Anselm & the Times

The New York Times today had an interesting front-page blog post, The Self-Thinking Thought. Considering St Anselm’s recent popularity in my own conversations (and his concurrent ascendence of personal interest), it was apropos that Nathan Schneider (the post’s author, who also writes a blog entitled Killing the Buddha, which I haven’t explored at all) would discuss the ontological argument (or at least his experience in trudging his way through Anselm’s work).

I especially enjoyed this included illustration, also courtesy of Mr. Schneider:

I personally have little to offer, intellectually, in relationship to Anselm (and even less in critique of Schneider’s post). I do, however, remember the ontological argument as being something of a curiosity (put mildly; maybe it’s more accurately the ‘brunt of all religious/theistic absurdity’) to the atheists and agnostics I worked with at the Institute for Humist Studies (IHS). I haven’t read any of Anselm’s works, though I have a rudimentary familiarity with them, nor have I read any sort of response or criticism (other than the generally knee-jerk reactionary disavowing prevalent among the non-religious).

As with much else, of any kind of nature (whether mopeds, opera, literature, friendships, &c), when I’ve not yet made any sort of hard-and-fast decision or indelible opinion, I tend to consume indiscriminately. Similarly, I am encountering the same behavior regarding theology and religion (and indeed, spirituality and some modicum of practice): I’m still such a neophyte that I don’t have any real capacity to form preferences or tastes. Of course, there are parameters, inherent ground-rules I’ve had for myself (“I don’t need to try Communism to know it’s bad,” to quote The Opposite of Sex): some internalized set of boundaries is necessary in any process of discernment, regardless of nature. The key, though, is to understand how, when, and under what circumstances such boundaries are malleable (if, indeed, they are ever malleable).

When I first became interested in opera some years back, I saw everything I could: every single performance, every era, every language, every genre. Whatever, whenever, wherever. I had no discrimination about consumption, every opportunity was an opportunity to glean preference, idea, thought, and experience. I saw Baroque opera, Classical opera, Romantic opera, contemporary opera. English, French, German, Russian, Czech, Italian. Everything. I sat through hours of performance that I really didn’t enjoy (and kept checking my watch throughout), but I still learned.  I also saw transcendent, breathtaking, exhilarating performances that tapped into the very root of my soul.

‘The process of discernment’ is, in its usual context, applies to one’s navigation of religious practice, belief, and – ultimately – faith. But it extends so far outside of that, the honing and crafting of personal desire, opinion, and thought. Philosophies need to be contextualized, I think, to be valid – preferences have to be contrasted to dislikes or disinterests. Reading Sartre, Nietzsche, Kant, or Heidegger is well and good, but without proper intellectual context, they become entirely void of true substance and meaning.

(At this point, I should note that this is the fundamental root of my ‘issue’ with core curricula at colleges and universities: the laying of an intellectual foundation can’t occur, in any meaningful sense, in a vacuum. How many students read, say, The Republic, or The Communist Manifesto, or a great piece of literature (Dostoevsky and Nietzsche (hell, any existentialist) both seem to be particularly victim to existing in a vacuum, without any real grasp of the framework and context of the work), but are lacking – in an essential sense – what makes these works important?

Understanding relevency (even if not agreeing with it-) is an endlessly complex task that, in no situation, can occur in the course of a semester, a year, or even the full tenure of an undergraduate career. Maybe the closest, I think, one can come to a truly immersive, worthwhile venture of the sort would be to do one’s studies at, say, St John’s College. The buying and selling of presumably-useful (though often hollow and substance-less) ‘intellectualism’ raises my ire, because it flies in the face of every sort of meaning the liberal arts possess.).

