At Teaching in Alaska Joe writes:

I have said for 30 years now teachers are born. We will never be able to “Teach” a non teacher the art of teaching. In Alaska this is true to even the most non observant individual. Oh sure we can teach them all the tricks of the trade, word walls, phonic instruction, whole language. how to create learning stations, “Excell” Hahaha, and so on. The thing is if you do not have the presence, the command of your emotions, humor in a flash, the ability to laugh at one self, the ability to hold your class in the palm of your hand, well….. The students world wide especially in Alaska know the condeners from the pretenders. Folks, Alaska needs the best of the best!!!!! Someone once told me you will not even know how to teach until you have been in the profession for ten years. I will take it one step farther, if you were not born to teach you probably never will or should not be trying to. Your heart may be in the right place but this isn’t like baseball. In baseball if you bat 400, and no one has accomplished that in over 50 years, you will be one of the greatest and be the MVP in the NL or Al that year. If you bat 700 in teaching in a year you rot. We need to bat 950 to 999 every year.

I would argue that while there are certainly great teachers in the world – teachers who are remembered fondly for generations, and who not only teach, but inspire – they are rare enough to not bear consideration when discussing an educational system. My parents still talk about their college philosophy professor, Dr. Wood, 30 years later. He was one of those teachers. He talked about his teacher, OK Bouwsma, 30, 40, 50 years later. I was reading an article about him last year. He was also one of those teachers. He Bouwsma learned from Wittgenstien, who wasn’t one of those teachers, but he has a brilliant writer and thinking; I’m not sure how B. managed to translate the experience into great teaching – I have to suppose he was a born teacher. Even B., though – good enough to still affect this chain of teaching and learning more than a generation later – did not bat 999, or anywhere close. People left and never came back. They became frustrated, fell into “fly bottle’s” of the intellect, and finally decided that it wasn’t worth it. Perhaps they failed. Perhaps that was simply not where they were meant to be. Who knows? But even with educated, interested, intelligent students – which he had – it would be unreasonable to expect more than %75 success. Not in the sense of grades, which can go up or down for any number of reasons, but in the sense of understanding – the only thing about education that ultimately matters.

So there are Woods, and Bouswmas – and then there are the rest of us. Those who are not “born teachers,” whatever else we may be. And any school, system, atmosphere, culture, or philosophy that cannot make good use of us is doomed to failure. Certainly there people who should straight-up not teach. Generally they recognize it, and don’t. But then there are the artists who teach, writers who teach, scientists who teach, liberal artists who teach… and these people are mostly the concern of my writing. Because a non-teacher should just leave, and a Teacher will teach alright no matter what – but a liberal artist may teach just fine in a decent environment, and terribly in a bad one

That’s where books come in. Most people aren’t brilliant poets – they can’t recite like Homer. I don’t doubt but that it would be a better, richer, more important experience to listen to Homer recite than to read the Iliad – but the fact is that we can read the Iliad whenever we so choose, whereas we cannot hear Homer under any circumstances whatever. And the Iliad is better and more important than a regular – or even quite gifted – person reciting epic poetry of his or her own.

That and historocity are why reading and books are essential to education. If a teacher isn’t that great, but we’re reading Dostoyevsky, it is not and cannot be a complete loss. I still get to read Dostoyevsky, perhaps discuss him, perhaps write about him, perhaps understand him a little better than I would have on my own – or at the very least perhaps read something of his that I would not have on my own. There cannot be a teacher so bad as to utterly ruin The Brothers Karamazov – though surely there is one so good that it explodes from the page, and changes how I think about humanity forever. And yet somehow there are teachers – and systems, and educational environments – so bad as to make D. incomprehensible through sheer lack of words and grammar. And that’s terrible. As much as anything – and there are a lot of things – I believe that what has gone wrong is conveying not just process, but rather the desired result, to be the acquisition of an assortment of skills. I can’t remember the six traits, or grade with a rubric of them, nor do I necessarily understand the tone and character of my writing. But I can read and write about books. And more importantly, I can be delighted when Alyosha reconciles with the decomposition of his Elder, and kisses the very ground in love of Creation; and I can love Dimitri like a friend – an irresponsible, undisciplined, but charming and lovable friend. And a teacher may bring that out, and make it shine – or he may make me bored, and convince me that he would not give even an onion to an intellectual beggar – but if the content is good, and I can read, then that can be put up with.

