Lost in Thought Again

Why, the question should be raised, seek truth? Why not just go with the flow, as many people do and as most of us do much of the time? Truth, we have established, is hard to find, often ambiguous or less definitive than we hope when we do. All in all, the question might arise ‘why bother?’ after all, in a post-truth world, finding truth is harder than ever.

Zena Hitz has a reason, and the reason is that there is no particular reason. Intellectual activity is usually focussed on finding some truth, although it is often not focussed on finding a truth. The activity is more general than that. But the point of intellectual activity, the hidden pleasure of it, is not to discover something, or to make oneself seem cleverer than others, or to gain qualifications, get onto news magazine programs or become a public guru, but to pursue objects of thought for their own sake.

Hitz argues eloquently that this is where the academic world has lost its way. Academia has drifted, under the influence of ‘neo-liberal’ policies, into bean-counting and making ourselves feel good by our achievements, often obtained by belittling or ignoring others. Teaching barely gets a look in the world of the university; while most universities pay some sort of lip service to teaching and lecturers as teachers, it is notable, for instance, that contractors, who form a large part of most university teaching staff, are rarely pursuing academic research as part of their contract. In spite of the rhetoric, these actions speak loudly.

Intellectual life, according to Hitz, is a mode of resistance. This resistance comes in various guises, depending on the individual and their circumstances. For example, Hitz quotes Irina Ratushinskaya, a Soviet dissident, who used poetry during her imprisonment as a form of resistance (p. 97). When denied writing materials she scratched poems onto soap bars until she had memorised them and then smuggled them out of prison on cigarette papers. You might argue that there is no point in doing that, but it was resistance to the system that would have broken her.

Ratushinskaya’s experience might be considered to be extreme. Not everyone is unfortunate enough to be incarcerated simply for disagreeing with their government, although Ratushinskaya is slightly disconcertingly enthusiastic for having a turbulent life. Her defiance of her captors, of the system which imprisoned her, gave her the will to continue. But we do not have to be in an extreme situation to pursue escape. Hitz quotes the film The Hedgehog, where an ugly middle-aged lady, Renée, the concierge of a building whose residents are the wealthy, professional and neurotic, turns out to resist the world through reading philosophy in private. That is what attracts a new Japanese resident; that is what attracts a twelve-year-old daughter of a government minister and a psychotherapist and ‘professional neurotic’ (p. 54). While the residents indulge in meaningless chatter, posturing, consumption and dinner parties, Renée has an inner life, fed by reading and intellectual pursuit.

Hitz suggests that this inner life has four features: it is a place of retreat and reflection; it is withdrawn from the world (where the world means competition and struggle for wealth, power, prestige and status); it is a source of dignity ( Renée is a more whole human being that the residents); it allows profound communion between human beings. Such an inner life requires, of course, some time of leisure, something beyond work and the needs of the necessities of life. The inner life for Renée, for Socrates and other examples, is what defines them. Renée is defined by her defiance of the situation imposed on her by society. Hitz suggests that poverty is only one way of being dehumanised by our social status. Being wealthy diminishes us as well: the wealthy are not fast cars, apartments in high rise high-status sky-scrapers, or fine dining. If we start to believe that we are defined by these things, we are consumed by the system which we have helped to create.

The inner life (in Hitz’ case the life of the intellect, although it does not have to be) is, therefore, what makes us human. It may well be that it is what makes us attractive to others. A life spent only on surfaces, on chatter and fine wines, makes people boring. A life spent in search of wealth or power does not bring happiness. Of course, a certain degree of wealth is required. A person who has to spend every waking moment scraping a living is diminished. But then so are people who spent every waking moment seeking high public office and who turn out to be entirely vacuous when they get there. A life spent only on surfaces will be discovered, as hidden depths will be perceived in unexpected places.

Hitz fled from the university system as it is practised in the United States. She found it unsatisfying, unrewarding, in spite of the money and status it gave her. There are tensions and ambiguities aplenty in academic life. Hitz’ move to Baltimore brought her face to face with massive urban problems. Her solution to the tension was not to go and set up teaching Latin in a slum but to return to her own original college and try to teach, in small groups, what makes us human, the inner life, the way of life that makes us interesting as people, rather than as functions in a neo-liberal capitalist regime.

That return can be seen as an act of resistance to the system, be that Western capitalism the neo-liberal university or simply the view that the inner life is not worth-while. However we put it, there is something beyond the material which is not a commodity. There is something which is not just knowledge, not just about how stuff works but is about what makes us human. That something may not be identifiable; it is something to do with finding truth, something to do with being human and something to do with the processes of both.