Room for Doubt and Rule of Fear

“A closed mind is a sign of hidden doubt.”
-Harold DeWolf

Doubt is an important subject to me, as I so often struggle with it. What I learned from my Mom from a young age was that I shouldn’t fear it, but explore it wisely. Well here is one attempt to do so:

 

Close-mindedness:

It seems as though the phrase “close-minded” is more widely applied to those who are religious than those who are not. The stereotype, if not the fact, is that a person of faith clings to their doctrines without examining or analyzing them, and the secularists or humanists are open to all options. I do think this happens sometimes, but I think that the opposite can often be true, and either version of close-mindedness (secular or religious) can be deeply obstructive to truth’s riverways.

There is a current cultural claim of being open-minded that is decidedly not. The post-modern young secularist has decided what the world is—it is what they want and feel—and anyone who challenges that will be promptly labeled “close-minded’ and dismissed. I find this sad and ironic.

It would seem—again, via stereotype—that people are more accustomed to the very notion of religious close-mindedness than secular, post-modern, or humanistic close-mindedness. Religious close-mindedness is an easier sell in our culture. Religion offers very certain instruction on morals, beliefs and behaviors and does not allow a great deal of room to maneuver away from those things. Most forms of secularism, per current perception, allow morals, beliefs and behaviors to be more malleable. Redefinition and relativism replace constancy and conviction.

I think that many religious people also buy into this notion, and can sometimes be nervous about having their convictions pinned down by someone secular, for fear of being called close-minded. Of course, the difference between living close-minded and living with conviction is vast, but that is another matter, albeit one not sufficiently explored.

What genuinely concerns me are not those creeds which openly admit that they are fixed, but rather those that champion, and claim to be, one thing—open-minded or tolerant—while, in fact, being something else entirely. The source for this concern does not arise solely from my desire to defend a life of deep conviction—though I do so---but from a chance encounter with a certain literary discussion:

 

Room for Doubt, or Not:

I love reading reviews for Young Adult (YA) Literature novels. The YA author and reader community is vibrant, interactive, and extremely internet savvy. They offer some interesting analyses of the works themselves, but also provide perspective on the young adult literary zeitgeist.

You can get more information than you ever needed, and I find the debates over various Young Adult novel controversies very telling. Often the debates seem more interesting than the works themselves, although that may simply be the fact that I am inherently drawn to controversy, and NOT terribly interested in reading novel after novel of paranormal dystopian love triangles.

For example, one debate surrounded a sixteen-year-old female character that chose a “friends-with-benefits” scenario with her love interest, versus getting married or any form of commitment. Did that make her feminist and independent, or did that make her fearful, selfish and unfeeling towards said love interest? Gender and sexuality debates are some of the most common controversies in the YA community. It would appear that this has much to do with the visibly high quantity of female authors, readers, and reviewers in this community.

Which brings me to a review of a book called “The Knife of Never Letting Go.” I should state right up front that I have not read this book, nor is this post ABOUT this book. It was about a small controversy which stemmed from it, and about how that debate was conducted, and what troubles me therein.

 

 

In the book review and the discussion it spawned, one reviewer was offended by the fact that, in the novel, there is a certain germ or disease that affects the minds and bodies of males in a decidedly different way than it affects the minds and bodies of females. This reviewer took this to mean that the author asserts there to be something essentially, or “qualitatively” different between men and women. The reviewer was appalled at this claim. Debate ensues.

Well fairly soon, another commenter chimed in with the very viable argument that there are some inherent “biological/physiological/biochemical” differences, and the author was not being sexist to build upon that in his novel. This argument was not well received, and most of the other commenters continued to insist that this notion that men and women are somehow different by nature is archaic and will throw us back to the Stone Age or some such.

The following comment boggled my mind and represents the death of any real debate:

“a lot of time merely implying that there exists room for doubt about something is too great a compromise”

I don’t want to be brutally unfair, but the moment my eyes came across that sentence I copied and pasted it because I could scarcely believe it was said. Neither the removal nor the addition of context does the sentence any favors. The blatant claim here is that the mere implication of any room for doubt is an unacceptable compromise. Apply this logic across almost any debate and you run into serious trouble. Ultimately, in this particular discussion (link provided here), the Implication is that there are essential differences between men and women, particularly physiological differences, the Room For Doubt is the possibility that those differences are in any way essential or immutable, and the Too Great A Compromise would be allowing this idea to be given a seat at any debate table ever.

