Declaration of principles


I rarely teach the same class two semesters in a row, and almost every semester I have an entirely new class on the schedule. Most academics teach the same topics over and over, with only the occasional chance to do something novel. But even with my varied assignments, I notice certain themes recurring almost every time I teach. I finished the Methodist Course of Study School today, and I found myself riding those hobbyhorses once again. Here's what I tend to emphasize -- the messages under the content -- every time I get in front of a class.

1. Draw deeply and widely from the storehouse of knowledge. The history that brought us to this point is the richest resource you'll ever encounter. And you live in the golden age -- the time of greatest access to that resource that anyone has ever experienced. We know more about what people have thought and done throughout the extent of our time on this planet than any previous generation, by a huge margin. And access to that storehouse of ideas, facts, theories, and proposals is easier and freer than ever before. Somewhere in there is the answer you're looking for, or the building block to the answer you need to construct.

2. We are in thrall to people long dead. The values, goals, and interpretive schemes we use are inherited from generations past -- sometimes thousands of years in the past. The fact that they seem obvious and natural to us says nothing about whether they are truly obvious and natural. If we are unable to get a perspective on those structures themselves, we remain their slaves.

3. Power corrupts. The purest principles imaginable tend to be twisted into self-serving casuistry when those who hold them attain positions of influence. Although a few noble individuals buck the trend, institutions never do.

4. Generally speaking, people try to do good. Almost no one but the sociopathic deliberately attempts to do evil. Actions can be best understood as attempts to do what's best -- for one's self, for one's family or tribe, for values one holds dear. That means ...

5. It's worthwhile to try to understand strange, destructive, or incomprehensible behavior. There's a reason for it, if we can put ourselves in another's place -- not necessarily a good reason, but a reason that can be comprehended. Time spent trying to understand people who seem foolish, disgusting, or horrible is time well spent.

6. Things are seldom what they seem. We make sense of things in certain heuristic ways because we need to get on with our lives. That doesn't mean our shortcuts, the ones that get enshrined in our culture and our institutions as "common sense," have led us to the correct answer. Digging underneath appearances, surprise is your constant companion.

7. The tools of scholarship provide our best chance at peeling away the layers covering those rich, perplexing, complicated stories. Maybe some geniuses can muster the determination and rigor to do it just by lying in a dark room and thinking hard. But for most of us, methodologies are necessary -- and they're available in the scholarly disciplines.

8. The truths we need are invariably complex. We may be attracted to simple answers, but they're not good for us. They give us permission to stop thinking. I have no proof of this last assertion, any more than I do of the ones that precede it -- every single one is an assumption underlying my thinking and my teaching. But enough simple answers have turned out to be lies, and enough complicated stories have turned out to contain parts of the truth, that it's become a guiding principle for me. I spend my classes trying to unravel my students' simple answers, and convince them that exchanging security for uncertainty is a better deal than they would have ever thought.

Posted: Sat - May 19, 2007 at 08:05 PM         |

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