Kindness, or, What is a Radical Act?

[Reblogged from my post yesterday on milesstrenuus]

I read a great column today by Rachel Moss about the necessity of kindness as a human, a societal quality, in Britain post-Brexit, and the necessity of kindness in higher education. It reflects my own conclusions on life: we must be kind, at the very least. To be so requires cultivating, deliberately in my experience, certain qualities of character, mentality, emotion, and being that aren’t always apparent. Too often we commit the sin of Parzival, when he failed to inquire of his host the Fisher King what ailed him–he was so wrapped up in himself, that he had no thought for anyone else. Conversely, kindness can also sometimes consist in refraining from speaking or acting in certain ways.

What stood out as a bit of an odd note to me in the essay was how kindness was described as a “radical act” and that “our activism begins with an outstretched hand.” Why radical? Why does kindness have to be “activism”? (Out of curiosity, I googled “what is a radical act,” and the results were quite diverse.)

I’ve always seen kindness–caritas, charity–as a spiritual quality, a state of being, which transcends the particularizing labels “radical” or “activism,” because it does not answer to man or any particular cause, but only to that supreme spiritual power, energy, call it what you will, in which I still believe.  If caritas is radical or activism, it is so only in the context of the spiritual contest of good versus evil, which, at least according to my Catholic background, one does not particularize to an individual, because that is playing God with people’s hearts and minds. It is also, again to my mind, an intensely private thing–let not the left hand know what the right hand does, and so forth. To call kindness radical sui generis is to make it an explicitly public act, when, as I’ve told people, that’s between me and the good Lord. Why should one particularly care whether others disapprove of your action? (I’m aware of the counter-argument that Christianity itself was founded on such radical caritas, but there’s more to it than that.)

Of course, this is all well and good for “normal” times–what could be defined as when the public sphere, people’s personal beliefs, and political culture are in alignment. Whether or not individuals harbor hateful, harmful resentment against their neighbors, as long as the public sphere is policed in a humanistic manner and a nation’s political culture confines campaigns to issues and not ad hominems, kindness is not likely to be remarkable.

But when this alignment slips or worse spirals out of control, to be kind does become radical. I was just reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship yesterday, and Nazi Germany would be one extreme example where to show kindness could and in many cases did end up being a death sentence.

When I arrived in the UK the Saturday after the Brexit vote, everyone was rather shocked (or disgusted, or so disgusted they were over it). It took a few days for all the stories of racist and xenophobic incidents to accumulate, and the noteworthy thing was that the “leave” leadership didn’t speak out against them or condemn them. Like, at all (someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I was pretty well connected to the news during that entire time). It was a disturbing feeling to walk down the multi-cultural and multi-racial streets of London and think that there were likely people walking next to each other, one of whom really didn’t want the other there.

In that sense, Rachel Moss is right: with public order out of alignment, being kind to someone who doesn’t look white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant can be a radical act.

Or not, because the authorities have made clear that that kind of behavior will not be tolerated (and also the make-up of the “leave” voters has been caricatured, in my opinion, but that’s another topic). By practicing caritas toward others, you are in fact standing with, not against, civic leaders such as Mayor Sadiq Khan. Even Theresa May isn’t espousing xenophobic behavior, quite the opposite at the moment. So, against what norms does an act have to stand for it to be radical–societal, governmental, political, national? Or only against a nucleus of individuals in a given instance?

I’m of the opinion that not everything in life is activism, although it’s fashionable these days to say that everything is activism and one’s daily life choices cannot be separated from the public sphere. That’s a reductio ad absurdum: if everything is activism, then nothing is. I wouldn’t put kindness in that category, sui generis.

And I wonder what is lost when we transfer the validation of caritas to the public sphere. Kindness needs no justification beyond the transcendent religious or philosophical conviction that it is right, that it is universal, and that it is a matter of conscience. If that is to be a radical activist, then I fear for the state of the world.

Such As We Are: Return

It has been over two years since I posted on this blog, and in all honesty I’m not sure why I stopped. The pace of life didn’t really change in the summer of 2013, though the challenges and dynamics changed as they do. Posts on my main blog grew fewer and further between as well, and I suspect part of the reason was that I’ve been using the blog for more long-form writing than is probably called for.

Whatever the reason, now is a good time to come back to Quod Sumus, with some edgier writing than in 2013, even though I’m now busier than at any previous time in my life. Here are some things I’ve learned in the last year or so:

