Month: January 2009

After months of sporadic switching among newsreaders, bookmark-browsing, and general digital restlessness, I’ve started using Google Reader to keep up-to-date on the blogs I care about. I haven’t moved everything from my bookmarks over there, but my first impressions are favorable.

The same page at Inside Higher Education reports on one hand that a number of New England institutions are “are pushing ahead with searches or even adding searches, viewing this as a perfect time to attract faculty talent” (go! go! add searches in New Testament and theology!), and on the other hand that the American History Association saw job searches in their field decline by almost 25% this year (booo! boooo! — unless you’re using that faculty line to hire someone in theology or New Testament!).
 
No, no new prospects on the job front here.

What happens when a biblical scholar influenced by both linguistics and by the narrative theology of Frei and Hauerwas encounters an enthusiastic Boing Boing endorsement of neuroscientific research that suggests that our brains simulate the action we read about in narrative? Well, for one thing, he waits to see what the neuroscience critics over at Language Log say about it; but if it passes muster, some form of this article will probably make its way onto the reading list for my biblical theology class, alongside Fast Company’s flyover of Gary Klein’s decision-making research.

It was hard to notice during the campaign, since so much of what he said was composed ahead of time. Having heard a lot of extemporaneous Obamiana, though, it occurred to me this morning that the President of the United States qualifies to be a member of the Slow Talkers of America — slow like me!

Next Thursday, I’ll lead a discussion with the Anglican/Episcopal House of Studies at Duke, on the topic of digital technology. I’ll show them Wesch clips (don’t look ahead, if you’re an AEHS Duke student!) and urge my case that students who are preparing for church leadership may opt to prepare for a cultural environment that flourished in the 1950’s, began to age unbecomingly in the 60’s and 70’s, and now has one foot in the grave — or they can prepare for very different circumstances that already prevail in many quarters, and seem likely to overtake the rest of the world sooner than later.
 
I have to refrain from expounding my whole megillah “Meaning, Communication, Hermeneutics, Homiletics, Pastoral Practice, Sound Theology, and Everything Else” understanding of how they might best gird themselves for ministry in a pervasively digital cultural ecology, but I do want to leave a note here in case there’s something very important that readers may want to remind me to include.

My thoughts are, for the time being, overshadowed by the heartbreaking news that an old friend’s wife died. Margaret and I feel the shock and weight of her death vividly; several bonds of circumstance intensify our sympathy.
 
While we’re processing, I commend to the attention of teachers and technology fans this recording of Michael “The Machine Is Us/ing Us” Wesch’s presentation at the University of Manitoba.

I wouldn’t ordinarily hotlink to someone else’s image, but the Presbyterian Church USA might change their page around. As part of their campaign to honor women’s ministries, they illustrated their home page with the following image:
 

 
I have many reactions, among which I will post these: (a) I’m so very glad it wasn’t the Episcopal Church that chose this image for one of its projects; (b) I’m not sure that whoever produced this page did all their homework in gender studies class; (c) the Presbyterian women of my acquaintance are unlikely to participate in the activity illustrated; (d) this is no way to try to draw people to church; (e) thanks to Adam Walker Cleveland for the link.

I just don’t understand.
 
Very obviously, I don’t understand some things for technical reasons: I haven’t studied various topics in sufficient depth, I’m not the smartest character around, I hold to some premises that interfere with my giving other ideas full consideration. Nothing is comprehensible or unintelligible in itself; some apparently lucid ideas fail to fit functionally into the world in which they’re introduced, and some apparently bizarre ideas provide the most illuminating explanations for complex phenomena.
 