I understand why the commenter feels this way…he fears the confines of “gender essentialism” and how women have been ill-treated and restricted by it. But fear is the key word in that sentence. No matter how good your argument, nor how valid your concern, deciding not to acknowledge and explore doubt is generally a fear-driven decision. And this is coming from someone (me!) who believes that doubt can be deeply foolish, deeply wrong, and can kill you if mishandled.

So why do I conclude that exploration of doubt is necessary and that this rather secular, open-minded, tolerance-advocating commenter is giving poor advice despite their good intentions? Because, as a person of faith, if I tried to dismiss every doubt about God that frightened me or challenged my understanding of the world, that would be implying that the truths I know, proclaim, and try to live by aren’t strong enough to stand up against the doubts. And since I believe they ARE strong enough, I HAVE to face those doubts without fear. I can’t say it is always easy, but I can say that it is important and I hold a deep conviction that I must strive to do this.

“Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe”

-Henry David Thoreau

 

Faith

The controversy regarding faith stems largely from the idea that it is blind…that the entire merit of faith is the very lack of evidence. If that is the case, doubt would be an understandable and frequent occurrence.

But I don’t think that’s the whole picture of faith. I referred to the siren metaphor once before on this blog because the tale of the sirens speaks to the importance of tying yourself to a conviction based on evidence—on genuine knowing—despite how the current sense, circumstance, or temptation tries to demolish that conviction. The knowing came first. Faith is the thing that keeps you from forgetting what you knew, when everything and everyone around you would have you do so.

As in C.S. Lewis’ “The Silver Chair,” faith is remembering that there is a sun when you haven’t seen it in a long time, and everyone else is telling you it never existed, that it is a product of your imagination, that it is mere wish-fulfillment. But you basked in it before, and, if nothing else, your remember that in your very blood-stream.

 

The trouble with fear-based analysis is that it’s “see no evil” in its worst sense; it’s failing to face the chinks, the failures, the confusions. Ultimately it’s failing to learn and grow. And faith is meant to grow.

Again, one thinks of the phrase “blind faith”, but I think that is something of a misnomer. Faith is not recklessly blind; it believes in what it knows but cannot see. There’s a difference. Doubt will occur…the difference is the manner in which the doubt is handled. Fearlessly, or fearfully? Moored or unmoored?

 

Advance or Withdrawal

A good pastor once said that when one experiences doubt, don’t ignore it. Take it up and bring it to God, not away from him. He stated that when we withdraw from Him—“to get perspective” we claim—we are not able to truly get free of other influences and prejudices. There is no such thing as neutral ground. To imagine that as possible is to make a great mistake. Nature abhors a vacuum, does it not?

The illustration he gave was of how we sometimes come to doubt the nature of a friend that we rarely see, until we get together with them. Then we are reminded of their qualities and our confidence in them is reestablished. Withdrawal from a person is not the way to prove our theories about them, whether positive or negative…we go to the subject of the theories and dive in. Then we discover if we are right or wrong. Never by withdrawal.

This applies to all fields of study: the field develops (be it physics, medicine, or the social sciences) when someone approaches the conventional wisdom with a doubt or a suspicion. If they are wrong, the exploration of their doubt will strengthen that which is correct already. If they are right, something wrong, insubstantial, or misapplied will fall away (i.e. those thing which are “but rules taught by men”). One can see this happening when Jesus challenged the Pharisees. The core of truth remained. It was only the religious frippery that was sloughed off.

 

Giving up the Rule of Fear

Returning to the debate regarding “room for doubt” and the issue of gender essentialism, one begins to see what happens when room for doubt is not allowed in debate. Truth is neglected on behalf of conventional wisdom. The truth here is that there are basic biological differences between men and women which influence certain parts of life, including physical capabilities, bodily functions, and (occasionally) actual behavior.

The prevailing post-modern conventional wisdom is that what you want and how you feel about what you are trumps all of that…or, more extreme still, that all of it is a product of “social construction.” Ironically, the voice of someone advocating a concrete, provable, scientific view is drowned out by the voices of those reacting emotionally, fearing the consequences of any hint of gender essentialism, even if that hint is borne by fact.