It would be very good to meet a teacher who can make math shine with wonder that outweighs the drudgery of solving equations, the way Victor Hugo is worth trudging through sewers and Waterloo for. But, lacking that, I suppose I could find a very good book, and perhaps an interested friend, and learn it anyway.

But at TLT – those kids can’t read! They can’t read Victor Hugo, or Homer, or Chaucer well enough to see a glimpse of eternity reflecting out of the pages. And I certainly can’t explain what they’re missing. If I could I would be writing such glimmering prose. And that’s terrible! I can’t make up the differece – I’m not a Teacher, nor a Poet, nor an Artist. But if someone can read, then we can talk about what’s in there, and why it’s important, without my having to be. And therein lies the tragedy of a partial education. What does it mean to be able to read just well enough to find Shakespeare boring, so that a Teacher has to come along and shake you out of it – inspire, cajole, tempt, inspire, get you in the palm of his hand? It’s like being tone deaf – to hear music as noise, and not as joy.

I apoligize in advance for the mushyness that is the following entry.

From my last blog, I think the most interesting and least re-hashed consideration is the distinction between states of being within a discipline, meta- the discipline, or altogether outside of it. Like, if I’m supposed to write an essay, I start out procrastinating – that is outside it entirely. I watch a few episodes of Dr. Who, make some tea, read a blog, admire a felt doll, go for a walk, and so on. When the pressure builds to to the point where I don’t figure I can get away with procrastinating, I do meta-essay stuff, because it’s less work than the actual essay. I open up a word-editing program, format the page, figure out what kind of font I’m going to use, save the document format, write an outline, write a complaint about how I have nothing to say, read what somebody else has to say on the topic, and so on. But when I’ve done that as long as I can and still maintain any self-respect, there’s a change of state that happens. Instead of thinking about writing an essay, all of a sudden I’m thinking about Grisilde. But that’s difficult to maintain. I’m not sure that I can do it for more than half an hour. Then I fiddle again for a while. This is not the same state as it takes to write an opinion blog – which is just my normal state of mid, organized a little more clearly and typed out. It’s also not the same state as just reading. It’s an interaction and organization of what’s in my head and what’s on the page – and there’s something important – essential! about that state to learning. Inside the text, like when reading, but also outside commenting on it – at the same time, or in fast alternation. It’s the same in a good discussion, except that it’s not so sustained, because there are so many people contributing.

I’m writing about this because in classroom teaching, it is just this state that is rebuffed by everything about the situation. That happened to me in math class all the time – the textbook keeps pushing me out, and I don’t have enough interest – or virtue – or understanding – to fight against that. So instead I read meta-math books that don’t push me out – ones that explain how delightful math would be if only we understand it – and use lovely metaphors and visions of order and symmetry. But if in the midst of that I find an equation, it pushes me out again – I can’t rightly read it in the same state of mind; so usually  don’t read it at all.

People talk about how art is a right-brain dominant activity, and too much talk about it pushes people right out. Questions of “what’s the angle of that line,” or “perhaps that line is up a bit more” can be sustained while actually drawing things; questions of why we’re doing this, or what it means, or what it says about society aren’t. They’re important, but they push us out of actually drawing or painting.

Well, in a high school classroom there are all these things pushing us out of the thing we’re studying – either completely out, or out to a different, less crucial level. A standard pushes attention out. Talking about essays may be necessary – but it tends to distract us from actually writing essays. Standards may or may not be helpful – but as they do not actually talk about real things, they push us out of the thing they’re trying to point us to. So in our classes here all we need to have is a table, a chair, and a book – perhaps a pen and paper. The only essential thing in the classroom is the book. Opening comments – meta-stuff about when we’re reading what, or what essay is due when – takes about five minutes.

