Beyond Freedom and Constraint: Chuck Fox's Death as a Sacred MomentAuthor(s): Hugh MillerSource: Administrative Theory & Praxis, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Sep., 2004), pp. 430-432Published by: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25610682 .

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Administrative Theory & Praxis Vol. 26, No. 3, 2004: 430-437

Forum

In Memoriam Charles Fox: 1939-2004

Beyond Freedom and Constraint:

Chuck Fox's Death as a Sacred Moment

Hugh Miller Florida Atlantic University

You could call Chuck a free spirit, he was certainly an enemy of shackles and manacles and harnesses.

He was a truth seeker, but in search of a truth beyond "the truth."

He did not favor the universalizing move that "the truth" entailed, pre

ferring instead to think of truth as a local norm that is averse to impos ing itself on everyone everywhere.

Some writers would muddy the water to make it appear deep. Chuck was looking for pearls of wisdom, and muddying the water was an an

noyance to him. If he thought that's what you were doing, he would let

you know. His quick wit could pierce fakery like a sharp arrow hitting a

bull's eye. Some of you may think that Chuck died too soon. But if you were

waiting for him to recant his earlier works, that wasn't going to happen. Chuck's thought was mature. He died at the right time, even though it means squandering a great soul whose loss we all feel today.

My heart is heavy with grief. And sadness. But Chuck's death came

when Chuck wanted it to come. It comes at a time when there is still a

glow to his spirit and a sparking-out from his powerful and wonderful

persona.

I said he was a free spirit, a liberated man. But he was a prisoner, too. Because so much was beyond his power, and this made him a spec tator of sorts. So he was angry. The past is a stone that cannot be

moved. But it can be mocked. Delicious as it sometimes was, this mock

ing could not undo events and deeds that have already transpired. This is the philosopher's stone, is it not? No matter how high the

philosopher throws it?and Chuck could sling it higher into the blue sky

?2004, Public Administration Theory Network

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Miller, Hummel, Luton and Parker 431

than any of us?it comes back down to earth and everyday life, with a

thud.

The thud of everyday life in Chuck's case entailed his amputed leg, a

whole lot of cigarettes, a large dose of whiskey?and the daily delivery of brilliant lectures on political theory to students who crammed them

selves into his classes.

Even before Chuck lost his leg, he could hardly walk on it because of

arthritis?I think most people just thought he was a slow walker. Let us

not pity or judge Chuck's wheelchair, or his habits of drinking and

smoking, any more than we would pity his mocking, witty edge. They were all part and parcel of the same irascible spirit.

As Nietzsche said, when you take away the hump from the hunch back you take away his spirit. Chuck's drinking and smoking were part of his edge, which in turn was a big part of his uniqueness. And remem

ber, too, Chuck is not the only one among us with multiple disabilities.

We cope; we succeed; we fail; we suffer; we cry in our own ways. Sometimes when I look in the mirror all I see is a guy standing in my way.. . Are we not all cripples at the foot of the bridge; the bridge that leads to the future?

We must create coherence out of our fragmented selves and carry ourselves across the bridge. . . . But we fall, and must reassemble the

pieces yet again, and make another guess at how to proceed. Constrained yet unconstrained: Chuck wore his shackles well; he was

the liberated prisoner. Not like a parolee who had to check in with the authorities. More like a caged lion who managed to escape every time he wished, unbeknownst to the guards and wardens.

Chuck did better than elude his shackles. He escaped the prison of

everyday pettiness. Intellectually, he moved quickly to the general, the

abstract, to the implications. It would be well to know how he did it.

Can we learn some secrets from Chuck here? Maybe? Does Chuck's death point "the way"? .... Well, maybe . . . maybe not. His spirit was more as if to say, "This was my way, what is your way?" Don't ask me "the way" because there is no such thing as "the" way. As Chuck him self put it, "Meet me, and exceed me."

Chuck challenged the received wisdom and the mainstream morality of public administration, and for that he was sometimes chastised. The

good people of the mainstream are obligated to castigate anyone who invents his own virtue. They call him a nonconformist, a violator, a law

breaker, or politely, a "free spirit." They don't see that they are actually talking about a creator, someone who inscribes new values on a new

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432 Administrative Theory & Praxis *>Vol. 26, No. 3

plaque. My hope is that the new values written on new tablets will sur

prise us again, through someone else's pen next time, in the service of creation.

Chuck is gone but he will never be forgotten, certainly not as long as

I live. Chuck's death is a sacred moment, for Chuck was an advocate of life. At the moment of death, Chuck could look to his past and could

say squarely?with pride rather than shame?"That is what happened." And because he possessed the wisdom of someone who knows both joy and suffering he could add: "And I'd do it again."

That is the sense in which Chuck's death is life-affirming. He laughs like a playground full of children; he enters the death chambers mock

ing the grim wardens who rattle their keys of gloom and doom.

"Was that life?" Chuck says to the wardens. "Okay then; sure, let's

have another go-around!"1

ENDNOTE

1. " . . . and a shot of Jamieson's."

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