Students and God

In Modern Philosophy, my students keep wanting to believe that the philosophers of the 1600s didn't really believe in God: they just had to pretend that they did, to avoid the wrath of the Church. I think my students really perceive all the God-talk as fake, meaningless, even maybe childish or primitive. They say they are "put off" by it.

I really try to challenge their preconceptions. I tell them that they are anachronistically reading on meanings that these philosophers did not intend. I encourage them to delete the word "God," and look in a new way at what they are actually saying: "What concepts are they associating with this word?" I have them labor over the text, while I write their findings on the board: "orderliness of the universe," "creator of all" (which I help translate as "the deepest grounding of all existence"), "omniscience" which I help translate as "everything that is is ultimately knowable by some consciousness," etc.

Then, I ask, "Do you believe any of this? Do you believe that the universe is orderly? How do you explain why there is something rather than nothing? What is the source of all being? It just accidentally came into being? How is that an answer and not a cop out? Do you think that everything that exists is at least theoretically knowable? What would it mean to exist but not be knowable at all, by any kind of consciousness?"

My students seem intrigued, or maybe even disturbed at the implication that their deepest beliefs might be something like belief in God. So, by the next class, they come back to the view that these philosophers don't really believe in God, or that's not really want "God" means, etc.

Or, even more bizarrely, they try to get around thinking about this by coming back (yes, back) to questioning Descartes' earlier claim, "I think, therefore I exist."

"You really question that?" I ask, showing my astonishment. "You really think that that is the most problematic aspect of Descartes' proof?!"

They try the Buddhist denial of Self.

"Descartes says nothing about 'self,' here!" I point out. "The claim he is making here is not the claim that Buddhists deny. Buddhism objects to sharp individuation, in favor of a view that emphasizes the interconnectedness of all being. That's very different from what Descartes is doing at this moment in his proof."

With reluctance, they turn their attention back to the God question then.

I thought it would be fun for them to realize that the notion of God may mean something more mysterious and interesting than they had originally thought, but their attitude suggests almost a moral stance against considering this in any way different from the blanket dismissal that they have been trained to make.

I am having more fun with this than it may seem. And I am certainly not trying to "convert" anyone -- I tell them "I'm not saying you have to believe this; I'm just saying you have to understand it before you are even in a position to decide whether you believe it or not."

But I am distressed at how dogmatic is their disbelief, especially when they think they are preaching against dogmatism!

This is going to be an interesting class. The students will find that the God question never does go away during the Modern period of philosophy (roughly 1600-1800). They will find that it is still not clear by the end of this time period that the notion of God is obsolete. The idea of a purely mechanistic universe develops by then, but many remain unconvinced -- and, anyway, by the early part of the 20th century, that image of the universe is found not to work because it is denied by quantum physics. The universe just is very strange--none of the oversimplified attempts to finally explain it completely have ever worked!

Taking Stock for a New Year

Happy New Year!

Ok, I realize I've not been posting to any of my blogs for a while, and I apologize for this.

Catching up from the last few posts:

Music

My remaining concerts last semester went well, I think. I played silver flute with an orchestra accompanying a chorus, and this was a new experience for me: playing in an orchestra. Most of my playing has been top line in small ensembles, or solos. So I'm usually carrying a melody line -- it's like telling a story. Orchestral playing is very different. Your job is to weave colors into a tapestry of sound. Woodwind players may sit out for long periods of time, but then, suddenly, when they are on, they are often featured. This is stressful in whole new ways. Counting rests is surprisingly hard. If you lose count, how do you figure out when to come in?! My strategy was to listen to recordings of our pieces while looking at my music, to practice counting rests and to hear exactly where to come in. So I had back-up plans for if I lost count, such as, "when the trumpets come in, that's the second beat of measure 17 of my long 24-measure rest."

It was a new and different experience for me, but I enjoyed it. And picking up modern flute again inspired me to resurrect a long-abandoned dream: to play piccolo. I am finding it challenging and fun!

The next performances were my playing Irish flute at our big Christmas service on campus. This is a very popular event -- two services, one right after the other, during an evening in the last week of classes. Lots of people from the community come as well. My job was to arrive early enough to stake out a place right in the middle of the balcony, and, at the appointed time in the service, to play from there, so that the flute would waft down from on high.

I chose two pieces that blended well together -- the first reflective, even sad; the second lifting back to joy. I picked these up by ear, so I had no written score, which turned out to be good, because this was a candlelight service, and I was sitting in the dark.