In the dialogue I wrote about a class in TLT, the main point was that every comment worked to push us out of the subject – over and over again. Why are we doing this? Does it have to be perfect? I think I’ve done this before! When can I use the computer? and so on – not one question about the thing itself. Our minds tend to do that anyway – they usually need a lot of encouragement to do otherwise. “And now, back to the text…”

Certainly in my case – and in my observation of most other people as well – the proportion of time spend on meta- stuff and on the actual question at hand is completely absurd. In classrooms it ends up being something like 80-20 in favor of out-of-text type stuff. Often worse. By that I don’t necessarily mean irrelevant stuff. But if I’m working on an essay, for instance, all the time spent thinking about mechanics of essay writing is out-of-text; the time spent on actually writing, or thinking out what I’m writing, or talking about the content is in-text, in my meaning. I *write* about a page an hour – when I’m writing – (this doesn’t count; I write this at twice that, because it’s just thinking on paper) – but I feel vaguely guilty for not writing, or talk about writing, or think about writing, or tinker with the mechanics of writing, or procrastinate from writing  at a rate of about a page for every four hours. That’s completely unreasonable. For every minute I spend actually learning Greek, I think five times that it would be nice to know Greek.

That’s something in favor of a lecture – we’re kind of forced to keep up. The same with a lab class; people can actually notice if we’re sitting there thinking about thinking about wishing that we really believed that we would start any minute now.

I was thinking today that teaching may not be so bad after all. I mean, the language of education is absurd. It’s quite simply immoral to subject young people to the soul-crushing world of “ensuring that all students reach their maximum potential.” That’s ridiculous, as is the certification process, the teaching of methods, requiring twenty-somethings to write their own philosophy of education, or come up with our own curriculum from scratch, or have much personal (as opposed to institutional) authority, and many other things. There must be some kind of conspiracy out there trying to sift out anyone who’s not either unbelievably persistent, or possessed of an odd combination of pretension and acceptance of manifestly silly ideas. “Oh, our schools are failing! Whatever shall we do?” “Why, make sure that potential teachers are subjected to as confusing and unconnected an array of educational truisms as possible, of course!”

But even so… it’s fundamentally not that complicated. We read a book and talk about it. Write an essay about it. Learn some words to describe things that authors do. What does the tension between the gods of the Eumenidies mean for humans? Was there any possible right course of action for Orestes? What’s more important, the family, the city, or the gods? What happens when they impose opposing demands? Why does Aristotle consider tragedy to be the highest of poetic art forms?

There’s a kind of tug-o-war going on in teaching and learning between being inside the text – asking questions and talking about the thing itself – and being outside it; asking meta-questions. They’re both needed, but inside-questions are usually more fruitful. There’s this thing in front of us – what’s going on with it? How do we talk about it? But Education has become all about meta-questions; what’s an activity we can do? What’s a worksheet? How do I get the students to behave? What if they don’t read the book? I’m sure I would know a good deal more about everything if I stopped being so preoccupied with meta-questions; even though they have their place. Their place is things like: what do we study? Should we read Flannery O’Conner next week or someone else. Is Sophocles appropriate for our current level of understanding? Is there something we would need to have read first in order to understand it? Do we read Canterbury Tales in modern English or as it was originally written? These are all valid concerns – but they’re precursory; they need to give way to thing’s more like: how is the Miller’s Tale a response to the Knight’s Tale?

