New Bio-Itzá Website!

Check it out.

The Asociación Bio Itzá does great, inexpensive Spanish-language immersion programs for individuals or groups in Petén, Guatemala.  It's a short trip from the Flores airport to their school and homestays in San José:

and it's also a short trip to Tikal:

They also have a school for teaching indigenous Mayan languages like Itzá, Quiché, and Kekchí. 

There are some slightly cheaper language schools in Guatemala, but this one makes your money go a long way, since they use the income to preserve and protect one of the largest unbroken stretches of rainforest North of the Amazon, and to preserve indigenous culture, protect archaeological sites, and promote sustainable agriculture.  In addition to learning Spanish, you can learn about medicinal plants; local cooking, music, and culture; rainforest ecology; Mayan archaeology (they have a licensed archaeologist on their staff); and a lot more.  Students interested in rural medicine can ask about arranging to work in the local medical clinic.  Worth every penny.

(Thanks to Luke Lynass and the other Augustana College students who worked to get this new website up and running.)

On Enemies

Just heard a very thought-provoking talk by Augustana Professor Janet Blank-Libra on the story of Jonah.  As she was talking, it occurred to me that in the story, God makes this disturbing analogy in Jonah 4.10-11:

Vine:Jonah::Nineveh:God

It's not the only possible interpretation of the verse, I admit, but it looks like at least one way to read it is that the people I think of as enemies might be as delightful to God as a shady spot in the hot desert was to Jonah.

Sam Harris Needs A Mirror

Sam Harris recently tweeted this column by Nicholas Kristof, adding this tag: "Found: the most sanctimonious person on earth." 

Respect for laws and Respect for the Law

I don't tend to talk about politics - at least not about specific candidates - on my blog or in my classroom.  One of my main reasons for this (I have several) is that as a teacher of philosophy, I am more interested in the ideas than in the people running for office. 

The case of Kristi Noem - a Republican running for Congress in South Dakota - is one of those cases where it's difficult to separate the person from the ideas.  I don't mean that she is inseparable from her politics.  I am instead referring to her driving record. 

Many people in my state feel that Noem's record has been subjected to enough scrutiny, and that it is just an example of her opponent, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, playing dirty politics.  The latter may be true (I don't pretend to know), but I don't think the former is true.  I don't mean that we need to have a longer investigation of Noem's driving record.  But I do wonder whether Republicans should be endorsing Noem at all. 

It's not that Noem got caught speeding once.  It's not even that she has been caught speeding 20 times.  It's that her record of breaking the law is so long that it speaks of a strong disrespect for Law in general.  None of us is perfect, but this record suggests that she's a habitual speeder.  One recent ticket had her clocked at 96 mph (the state speed limit is 75 on highways.)  Her actions say pretty loudly that she doesn't much care for the law.  Not a good attribute for someone whose job it would be, if elected, to write the law.

Do we really want to endorse candidates who view the law as something to be obeyed by others but not by themselves?  Isn't that precisely the opposite of the character we want in our legislators?  (Or have I just been reading too much Plato?)

Addendum:  A friend of mine points out that while the link above states it, I do not mention that Noem also has six times failed to appear in court; and she has twice had arrest warrants issued against her.  I'm not just asking Republicans if they want this to be their public face; I'm asking all of us if we want this to be the profile our legislators.  A state in which the legislators do not honor the law is a state in serious trouble.  

Is Prayer "Effective"?

I recently read a short essay that described prayer as something that should best be studied by the physical sciences.  This claim has been made for quite a long time, and I think there may be some truth to it.

I wonder, though, if the people who make this kind of claim are trying to understand prayer as a kind of incantation.  That is, it seems like they are saying that the best way to examine prayer is to study its effectiveness, by which they mean that some people should ask God for something and then we will measure the frequency with which those prayers are "answered."

Now, I'm no expert on prayer.  And I know that any discussion of prayer is going to get sticky.  But I think this kind of effectiveness study is misguided.  I don't think we should think of prayer as words we say in order to make God do things that God would not otherwise do.  If it were, that would make prayer into a kind of magic, or it would turn God into a kind of technology, or both.

