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Woodstock's Mission in Times of Transition
The world is in transition, and so is the Woodstock Theological Center. Father James L. Connor, S.J., spoke to this theme at the Center's annual Riggs Dinner, which brought out 80 friends of Woodstock on February 22 at Georgetown University. Titled "Woodstock's Mission in Times of Transition," his talk alluded to two transitions. The first is the maxi-transition of September 11 and the processes of change that have "prompted profound reflection and soul-searching," as he explained. The second is a mini-transition. Father Connor is stepping down after 15 years as Woodstock's director and plans to wrap up his duties in July. On the day of the dinner, the Woodstock board appointed Father Drew Christiansen, S.J., as acting director.
Father Connor plans to write a book that relates Woodstock's experience of developing a theological reflection method through its various projects. Among other questions: Why is this method a uniquely valuable contribution to today's social scene? That is one point where the mini- and maxi-transitions meet.
At the beginning of his talk, Father Connor paid tribute to Father Pedro Arrupe, the beloved charismatic Superior General of the Society of Jesus. Father Arrupe, in a 1970 address, listed theological reflection as the first of four apostolic orientations of the Jesuit order. And, in inaugurating the Center in 1973, the Jesuit provincials of New York and Maryland lifted up a phrase from that address: "theological reflection on the human problems of today." That's Woodstock's mission, and in his talk Father Connor offered an overview of this method in its contemporary context. What follows is an edited version of his remarks.
What happened and why?
Tonight we're gathered here at "A Family Meal." I really regard all of you as family. You are the closest friends of Woodstock, many of you my closest friends. And I'm deeply grateful for your loyalty, support, and participation in the work we do. I like the language of "A Family Meal." Jesus spoke often of our calling and our destiny as a "Banquet." The Eucharist foreshadows that meal, that family gathering, where we will all rejoice forever in peace and love beyond imagining. And to bring that Kingdom to birth into our daily lives and work-a-day world is the goal of our Christian vocation - and quite specifically of "theological reflection on human problems of today."
There is a book advertisement I stumbled upon in the New York Review of Books two weeks ago. The book is The Age of Terror, co-edited by Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chanda. It aims, the advertisement says, to answer two questions about September 11: "What happened and why?" and "What exactly is to done?" - in order to counter terrorism. Under "what's to be done" the advertisement mentions "policy decisions," "objectives," "setting the agenda."
These are very fundamental questions, questions we always ask ourselves whenever we notice something out of the ordinary, or interesting, or startling that pushes itself into our "attention zone." But they are never "stand-alone" questions. They are invariably "flanked" by other questions that need to be answered if ever we are to get good and satisfying answers to these two.
For instance, to answer "what happened" accurately, you have to go back to recognize and name the surprising or interesting things that provoked your attention in the first place. You heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. That is a piece of data about an event, a situation, and action of some sort. It came to you through your senses, in this case your hearing, not seeing. But I happened to be on the phone that day with someone in New York as they were seeing the second plane go into the second of the Twin Towers. And in my office at Georgetown University I personally heard the plane crashing into the Pentagon.
Immediately as we get a startling sensation we spontaneously ask - even before we can put it in words - "What happened?" And almost as immediately we shuffle quickly through the possible, plausible answers. For instance, when I heard that awful thump right outside my office window, I immediately thought it was a lost and confused bird flying into the windowpane. But shortly thereafter I heard people in the corridor yelling, "Come down here to the porch and look at this. There is a huge fire over across the Potomac somewhere." I went out and saw - and new data was brought to my attention that entirely revised my bird-in-the-window-pane theory. But still we didn't know what had happened. And then someone who had flipped on a radio yelled, "They're saying a plane hit the Pentagon - and one may be headed for the White House." New data required revision of the explanation or theory or hypothesis about "what happened."
Notice that it is the data that we are trying to explain. And an "explanation" means putting all the bits and pieces of data into a pattern in which they all "fit" in an intelligently satisfying way. And it is this "fit" or pattern that constitutes the answer to "what happened." But notice how the pattern, explanation, or "fit" differed as we got more and more data. If we don't have enough of the important data, we won't reach the right explanation. You'll get the wrong answer to "What happened?" But it can also happen that two people can have the same basic data and organize it or "make it fit" differently and therefore come up with two different answers to "What happened?" For instance, right now we are following the court case of a woman who drowned her five children. All the data is in. It is a question now of interpreting it. Some psychiatrists say she was not capable of intending murder; other psychiatrists say she was. It is a difference of interpretation of the data.
What's to be Done?
There's no doubt that an "interpreter's" viewpoint and values influence judgments of fact. The question is whose viewpoint or scheme of values is to be preferred? Which one gets us closer to answering accurately, "What happened?" That's what we are going to get to next, but first notice how our judgment of fact, our explanation of "what happened?," will be enormously influential in our answer to the next key question: "What exactly is to be done?"
