Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Archives for December 2016

A Problem in the Modern University

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In an interview for C2C Journal, Dr. Jordan Peterson mused that:

“I mean, I think huge swaths of the university are irrevocably corrupted: sociology, gone; anthropology, gone; history, big chunks of it are gone, the classics, literature, social work, political science in many places, and that doesn’t cover women’s studies, ethnic studies. They probably started lost, and it’s gotten far worse. I believe now, with the exception of the science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) branch, that universities do more harm than good. I think they produce indentured servants in the United States because tuition fees have gone up so much and you can’t declare bankruptcy on your student loans. We’re teaching university students lies, and pandering to them, and I see that as counterproductive.”

I think that, over all, this assessment is likely to be true. The humanities and liberal arts have traditionally included logic and rhetoric education as staples of a good education. But most humanities degrees in the modern university require no logic courses. I’m not against a liberal arts education. In fact, there is a sense in which such an education is priceless, but with the diminished state of the humanities, many of the available degrees hardly qualify as liberal arts educations. And going into debt to achieve an education with no economic payoff is a bad decision. Education is necessarily vocational and while financial markets aren’t the sole determiners of value, the ability to eat, care for your children, and plan for the future are necessary considerations. When academics counsel people to be unconcerned about these areas of life, they are setting people up for emotional and economic ruin.

I’ve been accused of STEM idolatry before, but it was by a theologian who didn’t seem to understand things like ‘wisdom,’ ‘planning,’ or mathematics. The purpose of an education is human happiness and classical anthropology indicates that virtue is one of the key elements of happiness. The average college education seems to do little to supply virtue or the skills necessary to pursue virtue without being an ‘indentured servant.’

The current system is one in which universities end up existing, not to promote human happiness, but to maintain existence. Professors encourage students to obtain expensive doctoral degrees despite there being no jobs waiting on the other end of the dissertation defense. If you have more students, you can keep your job. If you have more students with terminal degrees, you have less jobs available for those people. And while happiness consists in more than having a paying job and owning property, it does not exclude them.

Anyway, I really think that a classical style education in the liberal arts for even very young children is a powerful solution to these problems. Especially if there is a way to do it that allows children to gain skills which they could use to afford college should they choose to attend. Graduating from high school with the ability to use logic, do research, discern dialectic from rhetoric, teach yourself math, and run a small business making a product or providing a service would do well to set people up for happiness and success.

Will it die?

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In an article by Father Longenecker it is predicted that progressive Christianity will soon die out whereas historic Christianity will remain. Here are his definitions:

The historic Christians believe their religion is revealed by God in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, and that the Scriptures are the primary witness of that revelation. They believe the church is the embodiment of the risen Lord Jesus in the world and that his mission to seek and to save that which is lost is still valid and vital. Historic Christians believe in the supernatural life of the Church and expect God to be at work in the world and in their lives.

Progressive Christians believe their religion is a historical accident of circumstances and people, that Jesus Christ is, at best, a divinely inspired teacher, that the Scriptures are flawed human documents influenced by paganism and that the church is a body of spiritually minded people who wish to bring peace and justice to all and make the world a better place.

In the article he gives eleven reasons, all of which are important. Over all I think he’s right. Rodney Stark observed this empirically:

Not all denominations shared in the immense rise in membership rates, and to the degree that denominations rejected traditional doctrines and ceased to make serious demands on their followers, they ceased to prosper. The churching of America was accomplished by aggressive churches committed mitted to vivid otherworldliness.

Roger Finke;Rodney Stark. The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (Kindle Locations 78-80). Kindle Edition.

What is deemed progressive Christianity by Longenecker will, in my opinion cease to exist on a long enough timeline because people who practice religion merely as a matter of identity are typically less concerned about dogma and practice than those who convert. Progressive Christianity does not convert or tend to evangelize. Therefore, it will either morph beyond any resemblance to historic Christianity (which it is close to doing) or it will simply die out by attrition and low birthrates.

Give his article a read.

Make No Provision for the Flesh

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Let us walk becomingly, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in strife and jealously, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the passions of the flesh. (Romans 13:13-14)[1]

A friend recently asked, “Why do we continue to struggle with sin despite how clearly the Bible teaches that sin in general and specific sins can indeed be overcome in the Christian life?”