Doubt is hard, and can be very uncomfortable. But ought it not to be taken hold of and made into something useful? The difference between acknowledging or examining doubt, and succumbing to it is the difference between hearing someone out—really listening to what they have to say and considering it—and simply being batted back and forth by every single argument you encounter. The only reason to fear doubt is if you expect the latter to happen to you…which it needn’t. It all depends on where you take it.

 

 

 

The Pilgrim's Regress

C.S. Lewis is easily my favorite author, and it’s entirely possible I over-reference him. I often find myself prefacing such references to friends and family alike by saying “I know I used a Lewis quote last time, but it really, really applies.” It may not be the same for everyone—nor do I expect it to be—but something about how Lewis thinks and communicates resonates deeply and effectively with me.

As a result of this, I’m always happy to find that there’s more Lewis out there as yet unread by me. Some years ago I was running my eyes over the books in a bookstore and saw “The Pilgrim’s Regress” by C.S. Lewis. I was very intrigued. Now, I have never read Pilgrim’s Progress (to my shame. It’s on the list) but I know the story from various sources: children’s books, general Christian pop culture, and—believe it or not—an old radio program called “Adventure’s in Odyssey.” Eventually I bought “The Pilgrim’s Regress” and told myself that I was not allowed to read it until I had read the Bunyan book, that I might better understand them both.

My discipline failed, and this last year I broke down, skipped ahead and read “The Pilgrim’s Regress.” Twice. This is not one of Lewis’ more popular books…and understandably so. It is very obscure. But I love it and come now to advocate on its behalf, despite the fact that it is very particular and thick. Lewis himself wrote an afterword in a later edition marking the presence of “needless obscurity and an uncharitable temper.” He added to it summaries of the allegorical intent and explanations of certain terms which were clear to him, but became unknown to later generations, so that the meanings would be rather more accessible to the readers.

There is, in fact, a helpful manual for this book which does much to clarify it…but it is not “Pilgrim’s Progress.” It is “Surprised by Joy.” “The Pilgrim’s Regress” is essentially the story of Lewis’ conversion to Christianity…allegory-style. The obscurities are due to philosophical musing and encounters that Lewis personally experienced, and which are not necessarily universal, or currently widespread in education. The book also has much Greek, Latin, and French and draws upon a greater body of literature and philosophy than I may ever hope to consume in my entire life. There are a few unfortunate metaphors used by C.S. Lewis which smack of Euro- and Ethnocentrism (though, I think, not as badly as some might suspect), and several references to specific trends of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Thus, this book was something of an effort.

But it was worth the effort, and I feel compelled to explain why.

THE TALE

Told as a dream—dreamt by an unnamed narrator—the story follows John, starting from his youth in the land of Puritania (Which is traditional Christianity or perhaps, more accurately, nominal Christianity) and on to his travels throughout the land depicted in the map below:

A few major things define John’s youth: 1. the fear of the Landlord (God as described by parents and clergy alike) and of the great “Black Hole” (Hell as described by the very same), 2. The hypocritical behavior of the Puritanians, and…3. Something which he calls “The Island” or “Sweet Desire.” Sweet Desire comes when one day he looks out and sees an Island which fills him with such longing that, if nothing else in all the world, he longs to long for it. The search for this Island leads him away from the rote Christianity of his youth and towards many dead ends: lust, sensuality, and sentimentality.

It leads him further through many of the beliefs and philosophies of both the current age, and of all ages, as John tries to capture his Sweet Desire through Romanticism (Called “Mr. Halfways in this story…ostensibly because he only gets you halfway there?), as it is nearly killed by Freudianism which attempts to distill us down to very much less than the sum of our parts, then as John (and his Desire) are subsequently rescued by the armor-clad woman Reason, cultivated by the old man Wisdom—father of many philosophers—informed by the hermit History, and finally brought face-to-face with the fact of God, forced by Reason to follow the path towards him. (Of course he could have fought reason, but then he knew he would have fallen with her.)

