Some thoughts inspired by the end of another semester

 After such a long time out of the regular face-to-face classroom—here’s hoping it wasn’t just an interlude before a return to Zoom—it was regenerating to be back in the classroom with real people with real bodies, even if I couldn’t quite see their faces. Maybe because I was a bit out of practice or just because I was as tired at the end of the semester as all my students so obviously were, the last day in most of my classes was just a here-have-some-cookies-I-baked-and-let’s-chat-about-the-exam day. Students had few questions about the exam but in all of my classes a large proportion of those who came that last day stayed until the end of class time. I like to tell myself that they liked my company enough that they wanted a bit more of it. It’s much more likely that they liked the company of their fellows or that they just didn’t have anything else to do until the next period began.

One of my classes turned into an AMA. I used to take the approach that I would, under almost no circumstances, let students know my own views on anything, the better to appear evenhanded. As I’ve gotten older and had more years in the classroom, I’ve changed approaches. Now, I am more likely to let students know what views I think are most plausible or implausible. I still do my best to give the strongest arguments for those views that I think are wrong; in fact, I often give more charity to those I’m least sympathetic to and am more critical of those I find appealing. It’s best to trust the students to evaluate my presentation of different views with the background information of where I stand or which way I lean. Anyway, that’s what I’ve come to believe. This change was partly motivated by a student of probably close to a decade ago who asked me in class what I professed, since I was, after all, a professor. Of course, I’m not a professor, but merely an instructor, if I’ve got my current title right, but the point was a good one nonetheless.

So, I was answering questions ranging from what my favorite movie is to what ethical theory I think is closest to right to whether I believe in God or not. Answers to that last one probably disappointed half the class and surprised the other. I don’t know whether it’s because of the way faculty are presented in the contemporary media or because of dross like those God Is Not Dead movies, but students have very clear expectations for what sort of beliefs and ethical and political commitments their professors, especially those in the social sciences, liberal arts, and humanities, are likely to have. As with so much else of our contemporary culture, those commitments are, it seems, supposed to be derived from a very particular party political identity. 

There’s something sad in this, I think, as there is in all pigeonholing. Assumptions about what other people must certainly believe make it harder to connect with them or to learn from them. It flattens others and removes from them their very reasonableness. It’s hard—and maybe harder than before—to see the person in one another, but we have to.  

Class thoughts on desire and impermanence

In one of my classes yesterday, we were finishing up our much-too-quick discussion of the basic Buddhist account of the human condition. It’s a class in which students are always asking the right sorts of questions. As I was reiterating the purported relationship between desire or craving and suffering—one that almost appeals to me for Stoic reasons—a student offered the objection that desire can also make our lives better. 

I had been using as an example the way social media and our exposure to the perfectly curated lives of others can make us unhappy. For instance, I had been arguing, when I see the perfect vacation another has taken or I see the interminable post-gym selfies, I can be made unhappy because I have no such vacation but now I desire it or I think my body doesn’t look as good and my desire to look better makes me unhappy.

His response was that, desire at least in the latter case, can be a drive to improvement. Seeing someone else’s success in the gym—though it might also be in a dozen other ways: the publication of their book, a new job, an award—and the desire that follows from it can serve as a goad to effort. That effort itself can lead to greater fitness and the attainment of what one had desired. Surely, in that, there is nothing to cause suffering.

He was right, in a way. There is nothing wrong in ambition or desire insofar as it can lead us to the better if not the good. Epictetus says somewhere in the Enchiridion that we ought to strive but we ought to be realistic about what that striving will cost us and how likely it is that we might fail (and how we will feel if and when we do).

There remains another problem, I said, and that’s impermanence. 

Now, I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently because I injured a shoulder almost three months ago and, though I think it’s finally on the mend after a late trip to the doctor, it has caused me no end of problems physically. And, because the gym plays the role of therapist for me—it is the one hour of the day when I feel totally in control and where I feel like I achieve something—it has caused me quite a bit of emotional distress. It’s not good to be the not-funny kind of obsessive-compulsive.

Whatever your desire leads you to achieve won’t last. The better body will fade with age. The book will be forgotten or surpassed. The next promotion might not come. You will die.