Here’s the answer I gave her in the moment:

  1. It’s a strategy issue. In the case of somebody learning to play flute or learn Galician, we assume they will need several hours a week focused on that. In the case of overcoming a sin like irrational anger, which we perhaps have practiced for 50-70 hours a week for 30 years, we often expect to overcome by beating it four or five times in a row. We don’t plan fully to resist, replace, and continue replacing the evil deed. In other words, we don’t design our lives around becoming Christ-like. We design our lives around watching TV when we’re tired, getting through the day, and just getting enough money to pay rent and relax. The result will be that our spiritual formation is rather influenced by those very things.
  2. We underestimate how hard change is in general (see above) so we think that ‘trying harder’ will work. But when trying harder doesn’t work (like with learning Spanish) we get frustrated. This is the fundamental problem of frustration is school.
  3. I think that modern Protestant Christianity struggles mightily with a fixed mindset and a victim mindset when it comes to sin. There is a strong tendency to not take ownership of our sinfulness. I’ll hear people say, ‘I know I’m sinful.’ But I’ll here the same person say in a sort of self-excusing joke, ‘I wish Adam didn’t eat that fruit.’ But the Bible’s teaching is that ‘all sin.’ We tend to treat our sinfulness as two things: a fixed state and the result of somebody messing with us. But really, it’s on us. We’re 100% responsible for our sins. We certainly have bad habits we’ve picked up from mom and dad, the culture around us, and so-on but we’ve also grown up with logic and reason, divine revelation, a will, and we’ve still chosen all of these things that make us materially discontent as well as spiritually destitute. Until we can take full ownership of our personal rebellion against God, I do not think we can fully choose to live otherwise. The other side of these mindset flaws is that we rightly believe that ‘there’s nothing we can do in the flesh to overcome sin.’ But the problem is that for those who believe the gospel, nothing we do is in the flesh unless it is sin. In other words, in the New Testament, any attempt to obey Christ by a baptized Christian is cooperation with God’s grace and therefore ‘in the Spirit.’ So, there is nothing you can do in the flesh that will help us, but there is a lot we can do with God’s endorsement, cooperation, and even foreordination (Ephesians 2:10) that would help you overcome our sins.

Very few of us wake up in the morning and say, “What can I do to put on Christ today?” “What can I do to take away provision for the flesh and its passions?” But I think this sort of resolute, daily planning is part of what it will take to overcome sins that have lasted a long time.

The other important thing to observe in the Bible passage above is that Paul says, ‘put on the Lord Jesus Christ.’ The clothing metaphor is suggestive of daily work. This makes sense. To use a fitness metaphor, if you work for 6 months to lose weight, repair your blood sugar, and decrease you resting heartrate to keep from dying you know how to become super fit. But you might possibly solve your problem and then restart all the habits that got you so unhealthy to begin with. When it comes to spiritual growth, we tend to do the same thing. A small bit of success leads to lax living for a season and then we reap the results. That’s why Paul says this,

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. (Phil 3:12-16 ESV)”

So a constant recognition that we have not attained perfection must fit simultaneously with our pursuit of perfection. It is very important not to go in reverse on purpose. You can see this same principle in the story of the Ebenezer stone in 1 Samuel 7. If you’re in a war it is quite important to hold the line.[2]

References

[1] Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, et al., Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th Edition. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012), Ro 13:13–14.

[2] Of course, it doesn’t mean to hold the line of a point of view about which you’re mistaken. The New Testament is clear about the need for reasonableness with respect to disagreements: Philippians 4:2-9.

Book Review: Gorilla Mindset by Mike Cernovich

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Introduction

Mike Cernovich is a civil rights lawyer, though I do not think he practices any longer. He’s considered a controversial figure. I don’t really care about that. A person could be utterly terrible, but it does not change the merit of their arguments or the truth value of their claims. I first came across Mike Cernovich a couple of years ago when I had found a study on ebsco about cabbage juice and heart burn symptoms. When trying to find more information about the constituents of cabbage and what it contains that might increase mucilage production in the stomach lining, I came across a blog called fit-juicer which cited the same article. While the site was clearly designed to sell his books on juicing, it had excellent recipes for juice (my wife brought a juicer into our marriage…I never would have considered one, but I’m glad we have it). Not only were his recipes tasty, but he typically cited scientific literature related to the consumption of juice or plant constituents in relation to the benefits he claimed for his juices. It was interesting. I literally went through his website using in-article links and never read the comments. I had no idea that the guy was a lawyer, a figure or controversy, or even his name.

