Careerism and Distorted Community

“How can you say such things!” This German student, whose name I no longer remember, was angry at Patrick Burke, our graduate school professor.  It wasn’t that he thought Patrick was saying something wrong. He was convinced in his mind that what Patrick was saying was true, but this was unacceptable to him. 

His response was, “I can see that what you are saying is true, but if I go back to Germany and say these kinds of things I will not have a job, and I will disappoint those who sent me here.”  His concern was for his career and for the response of those he was going back to in Germany.  The truth was immaterial, and by presenting truth that was unacceptable, Professor Burke was creating problems.

This overwhelming concern about careerism is one of the things that put me off in the academic world.  I had thought, going in, that this was a place where truth mattered, that if one made a strong argument others who disagreed would be expected to respond with a counter argument.  But I found just the opposite; that truth is fine, as long as it remains within acceptable boundaries; unacceptable truth is subjected to outrage, not counter arguments.

The concern about maintaining one’s career led to a lack of courage which, it seems to me, has continued to characterize much of the academic world today.  Making an argument really doesn’t count for anything unless that argument supports the “correct” point of view, and making an unacceptable argument, even one that seems inescapably true, often endangers one’s career, with the result that very many academics are unwilling to ask questions that might lead to unacceptable ends.

This student had a strong sense of obligation to the community of those who had sent him to America to study.  “If I go back to Germany and say these kinds of things, I will betray those who sent me here.”  But this is a troubling sort of community.  They will only welcome him back if he continues to think in ways that they find acceptable.  If pursuing the truth leads him outside of this acceptable range he will no longer be welcome as a member of the community.

But what kind of community is this, really?  It appears to lead to a sort of bondage in which one doesn’t have the freedom to think, to pursue the truth wherever it might lead.  It requires closing one’s mind to anything that the “community” might not approve of.  This is what Richard Neuhaus described as the “herd of independent minds.”  This is what soured me on the idea of becoming an academic and still today causes me to have a negative view of the academic world.  Not because I am opposed to education or the life of the mind, but because I no longer believe the environment of the academic community is intellectually healthy.  It’s a place where one is expected to toe the line and think like other academics think.

I was actually shocked at this guy’s honesty.  I know he didn’t plan any of this in advance.  It took him by surprise to find himself agreeing with what Professor Burke was saying.  The usual thing would have been to respond with something more like a sneer.  But he didn’t.  He spoke honestly and clearly, said he believed the argument was good and that what Patrick was saying was true; his point was that the truth was unacceptable to the people he had to answer to.  So, to his credit, he responded with honesty, and the conflict led him to anger.  I wonder what became of him.  I assume he went back to Germany and became a professor.  But did this conflict continue to plague him in the back of his mind, or was he able, eventually, to squash it in the interest of happily pursuing his career?

Praying with Our Bodies

During Lent I’ve been listening, on the Hallow app, to the story of Takashi Nagai, who lived in Nagasaki Japan during WWII. Although he grew up practicing the Shinto religion, he had become an atheist during his medical training, dismissing all religions as empty mythology. But the experience at his mother’s death bed impressed upon him that there was something lacking in his worldview, that his atheism didn’t explain what he knew to be true as a human being. He began to feel drawn to Christianity, but then found himself floundering. He was strongly attracted to the idea of faith but didn’t know what to do about it.

How do we learn to believe? How do we develop faith? For most of my life I’ve understood this to be an intellectual thing, that one develops faith by reading books, weighing the evidence, knowing more about the truth. If one is persuaded inwardly, this is then followed by some outward changes, maybe going to church, seeking out other believers, becoming part of a small group Bible study. The process begins with the inner life and only later does this begin to show itself in actions.

But the advice Nagai found in Blaise Pascal moved in the opposite direction. He read in the Pensees, “You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you…. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believe, taking the holy water, having masses said, &c. Even this will naturally make you believe….” Start acting as if you believe, doing things that believers do, (for Pascal these things had a distinctly Catholic form) and you will find your faith growing. It’s not that information and logic are unimportant, but they are only part of the story. We are not souls inhabiting a body but human persons consisting of both body and soul in union each having a profound impact on the other. And the impact can go in either direction.

I recently read a book by David Easterly, a wood carver, writing about his experience studying the style of the great carver Grinling Gibbons. “One day it occurred to me that you couldn’t fully understand how Gibbons developed his style unless you understood something about his tools and his medium. I made a note to try to find an art historical study on woodcarving techniques. In the meanwhile, just to divert myself, I thought I might as well get some chisels and wood and see what carving felt like. Just to divert myself.  No sooner do I write that phrase than I know it’s false. I was being borne toward carving by a tide stronger than I could control, a tide made up of all that I’d thought and read and experienced in the years before. Writing a book wasn’t going to answer to it. More than the mind needed to be deployed. And this was the turning point for me: not the epiphany in the church, but the decision to try the tools of the trade” (The Lost Carving, pp. 52-53).

Easterly started out as an academic, examining the technique of a great carver, but the physical act of carving, handling chisels and wood, turned him into a wood carver. And the same thing is often true in our spiritual lives. Acting in faith, using our bodies in prayer and worship, even just making the sign of the cross, can have a deep impact on our spirits. “We ought to take advantage of this union of body and soul and benefit from it during prayer…. repeating the metanoia [repentance] gesture, even when it is performed only with the body, is just as effective as tears in breaking the spell of that interior ‘wildness’ and insensitivity that seems to kill all spiritual life within us. In a mysterious way the body, which in its posture is actually the ‘icon’ of the soul’s interior disposition (Origin), ultimately draws the reluctant soul along with it” (Gabriel Bunge, Earthen Vessels, pp. 178-79). 

Years ago, a friend of mine shared that he was at work, feeling oppressed and weighed down and he impulsively shouted out loud, “praise the Lord!” And suddenly the weight on his spirit disappeared. He understood it at the time as a victory over demonic oppression, and this may be accurate. But his help came through something he did with his body, not just thinking or praying silently but shouting out loud in praise of God. If we’re stuck spiritually, we may be helped by a new book or a sermon, but we also may find help by walking into a church, dipping our fingers in holy water, making the sign of the cross, and kneeling in the Lord’s presence. Or, at other times, going for a walk in the woods, praising God out loud for the beauty He has created. Responding to God with our bodies can breathe new life into our spirits.