Let's say we hear a loud noise, a "bang," outside the window here. Immediately we think, "Is it a car backfiring?" "Or is it a gun shot?" We'll run over to the window and take a look - in the hope that we will gather new data by seeing something or someone - a car or a person and/or a rifle or something new. We are struggling with some urgency to know what happened because if it is a rifle shot, we'll want to do something, a number of things in fact. People could be in serious danger. So, in the worst possible scenario, accuracy of diagnosis could be a life-or-death issue. This happens with doctors and patients regularly. In instances like this there is a moral imperative to get sufficient data, and to organize it intelligently - recognize the pattern in which data really "fit" snugly together - so that you can make the right judgment, "It's this, not that." Then you can treat the sickness, injury, or disease effectively.
Bernard Lonergan says that built into this pattern of unfolding questions are four "imperatives": Be attentive (to the data), be intelligent (in recognizing the pattern), be reasonable (in judging the accuracy of the pattern in light of the relevant data or "reasons") and be responsible (in doing "exactly what is to be done!"). Some wags call these the four "Be-Attitudes."
We often miss a step. We say: "Oh I hear a noise; it's this." "And not only that, I'm going to do that about it." Wait a minute! We have to make sure we have all the relevant data. Similarly, we have to be careful not to judge too quickly out of laziness, or pressure, or prejudice. Then, after we've decided what we'd like to do about it, we have to go into a careful planning stage, followed by execution of the plan.
What I've described here is the way every human being is designed to work. It is a process that moves from our Experience of hearing, knowing, tasting, touching, getting the data, and then to Understanding - Is it this? Is it that? - to Judging: It is this! It is a car backfiring. And then, to Deciding what to do about it. This is what every think tank does; it's what every human being does.
Dialectic and Foundation: Discerning and Deciding
There is a very important level of operations that I haven't yet talked about. It is called "Dialectic" and "Foundation." As we'll see, these twin operations are crucial to our work at Woodstock.
So far, we've been talking about "what," that is, "what happened?" or "what's to be done?" Now, in dialectic and foundation, we talk about "who." WHO is judging that "This is what happened!" and deciding that "This is what ought to be done." Dialectic and foundation become the levels at which we discern and decide on basic values, where we make choices, essentially, about who we are.
A historian describes "what happened," but, as we know, histories vary considerably depending upon who the historian is. Why are they interested in this person or series of events? Are they sympathetic or not to the persons involved? How do they feel about the culture of the times, and how carefully have they researched their sources? In writing their book, who are their enemies (that is, who are they correcting or contradicting) and who are their friends (fellow historians they admire and agree with)?
Questions like these are searching for the viewpoint or perspective of the historian, which might explain why she selected some data for consideration and overlooked others, why she organized and interpreted the data the way she did, why she distributed praise to some people and blame to others. It may not be "all in the eye of the beholder," but a lot of it is!
Substitute "CEO" for "historian" and the same dynamic applies. The CEO's decision to down-size his company by 10,000 jobs is made by a person who has feelings, motivations, anxieties, a certain model of "good business" and an ideal of "success," a specific sense of self-worth, and so on. All of these influence both the process and the outcome of the decision to downsize. These decisions, in other words, are never antiseptically "objective;" there is always a personal dimension. That's why two famous down-sizers got their nicknames: "Neutron Jack" Welch and "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap!
What's true of historians and CEOs is true of the rest of us. The way we answer, "What happened?" and "What's to be done about it?" will include a profoundly personal dimension. That dimension is the cluster of values, ideals, ways of looking at things, preferences and prejudices, self-image and relationships to others.
Hidden Persuaders
I call these subjective influences "The Hidden Persuaders," the title of Vance Packard's 1957 book about the advertising industry. They are "hidden" because many people are completely unaware of these powerful influences in their lives, and all of us are unaware of them at one time or another. It takes alertness, willingness to be self-reflective, and even humility to bring them up to our awareness. But, even though they're often "hidden," they are also "persuaders" because they are powerfully influential in every aspect of our behavior: how we know, how we evaluate things and people, how we make decisions, and how we act.
We all imbibe our original perspective with our mother's milk. As infants we are gradually socialized into our families and we absorb their values, their viewpoints, their sense of identity and purpose, likes and dislikes, and so on, just as we make their native language our own. By the time I was three I knew I was an Irish Philadelphia Catholic boy growing up in the Great Depression. I knew I was Irish because I was different from the Italians and Germans on the block, and I knew I was Catholic because I was different from the Protestants and Jews in the neighborhood. When I joined the Jesuits I met people from all over the United States, and by comparison and contrast, I got a clearer sense of who I was.