As the service started, audience filled in tightly around me (many people not noticing that I had a flute, because, again, it was dark up there!) and the service started, and of course there was other music too, and I suddenly had a moment of panic: what if I forget how my pieces go? I had thought of this ahead of time, and trained my fingers to know how to start -- but would that really work? Fortunately, it turned out not to be a problem. During the Reading before I was to play, the music returned to my mind, and I was ready.

I stood up in response to the Reading, and played. I was shaking like a leaf, I think because it was intimidating being so closely surrounded by audience! But I was into the music, and I think it went well.

Then I realized I still had to do it all over again for the second service!

But that went well too. People afterward said that it was in fact an amazing effect -- they didn't know where I was. The music just filled the space. One person (a former student of mine) said she cried.

What a sacred opportunity, to be asked to offer music at such an event!

I am really glad that I had so many performance opportunities last semester! That was good for me in so many ways.

Teaching

My courses last semester were meaningful and good. This semester, my schedule is very full. I'm back to a full course load, with essentially three new preps, which means these are new courses. (In one case, it's actually a course I have taught before, but a long time ago, and I've completely revised it.) Oddly enough, all of my courses overfilled. In fact, I had to get new rooms for all three. And students are still asking to be let in! So, not only do I have three new preps, but my grading load is going to be large.

House

I still really love my house. There's a bit of a problem with part of the roof, so I have to pull the snow off that section of roof every time it snows, but I've mastered the technique and find myself enjoying adding this to my list of winter chores, along with shoveling the driveway and feeding the birds.

State of Being

Music has been good for me; my new house has been good for me; my teaching has been going well. And, yet, my state of being hasn't been great. I'm still struggling, at some deep level that I do not fully understand. A few years back, life was overwhelming me, which led to genuine burnout. Then I worked hard to simplify as much as I could, to allow for healing, and I felt some success in all of this. Life feels more manageable. I feel more confident in many ways, having come through all of that. Yet, I remain a little torn between competing interests, and a little frustrated at still not having as much time as I would like to have to write. Yet these frustrations do not in themselves seem significant enough to account for the current state of my soul.

So, I'm trying to figure that out.

Difficult Students

In both of my classes this semester, I have some difficult students.

One student in my Peace Studies class has taken to lobbing ad hominem attacks at almost all of the authors whose books we are reading, as well as some of the guest speakers I have brought to class (though, thank goodness, not in their presence). Not only do these attacks feel mean-spirited, they also turn out to be replete with factual errors. I need to figure out how to deal with this more effectively when it happens. But also, I need to find out why this student has become so unhappy. I think the course is getting to him. I suspect he took it expecting to find it easy to hold his own against the major premises of the course, and this is turning out more difficult than he expected. It has thrown him into a panic.

In my other class, a class on ethical theories, a group of students argues (badly and incompletely) against literally everything. I finally stopped class the other day to point out that it amazed me to no end that they were arguing against the author we were now discussing since their arguments against earlier authors convinced me that they were naturalists and should therefore like the current author. "Help me understand what's going on here!" I said.

They gave me bewildered looks.

I was not sure whether they were actually understanding any of theories we were studying. I had also detected that they were using the same argument strategy over and over again. No matter what ethical theory we were discussing, they kept coming back over and over again to saying that there are people who seem not to care about morality at all, who do terrible things without remorse; therefore, who is to say that there are any moral absolutes at all?

First, I ask what their evidence is for this. They cite to movies they've seen! I say that doesn't count as evidence -- someone's just making that up. Then they cite dubious statistics they think they remember from psychology classes they've taken, but they are unable to follow that up with actual citations to research, or describe the research that supposedly supported such claims.

Realizing that this is all beside the point anyway, I then shift to trying to point that out. "Even if you are right that there are lots of immoral or amoral people out there who see no problem with doing terrible things, how does that undermine this moral theory that we are studying? Are you assuming that everyone in the world has to agree with something for it to count as true?"

A lively debate ensues that doesn't quite get to where I expected it to go. They keep coming back to "what gives someone the right to tell another person they are wrong?"

So, I try something else: "In real life, no one lets someone off the hook who has done something terrible just because that person sees no problem with what they are doing. We don't, in courts, say, 'oh, well, if you don't see it as wrong, that's okay then -- you are free to go!' So, ethical theories are trying to get at what is wrong about those behaviors that most people do regard as clearly wrong."

The students return to a line of discussion invoking cultural relativism. There are no behaviors that most people regard as clearly wrong, they try to argue. Maybe this is so within a culture, but somewhere, there is some culture in which any given questionable behavior is okay.

Since pointing out that cultural relativism does not imply moral relativism does not seem to get through to my students any more, I try to counter their last claim more directly. I point out that just because cultures may disagree about some moral claims does not mean that there is disagreement about all moral claims. "There is no culture," I point out, "that lets people freely kill whoever they want, whenever they want, for any reason, or even for no reason at all."