Anyhow, well over a year later, I was working on a writing project (still am) and was looking for a more practical application of Carol Dweck’s mindset ideas that I had found in her book on motivation in education. In the process, I came across Mike Cernovich’s book Gorilla Mindset. It had a title that seemed cheesy, although most people want the things it claims to provide. I found, a preview on Scribd (or was it a pirated version?). After I looked through the exercises at the end of each chapter and saw how similar they were in design to the ones I was writing for something else, I went ahead and bought a kindle edition of the book. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the book. It didn’t merely provide a model for what I was trying to do myself, but it provided legitimately helpful insight into improving one’s life and happiness.

The Good

  • Cernovich writes in a terse, no-nonsense style that is easy to absorb and does not leave the reader with so much theory that they cannot act on the principles he explains. Example, when talking about the way you make plans in life, he writes, “Maybe this, maybe that, maybe I’ll be a contender. Mr. Maybe is the ultimate seducer. Mr. Maybe whispers honey in your ear.”
  • Cernovich’s advice on health is actionable and the mindset shift he offers on health makes sense. Particularly his comment that a sick body leads to a sick mind. While it is true that some bodily ailments cannot be changed through exercise/nutrition (I have a genetic bone disorder), it is true that nutrition and exercise can shift you into a more positive frame of mind about such things. Not only that, but when I lift weights regularly, I have significantly less chronic pain than I have after just two or three weeks out of the gym.
  • Each chapter has helpful and actionable exercises that one could actually do to improve himself or herself.

The Bad

  • The kindle version had several typos, he could have used an editor (or a better one).
  • I wish he had cited more sources…but getting his readers lost in secondary literature probably wouldn’t have helped them the way he intended to, so while this is a bad in relationship to my preferences as a reader, it is probably a good with regard to his goals as a writer.

Conclusion

I have nothing to say about Mike’s more controversial endeavors. But he’s a helpful writer and 9.99 for the kindle edition of his book Gorilla Mindset is a good price for people who struggle with being stuck in life, feeling ineffectual, or who have persistent and powerful bouts of self-doubt the prevent them from achieving a measure of emotional or moral happiness in life. I recommend his book.

Disclosure: I wrote this review after buying the book because I enjoyed it.

Book Review: Virtuous Minds by Philip Dow

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Virtuous Minds: Intellectual Character Development by Philip E. Dow

I don’t know much about the author of this book except that he is a Cambridge Ph.D. and a school superintendent. But if the content of this book is any indication, I can make three probably inferences: he is a man of deep reflection, a man who loves to teach, and a man who loves his students. In these senses, he is a true philosopher.

The Bad

There isn’t really anything bad about this book. I will say that in the forward, Jason Baehr wrote that ‘this is the first book of its kind.’ I’ll just observe that this isn’t quite true. It was published in 2013, but I can think, off of the top of my head several books very similar to it of varying qualities: Habits of Mind, Love Your God With All Your Mind, Excellence, and Epistemology. I intentionally left out older or more academic treatments (which would extend the list into nearly two dozen books!)

The other issue I took with the book was that it didn’t, in general, use the Christian tradition’s language that already existed concerning intellectual virtue: wisdom, studiousness, intelligence, sanity, etc. Because of this, ‘curiosity’ was considered a virtue, when Aquinas considered it a vice closer to what we might call distraction (55-60). The material in the book is quite good and it’s okay to use and update terminology. But it was interesting that not even a nod was made to Aquinas’ terminology, particularly where the field already used one word to mean quite nearly the opposite of what it came to mean in the present book.

The Good

Wow, this was a great book for any educator, undergraduate student, parent, or pastor. Every chapter is well organized with its terms defined, examples of the titular virtue and its lack, as well as actionable steps to acquire the virtue. The virtues discussed are: courage, carefulness, tenacity, fair-mindedness, curiosity, honesty, and humility. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

  1. “It has been said that a person’s character is forged, not in one dramatic moment but in the ledger of his or her daily work.” (30)
  2. “…the fruits of habitually careful thinking are deceptively mundane. Spaceships get to their destinations and back safely, offices effectively accomplish their goals because employees trust each other’s work, our relationships blossom, and our gardens bloom.” (38)
  3. “There is something deeply satisfying about completing a task, especially when that task included significant obstacles or hardships.” (44)
  4. And here’s one of the many great actionable steps, “So when you are tired and tempted to switch on the TV or surf the net, decide to open a book for a few minutes. When you are tempted to ignore a newspaper article because it will require too much mental energy, or because it appears to contradict your opinion, take the ten minutes required to read it thoughtfully.” (124)

Conclusion

While the book wasn’t a great deal of new information for me. It was delightful to read and discuss with my colleagues as a starting point for training our students’ in the habits of mind that will lead them to success and hopefully happiness.