What’s the answer? To enjoy what you have while you have it and even when you’re striving, I suppose, but not to be so attached that you will suffer when it’s gone, or in the case of love to accept the future suffering as part of the enjoyment now. Is that possible? Dunno.

Anyhow, the student had been concerned that the outlook was too pessimistic. I probably took it further.

Tomorrow, for what it’s worth, Hobbes, Schopenhauer, and Ecclesiastes are on tap. Always uplifting!

Truth against truth

A few semesters ago, I had a truly brilliant student. He wasn't one of our majors—not that that matters—but he was the kind of student who has a genuine and deep interest in ideas: exploring them, understanding their motivations and justifications, teasing out their implications.

At one point we were discussing the Republic and Plato's blueprint for the education of the Guardians, including his canons of censorship and the Noble Lie. We began talking about whether it was ever acceptable to lie to children (Santa Claus, family myths, etc.) or whether it was necessary always to tell them the unvarnished, if not complete, truth.

Our conversation continued after class and after several more meetings. As it continued, it expanded into related questions.  In the course of thinking through these questions, we got to fiction. He told me that he never chose to read any fiction, because he just couldn't see the point of reading things that aren't true.

In his case, this preference seemed to come from a a certain type of ethical seriousness, one I can admire even if I find it mistaken in its application.

But, in effect, he shared a preference with many in contemporary society. Consider how A Million Little Pieces was first rejected by publishers when submitted as a piece of fiction, but won acclaim and bestseller status when it was published and marketed as a memoir. (And, how it came to be seen as not just a fraud, but worthless, when it was again seen to be a fiction.) This must mean our standards for nonfiction are vastly lower.

"Well," the prospective reader says to herself, "I wouldn't read that, but since you tell me it is a true story, well, now I'm interested."

Or, consider the plethora of memoirs now published, often by people in their 20s and 30s. There was a time when memoirs were written mostly by people of note at the end of illustrious—interesting—lives. Now, people write them when they are still in college. Of course, this reflects the narcissism of our selfie-culture, but they also sell. Apparently, the reading public wants to read these things.

Not only do we want to read them, but sometimes we want to see them made into movies. For one egregious example, consider Julie & Julia. The part of the movie about Julia Childs is watchable. It has Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci and it's about an interesting person with an interesting life. But what of the other part? And, yet, because it was true-life, it sold as a book and movie. I mean, it actually happened!

Or, consider how a book or television series can add to its appeal by claiming to be "based on a true story" or having tired police procedural plot-lines that are, nevertheless, "ripped from the headlines."

We want truth, even if it's dreck.

This reflects a loss of something of value in our society, one we can regain by thinking about a simple distinction between truth (as positivistic factuality or representation of a state of affairs that obtains in the world) and truth or truths (as something transcendent, both above and below the facts of the matter). Good art often shows us the latter without expressing the former.

Consider Oedipus or The Magic Mountain or Emma or True Stories or the myths of most cultures or so many more. Each of these presents truths about humans, about our lives, our natures, our interactions, our psyches, our ethics. But they do this while being manifestly false. In some cases, they aren't even plausible or life-like.

This is part of the point of Aristotle's suggestion that ethics be learnt from fables or that drama can lead to catharsis, it is what Alasdair MacIntyre was getting at when he said to his students that we should read Austen if we wanted to know how to be, it is how Wittgenstein could deny that there were any ethical propositions even while claiming that Westerns had a moral function.

Of course, there can be art that expresses both types of truth, but it will always be rarer than that type that tells us true stories that tell us nothing about ourselves. If we are honest, most nonfiction is banal, empty, little more than an entertainment masquerading as something profound—and not that good artistically. (And, I am not defending that art that attempts to provide truths while claiming, falsely, to be true.)

What I am declaring is that I am a partisan of fiction and the imaginary and the fantastic. Only in these can we see important truths about ourselves. Without them, we are impoverished, left with only the real. 

Since the semester has ended: Or, pragmatically unadvisable emails

A collection of some recent email missives from students and perspective students:

"I was just wondering if the grade I was givin was correct. Would missing the first midterm really impact my grade?" (A complete message)

In said course, each midterm was worth 20% of the grade, so missing one and not making it up is likely to have an effect on a final grade.