When I read the prayers in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, or when I listen to or read others' prayers, I see something else: the people who pray seem to have the expectation that God will do what God will do, not what they want God to do.  In a way, this makes sense: if God is personal, then God is not to be dominated or pushed around any more than we are.  It seems like most of the prayers I've read sound like requests and arguments and complaints and even like words spoken in love.  Even when (as in the Book of Job) people chastise God for seeming not to act, or when they rebuke or forgive God for not having acted, there seems to be a sense that God is a person, not a tool. 

I think that if we were to look to some of the great works of prayer - the works of the mystics in any tradition, for instance - or even if we were to ask ordinary people why they pray, we would find that their concern is not with whether prayer makes miracles happen but with the way in which prayer manifests and nurtures their relationship with the divine.  I don't really know how to judge that sort of claim, and I often just listen to it in wonder.  But I'm pretty sure that if we were to attempt to measure the "effectiveness" of that prayer, we would wind up ignoring or doing violence to the claim that what matters most in prayer is the conversation and the relationship.

"I Know That I Don't Know"?

If you stroll through the Plaka tourist district in Athens, you'll have ample opportunities to buy t-shirts and other items with the slogan "en oida oti ouden oida," most of which will attribute this saying to Socrates.  It means "I know this one thing: that I know nothing."

Of course, it is a little silly and possibly self-contradictory, since knowing one thing means knowing something, while knowing nothing precludes knowing something.

Still, if Socrates said it, it's worth repeating, right?  (For kicks, Google it and see how many times it is quoted authoritatively.)

But I wonder if Socrates ever said it at all.

Yes, I know that we don't know exactly what Socrates said.  Socrates left us no writings, and as for transcriptions of his conversations, we have only three first-hand sources to rely on: those of Plato and Xenophon his students, and of Aristophanes his ostensible rival.  It seems likely that Aristophanes did not attempt to represent Socrates accurately, nor as a philosopher.  Plato may well have invented much of Socrates' dialogue as well, but he also had a stake in continuing and defending the philosophical work of Socrates in Athens.

For this reason, when philosophers refer to Socrates, we are usually referring to the Socrates found in Plato's rather extensive writings.

So did Plato's Socrates ever say "en oida oti ouden oida"?  It appears not.

The closest thing I've found is a passage in Plato's Apology of Socrates, where Socrates says something that should really be translated as something like this: I do not claim to know those things that I do not know. 

This is not only more reasonable, it's also good advice: don't pretend to know what you don't know and you'll avoid a lot of trouble.

It's important for another reason, though.  The "en oida oti ouden oida" quote seems to be something of a staple of frosh philosophy texts and classes.

The danger here is that we will present an ancient philosopher (two of them, in this case) as though he were fairly foolish; and as a result, we will not take ancient philosophy seriously.

All it should take to cure this is a quick look at the Greek text of any of Plato's dialogues.  The Phaedo, for instance, bears a slow and careful read in Greek, since no translation I've found captures all the wordplay.  And as Peirce pointed out, when one reads the Greek, one discovers something else that the translators often veil from our sight: Plato's Socrates uses the language of syllogism in a way that shows that he was doing Aristotelian logic before Aristotle was.

By relying on hearsay rather than on engagement with the primary texts, we close off a path of inquiry into a whole set of ancient philosophical texts.  "Doesn't their being ancient mean that they are exhausted?" you may ask.  Old trees, it seems to me, may still bear rich fruit.  And just as we find that old caves sometimes have rich troves of ancient unread texts, what else might we find if we take the time to read the ancients closely?

Theology and Theomythy

I was just reading Jamie Smith's recent post on "Poetry and the End of Theology" over at his Fors Clavigera blog.  His post reminded me of something I was thinking of several years ago when I was writing From Homer to Harry Potter.

Back in Homer's time, the words λογος (logos) and μυθος (mythos) were near synonyms.  Over time, they came to be distinguished from one another as meaning something like "an account in propositions" (logos) and "an account in stories" (mythos).

The word "logos" is one of the roots of our word "theology," of course.  Theology, then, means something like the attempt to discuss the divine in a logical and propositional manner.  Which is all well and good, unless it begins to turn God into something we only analyze and never experience, about which we speak propositions but whose story never means much to us.

