Simple Gifts
Recently Ruby and I went camping. Upon arriving at the campsite, I discovered I’d left our tent pegs at home. P. J. Hoffmaster State Park, situated alongside Lake Michigan south of Muskegon, lies less than forty miles from our house. I could easily have put Ruby back in the car, driven home, and returned with the missing metal stakes.
Whittled wooden tent pegs
Not one to waste time, however, and not wanting to add fumes to a polluted environment, I chose to improvise instead. Using a camping knife and some right-sized sticks, I whittled six rustic pegs to hold the tent in place. This simple solution suited our ancient little tent, with its tiny patches and multiple mends. I hadn’t used it in three decades and had resurrected it for this trip only because a newer and larger tent had worn out. Although awkward to set up and not much to look at, the old tent offered cozy, bug-free shelter during our two-night stay.
The tent also made an unintended statement amid the high-octane recreational vehicles and new-fangled camping equipment and rampant digital devices on campsites nearby. Modestly it said, We’re here for solitude not for show; the joy of camping can be as simple as one quiet man, his lovely dog, and an old-fashioned tent.
Hallowed Halls
Two weeks before our camping trip, the American historian Molly Worthen published a much-discussed essay in The New York Times titled “Why Universities Should Be More Like Monasteries”. Worthen tells about two courses—“Living Deliberately” and “Existential Despair”—led by Justin McDaniel, a professor of Southeast Asian and religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Both courses require students to set aside their high-tech devices in order to practice intensive introspection and reflective conversation.
University of Toronto, St. George. Photo by Julia Spina on Unsplash
According to Worthen, all universities should consider creating opportunities like these for “the elusive experience of uninterrupted thought.” They should selectively return to “the university’s roots in the monastic schools of medieval Europe” and rekindle “the old-fashioned quest for meaning.” Her advice reminds me of the words to “Simple Gifts,” the old Shaker tune woven into Aaron Copland’s ballet score Appalachian Spring and later beautifully performed by Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Kraus:
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
Professor Worthen’s suggestions make good sense. If I were still teaching philosophy in the classroom, I’d love to try them. As she says, “pondering ultimate questions and cultivating cognitive endurance should not be luxury goods.” Indeed, all students from across the entire university curriculum, with their diverse backgrounds and orientations, should experience philosophy at its best. And at its best, philosophy is not simply a subject to study. It is a way of life.
Digital Capitalism
Yet the call to reconnect universities with their monastic roots seems to assume that, by creatively staking out thoughtful spaces like an old-fashioned tent amid the turbocharged carnival of contemporary education, we can undo the cultural damage wrought by digital capitalism. If that’s what we assume, then it’s time to revisit Karl Marx’s social critique. Already in 1848 Marx and Friedrich Engels understood that, as an economic system, capitalism must constantly revolutionize technologies and markets in order to grow—that is, in order to keep generating profits on investments. Moreover, no sector of society escapes this dynamic, not even universities and monasteries. As The Communist Manifesto puts it, “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.”
Grand Prismatic Pool, Yellowstone National Park. Photo by Don Kawahigashi on Unsplash
That’s why, when philosophers break out of their self-imposed silos, as my previous blog post urges, we must develop a comprehensive critique of society. We need to ask what sort of society would better serve the flourishing of all creatures. We have to understand how economic, technological, and political pressures play out in the inner sanctums of education and research. We must also figure out how society-wide patterns of destruction can be resisted within the university itself and how, with the help of revitalized universities, other internally disfigured institutions can be transformed. The discussion of “Truth and Science” in my Social Domains of Truth book suggests how (see especially pp. 190-95).
Wondering Why
On the second day of our camping trip, Ruby and I took an eight-mile hike along the lakeshore and through the dunes and forests of Hoffmaster State Park. As usual, Ruby celebrated her time in the water, and I treasured our solitude. Afterwards, we were contented campers, as this photo of Ruby shows.
Carnival masks in Venice, Italy. Photo by AXP Photography on Unsplash
Aside from some workers repaving park roads, however, we did not meet any other people during our three-hour outing. Were Ruby and I alone, delighting in the simple gifts of hiking and swimming and solitude? Did our fellow campers want to stick close to their revved-up RVs and dinging digital devices? Was I the odd man out? Gazing past our homely wooden-pegged tent toward the colorful carnival of campers all around, I had to wonder, Why? Why are we all here? It’s the same question that nags us about universities today. Why are we all here? A good philosophy should help us say why.
