The duty of the poet

"The duty of the poet is to bolster the nation's courage," said Professor Sullivan to our Chaucer class in the Spring of 1962.

Almost 50 years --- and how many cultural revolutions --- later, this seems not only odd, not only a contradiction to what we know to be true, but an actual affront to our deepest and most important sensibilities.

The artist has a duty??!! What nonsense.

Well, perhaps. Perhaps the current wisdom that each of us is responsible only to himself; that self-actualization is the only goal that matters; and that art and perhaps all of life is about self-expression only --- perhaps these currently conventional truths are true. Perhaps there is nothing more than "It's all about me."

Frank Sullivan believed something different and was using Chaucer, his work, and the time he lived in to make his point.

We were studying "The Canterbury Tales," a series of stories which, one after another, reveal the vanities, self-delusion, cupidity, venality, and self-importance of the tellers. But Chaucer never condemns his characters. They are presented to us as flawed --- they're human, after all --- but still understandable, enjoyable, and lovable. Humbly laughing at our own foibles and failure is the goal.

The "Tales" are never anything but life-affirming because of Chaucer's deep affection for his characters.

Professor Sullivan contrasted this attitude with the attitude of most of 20th Century literature: the Theatre of the Absurd, the "angry young men", the "slice of life" dramatists, and the rest. Their response to the difficulties and dangers and horrors of the 20th Century was to give in to despair and then to inflict that view on the rest of us.

But Chaucer lived in a time of danger and horror, too, the time of the Plague, which had killed a third of the population of Europe, nearly emptied the cities, and inhibited social, cultural, and economic progress for a century or more. Sullivan's point was that people in Chaucer's time were just as afraid of the Plague as we were of the Bomb.

(Six months later, many of us spent a lot of time in the Chapel, praying that the nuclear standoff over the missiles in Cuba would not lead to the end of the world. Our fear of the Bomb was a very real thing and the comparison was rich.)

Chaucer, and Sullivan, believed that in times of trouble it was the duty of the poet --- the singer of songs, the teller of tales --- to tell stories that reminded us that life was worth living, that there are deeper meanings than the merely material, that courage and steadfastness in the face of adversity are admirable. To be reminded, as Aragorn says in Lord of the Rings, "There is always hope."

But in the last almost 50 years, the tellers of tales --- the makers of music, movies, and television --- have, for the most part, described the human condition as absurd and hopeless; all are greedy and selfish, it is "the war of all against all," everyone is in it for his own gain, and anyone who contends otherwise is either a naive fool or is working a scam.

We have gone beyond irony to post-irony, where mockery and ridicule are taken to be the proper response to anything and everything.

This is, without question, an understandable reaction to the horrors of the 20th Century which had no precedent in human history. Many of the smartest, best-educated, and most thoughtful among us concluded in what seemed like nothing but mere rationality that the whole Western project had been a delusion and that we were --- and there was certainly plenty of evidence to support such a conclusion --- nothing but cruel, vicious beasts barely held in tenuous control by the forces of society. Cynicism, nihilism, and pessimism then became not a failure of nerve but a courageous facing up to reality.

An understandable reaction, but wrong.

There are millions of people who see their lives as meaningful and live accordingly, without much help from the "poets" of our time. But how much better off we would be if the tellers of tales, the keepers of the informing myths, were to remind us that honor, nobility, sacrifice, and decency are not only possible but necessary; if the teachers, the clergymen, the musicians, the writers of fiction, and the makers of movies consistently reminded us of the deeper meanings of our lives.

The great chief Tecumseh is quoted as saying, "When the legends die, the dreams end; there is no more greatness." Or, from another tribal culture, The Book of Proverbs says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

In After Virtue, the philosopher Alisdair Macintyre refers to our time as a "new dark age" one in which "the barbarians are no longer waiting outside the gates but have been governing us for quite some time." He concludes the book by saying that "What we need is another, doubtless very different, St. Benedict." (See also.)

What we also need is another, doubtless very different, Geoffrey Chaucer.

An education for freedom

A liberal education is preparation for human maturity. It is a multifaceted concept which encompasses such things as the introduction into what is best in the culture; the preparation for responsible citizenship in a free society; the fostering of independent, flexible, and creative thought; the encouragement of informed and principled decision-making; the cultivation of leadership; the acquisition of significant knowledge; and a deep appreciation of core ethical values."

Or, to put it negatively, liberal education is opposed to indoctrination into either religious belief or political ideology and opposed to mere training for the sake of performing a function.

The goal of a liberal education is to free persons from the prisons of their ignorance and prejudice, not to confine them in new and better prisons of our design.

There are four reasons to strive for a liberal education, even though the marketplace presses for professional preparation.

The first is that it is the economically utilitarian thing to do. Our graduates will live in a world of global pluralism and a dynamic economy that demand innovation, creativity, and flexibility. They will interact with people from all over the world in ways that we can scarcely conceive today and the prediction is that they will probably have as many as 9 changes in career.