John’s traveling companion for the majority of his journey is a man by the name of Vertue whose allegorical office lies explicitly in his name. Vertue stands in intended contrast to John. John is driven by desire. Vertue is driven by moral will. The two are often at odds and drawn in different directions, and John parts with Vertue on occasion. John is less concerned with the Landlord’s rules (God’s Law/Morality), and more concerned with finding his beautiful Island. Vertue doggedly, calmly follows the rules, knowing them to be written in the skin of the earth. The only time when Vertue falls—at which time Virtue must be carried by Desire—is when he witnesses the coming nihilism of the peoples of “Marxomanni—Mussolimini, Swastici…”

This book was published in 1933, but Lewis did not feel any express need to heavily veil with metaphor the danger he saw posed by the “revolutionary sub-men of the Left or the Right.” He portrays them as a return to barbarism, causing Vertue himself (itself) to take ill.

The allegorical style gives great room for analysis of philosophy, theology, and of Lewis’ very specific intellectual and spiritual path towards conversion. There is so much being said, that I will not try to get it all down here—rather I will simply examine a few of the driving points in the story which most struck me and encouraged me to read ahead the first time despite “Pilgrim’s Progress” and read the entire thing aloud to my husband the second time, and to now try and convince as many of my family members and friends as possible to read it, so that I can discuss it with them!

THE VERY SHARPEST EDGES

Sweet Desire:

For anyone who has felt that piercing, painful Sweet Desire, the drive John feels to seek it out will easily be understood. Unlike Vertue, who seeks to do right for right’s sake and disdain’s the idea of obeying on behalf of punishment or reward, John is swayed by this desire both below and above Vertue. When Vertue sees Savage Nihilism and falls ill, it is John who must carry him—though he was always the weaker and less willful of the two—for Desire has not died by hearing of depravity.

The trouble with Sweet Desire is that we so easily mistake lesser things for its satisfaction. Then we often become disappointed and confused that the “Desire” has failed us, or wasn’t all it seemed it should be in that moment.

But “It comes from the Landlord (God),” old man History tells John. “We know this by its results. It has brought you to where you now are: and nothing leads back to him which did not at first proceed from him.”

Reason Defeats Freudian Philosophy:

One of the darker sections of the story occurs when John and Vertue part ways, and John finds himself imprisoned by a Giant. Having had his hopes disappointed by Mr. Halfways and his daughter, Media, John realizes that Romanticism is not quite the solution to his question about the Island. John then runs into “Sigismund Enlightenment” (or New Enlightenment) who explains to him that all his desires are merely wish-fulfillment dreams. New Enlightenment claims that “the Island was the pretense that you put up to conceal your own lusts from yourself.”

John is imprisoned by this philosophy which causes him to see himself and his fellow man as nothing more than their innards and sinews and fluids, for the Giant who holds them hostage makes everything “transparent.” The Philosophy desires to ever “uncover” us to our basest, rawest form and, in so doing, makes each man a horrifying concoction of parts to one another and dark or meaningless to himself. John decides that, though he had doffed the belief in a Landlord and a Black Hole, this new philosophy—if true—makes all the world a Black Hole and all men and women residents in it, whether they know it or not.

Then comes Reason: “…a woman in the flower of her age: she was so tall that she seemed to [John] a Titaness, a sun-bright virgin clad in complete steel, with a sword naked in her hand.”

The Giant bids her pass out of his land with all haste. But she will none. She asks him three riddles that, because of his philosophy, he cannot answer. Then she plunges her sword into his heart and defeats him.

She proceeds then to explain to John that the New Enlightenment makes three grave errors of reason. First they say that higher things are the copies or covers of lower things (love a copy of lust, or sweet desire a veil for lust). But how can they tell which is the copy and which is the original? Is not the original normally the higher? An oil painting is better than a print, and lamplight much dimmer than sunlight.

Second, she explains the trouble of our foul-looking innards, which so bothered John and made him feel that all was base and vile forever: “He [The Giant”] showed you by a trick what our inwards would look like if they were visible…But in the real world our inwards are invisible…the warmth in your limbs at this moment, the sweetness of your breath as you draw it in…these are the reality: all the sponges and tubes that you saw in the dungeon are the lie”

(John is unconvinced): “But if I cut a man open I should see them in him.”

“A man cut open is, so far, not a man: and if you did not sew him up speedily you would be seeing not organs, but death. I am not denying that death is ugly. But the Giant made you believe that life is ugly.”

Though she reminds John of some truth mixed in the Giant’s trick—for here our innards represent both themselves and our basest thoughts and desires—“it will do you no harm to remember from time to time the ugly sights inside. You come of a race that cannot afford to be proud.”