Perhaps there are three levels of engagement. On the furthest in, most essential level there’s the questions about the text itself. Then there are questions about what to use – which book, artist, medium, essay question? And then on the meta-meta level there are questions that aren’t discipline-specific; how do I set this thing up? What’s the format? The methods? Is it a lecture, a discussion, a “research” session? All these things are important, of course – they have the potential to change what kind of thing can be taught or learned – but I kind of wonder if it’s best to choose one or two formats, and stick with them, and then stop worrying about them. It’s certainly a bad sign when people have to take years of courses about them. Once again, they’re not (or rather should not be) that complicated. St. John’s has chosen to use a discussion format for all their graduate classes. Sometimes there are public lectures. It’s perfectly appropriate that they have one method and use it all the time – because they only attract the students who like that method. Some teachers do a lecture, demonstration, lab format; that works in it’s proper venue as well. That’s what art and lab science teachers tend to do.

So my question – the one that’s been nagging at me for years now – is how did we get from all these important but simple decisions of which book to read, and what to emphasize about it, and how much time to place on activity vs. discussion vs. lecture – and turned it into this oppressive frenzy of methods?

I can’t speak for elementary schools – they seem to be a whole different game, as it were – but for teens and older students, it’s all about dumping the entire responsibility for motivation on the teacher. If the people in one of my classes here at St Johns all suddenly decided not to read or speak, the class would be dissolved. The tutor isn’t about to sit there and talk at us for two hours. Not gonna happen. But in a high school if the students decide to just sit there, I really do have some kind of obligation to make them listen, or work – basically to *make them* something. That’s intolerable.

So education professionals have noticed that this is not a good balance. It doesn’t work for teachers to stand there and try to force information into passive minds. If the students are bright enough to absorb the information well enough to pass a simple test they label this kind of interaction “regurgitation.” If nothing is absorbed, they say that the teacher isn’t teaching, however many words or how much thought he may be expending, because if he were teaching, the students would be learning.

Of course, this isn’t true of every student; perhaps not even most students. But it’s an accepted and widespread attitude.

What remedy? I don’t know. Given the premises that every “student” is a real student simply by virtue of being physically present in a classroom, I don’t know that there is one. Come to think of it, perhaps teaching really is that bad after all.

Canterbury Tales Essay: The Epilogue of the Clerk’s Tale

The Clerk’s Tale is unusual among the stories we have read in several respects, including the in-text attribution to another writer, the distinct rhyme-scheme, and especially it’s use of multiple interpretations at the end, both by the clerk and (perhaps) by Chaucer as himself. In this essay I will consider how the addition of the Clerk’s interpretation of the story of Grisilde and the Envoy song at the end affect how I might interpret the meaning of the story.

Leaving out the epilogue, Grisilde’s perfect constancy, along with a conclusion wherein everything is restored to her, suggests that she is being held up as an ideal of woman’s virtue. In contrast with the tales of the Miller and the Reeve, she remains perfectly loyal and constant throughout, with no sign that she is seeking to undermine the desires of her husband; she maintains this submission from her own sense of morality and character, and does not even ask for sovereignty. Yet even so, there is something cold and inhuman about her submission; often more that of a subject than of a wife or mother. Perhaps she maintains her virtue and promise at the cost of her humanity, giving up even her children without so much as pleading on their behalf, not her own when she was cast out penniless and naked. Even so, because her suffering never breaks that constancy, and her plight is righted as much as is possible in the end, without the epilogues I would suppose the story to be showing her as an ideal of unconditional devotion, even if one that others could not be expected to emulate.

Half way through the final stanza of the story, when all is well for Grisilde and her family, the Clerk begins his comments: “This world is nat so strong, it is no nay, /As it hath been of olde tymes yoore./And herkneth what this auctour seith therfore./ This storie is seyd, nat for that wyves sholde/Folwen Grisilde as in humylitee,/For it were inportable, though they wolde..” (1139-44) Was her virtue really good, then, if it’s like would be “inportable” in real wives? Or is that the result of the world not being so strong as it was in older times? If it – and we – were stronger ourselves, could we then bear virtues like Grisilde’s? Then, a few lines later: “It were ful hard to fynde nowadayes/In al a toun Grisildis thre or two;/ For it that they were put to swiche assayes,/ The gold of hem hath now so badde alayes/ With bras, that thogh the coyne be fair at eye,/ It wolde rather breste atwo than plye.” If Grisilde is likened to unalloyed gold, then she must be good, but I’m confused by the metaphor, since she could not, in fact, “plye,” but rather, like iron, neither broke nor bent. There are, perhaps, no more Grisilde’s left in the world, yet would it be desirable if there were? Or would it be only desirable if the rest of the world could match her virtue – but as things stand, her very goodness is monstrous?

