Ben Griffith

Need the Press: The Isolated Medieval World

When my alarm sounded this morning I immediately jumped up and turned on the TV to watch the morning news. After a quick breakfast, I listened to ESPN Radio as I pedaled to the library, and, upon arrival, I immediately pulled out my computer and checked the politics section on Huffington Post. Even now, as I write this essay, I’m fighting the urge to check my RSS feed reader as the bold, red “78” (standing for 78 new blog posts) is staring at me.

With this incredible sense of connectedness to the world in my background, I am shocked by a description of the medieval world where “each hamlet was inbred, isolated, unaware of the world beyond the most familiar local landmark: a creek, or mill, or tall tree scarred by lightning.” The medieval world of isolation where “generations succeeded one another in a meaningless, timeless blur” is unfathomable to this child of the 21st century. 

The clash of worlds–one without newspapers or magazines, the other with 24 hour news coverage of sports, weather, entertainment, and a plethora of other kinds–is the topic of my essay. I imagine a thought experiment comparing our news-saturated world with its radical antithesis, a medieval world of citizens in isolated villages ignorant of the great events of the world. I argue that there are both disadvantages and benefits to living in a world without news. A modern bias tempts me to levy a full-fledged condemnation of the medieval mind’s unawareness of the world outside their village; however, I want to explore a possible benefit to their newsless world.

First, the disadvantages. In a world where there are no news sources and the only pamphlets are written in Latin, a language no longer understood, each citizen is completely blind to the world outside of their own village. For the medieval citizens whose world consisted of only a few square miles, they experienced two kinds of disadvantages: reflective disadvantages and pleasure disadvantages.

The reflective disadvantages refer to the citizens’ difficulty in reflecting philosophically due to a lack of exposure to the world beyond their village. Reflecting on the lives of others is very valuable in putting one’s own beliefs and opinions about the world in proper perspective. If the village is all that a person knows, then they cannot help but accept the beliefs and opinions about the world that have been passed down to them. Contra to the modern world where diversity constantly challenges well-accepted beliefs and opinions, the medieval mind had a much more difficult time reflecting on philosophical questions if for no other reason than the dirth of intellectual options.

Additionally, there is a pleasure disadvantage for those who are not privy to news. I read the news, listen to ESPN Radio, and watch CNN because I like it. Yes, I believe that it helps a person’s ability to reflect philosophically on the world, but it is also simply a luxury that creates enjoyment and pleasure for people. Perhaps the euphoria of thinking about the news is caused by a desire to know more (in the case of a news station like NPR) or maybe it is the emotional response to witty rhetoric (ESPN Radio’s Colin Cowherd comes to mind). Whatever the cause, the medieval mind was disadvantaged in their lack of access to this form of pleasure.

The disadvantages of a lack of access to news seem so obvious that I hardly need to elucidate them. A world without news seems barbaric, primitive, perhaps even inhuman. But is it possible that a world where people are born, live, and die “never dreaming that they should be informed about great events, let alone have any voice in them” could have certain advantages over the contemporary melange of voices and opinions? One benefit of the medieval world is the concern that each citizen necessarily had for the immediate needs of their community. This can be seen especially well in light of the modern citizen’s distraction from attending to the immediate needs of our communities.

For all of its advantages, the way that I guzzle news from every source can quickly become a way of becoming distracted from actual engagement with the world. There are countless examples of people who are concerned with issues, but do little or nothing to solve the issues. In fact, some of the most politically informed citizens do the least to help fix a hot-button political issue (poverty, for example). This could be viewed as a situation where the pleasure of news outweighs the reflective benefits. This means, ironically, that news access could detach people from the world rather than causing them to be more reflective and responsible. Contra to this contemporary context, the medieval citizen could not help but be focused on their present time and surroundings. There was no virtual escape into the wider world that could detract from attention to their immediate neighbors and the immediate issues of their village–this is all that they knew. The issues that could easily become ethereal were ignored in exchange for constant attention on the present.

While the modern world is more equipped to reflect on broad philosophical issues and is privy to the pleasure of becoming individually educated on a broad number of news-related issues, this news access comes with the accompanied dangers of noise addiction and hyper-individualism. Reflecting on the historical situation of medieval citizens should inspire the contemporary Western citizen to utilize the value of news access, but to augment it with a desire to focus on the immediate needs of those around us. 

Travel- #Think30

If we live truly, we shall see truly. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Not everyone wants to travel the world, but most people can identify at least one place in the world they’d like to visit before they die. Where is that place for you, and what will you do to make sure you get there?

I have wanted to visit Europe for a few years now, but my reasons have shifted away from merely site-seeing or trying all of the different european cuisine to two dominating reasons why I have to visit Europe before I die. 

First, I want to see all of the historical places and the significant moments in Western culture that they represent. After taking “Arts & Ideas” I came to appreciate how much of Western culture is shaped by Rome, Paris, and London. I want to see all of the artwork, libraries, museums, structures, battle-sites and cathedrals that have made us who we are in the West.

Second, speaking of cathedrals, the primary reason I want to see Europe is because of my Christian faith. I see this both as an informational journey to see the significant sites firsthand as well as a transformational pilgrimage to observe the testimony of both the living and the dead. I want to pray in Canterbury, walk through the vatican, and walk the (still) dangerous streets of Constantinople. 

I’m not sure what I can do to get there. Traveling Europe is something both Meredith and I are passionate about, so I can only hope it happens soon.

“One Strong Belief” #Trust30

Here’s today’s prompt (and my response) from the #Trust30 30-day writing challenge. You can learn more and join in on the challenge here.

