(click to enlarge)Credo ut intelligam
It is difficult to describe the crisis I have been living through these past several weeks. The drawing by my office door Short version : Don’t call out the Devil if you aren’t ready to bout . Alternative short version : “Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” —1 Corinthians 1:20 There has been much bitterness. There have been feelings of betrayal. There have been feelings of being lied to while watching people whom I thought were my supporters fall away. Friends warn me about overreacting. At which I overreact. “Academic freedom means nothing if the faculty do not stand up for it.” I believed that. Someone whom I have trusted my entire academic career told me that. I still believe it—but do my colleagues? “Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.” I heard someone say that recently on his livestream. Someone whom my friends tell me I s...
Frighteningly, I think sometimes it works *just that way*...
ReplyDeleteNice, but is the polemic really inevitable? I can't help but think of the difference between A. G. Dickens, Euan Cameron, and Eamon Duffy, on the one hand, and Diarmaid MacCulloch on the other. The former are engaged in the polemic (on different sides), while MacCulloch, I think, is beyond it. But then, his position as a gay, ex-Anglican, agnostic is unusual and, as he admits, contributes to his historiographical position. (Well, to be precise, it's the ex-Anglican and agnostic aspects that he admits as influences.)
ReplyDelete@Brian: Perhaps we don't always perceive it as polemic, but surely writing as a ex-anything suggests a particular interpretative position. I've tried to articulate a bit more clearly what's bothering me in today's post. Maybe it's that I don't buy anybody else's position but can't yet articulate mine.
ReplyDelete