I've now had this conversation with at least a few good friends, and finally see bits of it are picked up independently by another friend's blog.
"Doing" public life seems to come with a few pieces. First, it comes with a set of values - independent even of opinions on issues themselves. I mean by these values things like: being informed - being engaged - active interest in politics and common life generally - being concerned with "big picture" stuff - and more. Second, valuing these things often (though not always) breeds a certain kind of personality. It means: having a thick skin - being confident - being prepared and thinking strategically - making value judgments quickly and decisively - and more.
I grow increasingly concerned that this matrix of public life is turning me into an arrogant SOB. I find myself increasingly dulled by pedestrian conversation, which does not obviously connect in with public values - values I seem to have mapped onto others as being necessary parts of having a complete, intelligent, self-aware life.
Academics can have the same SOB's problem - but this is different. Academic conversation can be just as pedestrian: sock makers making socks for other sock makers. Public policy types love to condescend the academy as self-proclaimed prophets preaching to no one who's listening - or, at least, no one who is capable of generating real change. Accomplishment is the name of this game. And that, friends, comes in bullet points - not long essays: snap decisive judgment.
I'm not at all impressed with this tendency, or with my collusion in it. It directly contravenes the excellent notions of co-vocationalism and craftsmanship that I have been exploring, but I find it built subtly into my vocational and social life all the same. Dinner conversations inevitably focus on the news of the day, the global economy, foreign policy and capital markets - advertising strategy and business plans. Such dinner tables are - without a doubt - poor hosts; where the values and desires of the home are forced on the guest.
I'm disappointed - but I'm also curious. I think the topic this opens for me is "spiritual formation for public life Christians." - how to stay rooted in the midst of the political cycle. I don't have the answer, and I'm a bit worried about where the road leads from here unless I start to.
Friday, April 3, 2009
How do you "do" public life without becoming an arrogant SOB?
Labels: Public Life
Posted by Adunare at 11:17 AM
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3 comments:
This idea of "spiritual formation for public life Christians" is, indeed, a troubling topic to broach. I do think your co-vocationalism creates a balance but this does, as you in other words seem to intimate, still lead to a two-dimensionalism or flatness in life. This idea, again, of spiritual formation seems to denotes a three-dimensional world.
For me, and this is difficult especially if you already have a full schedule, but for me I think I need something "weighty" (a significant commitment) outside of myself and my "academic" world, something that will ground me in another's world. This can be volunteering in some aspect; I think for me it has involved getting involved with the set-up and tear-down of equiptment each week at the theater where my church holds service.
This is not just therapeudic charity work or pursuing something to make oneself feel good about making a change (you're already doing that in your other spheres of life) and it doesn't have to be about creating a good street-level image as a "public policy person". But doing something outside of yourself or your primary interests to create a three-way balance: something to draw you off the page.
What do you think? Can something like this make the arrogant SOB in both of us at least translatable to small caps: pusuing, at least in part, some sort of humility?
I really like that example: something that draws us out of our small worlds, and into a different setting - where the skills, relationships and ideas that so dominate our lives in the rest of the week are merely not on the table. For me - I admit - visiting my family in Ottawa is very cathartic this way: where none of what I so often hold as part of my identity means very much.
Maybe what we're suggesting is sabbath - to take time out from our usual creating, our usual identity as (co)creators and remember that we are creatures. For public life kind of people that might mean hauling stuff, chopping wood, cleaning floors, planting gardens - where we put to rest the tools of our everyday, and remember our identities are not wrapped up in them.
I would include in the idea of "sabbath" both taking time out from one's vocation to do other things and spending time with other people, either on their terms or just as people hanging out together. The former can open up good times for meditation and just "being"; the latter is "being-in-communion" and it is here that we find friendship, fellowship, and love. This may seem "neat" on the screen but it can sometimes be a messy, very human affair -- especially if you bash your thumb with a hammer or no body want to spend time with you. Perhaps this space provides some cyber-balm to the latter wound; for the former, see a doctor, and maybe consider online chess.
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