Alan Jacobs

when you cut a red pepper and end up with some sort of malevolent barbershop quartet straight from the hellmouth pic.twitter.com/eWFRA4zFHc

— Timothy Thornton (@HINIONGE) January 24, 2016

Dies iræ, dies illa Solvet sæclum in favilla, Teste David cum Sibylla

Beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past — whether he admits it or not — can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.

— Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord (I:18)

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“1050”] Louise Bourgeois in her studio, 1974[/caption]

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“540”] via the 50 Watts Tumblr[/caption]

Towards the end of last year I saw Benedict Cumberbatch playing Hamlet and then Justin Kurzel’s fantastic film version of Macbeth. In chatting about the performances with literary friends afterwards, I was struck by the similarities in research methodology employed in the humanities and science. Literary scholars dissect texts seeking clues which they reinforce with meta-data coming from biographical details of the author and historical facts about contemporary knowledge and beliefs.

— “Shakespeareomics” – how scientists are unlocking the secrets of the Bard. Ah. So that's what we do.

Dan Moren has two major requests, a camera and a faster chip. But to implement these would almost certainly mean that the Watch would stay the same size or get bigger, and to me, the single greatest deterrent to getting an Apple Watch is its size. I don’t want a shiny brick hanging on my arm, and that’s what the Watch is at this point.

I don’t think I have a use for one, and I don’t expect ever to buy one, but I will not even think about it until it’s half its current weight and thickness, and can operate without an iPhone.

In a review published earlier this month, a team of cognitive psychologists from the University of California, San Diego and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that speed reading techniques, which aim to help increase the average 200 to 400 words a minute a person can read, are likely ineffective for actually absorbing material.

“The available scientific evidence demonstrates that there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy,” Elizabeth Schotter, a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, said in a press release. “As readers spend less time on the material, they necessarily will have a poorer understanding of it.”

Source: There really is no such thing as speed reading.  

“Now, Professor Schotter, let me get this straight: you’re actually telling us that people who spend less time and effort attending to something, in this case words on a page, will have less understanding of it than people who devote more attention to it? Do I have that right?”

“Yes, Renée, that’s correct. To our great surprise, that’s what the data tells us.”

And the astrophysicist says “You look fine, Planet 9, Planet 9, you look fine We’ve been looking for you too long”

My former colleague Tracy McKenzie has posted a fine reflection on academic freedom and Christian colleges and universities, a topic that I have written about before and along very similar lines.

What I want to address here is a comment on Tracy’s post, which I’ll go through point by point, because it represents some commonly held views:

Thanks for your post on this topic, which is very important for Christian academics. You make some good points, and it appears that Wheaton is a very good fit for you. However, it’s not just non-Christians that might find the concept problematic. Not all Christians believe the same way, and this diversity of thought is likely even more pronounced among Christian academics. For Christians who may not hold to the orthodox line of the institution, this truly is a violation of academic freedom.

Let’s remember that a Christian college is a private voluntary association to which no one is obliged to belong. People choose to teach at them. So if “the orthodox line of the institution” is not one that you can affirm, it makes sense to go elsewhere.

As a disclaimer, I’ve taught at two Christian colleges, as well as four secular colleges and universities. I value all I found in all of these places, but have not had a problem with secular institutions being “hollow”, nor have I found teaching at Christian institutions to be particularly liberating. I found items in the statements of faith of those schools with which I had issues, but had to choose to keep my views “in the closet,” as it were.

I don't know what institutions the commenter taught at, but schools in the Christian College Coalition tend to have — I think they all have — statements of faith that they ask all faculty to affirm. So if a school asks whether you affirm a particular set of propositions and you untruthfully say that you do, which seems to have been this commenter’s practice ... well, then, of course you won’t find the experience “liberating.” Participating in a community under false pretenses can never be liberating.

The conclusion I have come to is that a statement of faith to which all faculty must adhere is incompatible with academic freedom. Basically, it is telling faculty to start with the conclusions about the most important questions in life, and make sure the facts they uncover back that up, or else the facts themselves are deemed invalid.

No, it doesn't say anything of the kind. Faculty at Christian colleges aren’t newborn infants: they are adults, who instead of starting with “conclusions about the most important questions in life” have reached certain conclusions about what they believe, and want to try to live out those beliefs. And what’s at stake in the formation of the community are not “facts” but rather beliefs: if the facts that a scholar discovers seem to be incompatible with, or to challenge, certain beliefs, then we think out and work through those apparent conflicts as a community. Sometimes we discover that the conflict was merely apparent; sometimes the beliefs of the community are altered in response to the newly discovered truths; sometimes the scholar and the community part ways, one hopes amicably. (But alas, not always.)

And secular universities operate in exactly the same way. Imagine a tenured professor of history at a public university who announces, “After much study and reflection I have come to believe that the Incarnation of Jesus Christ holds the full meaning of historical experience, and henceforth I will teach all my classes from that point of view.” Would the university’s declared commitment to academic freedom allow him to keep his job? No, because he will be said to have violated one of the core principles of that particular academic community, which is to bracket questions of religious belief rather than advocate for a particular religious view. (Of course, atheists tend not to be held to the same standard, but that’s a story for another day.)

This is the polar opposite of academic inquiry or rational thought. Faith does and always will have the prominent place in my life and thought, but I cannot agree with any institution that tells me what I must believe if the facts lead me elsewhere.

No such institution “tells me what I must believe” — any more than a chess club tells me that I must play chess. Just as a chess club is for people who already like to play chess, a Christian college is for people who already hold certain beliefs. It says, Let’s gather together people who share these core convictions and see what the world looks like if we study it from within that structure of belief and practice. And if you do share those core convictions, as Tracy McKenzie does, then the experience of teaching in such an institution can be immensely liberating. If you don't, then it won't be, and it’s best to go elsewhere. But nobody at any point is telling you that you must believe anything — any more than the chess club is telling you that you must like playing chess. If you have become disillusioned with chess, then you can go somewhere else and do something else. But it would be rather absurd to walk away muttering that the chess club has infringed on your freedom.

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature: like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and animal heat without them. The true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast; — all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; his great concern being to make every one at their ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets every thing for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults, he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he submits to pain, because it is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny. If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blunder.

— John Henry Newman, from The Idea of a University. I had not remembered this passage in many years, but Rod Dreher quoted a passage from it in a post today, and I thought: What would a gentleman be like online — on social media?