1. Virtues
   1. Forgiveness and good will are a lot better than grudges and suspicion. Most of the time.
   2. If you have a choice in your mind between saying something constructive or destructive, go with constructive. You might not feel as good as if you get things off your chest, but you will in the long run. Every time I’ve made the destructive mistake, I’ve regretted it. Except when I haven’t.
   3. The longer I live, the more I am convinced that society’s ethical compass needs to be triangulated between deontological, consequential, and intentionalist ethics. These days consequentialist ethics seem to be running the farm, with bad results. The fact is, intention matters in evaluating action or speech (the two are separate). It doesn’t absolve one completely from the consequences of one’s actions or speech, but must still be considered in evaluating the morality of the thing itself. Not a lot of that going around these days, but I’m with Abelard on this one.
2. My profession
   1. It’s apparently impossible for me to do a perfect job interview, partly because I feel the interview process is largely bogus. I’ll just keep working on overcoming my aversion to selling a tight-knit, visionary scholarly package that no one cares about once you’re a colleague, and which everyone knows is largely bull.
   2. The historical profession in general, and medieval studies in particular, seems to be drifting toward trends that don’t value the time period I study, the topics I study, or my reasons for studying what I study. Well, screw ’em, because I’m not changing.
   3. Teaching a 5-6, and producing scholarship at the same time, has taught me a lot about how to manage time. I have no patience anymore with full-time faculty who gripe about having to teach 3 classes a semester. Yes, I know that you have faculty meetings that I don’t, but that still doesn’t even the playing field.
   4. Unions and formal legal protections and requirements are the only sane way to go. Nothing makes me more nervous than when someone says to me “well, we don’t really want to get all formal and official here.” Oh yes we do…
3. Life hacks
   1. Horses are wise, perceptive creatures. Sometimes too perceptive. But working with them is good for the soul.
   2. Having hobbies you do outside your job and profession is healthy and beneficial for all concerned. When his house caught fire, Hollister saved his collection of children’s literature ahead of his manuscript on the life of Henry I. I get his reasoning. I’d save my guitars ahead of my books. Well, most of my books.
   3. Social media is often more trouble than it’s worth, especially Twitter. Seriously, if I read an article or a primary source for the amount of time that I’m sucked into Twitter on a daily basis, I could catch up on my reading lists. Besides, people don’t want conversation on Twitter, they want echo chambers. Read a book.
   4. You can’t put a price on good friends and family. Treasure them.
   5. Fatherhood has a way of making you realize what life’s true priorities are, both for you, your spouse, and your little one. The things one obsesses about seem quite petty in comparison to experiencing the joy of life in one’s family.

That’s all for now. Hopefully I can keep posting on Quod Sumus at least a couple times a month.

Non-advice advice on handling academia

This has been making the rounds lately: an excellent piece on surviving the pressures of academia, especially those R1 positions that everyone dreams about getting. Dr. Nagpal’s account of how she survived, and even managed to flourish, against a grueling set of challenges and demands, is worth reading for graduate students, post-docs, and new faculty alike: The-Awesomest-7-Year-Postdoc or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty-life.  It’s advice without actually being advice–she says specifically that you eventually you just have to stop listening to people who give advice. I entirely agree, though I would qualify that by saying that you should always be alert for any useful practices or habits that your friends or colleagues may be practicing.  Dr. Nagpal’s practice of limiting travel is especially worth reading. As a younger graduate student, I was completely loopy about travel, and went to more conferences than I should have. Carefully planning your year’s academic travel is an excellent practice.

Working set hours is also good advice, though it’s not prescriptive: it’s up to you to figure out what those set hours are. Over the last few years, my most productive days have been those in which I read/wrote/graded from 8 to noon, took a break for lunch and other random tasks of a business, errand, or household nature, worked again from around 2 to 6, broke again for dinner or practices, and did a final session from around 8 to 11. So, 11 hours a day, ideally, though that wasn’t every day, and doesn’t take into account time spent with my significant other. After having been through a buzz-saw of work this past year, I would have to add that good food, good sleep, and good exercise are essential, and, like Dr. Nagpal says, if that means you get slightly less done in a day, so be it. You’ll be more efficient with the time that you do use. And besides, everyone can fine a million reasons why their piece of your time is important. But the truth is, it usually isn’t…  The Daily Beast‘s recent interview with Anthony Grafton, on how he writes, reveals concerns broadly similar, in some salient points, to Dr. Nagpal’s–different as their individual circumstances may be. But that’s the key, I think: difference. Everyone is different, has different pressures and constraints. So, advice needs to be given and taken with a grain of salt (except the sleep part–that’s not negotiable!).

Finding your own way is essential. For myself, I have not, and probably never will, treat my work as a 9-5 job–but then again, I think most folks, even those who are careful to stay sane by managing their time, don’t treat it that way either, at least strictly speaking.  If it’s what you love doing, that extra time past hour 8 isn’t really a burden. You just have to be careful to not let it take you completely, and remember to prioritize your relationships. While I doubt I’ll ever be able to make weekends “work free,” as Dr. Nagpal suggests, my wife and I have agreed that every week, probably on weekends, we’re going to do something fun–like hike, picnic, go to museums, see a play or movie, that sort of thing. Nothing ambitious, but something that forces us to get out of work mode and remember what’s really important in life. And we go running together in early in the morning as often as we can, besides. And cook together. And talk to each other, a lot.  So, it’s all about searching for your own way.

Ultimately, look for that non-advice advice that might be worth listening to, and give it a try if you feel like it. If not, don’t!  It’s your life, and there’s no magic formula for handling the pressures of academia. Good luck!