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

———————————-

I believe that everyone has something to offer if only they are given the opportunity to have a voice. I think that many people want to believe this, but few actually live as if this were true. It’s way too easy to surround ourselves with people who are nothing but mirrors of ourselves in all the significant ways that we think, act, and assume. When assumptions are questioned, then everything that we feel and believe is threatened. But the sneaky part about assumptions is that they are often merely assumed—there is no strong reason or warrant to believe them. But, despite how tenuous they are, they are so foundational to the way that we view the world and filter our ideas. That’s why “giving a voice” is crucial to believing that everyone has something to offer. A voice, no matter how rich its content, amounts to nothing if it is not given an ear. 

I know this all too well because of what I have lived through. For 18 years or so I limited my personal assessment of who had a voice to an extremely select few. Anyone who did not share 95% or so of my religious or political convictions were immediately suspect. And by suspect, I mean completely wrong and devoid of any constructive contribution to me. Now, after realizing the insane arrogance of this kind of epistemic posture, I find myself the target of the same scrutiny. 

While being given a strong ‘dose of my own medicine’ has helped me see how foolish and arrogant I once was, it also helps to hone and expose how limited I continue to be. So, my goal now is to always give an ear to a voice no matter how different it is than mine. My goal is to listen, really listen, to both new voices that I am unfamiliar with as well as old voices that might have a fresh work of critique against where I am now. My goal is to live a life of cognitive humility. As arrogant as I find myself, I’m not worried about the charges of being “too openminded,” or being told that I change my beliefs too often. I’d rather be a listener and a learner and be wrong, than I would to dig my cognitive heels into the ground and assume a posture that I have “already arrived.”

Today is a day to live among beloved friends.

The Good and the Bad of Richard Hays, ‘Moral Vision of the NT’

I just finished reading Hays’s work that has become an instant classic in the world of NT Ethics. Hays is a renowned scholar in the area of New Testament biblical ethics and an important voice among conservative New Testament biblical studies professors and theologians. 

Here’s my rapid react to the work. I tried to be fair about what I thought was good, and then give some detail about what I didn’t care some much for. Up front, I want to say that I learned more from the first 270 pages or so of his work than any other book I’ve read. He moved with such breadth and clarity through the majority of the New Testament providing compelling descriptions of the ethical perspectives and themes of the various books. And, of course, his categories of Community, Cross, and New Creation are illuminating in a way that they can’t be dismissed as the three central focal images of the New Testament.

Here’s my reaction:

I thought his sections on the Bible and his descriptions of Niebuhr, Barth, Yoder, Hauerwas, and Fiorenzia were great. I found those to be enlightening and helpful. I enjoyed his synthetic/descriptive work on Scripture and of the five examples of hermeneutics I had only read Niebuhr so I enjoyed having a more systematic and detailed description of the other figures. I thought he was unnecessarily unfair to Niebuhr in places and flat out wrong in his claim that Niebuhr puts too great trust in our ability to predict the outcomes of our actions (if I had the book with me I’d give the reference). I just finished Niebuhr’s Irony of American History which is a book that focuses on explicitly denying America’s ability to predict the future and to warn against overconfidence when it comes to political moves like war. I’d be interested to know if he was unfair in places to the other four.

My biggest complaint with his hermeneutical proposal was his insistence on the primacy of Scripture and that all other sources are subservient to it. It sounded a whole lot like “the Bible says it, that settles it” to me, especially as he worked out his approach the issues like homosexuality, war, and abortion at the end. To be fair to Hays, he says that this is an assumption he makes and to defend it would be another full length work, so I can respect ‘Moral Vision’ as “this is how application would work if you assume the primacy of Scripture.” But I want to know more about why he’s so disparaging of (especially) tradition and experience. From my perspective, these sources should be treated as competing ethical resources rather than subservient resources to understanding Scripture. It seems that Hays’s approach to Scripture is a product of Reformational categories and a belief in sola scriptura which I find historically late and epistemologically problematic. It seems that the origin of the canon attests to the fact that Scripture stands within tradition more so than it stands above it. He was also disparaging of philosophy as a resource (in the category of experience) which seems equally historically late and going against the Christian tradition of the first millenia. I’d love to hear if anything I’m saying/thinking in this area is misguided either in my disagreement or my interpretation of Hays.

My only other gripe with the work is more an issue of style and presentation rather than content. I was so frustrated when he stated that he would do something later in the book, but it was only done indirectly. For instance, he said early on that he would show the problems with Hauerwas’s desconstructionist approach to texts, but never spelled out those problems specifically. He indirectly dealt with it, but I wanted a specific section arguing and setting out a more systematic proposal. Hays did the same thing later on when he said in passing that there are problems with giving too great a role as a resource for ethics. He said he’d pick that argument back up in the “homosexuality” section but never did so. In his mind I’m sure he indirectly answered the question, but I wanted a clear and convincing argument from him. 
I’d love to hear thoughts from anyone who’s read Hays or knows more about him.

A Protestant Learns to Love the Church Fathers

I agree with you, and I like the analogy. It took me a very long time to finally get over a “patternis­tic”readin­g of the Bible that sees it as a blueprint or map for Christian living. Making that realizatio­n and then actually growing beyond it in to a new understand­ing are very different. I gave up on reading the Bible as THE source of Christian identity, but now I see the Bible as the foundation­al text of Xian identity but the Christian Tradition as the (here’s another analogy for you) the house that was built on the foundation­. I gave up on the Protestant project when I gave up on the desire to bulldoze the house and rebuild it based on my personal reading of Scripture.

Here’s a link to a piece of mine on Huffington Post. It was really born out of my class with Fred this semester that was designed to teach us how to constructively appropriate materials from within the Christian tradition.