Now, after all that throat-clearing: I just don’t understand why people, smart people, still think that “the market” offers the most excellent way of assessing value and establishing trade patterns for goods and services. One can with a moment’s websurfing find examples of corporate executives who pull down salaries in the millions of dollars for presiding over the utter devastation of their firms’ assets; are we truly to believe that, because “the market” assesses the worth of their guidance at (let’s say) a couple million dollars, that they have actually contributed twenty thousand times as much to the general economy than does a day laborer who earns only ten thousand dollars? At least the day laborer’s work hasn’t harmed anyone; the postholes she drilled hold up actual fences, the burgers he flipped filled diners with empty calories. If the firm paying the two-million-dollar executive had actually just fired that character at the beginning of the fiscal year and relied on other employees to help make executive decisions, would the company have been that much worse off? Would our hypothetical day laborer have done a significantly worse job? Doesn’t the gruesome wreckage of these hypertrophic financial monsters suggest not that they’re “too big to fail,” but were in fact “too big to succeed” apart from transient, unmanageable fluctuations in the environment? If the financial services firm Engulf & Devour — or an entertainment corporation, or a widget, wodget, and aluminum storm door sales and manufacture company — encounters a stream of dollars, it can grow and thrive for a year or even a decade, but both plain reason and observed experience suggest that “the market” doesn’t dissuade investors, managers, executives, and politicians from chasing the easy money of cancerous economic growth in preference to the arduous nutrition and exercise of productivity, service, and modest rewards. It’s the same illogic that undergirds the music- and book-lottery industries (multi-millions for a handful of overpromoted superstars, versus a grudging pittance to tens of thousands of highly-skilled supporting acts): the lure of obscene wealth drowns out the actuality of widespread exploitation.
 
This is your “market”: a sociopathic, narcissistic Ponzi scheme raised up as the most reliable mechanism for distributing the resources that foster life, health, and happiness.
 
Stanley Fish’s recent article in the NYT touches on related topics, though in a way I take to be unhelpful. Fish proposes that because the humanities are not “useful” (according to market forces), they’re gradually being eroded by the market forces that shape academic enrollment, employment, and evaluation. As a quite-possibly-soon-to-be unemployed academic, I sympathize in part with Fish’s point. As a (theologically determined) humanist, though, I think that Fish manipulates his deployment of the term “usefulness,” and plays the contrarian game that has been his trademark since back when he argued against “Change” and in favor of ideas not having consequences. The schema involves constructing a very clear, precise definition of a concept, then showing that the concept (so understood) doesn’t display all of the characteristics conventionally associated with the concept (loosely understood). Outrage ensues!
 
I suppose Fish is probably correct that study in the humanities does not produce “a direct and designed relationship between its activities and measurable effects in the world” — but that implies not that the humanities are “useless,” but that they are useful in indirect, unmanageable ways, bringing about effects that do not easily lend themselves to quantitative analysis. The value of study in the humanities derives largely from its capacity to cultivate deliberative judgment about complex matters; that’s extremely useful, even if not in a way that fits Fish’s initial definition.
 
And to bring this round to the beginning topic, the sort of humanistic study that heightens our appreciation of, for example, David Copperfield, could quickly and accurately diagnose the dysfunction of market-driven binge-and-purge economics where the economists and fiscal policy pundits assured the world that all is well, that growth can continue unchecked, that this relocation of wealth upward will actually generate well-being all around. Even so tremendous a booster of the American marketplace as Horatio Alger promoted thrift, diligence, and critical evaluation — not misdirection, humbuggery, and evasion of responsibility for one’s avarice. Hey, the market made me do it.
 
I don’t understand that, and I tend to doubt that lectures on economics or anecdotes about righteous capitalists or tut-tutting condescension about what I don’t know about finance and management will illuminate me. But — my contract runs out in June, and from then on I’ll be available as CEO of your failing company. I pledge to drive your company into the ground on about the same schedule as the elite Wall Street wizard, but without the exorbitant salary and benefits. If I don’t make good on that pledge, you can dismiss me with a brass parachute.

Frank and Judith are participating in the SuperEco blogging community-venture — this is the sort of thing we used to cobble together back in early days (BlogTank FTW!), and it’s great to see them putting the experience of those communities to work toward encouraging more ecological consciousness. Cheers, SuperEco!

