Momentarily

To confront the broad questions that are proposed in the one hundredth issue of SubStance is a task daunting enough to elicit avoidance maneuvers. The immediate temptation is to deconstruct the questions, thereby evading the order they intone, namely, to state-without detour or delay-the very thing at the core of what or how one thinks about the world. Such questions are frighteningly direct, because to be frank in one’s response risks exposing too much. We have all been brought up on the notion that language both hides and reveals, but when the balance tilts toward revelation, something more than the everyday play of critical language is immediately at stake, something personal, something autobiographical. Autobiography is not for the faint at heart.