The Kindness of Strange Thoughts

I’ve struck up quite a bloggery friendship with

AKMA. I love his blog. He’s a teacher and
minister
with philosophical and theological training and
interests.

I came across his site because he amplified – improved – something I’d written about the nature of universal truth. Here’s what AKMA says:

My way of putting this in an argument
with a colleague who believed fervently in universal
truths was, “I’ll agree that we believe in universal
truths when the truths in question are so universal
that you’ll let me tell you what they are.” Of
course, Max wouldn’t let me define what the
universal truths were; he wanted both universality
and the whip hand in defining the universal truths.
Does that smell fishy to anyone else? “You have to
believe in universal truths, and let me tell you
what they are.”

Widely read and insightful, he’s a
sympathetic reader. In fact, his sympathetic nature
has got him exercised about my offhand, snarky
comment in Monday’s blog in which I said that
that a particular book by Foucault was not “his
usual proof of his own cleverness.”

AKMA replies, in part:

I thought it would be churlish to
blog this, but there are plenty of people smarter
than me with whom I disagree, and feel justified in
disagreeing, without deriding their work.

One of the hazards of my vocation entails
teaching conservative
evangelical students whose version of Christian
faith troubles me
deeply. But both here at Seabury (where they’re
rarer) and in
previous teaching positions, I worked productively
among conservative
students because I showed them at least minimal
respect: I didn’t
ignore their arguments, I didn’t refuse to let them
cite their
favorite books, I went to chapel the days they were
preaching, I
asked them to improve the arguments for positions
they weren’t going
to change, not to abandon positions that were
fundamental (so to
speak) to their identity. And then I could ask them
to extend the
same courtesy to me, which they sometimes, pretty
often, did.

I’ve taken this out of context; you should
understand that AKMA is quite humble. But my offhand
remark has caused him to testify, no doubt at least
in part because he has learned a lot from Foucault.

My kneejerk response is to say: Hey, buddy, it’s
the Web. If I can’t recklessly slap a dead French
philosopher on the Web, then where can
I?

But I know that AKMA is right. It’s easy to think
hard. It’s usually easy to think clearly. It’s damn
near impossible for most of us to think kindly. My
passing swipe at Foucault was intended to get me out
of having actually to read him with the care and
sympathy he deserves. Plus, it’s a cheap way to puff
myself up.

Thanks, AKMA.

Categories: Uncategorized dw