Recently I found myself questioning the value of scholars, and what they add to society. I have concluded that the value of scholars – who, to my understanding, should be professional students – is just as precious as ever it was, though for different reasons. At one time they were the sole means by which knowledge of many things could be disseminated. Today knowledge is over-abundant and it is a true value to society to have a diligent men and women who go through the pains of deep study and critical thought so that we don’t have to – who sort the grain from the chaff and deliver to us the better product, in exactly the same way we value those who will make the pizza or at least the crust for us so that we don’t need to. Of course, we must still hone our own tastes and abilities for critical thought, in order to sort through the variety of scholars – but it the task is factors smaller than it would have been.
I have just had my witness of this reinforced as I read a powerful talk given to us by our Doctrine & Covenants class teacher. Maybe we have all had the wash-out of trying to find the best talk from the dozens or hundreds of talks delivered to us with any search on LDS.org or any other site; in this case, my professor gave us a real gem that has been especially applicable to my life.
The talk is entitled “Love is Not Blind” and was given by Elder Bruce C. Hafen at a BYU devotional before my parents were even married. However, it is not on the common BYU topic of marriage, as you might think from the title. Instead Elder Hafen addresses a rarely approached topic that is both difficult and very relevant to all who have or are going through intellectual periods of mental growth in their life, which I wish was everyone. The link is here. Read it and enjoy; it is an excellent talk. Some favorite excerpts:
in spite of their most valiant efforts, they may find themselves more than once fighting back the tears of disappointment when the promised fruits of a positive mental attitude somehow elude them. There is a kind of poignancy in those moments when we first discover that there might be some limitations to the idea that we can do anything we make up our mind to do.
Turning to one more fertile field to illustrate the naturalness of ambiguity, I remember Arthur King’s statement that most truly great literary works will raise some profound question about a human problem, explore the question skillfully and in depth, and then leave the matter for the reader to resolve. He added that if the resolution seems too clear or too easy either the literature is not very good or those reading it have missed its point. Take, for example, Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot, which seriously raises the question of whether it is possible for a true Christian to love unselfishly. The main character of the story is a pure and good person who loves two different women in two different ways. One he loves as most men love women–she cares for him, she helps him, he is attracted to her romantically, and she could make his life very happy. The other woman, a pathetically inadequate person, he loves primarily because she needs him desperately and because he has a compassionate heart. Posing the dilemma of which of these two women the man should marry, Dostoevsky seems to ask if it is possible for mortal men to be honestly devoted to the unselfish ideals of Christianity. As you might expect, he leaves the huge question unresolved, forcing the reader to ponder if for himself.
That is a lesson I can never forget about the limitations of the skepticism and the tolerance for ambiguity that come with learning and experience. I hope that I will never be so aware of “reality” that I am unresponsive to the whisperings of heaven.
And, of course, the excellent quote, parts of which I had heard before, from G.K. Chesterton:
Chesterton wrote that the evil of the excessive optimist (level one) is that he will
defend the indefensible. He is the jingo of the universe; he will say, “My cosmos, right or wrong.” He will be less inclined to the reform of things; more inclined to a sort of front-bench official answer to all attacks, soothing everyone with assurances. He will not wash the world, but whitewash the world.
On the other hand, the evil of the pessimist (level two), wrote Chesterton, is
not that he chastises gods and men, but that he does not love what he chastises … / [In being the so-called ‘candid friend,’ the pessimist is not really candid.] /He is keeping something back–in his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things. He has a secret desire to hurt, not merely to help. … He is using the ugly knowledge which was allowed him [in order] to strengthen the army, to discourage people from joining it.
In going on to describe the “improvers” (level three), Chesterton illustrates by referring to women, who tend to be so loyal to those who need them.
Some stupid people started the idea that because women obviously back up their own people through everything, therefore women are blind and do not see anything. They can hardly have known any women. The same women who are ready to defend their men through thick and thin … are almost morbidly lucid about the thinness of [their] excuses or the thickness of [their] head[s]… . Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind. [G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1959), pp. 6971.]
Perhaps President Harold B. Lee was thinking of Chesterton’s point about women when he used to say, “Behind every great man, there is an amazed woman.”