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This essay is the third and final of a three-part series titled “The Veil of Esteem: On Seeing Oneself Being Seen.” Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s “reflection through vignette” method, I inquire into the notions and interconnections between memory and esteem. Esteem is the truth of oneself through the eyes of the other, and any truth of esteem must be told from the perspective of that other, through the spectating other. Thus, I find that any story of esteem is veiled. This final part, A Loan, posits that our unified recollection is a fiction culled from fragmented truths. This isn’t all bad. It’s the only way we can shape the heterogeneous multiplicity of happy accidents, shaping it in a poetic way. We need to look back from the future to cultivate things that may turn out to be desirable that are happening now. In other words, we can’t leave accident to chance. Otherwise, we’re left with a nothingness that’s but a lack of vision. The story is narrated not as a representation of a person or of people, but the discourse through which I have been lent her voice. I am the translator through which she is now speaking. The translator is the producer of the discourse that suffocates her and allows her to breathe in gasped breaths, the producer of the discourse that both takes away her voice and gives her voice. The first part of this series, “Fragment/Never Thinking of Tomorrow,” appears in International Review of Qualitative Research, Volume 5, Issue 1; the second part, “Riddle and Accident,” appears in Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, Volume 12, Issue 2.

This article is the second of a three-part series entitled: The Veil of Esteem: On Seeing Oneself Being Seen. Inspired by Walter Benjamin's "reflection through vignette" method, the author inquires into the notions and interconnections between memory and esteem. Esteem is the truth of oneself through the eyes of the other, and any truth of esteem must be told from the perspective of that other, through the spectating other. Thus, the author finds that any story of esteem is veiled. This second part, Riddle and Accident, explores unconditional love as maintained without the merit-worthy, yet it is its esteem that catalyzes it. The story is narrated not as a representation of a person or of people but the discourse through which the author has been lent her voice. The author is the translator through whom she is now speaking. The translator is the producer of the discourse that suffocates her and allows her to breathe in gasped breaths, the producer of the discourse that both takes away her voice and gives her voice. The first part of this series, Fragment

Is the Penn State controversy a public relations crisis or a moral one? While all relevant parties have made public efforts to carry out public relations campaigns to salvage their individual reputations, efforts to address the moral aspects of their actions are lacking. A proper pragmatic and post-pragmatic effort to regain public esteem demands an institutional commitment to transparency; to look to the truth for aid and then tell the truth. A true pragmatic approach demands ethical agents look beyond temporary benefits in order to properly calibrate human aims and purposes. More contemporary forms of pragmatism grounded in critical and radical inquiry demand an even stronger commitment to social justice and truth-telling as appropriate moral interventions in times of crisis.

This essay is the first of a three-part series entitled: The Veil of Esteem: On Seeing Oneself Being Seen. Inspired by Walter Benjamin's “reflection through vignette” method, I inquire into the notions and interconnections between memory and esteem. Esteem is the truth of oneself through the eyes of the other, and any truth of esteem must be told from the perspective of that other, through the spectating other. Thus, I find that any story of esteem is veiled. This first part, Fragment/Never Thinking of Tomorrow, interrogates the role of fiction as a necessary component of the practice of memorialization. The story is narrated not as a representation of a person or of people, but the discourse through which I have been lent her voice. I am the translator through which she is now speaking. The translator is the producer of the discourse that suffocates her and allows her to breathe in gasped breaths, the producer of the discourse that both takes away her voice and gives her voice. The second part of this series, Riddle and Accident, appears in Cultural Studies ⇔ Critical Methodologies Volume 12, Issue 2; the third part, A Loan, appears in Qualitative Inquiry Volume 18, Issue 4.