The best preparation for this kind of life is not a narrow technical training (much less an indoctrination into a particular belief system) but rather an immersion in the best that has been written, composed, and created over the course of human history, with nearly unlimited opportunities to think about, write about, discuss, and converse about.

The best preparation for intelligent, principled interaction with people different and yet the same is knowledge, thoughtfulness, and an understanding of the nearly infinite variety of human experience.

The second reason is that it is the politically expedient thing to do. If things continue the way they are going, our graduates will live in a world that is ever more democratic --- in the definition of popular culture, in how the news and the commentary on the news are disseminated, in how political candidates and office holders are known and judged.

In this kind of hyper-democracy, it is unimaginably important for the participants to be able and willing to read, write, listen, and speak with clarity, honesty, insight, and effect. The development of skills may get one a job, but it does not provide these abilities; liberal education does.

The third reason is that it is protection against manipulation, the only way to protect ourselves against the incredibly powerful and effective economic and political propaganda machines. We must be able to deconstruct, to analyze and interpret, to understand human cupidity and the temptations of wealth and power.

The fourth reason, and I think the most important, although the least directly utilitarian, is that it is the best preparation for freedom. Human beings were created to be free, and freedom requires making informed, principled decisions; that is, freedom requires taking on the burden of making one's own moral decisions, based on knowledge and understanding and using the tools of honest, logical thought. We were not meant to be mere performers of functions or mere political or religious toadies; we were meant to be free. And only a rich, complex mental library gives us the wherewithal to embrace that freedom despite its terrors.

"You are brilliant, and the universe is hiring"

A commencement address given at the University of Portland, May 3, 2009, by Paul Hawken:

You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was "direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful." No pressure there.

Let's begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don't poison the water, soil, or air, don't let the earth get overcrowded, and don't touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food --- but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn't bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn't afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here's the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, "So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world."

There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refugee camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity's willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. "One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice," is Mary Oliver's description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown -- Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood -- and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not "out there" somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can't print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other micro-organisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe, which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a "little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven."

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is called life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequeathed to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn't stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn't ask for a better boss.

The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn't make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

21st Century Skills

One of the most basic truths about the school business is that there are always those who are absolutely sure about what public schools should be doing. They represent that phenomenon that religious writers refer to as enthusiasm, a "rapturous inspiration, an overly confident or delusory belief."

It is a sign of our foolishness as a species and also of our innocence that we are capable of embracing very different and even contradictory enthusiasms over time. The key is never to be too precise or too coherent about the logic of one's enthusiasm, neither the first premises, nor the called-for practices, nor the ultimate purposes. If one has been at it long enough, he or she could have been an enthusiast for the open classroom, for going back to basics, for whole language, for self-esteem, for school choice and vouchers, for the standards movement, for professional learning communities, and so on.

Another key is that the enthusiasm must be, in some obviously recognizable way, pertinent to the current situation, just enough so that people can immediately and easily see the connection between what is, what's needed, and what is being proposed.

Lately we have heard many cries from many sources that public schools should be giving students "21st Century skills." Conceptually, this phrase is a disaster: No one could possibly give a clear, coherent explanation of what it means. This vagueness is part of the attraction for people who traffic not in careful thought but in slogans.

It may be a conceptual disaster, but politically it's effective, for who could argue against students leaving their K-12 experience with anything less than those skills appropriate and necessary to leading a successful life in the 21st Century?

But what are those skills? I wonder what the answer to that question would have been in 1911. Would anyone alive 100 years ago have been able to imagine, to predict the explosion of innovation and creativity that has occurred during the last 60 years? Most people in 1911, if asked to define "20th Century skills" would have described those skills necessary to factory work.

We have every reason to believe that the process of innovation and creativity will only continue to produce a rate of change the specifics of which are impossible to predict.

The second problem with "21st Century skills" is that it assumes that the only important thing --- or, at least, the most important thing --- is skill, the ability to do something.

This emphasis on doing is both deeply modern and deeply American and it has served us well. But the emphasis on doing has often led to a neglect of knowledge, clear thinking, and wisdom.

It isn't just that "21st Century skills" is mere cant; it's that it ignores what is really important --- the acquisition of knowledge, the development of understanding, the training in how to think, and the careful evaluation of the perennial questions in order to acquire wisdom.

Circumstances change but human nature does not change. However the circumstances of the 21st Century change --- and there is every reason to believe that those circumstances will continue to change drastically --- human beings will still need what they have always needed: the ability to evaluate, to make judgments, to make informed, principled decisions.

Rather than embracing the current enthusiasm, those of us who are involved in schools should be asking, "How can we best help students learn to lead fully human lives?"

(Here is an expression of the more conventional view: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-steinberg-education-20101225,0,3381488.story )

The light shone in the darkness and the darkness grasped it not

For the 400 years between the Council of Trent and the 2nd Vatican Council, the concluding event of the Mass was the reading of the Gospel According to John, Chapter One, verses 1 - 14. There John says "the light shone in the darkness and the darkness grasped it not."