I’m supposed to be working on my sermon this morning, and (in a sense) I am, since by blogging these thoughts out, I’ll make room in my imagination for the sermon to coalesce. As I was reading for course prep yesterday, my iPhone played XTC’s “No Language In Our Lungs,” one of my all-time favorite musical ruminations on hermeneutics (lyrics):

There is no language in our lungs
to tell the world just how we feel
no bridge of thought
no mental link
no letting out just what you think
 
there is no language in our lungs
there is no muscle in our tongues
to tell the world what’s in our hearts
no we’re leaving nothing
just chiselled stones
no chance to speak before we’re bones
there is no muscle in our tongues
 
I thought I had the whole world in my mouth
I thought I could say what I wanted to say
For a second that thought became a sword in my hand
I could slay any problem that would stand in my way
I felt just like a crusader
Lionheart, a Holy Land invader
but nobody can say what they really mean to say and
the impotency of speech came up and hit me that day and
I would have made this instrumental
but the words got in the way
 
there is no language in our…
there is no language in our lungs
to tell the world what’s in our hearts
no we’re leaving nothing behind
just chiselled stones
no chance to speak before we’re bones
there is no language in our lungs.

Andy Partridge suggests (“suggested,” since the song comes from 1980) much of what I’ve been advocating in the past few books and essays. “Meaning” isn’t something in there, whether in words or in us; we can’t transmit intentions in such a way as to make a warrantable connection between speaker and receiver. The urgent temptation to think and act as though our expressions contain definite meanings undergirds the outlook of interpreters who want to be able to oblige others to adopt “correct” understandings, to suppress the abundance of meaning that any expression might engender.
 
All this came to mind as I was reading Richard Hays’s study on Paul’s use of the Old Testament, wherein Hays frames his arguments with claims about what Paul was alluding to, and what we can infer from his allusions. Now, on the whole I tend to agree with Hays’s supposition that Paul’s allusions to Scripture should most productively be read with attention to the material surrounding his explicit citation, so that we catch points of reference that Paul didn’t include in the quoted material. But sometimes Hays infers that because Paul constructed such an allusion, he must have expected his readers to catch it — and that seems a very different, and very mistaken, inference. Writers and speakers construct our expressions out of the abundance of our imaginations (deliberately and subconsciously), but experience teaches us that people do not always catch all our allusions, and our expression is (oddly) the richer for not being comprehensively up-taken.

I’m planning to assign a couple of chapters from a particular book this spring, but I didn’t ask the students to buy it; it’s a good book, but if I’m asking them to read less than a quarter of it, I don’t feel justified in asking them to pay for it. I put it on reserve, so that they can read it in the library.
 
This morning, I checked my (usually empty) mail folder at Duke, and a copy of the book was there. No explanatory note, no packaging, not from the library; it looks like a new copy. I didn’t request a desk copy. Evidently someone somewhere in the information chain figured out that I should own it, which is pleasant and kind and astonishingly efficient, but a little scary.
 
I wonder if there’s a way I can indicate to these powerful, effective, anonymous agents that Margaret and I could use jobs for next year….

I’m preaching at St Joseph’s this Sunday, and (so far) intend to preach from the reading from Jonah. I’m not sure where it will lead, or whether I’ll change tack later, but for now I expect to foreground the Jonah’s peculiarity, and some of the significance of the inclusion of so incongruous a prophet among the witnesses to God’s word.

Margaret and I aren’t the only ones in the household who have sent out applications this year. Pippa would like to try studying at an arts school for her remaining pre-college years, and we’ve been collating essays and portfolio items for the past few weeks as we worked up the first of her packages, and she’ll go with Margaret to tour and interview this coming weekend.
 
The portfolio we compiled excites me — and it still doesn’t encompass her general sense of design and expression, made manifest in her daily conversation and her way in the world. We know all too well that “applying” entails tremendous contingencies, but I dare say that any school that doesn’t avail itself of the chance to bring Pippa aboard is poorer for that decision.
 