I thought that these arguments impressed the students and effectively made the intended points -- but then the next class session, they are at it again. New author, new ethical theory: "this is all a bunch of crap because some people think it's fine to do whatever they want, and so there are no moral absolutes. Who is [insert name of present author] to claim that he knows what is right and wrong -- who gives him the authority to tell everyone what to do?"

I sigh.

Usually in my classes, we don't get so stuck like this. I'm trying to understand why this is happening. My unhappiness with this is similar to my distress at the rhetorical strategies employed in the political arena these days. Maybe they are related. Maybe my students are too influenced by what they see in the news. Maybe they genuinely have trouble distinguishing between actual arguments and other rhetorical strategies that are not actually arguments.

At least in the ethics class, they are trying, to some extent, to construct arguments, but they do not seem to be grasping that they keep arguing against the whole project of ethical theory itself rather than constructing arguments against particular ethical theories. It derails us from discussing the particular details of different ethical theories. I'm almost suspicious that this is an intentional diversionary tactic to avoid serious engagement with the particular theories, but I am not sure about that. The students do show evidence of doing the readings and engaging some details of the readings. I do not think that they are slackers. But I do think they might feel threatened by the prospect of taking ethical theories seriously.

And so the cases in both classes are somewhat similar: students catching glimpses that how you live your life (ethics), and how you engage conflict (peace studies) are questions that really matter. They catch glimpses that there might be something wrong with the standard answers they receive. This shakes them up and so they try to change the subject, by attacking peripheral aspects of the emerging new insights.

I share this because I feel that we are at a crucial stage. I want to handle this well. I worry that if I don't, they will lock into their resistance. But right now, there is still hope that I can help them into more serious examination of points of view that are different from what they have considered before.

A Musical Update

I really love my house. Slowly, I'm getting settled. I still walk around gawking, amazed, saying to myself, "this is my house!" and can hardly believe it.

Meanwhile, I've now had three of my concerts, and two more have been added, so there are three more to go.

The first was a concert in which I played silver flute. The director of my early music ensemble had never heard me play silver flute, and he was impressed enough that he has asked me to join an orchestra he is assembling for a choral concert he is directing. We will have two performances. This is not early music! I've worked on my part, which is easy to play but strange to count -- passages in 5/4 time, or 3/2 time (mixed in with more standard 3/4 and 4/4 passages). I have had no orchestral experience at all, so I don't know if this is normal or not. I used to play with concert bands at times, but that was a long time ago. I don't have a melody line, as such (well, actually I do have one for just one fleeting moment). Most of the time my part is just to add color, I think. This will be a very new experience for me! Most of my recent performing experience has been small-ensemble playing.

So, anyway, my first performance did go well. I accompanied a small group of singers on two pieces.

The second performance was a reprise of one of those pieces for a different event.

The third performance was a number of recorder trios as part of an early music concert. (Yes, in this small way, our early music group is back! I'm really glad!) We played four sets of renaissance pieces in this concert.

I was nervous before the first concert, but once I started playing, I was able to focus on the music and get into it.

I was even more nervous before the early music concert, because I was keenly aware of all that could go wrong. At our dress rehearsal, our recorders clogged badly (a hazard this time of year because of rapidly changing temperatures and humidity levels). For those who don't know, clogging is when the water vapor from your breath condenses in the instrument in a way that it blocks the very narrow passage that the sound comes out of. As you can imagine, a blockage to the area where the sound is supposed to come out creates strange and unexpected sounds. There are ways to try to prevent this, but nothing is foolproof. And there are ways of dealing with this when it happens in performance, but this is not foolproof either. So there is always the serious danger that a major clogging incident could disrupt the performance.

I took all of the preemptive action I could and hoped for the best. My strategy ended up working. I had no clogging problems. The other members of the trio each had minor problems that they were able to address on the fly.

Meanwhile, I suffered other physiological effects of nervousness: shaking, sweaty hands, and the worst: dry mouth. Yet I stayed focused, and things went well, and gradually all of these symptoms disappeared. By the last and most challenging (but also the most fun) piece, I was relaxed and eager to show the audience how wonderful this piece was, and I think it went very well. It was nice to have entered the Zone in performance! That's what a musician most hopes for. We catch those moments in rehearsal sometimes, but it's harder to find in performance because of the stress of performance situations, unless you are very experienced.

It's nice to receive this confirmation that: (a) nervousness is not in itself necessarily fatal to a performance, and (b) it can actually go away during the performance!