In a religious and spiritual and theological context, this is St. John describing in metaphorical terms what it meant for Jesus to come into the world, bringing the light of salvation, bringing "life, the light of men."

And the darkness of the world could neither understand nor enclose the light.

Like much in the pre-Vatican II mass, this was powerful because of its symbolic description, even though one would have to reflect on and grapple with poetic lines like this for a lifetime and probably still not fully understand.

I want to go sideways with this idea and treat not the theological nor the mystical levels of meaning but to consider how it might inform our own day-to-day practice in our circumstances.

This is, despite all the bright lights, a dark age. For those of us who pay perhaps too much attention to the manifestations of this darkness, it is salutary to consider those who every day in all their dealings manifest the light.

It is easy to pay attention to the signs of the darkness for we are reminded of it all the time: in music and movies, in the news in all its forms, in "reality" television and the various forms of Jerry Springerism, in "the spiteful, the stingy, and the rude" that we encounter every day.

What we have to choose to notice is the reality of millions upon millions of people who quietly choose every day to live with kindness, generosity, and patience. The teacher who never stops working at improving her craft and who goes to meet her students every morning full of optimism and hope. The coach who never gives up on his players (and never cheats to win). The nurse who treats the vulnerable with gentle kindness. The businessman who is not only honest in his dealings but considerate of the welfare of those with whom he does business. The skilled workers --- the plumbers and electricians and carpenters --- who take pride in their work and live up to the promises they make to their customers. The parents who wisely put the best interests of their children first, always, even at cost to themselves.

These are the people who are living in the light and, as always, the darkness doesn't get it.

Teaching and Baseball

Teaching is a lot like baseball. Both are games of mistakes, of nearly constant failure, of a kind of foolish faithfulness.

It's a cliche that baseball is a game of mistakes. The hitter who succeeds 3 times out of 10 is a star; 3 1/2 time out of 10 and he's a superstar. The pitcher who allows "only" 3 or 4 runs every 9 innings can have a long and successful career. And no fielder goes through a season without making an error. To play baseball is to be imperfect just as a matter of course.

(The Hall of Fame 3rd Baseman George Brett has a personalized license plate that says "E5".)

Teachers, too, are engaged in an activity of such complexity and such subtlety that it is almost impossible to get through even a single class without making some kind of mistake. Most are minor, many are not even noticed, but mistakes they are. A piece of paper forgotten, an assignment not clearly described, a student's name misspoken, a lecture mistimed, a meeting missed, a key piece of information left out --- a game of mistakes.

Maybe it's not so much that teaching is like baseball but rather that teaching and baseball are both a kind of art and the artist --- especially the performance artist --- never gets it exactly right, and every failure is an opportunity to hone one's craft, to do it better.

But to pursue the baseball analogy, what can we learn about how to teach?

First, always hustle. Play hard all the time. Come prepared, fight through failure, and give it your best.

Second, never lose sight of the fact that your teammates are depending on you. Be ashamed to let them down.

Third, lead. Lead by example if that's what suits you; lead by saying what needs to be said, in private or in public, if that's what suits you. But lead. Volunteer, suggest, take responsibility, for your own work and for the work that someone else didn't do.

Fourth, and this I think is the most important part of this, support your teammates when they fail and praise them when they succeed.

This is where the baseball analogy is most informative. If a baseball manager criticized every player who made a mistake, his team would not trust him very long and he would not be able to lead. Players know that baseball is a game of mistakes, that they are playing hard and doing the best they can, and that mistakes are made despite their best efforts. From their manager and from their teammates, they need a pat on the back, a "hang in there," to help them take a deep breath and get back to it.

Teachers, too, from one another and from the administrators they work for, need the understanding that we're all on the same team, we're all working as hard as we can and learning as much as we can, and that mistakes are made despite our best efforts. Like baseball players, teachers need a pat on the back, a "hang in there," a reminder that they are trusted.

But there should be praise, too. There should be real praise, not the canned, formulaic obligatory "compliments" that no one means and no one believes, but real praise.

For example, during the 2010 baseball season, Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies threw a perfect game during the season, threw a no-hitter in the playoffs (only the 2nd no-hitter in post-season baseball), and won the Cy Young award in the National League. He dominated.

During the playoffs, the N.Y. Times ran a long piece on the catcher for the Phillies, Carlos Ruiz. Within the story, several players were quoted saying very positive things, but the line I liked best was, "Carlos is the Roy Halladay of catchers."

Like catchers, teachers labor mostly in obscurity. But there is much that teachers do that is worthy of praise, real praise. They will seldom be praised in a long feature piece in the N.Y. Times, but they deserve to be praised by their colleagues and their administrators.

A pat on the back and a sympathetic "hang in there" when things go badly, and a quiet "Great job" from a fellow professional can go a long way.