Why in the world would I publish something as open to criticism as that last post?
While formulating my own critique of what I had said, I had to ask myself that question. The answer is that I have suddenly become impressed by the idea that the real danger of the kind of education I’m pursuing is that I will become, at best, a profound commenter upon the real work of others. I know the arguments about intellectual apprenticeship, discharging one’s debt to the academic community by first producing works that make clearer or more available the established ideas of others. But there’s a shameful reticence in confining oneself to the safe, academically plausible moves of interpretation and comparison.
The secret life of scholars who do confine their writings to such moves always involves real convictions and active determinations from the very same research that results (publicly) in works of commentary. A fellow might busily churn out analyses of, for example, the poems of Dylan Thomas that give no evidence that he actually reads Thomas for any other reason than to apply this or that method of literary criticism. But (one hopes) he does have profounder reasons for reading Thomas. Reading Thomas contributes something to his own enacted perspective.
The danger is keeping that enacted perspective a secret. When it’s kept a secret, the productive aspects of scholarship become truly cynical. One produces either to pass this or that class, or to retain one’s position as professor, or in any other way to ensure one’s continued freedom to read and think. Fair enough. But seriously, if that’s you, get a life.
My belief is that intellectual life should serve to nourish one’s enacted perspective. In other words, what the intellectual her or himself actually thinks should not be hermetically sealed of from active life, from daily life, from public life by the false front of commenting on “bigger names” and established ideas. One is not a point of academic light whose value consists in illuminating the real content of the so-called “great conversation”; instead, the conversation should be maintained only insofar as it shines light on one’s own enacted perspective.
For this reason, early yesterday morning after a vivid night of paper-writing and caffeinated reflection, I decided to organize several convictions I then felt under the general headings “mysticism” and “dialectic.” Quite possibly these reflections were too disconnected from their sources in specific texts and reflections on texts. But at the same time I’m actually proud of my readiness to rashly expose what my academic work has actually brought me to think about things. Such exposure not only preserves me from becoming a commenting drudge, it also provides the opportunity for harsh and honest critique of what I actually think about things. And it is from such critique that the direction of my academic work needs to take its cues if it’s to be in the service of my enacted perspective.
From this insight, I have begun to formulate a more driven conception of the purpose of this blog. Certainly it is loosely organized around my subjects of academic interest—contemporary theology, continental philosophy, legal theory, church history, rhetoric, and social theory—but it lacks the sense of directedness that comes from (rashly) exposing the connection and progress of my academic work and my enacted perspective. The last post of “theses” was a premature attempt to establish such directedness.
Here’s a better attempt:
Still an undergraduate, I lack the institutional directedness of a post-graduate student engaged in a specific trajectory of research. Nonetheless, I can offer a programmatic summation of my current private intellectual concerns and the way my academic work (such as it is) fits into those concerns. These are my concerns and coordinate academic prospects (—which can serve as a sort of prospectus for the course of this blog over the holidays and next semester):
Mysticism — deriving from my enacted perspective that the most important function of religion is to bring humans more and more to rely on God, I am concerned to understand the history and thinking of the tradition of Christian mysticism. I want to understand why they believed that we can pray always, that love is the power which drives the universe, and that union with God is the chief end of man. To this end I am carefully studying McGinn’s History of Christian Mysticism, and I am participating in an individual study next semester on “Desire in Contemporary Thought.”
Theology — deriving from my enacted perspective that theological and historical-theological knowledge is both vital to my future and necessary to the development of my inner life, I am concerned to understand both the sources of my own tradition and appealing contemporary relatives to it. To this end I am carefully studying Calvin’s Institutes, the works of Karl Barth, and Hans Urs von Balthasar’s epic systematic theology.
Liberation — deriving from my enacted perspective that the majority of contemporary Christian engagement in political life and social thought is woefully inadequate, both conceptually and from an ethical perspective, I am concerned to understand the traditions of thought and action in the recent history of the world which seem to embody (even if unconcsiously) a more Christian ethic of responsibility. To this end I am studying Goodchild’s Capitalism and Religion with a friend next semester, attempting to grasp the driving ideas and motivations of marxism and marxians, and trying to systematically think and write about justice in legal theory and Christian thought.
Philosophy — deriving from my enacted perspective that philosophical discourse is one of the most influential discourses on all areas of intellectual life, I am concerned to understood the genealogy of ideas and the historical coordinates of what appear to be my own convictions. To this end I am studying the writings of Hegel, William James, and contemporary Speculative Realists.
In addition to this newly self-conscious exposure of the program of my thinking as it will be expressed in this blog, I announce a new section of the site.
I have taken the space labeled “The New Wor(l)d” and set it aside to function solely as a repository for extended attempts to rashly expose my enacted perspective—in which my convictions and concerns will be the foreground and my academic sources and thinking will be the background. There’s no need to add that section of the site to your feed reader, as I will be announcing here the arrival of any new content there.
