The drama of ideas in which students got caught up owed its momentum to the peculiar, and in some respects paradoxical, gifts of the teacher. Although politics is inevitably about power — who has it and for what — he seemed happy to give away whatever power lay in his position as lecturer (he frequently offered the lectern to anyone who would propose a counter-position) and to rely only on the power of the better argument. Though bound, as a Dominican friar, to the disciplines of a religious order, he seemed to have the freest, most unfettered mind in the university. He delighted in argument and was fearless in provoking it, goading and teasing his listeners — usually in direct proportion to their complacency and cock-sureness. Still, the sharpness of his dialectical rapier never took away from his gentleness; he had no need to hurt. And while irony pervaded a great deal of what he said, he never seemed cynical. To the contrary, his thinking was generous, not only in the sympathy it brought to his chosen authors but also in the imaginative vistas it opened up; the sting most often lay in the dawning sense of how much less we are than what we might be.
A teacher may get good, even astounding, results from his pupils while he is teaching them and yet not be a good teacher; because it may be that, while his pupils are directly under his influence, he raises them to a height which is not natural to them, without fostering their own capacities for work at this level, so that they immediately decline again as soon as the teacher leaves the classroom.
Cultivating unsettledness about biblical language and unsettledness about our own—these are good reasons for studying Hebrew and Greek. But perhaps the best reason is the most obvious: reading in the original languages slows us down, and reading the text more slowly is essential for learning to love the Bible. As we know from other areas of experience, giving careful attention is not just an outcome of love; it is part of the process of growing in love. We love best those for whom we are obligated to give regular, often demanding, care: a child, an animal, a sick or elderly person, a plot of land or an old house. Inching patiently through the Greek or Hebrew text is best seen as ‘an act of charity’—ultimately, charity toward God. Poring over every syllable, frustration notwithstanding, we affirm the ages-old conviction of the faithful that these words of Scripture are indeed ‘some molten words perfected in an oven seven times.’
The fact that I, a practicing neuroscientist, can openly admit to giving a shit about the human side of neuroscience without fearing “outing” myself as a soft thinker is in no small part due to artistry of Dr. Sacks’ blend of scientific rationality and human empathy. That’s an incredibly difficult line to walk when you’re faced with the existential reality that the very thing that makes us who we are can be changed in some way — for example by neurological trauma or injury — and can therefore change basic aspects of our perception and personality.
Dr. Sacks, through sheer force of compassion, reminded us, as a scientific field, that the very thing that makes neuroscience most frightening — its ability to expose our humanness as being tied to our physical self — is also why it’s so important for us to pursue it. The promise of neuroscientific advancement is the reduction of suffering, and in many ways Dr. Sacks was our empathic lighthouse in the scientific storm of advancement, guiding us toward that humanistic goal.
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A look at the production and dissemination of posters from Das Plakat.Read about the history of Das Plakat in Steven Heller’s U&lc article, Das Plakat: the voice of German poster design (1910-1921).
If you don’t wash your hands, your health is at the mercy of the filthiest person in your dorm. If you don’t wear earplugs, your sleep is at the mercy of the dorm’s biggest asshole.
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Men blast granite to build tunnels for a hydroelectric project in Australia, 1963. Photograph by Robert B. Goodman, National Geographic Creative
It’s ironic, I guess, that the strangeness, alienation, and terror that Franzen (sort of) wants to chronicle are busy revealing themselves all day long on the Internet, which Franzen is so determined to reject. An hour on Twitter is a more harrowing and affirming plunge into the ocean of the age than three days reading Purity. Many of us who feel this deeply, who are nearly overwhelmed by the dissonance Franzen’s novels merely frown toward, are on there a lot, and we could possibly tell him something. Or maybe not; in any case, he isn’t listening.