Reason’s final killing blow against the Giant is simple. He believes in the doctrine of wish-fulfillment while failing to acknowledge that, for many, the idea that there is no God, no moral law, and no hell would be the wish, and Freudian enlightenment the fulfillment. New Enlightenment does not wish to apply to itself its own doctrine.

And so, by aid of Reason, John passes through “Darkest Zeitgeistheim” and the chains of the Spirit of the Age are broken off of him.

John and Vertue

Lewis makes a point that John and Vertue must ultimately travel together. John, it is implied, comes of Pagan blood…thus the Landlord reaches out to him with Sweet Desire, and images of an island (images that are often, sadly, turned into Pagan idols). Vertue is hinted to have come of the “Shepherd People” (the Jews). Since the Shepherd People were able to read, they were given rules, rather than images.

“But who wants rules instead of islands?” asks John.

“That is like asking who wants cooking instead of dinner,” explains History, who is an old Hermit retiring from the world. He says that the Shepherds were made to begin at the right end, rather than suffering through cycles of mistaking images for reality, and feeling desire followed by despair.

“But were the Shepherds not just as bad in their own way? Is it not true that they were illiberal, narrow, bigoted?”

“They were narrow. The thing they had charge of was narrow; it was the Road. They found it. They sign-posted it. They kept it clear and repaired it…”

History tells John that he must swear blood-brotherhood with Vertue for each the Pagan and the Shepherd is only half a man without the other, and only one—the Landlord’s Son—can reconcile them. So John and his Desire must be reconciled with Vertue and his Moral Will.

Nihilism as three steps North of Humanism

A short but valid point that is as relevant now as it was almost eighty years ago when this was written: John meets in his travels North, a certain fellow named Humanist. I agree with the assessment that Lewis puts forth that Humanism is an intellectually dishonest philosophy. It goes almost all the way along the road of eschewing religion, faith and origins of moral principles (other than “society” or “self”). It wants to get down to the bare essentials of humanity and live at that, but does not want to acknowledge that under such principles as have just been mentioned humans are simply animals, and have every freedom to act as such.

Though the Humanist of Lewis’ day was certainly colder and harder than his current heirs, Lewis says something very powerful and very true when he places Mr. Humanist only a few steps away from total Nihilism, even calling it more foolish than nihilism. Humanist attends the needs of posterity? “And who will posterity build for?” Asks Savage nihilism. “If all men who try to build are but polishing the brasses on a sinking ship, then your pale friends [Humanist and his two friends, Neo-Angular and Neo-Classical] are the supreme fools who polish with the rest though they know and admit that the ship is sinking. Their Humanism and whatnot is but the old dream with a new name. The rot in the world is too deep and the leak in the world is too wide. Better give in. Better cut the wood with the grain. If I am to live in a world of destruction let me be its agent and not its patient.”

And but for the fact of the Landlord, Savage would indeed be right.

Northern and Southern Diseases of the Soul

The aforementioned Savage resides in the extreme North of the allegorical land. It is a place of frigid, barren rock. To the extreme South live the witches and magicians, and it is a festering swamp. The “North” of this story and the “South” of it represent two equal and opposite falls from Grace. Lewis calls them the Northern and Southern diseases of the soul. I found this aspect of the story so poignant that this is actually the second time I have mentioned it in this blog. Briefly, both John and Vertue have to fight the Northern and Southern dragons after they have together taken the plunge (given themselves up for Christ). John must fight the Northern dragon because John has the Southern disease in him, as he was always driven by sensation and feeling, and was weak-willed. Fighting the Northern dragon will gain him toughness of mind and body which he desperately needs to keep to the road.

Vertue must fight the Southern dragon because he suffers from Northern pride and rigidness. If the “Southerners” sink wholly into the flesh, the “Northerners” try madly to scrape it all off to the bone. By fighting the Southern dragon Vertue gains fire—passion and raucous joy. These are the things regarding which his moral will was so wary, but now he may freely enjoy.

In summary, the extremes and follies of mankind are not new, they are old, and both are falls. They are not thought up, they are reacted to: “Widespread drunkenness is the father of Prohibition and Prohibition of widespread drunkenness,” Lewis claims in his afterword.

