Anti-Intellectualism.

Lets talk about anti-intellectualism.  In the wake of this political nightmare that is the Romney vs. Obama election, it's all I can think about.

Why do people run away from thinking?

Because thinking is hard.

Because changing is hard.

Because humility is hard.

Because loving others is hard.

Because confrontation is hard.

Because listening is hard.

Because patience and understanding for others is hard, but not nearly as hard as patience and understanding for yourself.

Thinking is hard.

But, hm.  Humility, changing, loving, listening, patience, understanding...sounds like 1 Corinthians 13, doesn't it?

In order to think, you have to be willing to take ownership of your mortality.  You have to face god in the garden, covered in clothes of leaves, look god in the eye, and admit your inadequacy.  You have to realize that you are a failure - and complete and utter disappointment - and that the only thing you function on - the ONLY thing - is grace.  Grace from god, grace from your family, grace from your government, grace from your friends.  You and I deserve nothing.  What we earn is drivel compared to what we owe.  Our debt outweighs our net worth one hundred thousand fold.

Once we recognize this, even just the slightest glimmer of this, we can start thinking, because we can start admitting we are wrong.

The hardest thing I can think of is to admit I'm wrong about something I don't believe I'm wrong about. So, since political debate is all about forcing the other to admit he or she is wrong, I have the right to refuse.

I might be wrong.  There might be a loving, caring, listening god inches from my ears.

Being gay might totally be a violation of nature and god's law.

Maybe more socialized health care is a really bad idea.

Maybe higher taxes is gonna make everything a lot worse.

Maybe women do not have the right to kill their unborn children.

Maybe having sex before marriage does ruin something in someone so deep that it leaves an unforgettable scar.

Maybe Barak Obama is doing way more bad things than he says he is.

Maybe digital copyright is a way bigger deal than I think it is.

Maybe Ayn Rand is right about capitalist selfishness (that one's hard to say).

Maybe there is a serious, unbridgeable difference between genders.

Maybe there's only two genders.

Maybe the proper way to run a household is with a single, male breadwinner.

Maybe every single person who doesn't say "the prayer" goes to hell.  Maybe that doesn't exclude Ghandi or Anne Frank.

Honestly?

I don't know.

Just once I'd like to see a politician get up on stage and say to his opponent: "Here are my stances.  But I might be wrong.  You might be right.  And I'm willing to listen."  But it will never happen.  Listening doesn't win elections.  Neither does trusting the masses to make good decisions.  Neither does compromise.

"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues,they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."




Prophesy, tongues, knowledge - all will pass, because they are partials of the whole, which will come.  Our gifts, the things we treasure and pride ourselves in most, they are all pieces of something greater.  But we cling to them.  They are our identity.  Our abilities, our education, our social and political positions, they are our tongues and prophecy.  They will leave us, and none of them matter.

Did you catch that last part?  Three things remain.  Faith.  Hope.  Love.  Faith, which I lost listening for a god that didn't answer, and which has flickered inside me like a subtle reminder, constantly doused in cold water by the institution suggested by the term faith.  Hope, which I lose when I listen to the poison people spew at each other over things that genuinely don't matter.

But love.  Paul says it's the greatest of the three.  The greatest of the three things that remain after knowledge and prophesy and tongues are gone.  Love, the equalizer, the source of both grace and forgiveness,

I'm not from woodstock.  Love isn't tye-dye and fucking.  Love makes woodstock look more shallow than a middle school relationship conducted entirely over myspace.  Love is more than live and let live, it's more than smoking weed and listening to Jimi.



I don't think love is something I can give to you.  I crave it like nourishment.  I cannot love you.  I can't do anything like that properly.  I am a fallen man, and my brokenness and shame are only lightened by the love I crave from an unknown source.  I can't give love.  I can only try to accept it.  The reflection I attempt is a pitiful part of the whole, and my love to you is only a humble man's best attempt at regifting.



Anti-intellectualism?  Please think.  Please hurt, change, question, observe, research, and please listen.  But most of all, please be humble.  We are just parts.  We know nothing.  After all, for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  That sounds a whole lot like a call to shut the fuck up and listen.