Since the Clerk cannot take the story at face value and really suggest that wives should treat their husbands with such complete submission, he goes on to offer it as an allegorical interpretation: “every wight in his degree/ Sholde be constant in adversitee/ As was Grisilde [...] For sith a womman was so pacient/ Unto a mortal man, wel moore us oghte/ Receyven al in gree that God us sent”(1145-51). This interpretation strengthens the association between Grisilde and Job that had already been suggested within the tale (932). Whereas we cannot accept such unquestioning devotion to a mere man, it might be wise in response to the omnipotence, omniscience, and goodness of God. The epistle he references reads: “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:2-4). It’s true that Grisilde has a relationship with Walter more like that of a man to God, or a servant to the king than one of husband and wife. In some ways there is an even greater divide, for whereas in christianity God no longer calls men servants, but rather friends (John 15:15), has taken our humanity upon himself, and tells us to ask things of him, the relationship between Walter and Grisilde are, more those of the Old Covenant, or perhaps of a monastic to their elder, under a strict rule of obedience. Perhaps the latter circumstance, in it’s ideal form, is more in common with Grisilde’s case, for she had sworn at the beginning of her marriage to Walter’s demand: “be ye redy with good herte/ To al my lust, and that I frely may,/ As me best thynketh, do yow laughe or smerte,/ And nevere ye to grucche it nyght ne day,/ And eek whan I sey ye, ne sey nat nay,/ Neither by word, ne frownyng contenance”(351-56), and though it could be argued that she hardly had a choice – or rather that her choice was between total obedience and remaining in abject poverty – she did still swear to it, and did not take the chance Walter offered to deliberate her choice. And she did understand what she swore, for why else would she respond by “quakynge for drede” (358)?

It is that vow that presents the greatest difference between Grisilde’s submission and that of Job. For though there is a strong parallel wherein both are raised to great wealth, have everything taken from them through no fault except ostentatious righteousness, then restored after showing constancy, the larger part of the book of Job is his questioning of God and his friends. People disagree on whether God’s response to Job proves that he was wrong in his questioning, but he did have the freedom to do so, even if the answer was only God’s transcendence. Grisilde’s promise precluded any such questioning, and likewise any thorough understanding of her character – it is not her acceptance, but rather her silence in the face of adversity that makes her so incomprehensible; not even to plead for her children’s lives, or the wrongness of being cast out with nothing. It is that silence that makes her goodness questionable, and makes her as much an accomplice as a sufferer of her husband’s injustices.

The allegorical interpretation may be more satisfying than taking the story at face value, but it is not in keeping with the rest of the Canterbury Tales, because in moving from the realm of husbands and wives to that of man and God it has gone outside the conversation of the rest of the tales to this point. Edifying or no, it’s beginning to do just what the host has concerned about: forsaken the company for sermonizing. So it’s appropriate that it then comes back to the company, specifically the Wife of Bath, answering her tale, and especially her prologue, as a kind of counterpoint. In place of companionable chatter is a vow never to grumble; in place of sovereignty, submission.