“With both the ‘North’ and the ‘South’ a man has, I take it, only one concern—to avoid them and hold the Main Road. We must not ‘hearken to the over-wise or to the over-foolish giant’. We were made to be neither cerebral men nor visceral men, but Men. Not beasts nor angels but Men—things at once rational and animal.”

If it sounds like Lewis wants to have his cake and eat it too, I think that’s exactly correct. The crucial point is that he also claims there is only one means by which such a thing is possible…and in order to do that thing, one must first give up the cake, the eating of it, and everything else: the self’s desires and the self’s will.

Last Note: Why is it the Pilgrim’s Regress? It refers chiefly to what happens after conversion…to living in the world and traversing back through it, only now seeing it with the veils lifted.

Language and Fact

I snidely defined post-modernism thusly on my blog once before:

A philosophy in which the self is the source, interpreter and purveyor of all and in which nothing can be weighed against anything else, for nothing is accorded weight.

But to be a little more fair and to put a broader stroke on it, I should explain that the main aspects of post-modernism have to do with social constructs and language; post-modernism, as a theory, emphasizes the notion that most things which we deem to be fact are, instead, mere walls that we construct around ourselves, which we then proceed to perpetuate. (Hence the obsession with deconstruction). Post-modernism is far more concerned with the idea of everything being merely ideational, rather than any concrete desire to explore why “society” advocates certain behaviors and derides others, and whether indeed there is more to it than construct.

Example? Well here’s a rough attempt. (ahem).

Gender as a construct: A Post-modernist Tale

Once upon a time was born a human being with certain anatomical parts denoting what is linguistically referred to as female. Language is a human invention therefore its applications are malleable. Due to having received these particular anatomical features via the vagaries of genetic science, this person grew up in an environment in which it was anticipated that they would dress and behave in ways societally acceptable for said features. One day, shortly after the time in which biological agents act upon the body in a sexually maturing manner, this human being decided to adhere to behaviors, mannerisms, and sexual activities associated with that which is linguistically referred to as male. Henceforth this person chose to use the pronoun “he” instead of “she”, thereby adjusting the language with which they preferred to be described. Despite having to undergo many advanced scientific procedures to modify the once-healthy body, and to take hormones modifying the inherent biological agents and the inability to perform any of the functions of that which is referred to as the “male”, the protagonist of this story followed feelings and preferences, and this is very natural. But “natural” is not a value judgment. No. That is not permitted. Value judgments are against the mandate of post-modernism.

Oh. And the person lived indistinctly ever after, manipulating language to suit the flux of thought, feeling and perceived morality.

Okay. Yes. I have a tendency to poke fun and/or attack post-modernism. This for the two following reasons:

1.       My own tendency towards moral ambiguity keeps me well and full aware of where post-modernism actually and logically leads. I know what sort of person I would be without objective truth and this keeps me on my toes about philosophies that would enable all the very worst in my blood to go giddily, viciously wild.

2.       Post-modernism irritates the ever-loving daylights out of me. It is self-eating. It cannot walk for it has swallowed its own legs. It is so fascinated with itself that it—while claiming to see through all the constructs—sees nothing but its own self. It is the quintessential self-centered, self-justifying creature and a well-spring of untrustworthy tautologies.

I found this cartoon (linked to the only source I could find) and I think it handles post-modernism pretty well:

Per usual, C.S. Lewis pointed this out some sixty years ago when what is now called ‘post-modernism’ had not yet lost its baby-teeth:

“You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is of no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”

And what does this all come to?

My sister Ronit, among other things. She is a linguist. I am also a linguist (sort of) but I’m what I call a street linguist and she’s a proper one who understands things like…grammar, syntax and structure. It is her job to understand that which is applicable across languages, not just within context.

At first blush my own approach to language would well suit a post-modernist palate. I always say that context is king. And it is. We all know that one word can have a dozen or even many dozens of meanings and only the context can inform us of which one is actually intended. The meaning of the word is influenced by the topic, by inflection, by the speaker and who knows how many other factors that we scarce know to take into account. That is why text-speak is so inane; it lacks a huge number of context-qualifiers. That is also why letter-writing is an art; it’s the ability to infuse the words with the appropriate nuance and sentiment, honing the meaning down to a fine point while not having access to all the traditional tools (voice, expression, gesture).