So, the next two concerts are the choral concerts where I will be playing silver flute as part of the orchestra. Then I actually have two more concerts after that: two performances on Irish flute as part of a special Christmas event.

I have other updates too, but I'll save these for another posting.

New House!

I've moved into my new house and I really love it! I'm still getting settled, but I just succeeded in getting my computer set up, hence this update.

The worst thing that has gone wrong was that I realized that the room that I want to use as a study did not have a phone plug installed (hence no internet access), but I solved this problem by buying a 50-ft. phone cable. It meanders across the room and across the hall to the one room upstairs that does have a phone plug. Next step: figuring out how to string it across the ceiling so that I don't have to keep unplugging it between uses to make sure no one trips over it. Anyway, if that's the worst problem I've had, it's not so bad, eh? What's fun is that I keep discovering unexpected nice things about this house that I hadn't noticed before!

I'm only a few blocks from where I was before, but suddenly my life feels dramatically different. My walk to my office is now across campus -- and a beautiful part of campus. The house and the gardens are beautiful. The neighborhood is very friendly -- I know most of the people on my street. And I'm now living in a house I own -- this is the first time in my life I finally feel that I'm not living in someone else's space. This is the first move in my life that doesn't feel transitional. This is a place I could (and probably will) remain the rest of my life -- happily.

I counted up the moves I've made in life: 25 major moves (requiring changes of address). That's a lot!

So the move itself wasn't bad. I realized as I got into it, "I know this all too well." I have a system. I am well-experienced. I know how to pack things. I know how to break down boxes again after unpacking.

It's still amazingly chaotic and disruptive. Once I got into it enough that it hit me that my life was seriously going to change, I did hit a moment of weariness and despair. This was about this time last week. My life felt turned inside-out. There was still a lot to do. Physically it is hard work. And moving is also emotional.

I just told myself to keep going, one step at a time. Moving day was Monday. The actual shifting of stuff did not take long (under three hours). Then I went to campus, and after attending to the bare essentials at work, I returned to clean up my old place. As I left to come to my new house, I appreciated the moment. "Here I am at last, arriving at my new life."

I put a folding chair out on my new deck and poured myself a glass of orange-mango juice and went out to sit on the deck to celebrate my arrival in my new life. I had long envisioned this moment, and had had periods of doubting that it ever could or would happen. Now here I was. It was not exactly like I expected: for one thing, it was dark (I had envisioned the moment in the daylight, looking out over the beautiful garden). But it was a nice warm evening. As I relaxed to enjoy the peaceful evening and the sense of arrival, I suddenly started crying. It was happy tears, plus exhaustion.

I didn't linger long, because there was still much to do so that I could be functional enough to resume work the next morning!

I am liking my new life very much. It feels full of potential and promise.

New Updates

New Semester

My semester is getting off to a pretty good start. The students in my classes are very engaged. One class goes galloping off full speed in all directions -- I love their energy but it is a struggle to channel this energy productively. It's early enough in the semester that I am not worried -- I have confidence that we can connect this energy to more forward motion.

I am even feeling reasonably caught up with grading! So, even though I started off the semester already feeling a little behind (see earlier posting), to my surprise, I caught up again. How did this happen? There are two important factors at play. One is that I am no longer department chair. The other is that I have a course release this semester and so am only teaching two courses.

Not being department chair makes a huge difference in my life! There is a lot that no longer comes to me. A few things still do, but I can just pass them off to the new chair. I have been keenly aware of how much this simplifies my life and opens up time.

I do still offer advice and support to the new chair. And she is taking all of this on with cheerfulness, even saying, "I think I do better when I am very busy!" And, although I wonder how long her good cheer will last (it might last!), I am content for both of us to ride our respective cheerfulness as long as we can! Right now it's working. I will let it work! And I really do have confidence that she can handle this well over the long-term.

My life is still not simple, as such. I still coordinate our new Peace Studies program, and there is a lot to be done to continue to develop this. But last year I was doing both. It's nice to be able to focus my energies a bit more.

Music

Also, music is returning to my life, which makes me very happy. I have four performances coming up: one on recorders, two on modern silver flute again, and one on Irish flute.

It's been an amazing experience coming back to the modern flute, after a long time of not touching it because I shifted my attention to the historical flutes. Modern flute really is a much easier instrument. But I'm not all the way back. I regained a lot of where I had been very fast -- I'd say that 75% came back in just a few days of serious practice. Then I plateaued. With a lot more hard work, I can reach 80% on a good day. I hope to reach 90% by concert day, but I might not make it. Still, my fellow performers seem pleased with where I am. One said, "it is such a joy to play with someone who is so musical," and I nearly fell over. When I confessed that I had not seriously worked with this flute for 18 years and I felt I was really struggling, she was surprised.