As a philosopher of religion, I think theology is important.  The things we believe have consequences for us and for others.  As one of my mentors, Ken Ketner, puts it, "Bad thinking kills people."  We know this from experience: people use theological ideas to justify all sorts of unethical behavior.

Nevertheless, theology is pretty dry stuff, and its very dryness has a genealogy and has consequences that we should be aware of.  As Jamie puts it, some of the dryness of contemporary theology comes from a Cartesian anthropology that assumes that the most important part of us is that we are thinking things - things that care chiefly about propositions.  If all we care about is getting our religion right, than this is the kind of theology we need, I suppose.

But is that what we are?  Are we not also beings who live in the world, who live out stories, and who tell stories?  Aren't creativity and poetry and loveliness important to us as well?  This got me thinking: maybe what we need is less theology and more theomythy.  I'm not sure just what that would look like, but I think it might be worth a try.  I'm interested in what you believe, sure.  But I'm also interested in hearing your story. 

On Traveling and Journaling

It's been too long since I've blogged.  My excuse?  I've been traveling a lot, including quite a bit with students.  In the last few months I've been in Belize, Guatemala, Greece, and the UK with my students.

This probably sounds like a dream life, and I have to admit it's not all that bad.

But it's also a lot of work.  A weeklong class in Greece usually takes me a little over a year to prepare, and in the semester leading up to it the workload approaches the amount of preparation I do for any of my other classes.  Last fall I was teaching my usual load plus prepping two study-abroad courses, so I was swamped much of the time.

But it's worth it.  My students come back with perspectives they could not have gained at home, if their journals are to be believed.

I always require my students to keep a journal while we're traveling.  Sometimes I ask them specific questions, but usually I tell them to journal not for me but for themselves.  You may think this naive, and you may be right.  But I'd rather be naive than cynical.  That is, I'd rather appeal to their self-interest and to their own sense of themselves as growing learners than force them to write answers to my pre-fab questions.

I do give them some guidance, however.  Here are some of the things I teach them about journaling:

1) Pay attention to the little things, and write down whatever catches your attention.  If you noticed it, it probably matters.

 

2) Pay attention to all of your senses.  We tend to write about major events that happened, as though we were news reporters looking for the big story.  But why not write about the smells?  What sounds do you hear?  What do the birds or the streets or the nighttimes sound like?  How does the place you're in feel on your skin?  What new tastes have you encountered?  And so on.

3) Write continuously.  Don't plan to write a sketch or outline and then fill it in later.  As soon as you are on that plane home you will begin to forget what you experienced, and you will forget far more quickly than you want to believe.  Write now.

4) Write "gestures" and impressions.  Some of us have very good prose composition skills, and some of us do not.  But all of us can write down a few phrases, a few adjectives, a few words we've heard in passing.  Why not include entries in which you stand in one place and write down a list of nouns, of verbs, of adjectives that strike you as you soak the place in?

5) Draw pictures.  This is one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received, and I am no artist.  Cameras are great, but they capture what they see.  Drawing captures what you see.  Drawing also forces you to see what you wouldn't have seen otherwise.  As Louis Agassiz once said, a pencil is one of the best tools for seeing.  One of the best drawing tools I know of is a cheap ball-point pen.  You don't need fancy paper, and you don't need a lot of time.  Most of my best journal drawings are made in under two minutes with a cheap pen.

Try this out, and see if it doesn't completely change your journals.  When I'm in Greece, I like to show my students the different kinds of stonework in ancient walls.  The kind of stonework is helpful for dating the site, and it tells us a lot about the technology of the people who built the walls.  I've found that as I try to draw a section of wall, the differences between cyclopean walls, Lesbian walls, and Roman walls become clearer to me, I remember them better, and I am better able to teach about them.


6) Revisit your journal periodically.  Last of all, when you get back, revisit your journal from time to time.  Start off doing so every week, and then every month and every year.  When you revisit it, add a page or two of notes.  What does your experience traveling back then mean to you now?  Traveling is a luxury some of us enjoy, but it can also be a valuable learning opportunity, one that continues to be valuable for as long as we continue to reflect on it.

Do you have other journaling tips?  I'd love to hear them.  Meanwhile, I've got to get back to preparing for my next trips and courses abroad.


Buen viaje!