But while context may be king, post-modernism would have it be a tyrant. One ought not to let context run amok. Context is the medium of communication, not the communiqué itself! Moreover, the truer a thing is, the higher it rises above context.

I am no grammarian, so my sister can speak on the rules and regulations of language to a degree that I can barely understand. This knowledge of the inherent structures that make up languages, both broadly and specifically, is what enables her to do with language things that I—in my context-soaked methods—cannot do; she analyzes them and understands them in and out of contexts; she can approach the language whole, or dissect it into parts.

Language is not as wispy and elusive as some would have us think. It is not as inextricable from its locale as it often seems. If handled with wisdom and care, meaning can survive translation with a healthy heart-beat and live well.

If we make the mistake of chalking everything up to context, we might be astonished (though we really shouldn’t be) at the many horrors that it justifies for itself, and at the many semantic and linguistic games we’ll find ourselves caught up in so as to never have to adhere to something higher or greater than the old adage that ‘perception is reality’. Because, if that’s the case, then all is in the eye of the beholder, and if the eyes are bad, how dark the light within (Matthew 6:23).

The Case of the Opposition

When I was a child I made a horrifying and thrilling discovery: I could win arguments regardless of whether—on the grand scale—I was right or wrong. I could occasionally argue people older, wiser, more intelligent, more knowledgeable and more correct than me into the ground. Through what precise combination of word trickery, semantics, persistence and bull-doggedness I do this, I don’t quite know, but I had both discovered this and been informed of it by the aforementioned ‘older-wiser-more-intelligent’ ones.

It was thrilling because it made me feel clever and powerful, like the person with a gun or a heavy fist faced against a person who is weak and unarmed. Like I had a secret weapon. It was horrifying because it meant that I could easily get away with technically correct rhetoric unsupported by truth, reality or anything otherwise helpful.

This is by no means a singular talent/vice. Lots of people discover over time that they can do this. Some are better at it, some are worse. But honing this ‘skill’ is a dangerous and idiotic enterprise because one may end up actually believing the dreck the mouth spits out. Whenever I may have won arguments this way it is the functional equivalent of a lawyer getting a murderer off on a technicality: a win by which all lose.

Why explore this troublesome talent of mine, when it is in fact nothing but the first-cousin-once-removed of being able to lie well? Because I think that if I’m going to deride something, I should first acknowledge my own tendencies so as to show that I don’t criticize from any great distance, but rather from terrible proximity.

Something that galls me almost more than some mere bad argument is overstating the case of the opposition. It’s a brilliant, cheap tactic, really. It works most times out of many, and it’s got enough truth in it that it doesn’t feel like quite the cheat that it, in fact, is. I mean, the opposition is opposed to you, aren’t they? Does it matter that I make them seem more populous or more vitriolic than they actually are? Does it matter if I misquote them ever so gently so that to accuse me of misquoting just makes one sound so petty? Must context matter so much? How relevant is it that I inflate the flaws of their argument to highlight the merits of mine?

Note: inflating the flaws of the opposition is not the same thing as exposing them. It just isn’t. If the opposition is wrong—if their argument is dead on arrival---then honest debate will make that known without any enhancement. The healthier, more muscular argument will win.

What planted this frustration in my mind? Well. Anthropology, actually. Small wonder that the (wishfully objective) study of humans falls prey to this, I suppose. Anthropologists do this willy-nilly, and a certain series of academic studies were the particular instigators of this line of thought for me…but you know what? Everyone does this. It’s really hard not to. It’s instinctive. Doesn’t make it any less of a cheat. We slowly, carefully build the opposition into some fire-breathing dragon, so that when we destroy it we seem a sword-bearing knight on behalf of the truth (although, I should add that anthropology would tend to shy away from that last word).

Side note: Now I like anthropology (sometimes). There must be many a good anthropologist walking the wide globe just now. But the disease of ‘overstating-the-case-of-the-opposition’ plagues the discipline, as it plagues many others.

Point being? We shouldn’t do this. Moreover we don’t need to. So. To all (anthropologists and the rest of us): take note that when you try to distort the fury or size of your opposition to make your own argument seem stronger than it may truly be, one can’t help but suspect that your argument isn’t strong at all!! Take it from someone who truly understands the inclination toward the tactic—it leads to shoddy victory.

Let the argument stand unaided. If it can…it will.