It’s unclear whether the Envoy is supposed to be the Clerk speaking, or Chaucer in his own person. Sometimes it’s called Lenvoy de Chaucer, and sometimes just the Envoy. The stanza that introduces it (1170-76) comes without anything I understand as suggesting a change of character, and yet the Envoy itself is in such a different tone that it doesn’t sound like the Clerk as he has shown himself to that point. The first stanza agrees with what he has already said: “Grisilde is deed, and eek hire pacience,” don’t try your wife hoping otherwise. But not only are there no Grisilde’s left in the world, but perhaps there shouldn’t be – and here that’s stated much more strongly than anwhere previous. The Envoy is dedicated to the Wife of Bath, and vindicates her outspokenness over the meekness of Grisilde with outright assertions that wives should speak up, stand up for themselves against their husbands, dress in gay apparel, and be very much like the Wife of Bath. If this conclusion is meant to be read back into the story of Grisilde, it turns it from a perhaps impossible ideal to something more like a horror story. Rather than a story of unconditional love, patience, and constancy, it becomes one of acquiescing to oppression and heartless tyranny, made all the worse by the difference of social standing, and instead of virtue Grisilde is showing cowering weakness. Is that really how it should be understood? “O noble wyves, ful of heigh prudence,/ Lat noon humylitee youre tonge naille,/ Ne lat no clerk have cause or diligence/ To write of yow a storie of swich mervaille/ As of Grisildis, pacient and kynde,/ Lest Chichivache yow swelwe in hire entraille!” But I’m not certain that this is really any more sincere in it’s aim than the original tale; it sounds at least as sarcastic as true. No humility? No reticence? throw scorn on patient and kind wives? This interpretation may be livelier and interacts with the Wife of Bath, but how satisfying is its view of marriage? In the chattering, bickering, finery, and “crabbed eloquence” there may well be some charmingly familiar domestic arrangement, but where does it leave room for the mutual submission of love? What of the greater virtues?

The epilogues of the Clerk’s Tale present several possible understandings of the true meaning of the story, none of which are wholly satisfactory. The tale itself, without the epilogue shows a terrible kind of goodness that is as repulsive as it is beautiful; the interpretation offered by the clerk is sound enough as far as it goes, but is hardly entertaining, and fails to interact with the tales that have gone before; finally, the perspective of the Envoy succeeds in interacting with at least one other tale, and shows a reality that is more in keeping with family life as we know it, but if taken seriously, it leaves little room for an ideal or virtue that is beyond what we have already, and may be worth striving for – or at least considering. In superimposing those different views, do we end up with an understanding of wifely virtue that is more comprehensive than each of those views by itself?

I spent most of the day at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. It was really neat, and a little overwhelming. The idea is to get real, nice, traditional folk art and indiginous crafts from other countries – there are nearly 200 foreign artists there this year. For that to work, there needs to be a venue where thousands of people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for various neat and “authentic” crafts. Hence, Santa Fe.

My favorite booth had felt dolls from Kyrgystan - I want to learn how to make these!

I’m sure I’m borrowing this reasoning from somewhere, but can’t remember where.

Since I’m perhaps the only religious conservative around, I was conversing with some fellow students this evening, and when politics came up, a fellow eventually asked what I thought of universal healthcare. I said that I was against it. He gave me this look of “how can you possibly be so meanhearted?” and asked if I was OK with people dying for no reason but lack of health insurance. I said that I’d much rather someone other than the government be responsible for helping that person. He left a bit later, and the conversation went on to other things. It left me wondering, however, if I could construct a coherent account of why I believe the way I do about social services.

I recognize that there are various pragmatic reasons why some people say that national health care will lead to worse health care, even for people of relatively modest means. I don’t know enough to have an opinion on that, and even very good reasons are of no use if they’re unknown. So instead I’m going to talk about something I do understand a little bit, but may not be nearly as convincing – virtues. Specifically, I am against many government – and especially national government – charitable programs regardless of whether or not they would *work* as well as private ones, because they tend toward replacing positive and free virtues – specifically generosity and gratitude – with duties and rights. And even more than that, modern rhetoric downplays the duties to the point where instead of the thing itself – we have a duty to help – we assume then ignore the duty, and focus on it’s absence – greed. So instead of speaking of charity, generosity, and gratitude, we speak of rights and greed – neither of these an ennobling thing to focus on.