Here are some of the items from her portfolio:
 

Sunflowers

Acrylic on canvas, 24″ × 30″

Rapid Eye Movement

Pen and ink and watercolor, 10″ × 13″

After the War

Pencil on Wallpaper, 10″ × 17.5″

The Pause

Digital Photo

Back To Basics

Digital Photo

Self-Portrait With Moustache

Collage with Acrylic, 36″ × 48″

Margaret and I were talking before and after church about disagreement in church and theology. We noted that a great proportion of the participants in theological and ecclesial debate seem reluctant (if not unable) to countenance the possibility that their opposing counterparts have good reasons for thining as they do. So, “conservative” commentators do not simply argue against the grounds for “liberal” conclusions, or against the conclusions themselves, but they frequently deploy in personam epithets — and vice versa. Similarly, partisans do not rest content with disputing the soundness of the Other’s position, but treat their adversaries’ whole identities as a danger to themselves, as though any apparent convergence must be repudiated lest the contagion of wrong-headedness infect The Good Guys’ theology.
 
Since we know mostly intelligent, well-informed, pious and resolute participants (at both antipodes of disagreement), and since we decline to suspect that the Pope is scheming to take over every bastion of liberal theology and purge the defenders of Good Causes (on one hand), or on the other hand that feminists, queer Christians, and communists are set on transmuting the Gospel into a New Age positive-thinking self-help cult, we are left in the uncomfortable position of seeming too Northeast for our Southwestern friends, and too dry for our humid friends. I do not ask that we all just get along — but I wonder whether we may just not reflexively correlate disagreement with suspicion?

David links to Harold Feld‘s counterintuitive argument for the low, low, low allotment of stimulus-opackage funds for building out broadband. Feld thinks that the low allotment raises the likelihood that the money will actually do some good; I, contrariwise, tend to suspect that any allocation will wind up being engulfed by an incumbent telco’s insatiable maw. Moreover, half measures (or in this case, “one percent measures”) will leave intact the presumption that users should only expect mediocre data transfer rates. While such an approach might, if all goes well, stimulate the economies of a handful of under-served areas, it neglects the powerful stimulus that would jolt the whole economy if the U.S. devoted itself to providing widespread, low-cost, high-bandwidth net access to all citizens (heck, non-citizens too: “all inhabitants”).
 
A national broadband package would intrinsically limit the disproportionate benefit that privileged citizens command; after all, the Hampshires might get connected sooner than Victoria City, but once both municipalities are on a fiber optic network, there’s little effective difference. The Montanan and the Long Islander both have access to a ferociously rapid data transfer network, which — once it offers access to a reasonable proportion of the U.S. — would transform and enliven vast swathes of the economy.
 
And of course, that’s one reason such a proposal meets resistance: incumbent interests from telcos to broadcast media, to film and record companies, to print media, to corporate interests I can’t even think of, all don’t want a rapid revitalization of the economy if it would destabilize their backward-looking business model. I’m no economist — though I couldn’t do much worse than our economic policy-makers did over the last decade or so — but it seems luminously obvious to me that the stimulus package should orient itself toward an element of infrastructure that will bear increasing demand and increasing productivity, as opposed to infrastructural elements that should be bearing diminishing loads defined by legacy technology (roads, for one example; why build new interstate highway segments at the same time you’re trying to discourage over-reliance on fossil fuels?).
 
So that’s my platform, if Obama nominates me as Undersecretary of Information Technology. Plus, I’m slow and a bad shooter, so if he matches up against me in a basketball game, I’ll make him look like Connie Hawkins.

This would be a cool conference, for a very particular sort of person. Me, for instance.

I don’t feel like blogging, but if I did, I’d link to Paste’s story on The Welcome Wagon, to the intriguing web app TileStack (for those of us who miss HyperCard), and — with cautions about sacred cows and gored oxen — the Buffalo Beast’s viciously bilious list of the 50 Most Loathsome People in America. Fair warning: it would be pretty tough to find a culturally-involved citizen who doesn’t find one of their heroes in this list, especially since #50 is The Big O himself.