Learning Precision I

If there is any trait that has characterized my intellectual and personal striving over the last 25 years it is a growing need to be precise and to hold myself and others to standards of exhaustive precision. I am not "there yet" with respect to other people; I still let them get off the hook with imprecise words, factual errors, sweeping generalizations without necessary "backup," and unexamined prejudices. Yet, things are changing, and increasingly I am less willing to allow misstatements, historical or factual, or unclarities to go unchallenged. The purpose of this and the next essay is to explore the origins or roots of my quest for and commitment to precision. I will then explain what that concept means to me in 2009.

Beginning With a Story

Almost everything that happens to us in life is good. Some things are good outright, and you derive immediate pleasure from them. Examples of this are the love of another person, a good meal, and the experience of success in an endeavor. On the other hand, some things are "bad" when they happen to you but only become good on reflection. The experiences of rejection, humiliation and loss are all difficult to bear, and even can upend our life for a considerable time, but often they release a more useful and deep message than times of success. Thus, welcome all experiences. Some are good right away and some become good through reflection.

An example of the latter happened to me last week. I took my girlfriend to a concert for her birthday. Part of the concert included a picnic dinner, arranged by the concert organizers. The only "catch" was this: you had to eat in tables of four. This meant that we had to find another couple with whom to eat. No real problem. The couple behind us in the food line, a handsome man and woman in their early 40s, were also looking for "partners," and we sat down to eat. During the conversation, the woman began talking about the education of her children and tried to sound very authoritative and knowledgeable about her children's (private) education. Her children were getting a "classical" education, with the "trivium" at its base. It was a "Christian" education, which emphasized content, language and logic. She really was quite proud of her exposition of the education.

I immediately saw holes in her presentation. She acted as if the "trivium," a medieval preliminary education for the "quadrivium," had its origins in the classical world. She gave the impression that all of this was basically a "Christian" education. She stated that the courses in logic and rhetoric were "classical."

I gave her a "pass" on her words. That is, I didn't stop and ask her how the "trivium" was found in the "classical" world--when in fact it was a medieval notion. If she claimed that "traces" of the trivium could be found in Aristotle and other classical writers, does that mean that the trivium itself is found there? It would be the same as saying that if we find emphases on good speech in tablets from Mari in the 2nd Millennium BCE we ought to conclude that the trivium emerged there, too. So, I didn't press her to identify which century she thought the trivium emerged as an educational method. Then, I didn't ask her to clarify how the basics of the idea behind the education, which had Mortimer Adler stamped all over it, were "Christian" when the progenitor of most of the philosophy of this modern curriculum (called "Veritas," I believe) was Jewish. Finally, I didn't ask her whether the specific content of the courses reflected the content during the (medieval) Scholastic period or whether the courses allowed for evolution of ideas and methods over time? Or, possibly, was the rhetorical education taken from Quintilian or another Roman or Greek orator (i.e., in the classical period)?

You see my point. Parent shines on, proud of children, of the educational system behind it, and believes she knows what she is talking about. But she has no precision, no dates, no authority for almost anything she said. I was repulsed, actually, not only by her version of things but of the manner in which she delivered it. For the sake of not starting a row on my girlfriend's birthday, I decided to "let it pass." But the experience last week provided me the fuel to rethink how precision in speaking, writing, learning and communicating has become so foundational for my life.

The Evolution of My Precision

Last month a friend gave me a videotape of my appearance with him on a television interview show from May 1985. I had just turned 33. He, a constitutional lawyer, and I, a professor of religion, were being asked to comment on a recent verdict in a Portland (OR) case brought by a woman against the Church of Scientology, where a jury had awarded her, a disgruntled former Scientologist, multiple millions of dollars on the basis of fraud and assorted other torts. I viewed my "performance" from twenty-five years ago and had two distinct reactions. First, I saw that I was able to articulate the "main point" I was making pretty well--that once a court of law finds that Scientology is a "religion," it is difficult for juries to investigate the content of the courses to determine if fraud was in view. But I was somewhat astonished with myself because, as I watched myself 'perform,' I realized (in 2009) that I had (in 1985) few facts, figures, or precise data/stories to buttress my point. I was "theory" and "definition" rich, but fact poor.

Learning Precision

After viewing the video I remember asking myself, "Ok, Bill, where did your love for universal knowledge and for precise expression of things emerge?" The "universal knowledge" may have to wait for another time (though I will make a few comments on it below), but I think my desire for exact knowledge and statement, which had been kindled by Biblical memorization beginning in the early 1970s, was stimulated through an intense study experience I had in the summer of 1989.

I was the Interim Senior Pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church (Portland OR) from May 15, 1988 until Oct. 31, 1989. My two weeks of "study leave" in 1989 were spent at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley CA. I went there to take a course on contemporary African Christianity, taught by a wonderful Ghanian woman. After class, which was in the morning, I found myself being drawn to my "sermon preparation" for the late summer/early fall 1989. I wanted to do a "series" on the Joseph narrative in Genesis (37-50), and so I began to read the story. I decided to open my Hebrew Bible to "read along" with the English text. Soon, however, I was taken up with the texture of the Hebrew and began to see that I needed to read the entire 14 chapters in Hebrew, in order really to get the "flow" of the narrative. As the two weeks wore on, I attended fewer and fewer African Christianity classes and found myself spending every waking hour in the text of Gen. 37-50. I even tentatively outlined a book I would write on the subject, which I would entitle: "The People of Joseph: a Biblical Story of a Family in Crisis." The "family in crisis" was all the rage in the counseling world at the time. We had just been introduced to the word "dysfunctional," and everyone was finding it everywhere in their family. I would examine the modern problem of "the family" in the context of one of the Bible's dysfunctional families.

The next essay continues and finishes these thoughts.

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