Embouchure comes and goes. The mark of 90% will be when I feel more consistently in control of tone quality. The high notes are really easy to hit in comparison to wooden flutes, but hard to play well, with fullness and richness of tone. They still sound thin and weak. The fingering patterns are much easier on this flute (one of the major reasons for the total re-design), and so once they came back, that part has been joyously easy.

Then there is playing style. On historical flutes, you use less vibrato. You work hard to get a rich, interesting, beautiful sound without vibrato. But the expectation with modern flute is to use vibrato more. And since I'm playing music written with this expectation, I have to go back to that style of playing. At first I felt resistant, not wanting to undo all the years of work of learning a different style. Finally I just told myself I have to trust myself now to be able to switch back and forth as appropriate. And as I leaped back into the way I used to play, I felt a mixture of amazement and joy that it was all still there and I could let it come back.

But everyone is noticing that I'm playing a little too carefully, and they tell me, "trust your instincts." They even add, "you do have good musical instincts!" What's hard at the moment is playing so many different styles on so many different instruments. But I want to be able to do this: switch back and forth. So, ironically enough, I have to work hard at letting go!

In the recorder concert, I will be playing three recorders. Some professional musicians will coach us tomorrow during a rehearsal.

Recently someone saw me with my flute case, and asked, "Is that a flute?" "Yes," I replied. "So, you are really a musician at heart, but took up philosophy in order to make a living?" I laughed and said, "Something like that!"

What struck me as really funny about that was the image of taking up philosophy as a pragmatic way to earn a living! Philosophy as a fall-back plan. Philosophy as a "day job."

Yet, this is kind of how my life is! The only real correction I need to make to that person's analysis is that I really do love philosophy too. In fact, I cannot honestly say which I love better. I just feel lucky that I get to do both.

House

I do finally have a closing date on my house. It's starting to feel real again. I am hoping to move soon. Then my life will look and feel very different. I am looking forward to it. I am even actually looking forward to the move itself as a creative opportunity! I will have to enter chaos for a bit, but that chaos is a necessary stage to create the opportunity for establishing a new order to my life.

Health Care Reform

I've been wanting to share thoughts on the health care debates in the U.S., but thought I should read H.R. 3200 first. It's very long. There is a nice summary, though, on the Library of Congress legislative information pages.

I am bewildered about why anyone is opposed to this.

To those who are, what specifically do you object to? And, how do you think health care should be paid for?

Should we just each pay for our own health care out of pocket? What about those who cannot afford to do so?

Should our employers pay for our health care? Why them? What if they cannot afford it? What if this is what makes it hard for many employers to stay in business? (Note that this really means that we all pay for each other's health care. Every time you pay money to a business that covers health care or health insurance for its employees, you are helping to pay for their health care.)

Should all health care be paid through health insurance? Who should pay the health insurance premiums? And, why pay for health care via health insurance companies? These are companies that are trying to make a profit, so they deny some claims. And they want to make money above and beyond covering their costs (profits) -- why do we want to pay extra money, above and beyond actual costs, for our health care? And why do we trust health insurance companies (who, again, are trying to make money) to make the decisions about whether to cover our health care costs or not?

Those lucky enough to have health insurance through their employers tend to assume that they will be well-covered if they should need expensive health care. But have you checked the details of your policy lately? You might be surprised at what is not covered, and at how much you would actually have to pay if you developed major health issues.

Have you tallied how much you and your employer have paid into the health insurance company, and compared that to how much your health care has actually cost? If you haven't cost as much money as you have paid in, are you glad that some of that money you and your employer have paid in has covered the health care costs of others? If so, why not support a government-run health care system, or a public option? At least a government system would not be trying to earn profits above and beyond covering costs, and so the extra money you have paid in would go farther than it currently does. If you have health insurance and have paid in more than your health care has cost, some of that extra money has paid for your health insurance company's profits. So, in addition to helping cover other people's health care costs, that extra money you and your employer have paid has also gone into giving shareholders some extra money.

If you have cost a lot of money, do you realize that the extra money above and beyond what you and your employer have paid in has come out of the payments of those who have not required as much health care? Have you thanked your healthy work colleagues, and those who pay for the goods or services your place of employment provides, for their contributions to your health care?

Have you ever thought you were covered for something that it turned out that you were not covered for? Have you ever refrained from seeking adequate medical attention because of concern for how much it will cost? Do you know someone who has been in this position?

I really do want to understand the point of view of those who are opposed to reforming our system. It seems so obvious to me that there are serious problems with how we have structured health care in the U.S., that I honestly do not understand why there is resistance to change.