"hi i really want to take this class and wondering if i can get an add code thank you." (Another complete message)

Note the simplicity, the challenging nature of asking me to figure out what the class is and who the correspondent is and to whom the email was meant to go. And, the class doesn't begin for another month. The best strategy is probably to come to the actual class and ask then—oh, and to treat me as if I'm not a friend to whom you are sending a text.

"After I took the test today, I believe that if I calculated it out right, i'll be making a grade of somewhere in the 70's (I hope). With that being said, is there anything I can do to improve that final grade? I know I missed a whole paper, and that is what's really affecting me right now. Is there anyway I could write it and get half credit??" (Message edited to protect the identity of the student)

Yes, yes, I would enjoy doing extra work at the end of the semester because you were unwilling to do it during the semester and now are worried about your grade. And, after all, the point of thinking about philosophy and writing the paper was just to get points.

Days of silence and lost voices

Last Friday was the annual Day of Silence, the day when gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered persons, etc., and allies are asked not to speak in order to make clear how their voices so often go unheard. Now, I believe that I have opined on the strangeness of this before—among other things, it seems strange to me that I, of course, have to speak on such days while well-meaning straight allies can take a stand against an oppression they have never felt by refusing to speak in class: I don't have the option of being silent—but the bigger problem with the very concept of a day of silence is the way that it addresses a problem by exacerbating the same problem.

Contrast a day of silence with walkouts. Take, for instance, the idea of a day without Mexicans popularized in southern California. Such a walkout makes an impact. It does this by addressing the way the presence of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans (and other Latin Americans) is ignored by replacing it with absence: you don't see us when we are here, notice us when we are not and are not doing the jobs you need done! This was also the old strategy of homemakers going on strike: you think I do nothing, wait until I do nothing!

A day of silence, it seems, should work this way, but it differs importantly. In a walkout, there is valued work that goes undone and so is missed. It is only in its absence that the presence is noticed. In a day of silence, the very claim is that the voice (not merely the work or the presence) of a group is ignored and undervalued and so the response is to not speak. But, if the voice is not valued or noticed, to withdraw it is to acquiesce to that very ignoring and disvaluing. 

But why doesn't its absence in this case draw attention to its presence? I think because gays and lesbians and transgendered people are never going to be a large enough group or a concentrated enough group in any university or college or other institution to be missed on one day. (Sure musical theater might disappear without gays and the LPGA might cease to exist without lesbians—of course, I am kidding—but this is not like the effect on agriculture or construction that would be felt if we really did deport everyone with a questionable immigration history.) 

So what is better? If there is too little recognition of speech and voice, put so much voice and speech out that it cannot be ignored. Make them pay attention; don't be silent.

God, the deceiver

One of the brighter students in one of my classes was hanging around after class the other day and we began to talk about various kinds of idealism. I began to describe the views of Bishop Berkeley, who believed that there are only minds and ideas. That is, he denied that the physical world existed as a physical entity or collection of entities. She was really understanding the view and some of the intricacies of his theory.

So, I wanted to introduce some of the problems beyond the obvious counterintuitiveness of the view. So, I mentioned that Berkeley, as a Christian was committed to the goodness of God. But, I explained, Berkeleyan idealism committed one to viewing God as having endowed our minds with apparent sensory faculties that would naturally lead us to believing that a physical world existed, even though it doesn't on the view. This, I said, would make God into a deceiver.

She responded, "That's sort of like the problem with astrology."

Confusedly, I asked, "What do you mean?"

"You know, like the way that science tells us that the Universe is really old and about the Big Bang, but"

" Oh, you mean, astronomy," I cut in. "So, you mean that the Universe is really much younger, in spite of what science says?"

"Yeah."

Then, I realized that she is a young earth creationist. Now, I have respect for this young woman's intellect and for her hard work and for her ambition to make something of her life.

But, even as I tried to explain to her that, at least as far back as St Augustine, serious Christians have thought that the creation accounts in Genesis cannot possibly taken literally, I was wondering whether it was pointless. I wanted to get her to see that if her religious beliefs require her to believe things that are clearly empirically false, she needs to consider the way in which she holds those beliefs.

