IJ study archive

Schtitt's untranslated We-Are-What-We-Revile motto

quote

It’s also a sly Schtitt-directed à-clef, of course, amounting to something like We Are What We Revile or We Are What We Scurry Around As Fast As Possible With Our Eyes Averted, though when Schtitt mentions the motto he never attaches any moral connotation to it

Context

Schtitt's pedagogy operating in its characteristic register: motto without moral. The academy's à-clef slogan amounts "to something like We Are What We Revile or We Are What We Scurry Around As Fast As Possible With Our Eyes Averted," yet Schtitt "never attaches any moral connotation to it," letting prorectors and Big Buddies "adjust their translations to suit the needs of the pedagogical moment." It's the anthology's Schtitt — a doctrine held deliberately open, a body-and-self motto whose meaning is a coaching tool rather than a fixed creed. (Schtitt's self-transcendence pedagogy proper is at 026/065.)

In anthology