The Loss Of Reflection

Here is an invitation to enter into a great conversation that has been part of the human experience for a few thousand years – it is an invitation to be mindful human beings. We all possess an innate reflective nature, and we all want a thoughtful habit of mind. To make such reflection part of developing the character of a good human being was once the purpose of education.

But now, education has lost its purpose, and therefore it has drifted off into seas that it can no longer negotiate – skills training of any sort, which really means of no sort.

One such skill that received undue attention (because it is an artificial creature, fabricated to make it seem like education is doing something valuable, when it is not) – is something called “critical thinking.”

Much has been written on this “important” topic, but usually we are none the wiser for all this great endeavor – reading is on the decline, and attentions spans are getting shorter. In other words, how can you have critical thinking when no one reads anything longer than one or two paragraph?

It is is not a surprise, therefore, that those that promote “critical thinking” (often to safeguard their own salaries) want to reduce thinking to “a method” that can be effectively and profitably taught and learned.

This ends up a lengthy and meaningless list of “fallacies,” which must be avoided. This is all backed-up by things called “deductive” and “inductive” logic, so you can latch on to faulty conclusions, premises and arguments. Of course, how you actually apply of these so-called “fallacies” to real life is never discussed.

Education, through such means, becomes a bag of tricks, which are supposed to transform you into some sort of super-sleuth who can ferret out any and all types of shoddy thinking in order to destroy it.

In other words, there is now a big disconnect between what we are taught and what we are expected to do in life. This has led to the loss of reflection. Not that humans don’t reflect anymore – but that reflection is conditioned by a culture in which reflection doesn’t exist.

Human beings need to understand the content and scope of their reflection – because our thinking alone defines us and then creates the society we want to inhabit.

Reflection cannot, and should not, be a set of rules of a diluted form of logic, taught by the illogical. Rather, what we need is not a list of dos and don’ts – but a the creation of a habit – the habit of using our minds with the greatest care.

What we need now is a turning back to the true purpose of education – the creation of the mind, which can transcend all the urgent desires of instinct. It is reflection alone that makes the man.

 

Keith Farneham is pursuing a PhD in ancient philosophy.
The photo shows, “Renoir” by Frédéric Bazille, painted in 1867.

Vikings In Paris

On November 25, in the year 885, a fleet of longboats appeared, just beyond the Île-de-la-Cité along the Seine. It was a dreaded but frequent occurrence in West Francia of the late ninth century.

Viking marauders, known as Danes by their contemporaries, plied their terror up and down the Seine and the Loire with relative ease, for the Carolingian rulers were intent on various internecine struggles and had little time for matters such as infrastructure (walls and fortifications) and the raising of levies for defence.

This absence of central command allowed the Norsemen not only to rove largely unhindered but also to set up permanent camps in Neustria: around the mouths of the Seine and the Somme, around Fécamp, Rouen and even on Jeufosse.

The ensuing instability compelled some abbeys and monasteries, an especial target of the Vikings, to relocate to remoter areas; this was also true of smaller villages and hamlets. This was an abandonment of vast tracts of land, which the raiders eventually appropriated; the Norsemen were looking not only for loot but also territory; England had already yielded them the Danelaw.

Paris had been besieged three times previously; on each occasion it had been saved only by the payment of ransom; a preferred late Carolingian tactic when dealing with the raiders.

That November day, the Vikings were led by a chieftain named Siegfried, and he came to negotiate rather than lay siege. Siegfried proposed a simple plan: the Parisians were to allow his men unopposed passage, down the Seine, that they might ravage deeper into the Frankish heartland. In return, they would leave Paris unmolested.

This parley might not haven been needed previously, but about twenty years earlier, in 864, the citizens of Paris had built two bridges on either side of the Seine, precisely in order to hinder easy access to the Norsemen.

This construction was in accordance with the terms of the Edict of Pîtres, one of the few viable actions taken by Charles the Bald in West Francia against the Vikings. Siegfried put the Parisians in a moral dilemma – should they save themselves and put their fellow countrymen at risk?

The choice was not hard to make, and the Viking request was refused. As a result, the city was besieged; the Norsemen likely wanted to capture Paris in order to use it as base for further incursions, just as they had captured Rouen in 841.

The Parisians, though few in number, put up a heroic defense, led by such able men as Count Odo, or Eudes, Bishop Joscelin and Abbot Ebolus.

Despair, terror, misery and even plague beset the city in the ensuing months, but its citizens sustained themselves through their faith in Saint Germain, the heavenly ward of Paris.

In the end, Charles the Fat, the ruler of West Francia, made use of the classic Carolingian ploy in dealing with the Norsemen – he bought them off with seven hundred pounds of silver, and he also allowed them free passage down-river into Burgundy.

All in all, it was a profitable eleven months for the raiders. This fact was not lost on the Parisians and it greatly embittered them, and when Charles the Fat died, Carolingian rule reached the point of no return – Count Odo became the first king of a new principality – France.

There would be a last gasp or two of Carolingian control, but France would continue to proceed along a different trajectory – for King Odo was the first Robertian ruler – and thereby the very first Capetian – in that Odo was the granduncle of Hugh Capet, to whose descendants France would become a rich patrimony.

Also on that November day, a young monk named Abbo, of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, watched from the walls of Paris, where he and his fellow citizens found security, and in time, he would come to record what he saw, what he understood and what he believed in his heroic poem, the Bella parisiacae urbis, that is “The Battles of the City of Paris.”

We know little about Abbo other than that he lived out his days in his Abbey and left to posterity his unique poem as well as a few sermons. The unique witness preserved in the Bibliothéque nationale de France may very well be in his own hand.

But what he has left us is a rich legacy of a fascinating period in French and European history.

 

The photo shows, “A Viking Raid,” by Ferdinand Leeke, painted in 1901.

How Should We Think?

The enduring emphasis of skill in the educational system emphasizes two kinds of thinking, while neglecting a third kind.

Skill is closely related to know-how, or technical knowledge, and to analytical, or scientific, knowledge. The former is repetitive and performative, in that a skill is repeated in order to produce the same result.

Scientific knowledge seeks to explain or predict; it can do no more. For example, many children are prodigies with mathematics or music, in that they have acquired the skill to repeat notes or numerical patterns.

Their expertise, or skill, is marvelous to witness – but no one turns to them for guidance on issues of freedom, individuality, or responsible government. Why? Because we know that skills are not higher-level thinking.

In the same way, a physicist understands fully how to establish models that can test natural laws and predict what nature may or may not do – but we do not consult this person about matters pertaining to the good society, or love. Why? Because physics is analytical and cannot be used to understand goodness or love.

Despite these obvious handicaps in scientific and technical knowledge, we still demand that higher education worry only about training workers. While everyone is functioning smoothly in industry – who is looking after the functioning of society?

Perhaps the reason for voter apathy, for example, and low voter turn-out may directly be related to this question.

There is a third kind of knowledge, which may be labeled practical wisdom. It is not technical, explanatory, or predictive. It is concerned with ideals, with formulating judgments and making decisions, and it directly relates to the way we encounter the world around us and the way we participate in society.

In other words, there is a specific kind of thinking which directly relates to the good society. Practical wisdom is about ideals. Life is always greater than tangible, material things.

Indeed, what is more important to human beings – happiness or skill? To worry about skills is to desire to become a robot. To worry about happiness is to understand our humanity – because to be happy each of us must reflect upon what truth is and what goodness is, and each of us must create meaning in our lives.

Skills can do neither of these things. To be happy, to have meaning and value, we need to think critically, in the true sense of the term.

 

The photo shows, “Maud Cook,” by Thomas Eakins, painted in 1895.