “reacquire” and “ified” is a suffix for words such as “simplified”.  “Reified” seems to combine a prefix and a suffix with no word in between.  It does not appear in my Random House dictionary.  According to www.merriam-webster.com, “reify” means “(v) to regard (something abstract) as a material or concrete thing.”

The quote seems to be saying that increasingly entrenched, built-up, or narrow notions of multiculturalism, diversity, and freedom of expression limit the establishment of harmonious relations need to dispense with the abstract notions regarded as concrete and move forward with a just conception of plural community.  Even with the attempted translation it’s still a tongue twister.  What I get is that the ideas and words we use in discourse are limited and we need to look beyond them to come together or something like that.

What’s interesting is that the quote is from a rhetoric and media studies professor.  I would think his quotes would be clearer and to the point.  It’s also interesting that the quote was featured in the Scene.  Were the staff genuinely impressed with the quote or were they as bewildered as I was?  Maybe the purpose of the quote was to bewilder, to showcase intellect and wide academic vocabulary.  Would other people be willing to do the research to understand it?  With society’s tendency for snappy slogans and quick sound bites, I’m not so sure.  Using such vocabulary may seem elitist to some.  It alienates, divides and excludes.  It dissuades the very plural community that it describes and claims to support.