The University and its Discontents

At one time, I understand, universities and cathedrals were once designed to be beautiful and built to engage the imagination and intellect and draw attention to things bigger than an individual, god in many cases, love in others, altruism in others, compassion, kindness, patience, logic, intellect.....

I suppose that it must be true that when universities dumped god and the virtues, and no other verb probably works as well, that universities came to be designed based on function -- get as many students through as efficiently as possible -- and not form -- beauty. Although many will not agree, beauty and the other virtues were lost in the shuffle, in the paradigm shift. When I studied art, in the university, the worst insult you could get from your instructor was that your art work was beautiful. Beautiful meant trite, unimaginative, patterned. If by mistake you did something beautiful, you were asked to take a pen or an eraser or a knife and slash lines through your "mistake." No one wanted to be compared with the more romantic painters. When I studied literature, our interpretations had to be those of the faculty or they were faulty.

However, what concerns me here is not the loss of beauty, although one might mourn its passing as one mourns the loss of one's belief in the goodness of mankind, my concern here is the limitation, the hedonism, the lack of substance of what we seem to have created. Some of my most intelligent students are the most foolish, they are those most driven to copy the ideas, voice, words, postures, dress, smell....of those they take on as role models because of their lifestyle or "intellectual" philosophy. I am bothered by the dearth of role models who are concerned for and attempt to protect those who copy them. I am not sure that those who copy sorority girls are behaving any less intelligently, as at least they are copying a model that has been successful in the endeavor of attracting an appropriate husband. I am not sure how our "intellect" model has held advantages for the students who copy that model.

New lamps for old ones

The old lamp served Aladdin well, bringing him riches, a kingdom and the love of a beautiful princess. She, seduced by the offer of a new lamp, exchanged his magic lamp for a bright new one. This was the plan of an evil wizard who wanted to get control of its power. Once he got the lamp, disaster followed until Aladdin managed to get the old lamp back.

This metaphor speaks clearly of abandoning traditions in favor of new, more exciting ways of doing things. In church today, and remember that churches are supposedly the bastions of conserving traditions, we heard that this is a time for abandoning traditions. There were smiles on faces, as we like the beautful princess, are eager to get rid of the old lamp, to replace with the new, shiny lamp. We, like the princess, see no value in the traditions we so happily abandon.

I have tried to figure out which traditions -- which old lamps -- are the ones we want to leave behind and which lamps we want to embrace. There must be method to our -- if not madness -- then our desire for the new. My conclusion to date is that we want to get rid of all the traditions that asked for duty, sacrifice, and perhaps even honor. We want to add new rules that allow greater personal freedom. That the price of that freedom may be high, does not seem to be anyone's concern.

Role Models

Role model is yet another of the psychobabble terms that I generally abhor. However, the concept underlying the term is one with which I would agree, namely that humans are great copiers. The question, however, is who we decide to copy and when and what behaviors. I spoke today with a Frenchman who was telling me that he is writing a book about and in honor of his father who had been a famous surgeon in France. He said that when his father died, over 2000 people attended his funeral, the vast majority of those people he -- the Frenchman with whom I was talking -- had never met or heard his father mention. The people were there because his father never turned a patient away, even when that patient had no funds to pay. His generosity had touched many hearts. Despite his father's fame, his father's head was never turned and he remained a humble and patient man throughout his life. The Frenchman told me, and I listened carefully, that when he is confronted by situations that once would have upset him, he asks himself how his father would have responded. He then is able to respond as his father would have done.

How lucky he was to have such a role model. Many people do not. My guess, however, is that when they do, they want to honor that person. I felt much the same about my father and when he died I spent several years going in and out of the Amazon rainforest, as he had loved the rainforests in South America, and making a collection that I donated to a local museum in his name. So, I am not just interested in this copying behavior, but in our response to the death of one of our role models and our desire to pay homage to their lives. Could this be the origin of death rituals and monuments? I would think that the best homage is one made freely, but it seems clear that many mortuary monuments were built based on the use of force. Is this like trying to buy respect that one has not earned?