A liberal and I might agree that we have a duty to try to help someone who is living in poverty. Suppose he is sick. Christianity says we should get together and build, volunteer at, and donate to a clinic or hospital, buy him medicine, bring him food, and go out of our way to help him. Liberalism says we should pass a law saying that he has a right to tax funded health care, with the result that unless I happen to be employed by a governmental agency that deals with that particular kind of case, I won’t even have to really give any money – it will be automatically taken out of my paycheck so that I need never know he exists to begin with, nor who is, nor what he needs, nor what it costs.

This seems like a bad way of doing things – because it’s placing more barriers between people of good will and those we should be learning to love.

We’re reading Agamemnon and then Libation Bearers in seminar class right now. It’s quite tragic and difficult to follow in print, but the (English) stage version is just over the top creepy; an excerpt:

St. John’s has scheduled faculty lectures every Wednesday afternoon for the summer semeester. I’ve been to two of them; the first was on Does Beauty Have a Place in the Liberal Arts, and the second is on Intellectual Sin; apparently next week we’re hearing about Arjuna’s Dilemma and Shakuntala’s Solution. So far the main thing I’ve gotten out of these lectures is a conviction that I have no idea what these people are talking about, nor why it matters.

The Lecture on Intellectual Sin followed excerpted arguments Descartes 5th Meditation, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and Heidegger’s translation of the Anaximander Fragment. Apparently the lecturer demonstrated that Descartes was guilty of desiring certainty above (uncertain) truth, and therefore turning an argument from reason into an argument from authority; Kant was guilty of “the sin of enthusiasm,” through denying the implications of nihilism in his table of categories; Heidegger was guilty of mistranslation through the “sin of authenticity,” whatever that means. And apparently those are faults against, logic (Descartes), rhetoric (Kant), and grammar (Heidegger), or modesty, watchfulness, and gratitude. Through some rather complicated arguments from the texts the lecturer believed he had proved this. I can’t say whether he did or didn’t – first because I couldn’t follow his arguments, and then because I didn’t understand the accusation. In conclusion: sometimes I just have no idea what’s going on.

Notes from my past two Unamuno Preceptorials:

Notes on the discussion of The Rational Dissolution

Notes from the discussion on the Depths of the Abyss

From these two classes I have gained a greater appreciation of high school students who draw Manga instead of following the class discussion. I’m hoping that we get somewhere worth being in this book before I either resort to drawing cartoon strips of Unamuno in the Abyss or my head finally explodes.

For my part I do not want to make peace between my heart and my head, between my faith and my reason; I prefer that they be at war. –Miguel de Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations

If I were to express a theme for this book so far, it would be “never mind reason! I need life, and life forever! Ah, but reason is necessary; there is no escaping from it! I shall live within the tension and find vitality in the contradiction.”

I was thinking about the Truth Project along with similar attempts at finding “true truth” – while I don’t necessarily disagree with much of what he says kind of misses the point. I’ve never tried to reason my way to faith, but suspect it to be possible, since everything depends on the premises. Start with premises about the necessity of the Unmoved Mover and you get – well, not to faith, exactly, but to some concept of God. Start with the inerrancy of Scripture, and you do get to faith – though sometimes of an incomplete source. Start with darwanistic materialism and psychology, and you may well end up with the Bicameral Mind. It all depends on what you already believe. Start with Faith and that’s just where you are – “I believe because it is absurd!”

As regards the truth of it all [what he is describing in his book in response to the hunger for immortality], true truth, truth independent of ourselves, beyond our logical and cardiacal truth, as regards that truth – quien sabe?

Apologetics is hard – and apologetics in the way that many of us are using it today is perhaps wrong as well. If you believe because someone has convinced you of some fact or other, what happens when someone cleverer comes along and casts doubt on the fact? Unamuno’s solution seems to be not to worry too much about facts and logic in regards to faith – it’s all about the vital longing; I believe because… well, because I believe. I’m not sure how well I like that solution yet, but I’m certainly looking forward to seeing the other side of the rational abyss!