But I also realized that when I tried to get them to see the value in seeking the truth, in being reflective, in examining our beliefs and lives, most of my students either don't pay any attention or have so sequestered their lives that some beliefs are not at all revisable.

And, I was sad.

More about teaching

So, it's the end of the semester and this means that I am thinking way too much about my classes and wishing, no matter how much I may like some of my students, that the semester would finally end. So this will be another post about class and, alas, about God.

Thus, I will delay for at least a post any discussion of the California State Supreme Court's ruling regarding gay marriage. I think I am supposed to have a public opinion as a gay intellectual (?). My dream, of course, is to be a public intellectual, but there aren't enough openings right now.

Today, in one of my classes, we were doing a bit of review. And the topic turned to God and the difference between revealed and natural religion. I was explaining the distinction and how it is possible to get from natural arguments for God's existence—assuming they work—to a position of choosing which purported revelation might be best as a student interrupted to ask me whether I personally believe in God. I noted that this was irrelevant—in any case, as I was telling my friend and colleague Kevin (I hope I can call him a friend and I'm at least an adjunct colleague) yesterday, my views on God and what "belief" means when applied to the supernatural are a little much to explain to an introductory student, i.e., more than anyone would want to know—and that we were talking about other people's arguments and not my views.

He interrupted me again, to point out that I ought to believe in God, that he was the Son of God and that he was here to love us all. I herded him out; he was dressed all in white flowing robes and I was scared witless. There are great days in the college classroom and then there are days where I wonder if I shouldn't be armed. They killed Socrates, after all.

On the other hand

Since I was just complaining, I also got a number of real—not just last-minute grade grubbing—thanks and handshakes and even one thank you card and a nice little gift from my introduction class that had its final today. That is always a gratifying experience: to be reminded at the end of a semester when you are sure that they must long for your absence, that you may have actually connected with a student or two. I even inspired a few to minor or major in the love of wisdom. So, teaching has its moments, too.

End of the semester frustration

While giving an exam today, I powered through the grading of just over twenty short papers on the existence or non-existence of God. I was in a zone and I want the semester to be over. It was the second set of papers about the same topic I had read this semester, and I was reminded of two things: 1) it is unwise of me to teach two versions of more-or-less the same class with totally different structures—granted they are taught at different institutions, but...; and, 2) I ought not to assign God as a paper topic, as it always depresses me.

The one that hit me the hardest today, was the one that informed me that the author's life was eternally happy because of her belief in God and that I, too, could be happy if I were to believe in God. So, I learned from this that my student believes that theism is a guarantee of happiness—apparently not all Bibles still contain Job and not all Christians were raised in the same tradition of 2000 of thinking over problems like suffering as I was—that she believes that the self-deprecating manner I affect in class is truly a reflection of a deep and abiding unhappiness and she assumes that she knows that I am an atheist or at least an agnostic. I take it that they teach youngsters in certain types of churches to evangelize all people at all time, but I wasn't in need of it—and it won't make me happier.

What I do

I'm not a particularly good philosopher. At least I wouldn't claim to be. But there are days standing in front of 40 young adults when I feel like the father of philosophy himself. Of course, it is not that I am like him in his reputation or greatness. Rather I am like Socrates in front of an Athenian jury on the day of his trial.
I say relatively absurd things, things that go right against common sense (some of them are things I even believe), things that make my students relatively unhappy. I try to convince them that they don't really know what they think they do and that, although it is of the greatest import that they give reasons for their beliefs—something that they are barely convinced of themselves—their beliefs are largely baseless. Then, like Socrates himself, I tell them that though they are unhappy, I am really making them happy.
Today, in the midst of an explanation of why Lord Russell thought that we were, after all, justified in thinking that the material world exists after two weeks of force-feeding them skepticism, one of the students muttered, "Jesus". I had to reply that He wouldn't be able to help them, at least in understanding Russell; they just didn't get along after Russell wrote Why I Am Not a Christian.
One of these days my coffee is going to taste of Hemlock.