The Fine Line Between Culture and Trash

As much as I wish I could identify as this constantly erudite, high-culture/brow intellectual, and have that be the most infallible, indelible element of my nature… the truth is, it’s not. I’m some weird consortium of high and low brow pursuit, of theoretical abstraction and reality-driven pragmatism. I’m reminded of the Yiddish film, Der Dybbuk, about a spirit that occupies both the land of the living and the land of the dead; literally dybbuk meaning ‘between two worlds.’ My entire life, I’ve been between two worlds, and have never forced myself to commit to anything, really: the duality of who I am can be astonishingly powerful and beneficial (it has given me a fantastic strength, intellectually and critically), or catastrophically disruptive.

The past eight weeks have been really quite difficult for me, for a host of reasons, not the least of which has been the pigeonholing of my ‘nature’ as a student. Without doubt, they’ve been the most trying of my academic career, and I’m now seriously concerned about applying for, and receiving, a Fulbright Grant to conduct research. In terms of project ideas, I’m confident in the importance and utility of my proposal (which is, as yet, only outlined and still requires writing); my GPA has slipped considerably, though, and Fulbrights are very competitive.

My academic career, historically, has been one of moderate intensity, externally stimulated by my own interests, curiousities, and fascinations. Though I have very mixed feelings about my undergraduate experience (I attended, and graduated, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a top-tier (albeit lesser-known) engineering school in the Northeast), I cannot go so far as to express abject regret: the critical thinking skills I acquired as a science student have proven incredibly useful in my movement to graduate school. In one department, particularly, I’m something of an affirmative-action student: I was accepted likely more for the curious and eclectic background than for any particular specific merit.

Historical academic successes, though, has accompanied (sometimes deserved, sometimes not-) an accumulating hubris about my role and position in academia. Since my background is so wildly varied (and, admittedly, consistently inconsistent and unfocused), I’ve had the fortune of attempting some modicum of success in a number of different areas: military science, nuclear and physics engineering, physics, sociology, medical anthropology, public health, ethics, data management, &c have all occupied large quantities of time, emotion, and intellectual energy. I’m not proud of having a chip in my shoulder or disproportionate arrogance, but it is extant. And the strings of successful academic and intellectual ventures came to a screeching halt this summer.

I can attribute this summer’s folly to a number of elements, but ultimately they all boil down to what kind, what sort, of student I am. The class itself was small (the first four weeks, five; the second four weeks, four), and the instructor was a native speaker and prepared grammatically rigorous lectures and assignments. Each week saw a minimum of twenty hours of class time, typically with another five or six hours of additional activity (films, lectures, conversation hours, etc). In addition, each evening and weekend had somewhere between two and four hours of homework (simply to stay afloat; studying to actually learn material would  be another 2 hours nightly, ideally).

And the end, to make a long story short, is thus: I’m really not very focused. I love studying languages, but I also love – among other things – sleeping late, going to the gym, cooking elaborately inefficient meals, wrenching my moped, going out with friends, reading books for pleasure’s sake, drinking wine from the bottle, spending time with my significant other, looking at the ceiling, reflecting and meditating, talking with friends….ad infinitum. I’m simply not designed for, as a thinking person (and of course, many – probably the most ‘successful’  – of thinking persons are designed for-), to study one subject  intensely, and passionately. I need time to disengage from the rigors of daily life.

Insofar as this summer was a valuable learning experience, I’m glad that I made the decision to partake in such an intensive program. I certainly know plenty of Polish now, and it did keep me – in some sense – intellectually stimulated. However, were I to make the decision over again, I would never have chosen to enroll. I have a low grade now eating up a large amount of my transcript, I never received funding from my department (a whole other situation entirely, and very much the focus of ire and aggravation), and emotionally, psychologically, and scholastically exhausting. At some point, I needed a make-or-break academic situation, and I think this may have been it. I’m a very serious student, but my life is so muchmore than being a student that I can’t function in an environment where scholasticism becomes the only focus.

Suffice to say, I am thrilled to have my life back: I can go back to the gym, I can begin reading for pleasure (again!), I have plenty of time to socialize, to write, to reflect, meditate, think, imagine. And I can get on with being this odd, incongruous bundle of contraditions, aspirations, criticisms, praise, and everything else.