By that time, though, I not only had a perspective, a self-image, but I had also become aware that I had a perspective. And, having become aware, I could evaluate my viewpoint, my values, my life-stance, my culture, and decide whether to revise it. Did I like what I saw about being a "Philadelphia" Catholic? Did I want to broaden my Catholic self-understanding? Later, I was assigned to graduate studies in Rome and in the summers was allowed to travel through Europe. Later still my Jesuit assignments required that I travel to many places around the world, where I saw and experienced a variety of different self-images, cultures, religions, and social values. And each time my life-experience expanded, my perspective was invited to expand as well. The contrasts and comparisons were inviting me to reconsider my basic values and meanings, to choose to change certain of my outlooks, orientations, and value judgments. I was encountering a whole range of interesting people with wonderful social values imbedded in their various cultures - some of them very much undervalued in the United States. Leisure is one of them! I also recognized how prejudiced I felt against certain "foreigners." I realized what a male chauvinist I was. I saw how ignorant and, therefore, unsympathetic I was about non-Christian religious traditions. I also saw that I could - and indeed should - choose to change certain features of my perspective, my mind-set, my "horizon." Hopefully this process of re-evaluation (dialectic) and choice (foundation) is still going on. We're never too old to grow.
Dialectic and foundation have to do with basic choices. Dialectic means sorting through the various push-pulls and the various counter-pulls in my own life. Foundation is finally making my choice. Dialectic is discerning - sorting out the conflicting values and desires. Foundation is deciding. "This is who I am. This is how I see myself related to me, to you, to the world, and to God. This is how I want to behave. These are the values I aspire to. This is who I want to be." And it becomes a foundation because it's the bedrock on which your life is being built. And on that rock, the rest of your life is developed.
But exercising ourselves in dialectic and foundations is important not just for self-growth, but for the way they improve our understanding of things ("What happened?") and the decisions we make in response ("What's to be done?"). Take a look at what happened on September 11. If you travel the world, you'll hear some very different explanations. Why? Is it the facts that are different? No. I can describe brute details - airplanes going into buildings - to which everyone agrees. But what really happened? What's the meaning here? And besides meaning, what's the value? What were the foundational values that drove the terrorists to do such a thing? Why was it worth doing that, in their minds? And, what are the values driving our response to September 11? Why is it worth doing what we're doing? The answers depend on the person's perspective: what's meaningful and valuable to them.
Meaning and value are the heart of a group's culture and a person's horizon or perspective. "Culture" - again to quote Father Lonergan who agrees with the famous anthropologist Clifford Geertz - "is the set of meanings and values that informs a common way of life." It is a mind-set, a way of looking at things, a way of judging things, and a whole lifestyle.
We did a Woodstock Report, you may remember, in which we had a theological reflection on September 11. One of the people we interviewed was a Palestinian Muslim, Dr. Maysam al Faruqi, a wonderful woman who teaches theology here at Georgetown. Father Drew Christiansen had a reflection piece, as did Father Brian McDermott. We got clear differences of perspective. If we had had a Jewish reflection, and I wish we had, we would have seen and heard yet another cultural and religious perspective yielding another statement of "What happened?" and "What should we do?"
Ultimate Concern
and Foundational Value
"KNOW THYSELF"
Inscribed where the Delphic Oracle used to sit in Greece are the words, "Know Thyself!" But who is the self we come to know?
I know myself as a questioner. I just can't shut up. I always have to have a question. A little kid: "Why, Mommy? Why? When? Where? Tell me why?"
We are totally social. There is no "I" without a "Thou." There is no "Me" without a "We." It's inconceivable.
We are historical. We develop over time. A great exercise: imagine if everybody in this room were suffering from amnesia. Would it be a community of persons?
We're also inculturated. We live in communities that have meanings and values, and it couldn't be otherwise.
We are all created, all fallen, all redeemed - simultaneously. We are human redeemed sinners. And we are redeemed in order to be the best possible humans.
We are free. Who we are and will be is our choice.
Now "TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE." (Hamlet I, 3)
-- J. L. Connor, S.J.
We should also note that inside of every cultural perspective and personal horizon, there is a religious component. This is true even of an avowed atheist. Everyone has a religion; everyone is religious. I'm using "religion" here in an extended sense, but I think a very true sense of the word. I love the definition by a famous Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich. He says, "God is one's Ultimate Concern." Your "God" is your ultimate concern. Who, or what, are you ultimately concerned about?
How do you know what your ultimate concern is? Well, watch and see how you land. Watch and see what your choices are. When push comes to shove, when the chips are really down, when you see a serious dilemma come up in your life and you're struggling with one of those either/or sets of circumstances, how do you come down? Where you land is on your "God." Your god is that value, that good thing, that "pearl of great price," which is your final fealty. It's where your heart is. Ubi thesaurus, ibi cor - "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" - and vice versa! (Matthew 6:21)
We saw the firefighters in New York who went into that flaming building, saying, equivalently, "This is worth giving my life for." And many of them did. Why? For the good of fellow human beings, for saving somebody! That clearly was for them an ultimate concern. "No greater love has anyone than to lay down their life for a friend" (John 15:13). By contrast to the fire fighters, you see some people who are so caught up with their own self-promotion, they seem emotionally unable to care deeply for others. (Do some Enron executives fall into this category)? Usually it's because, as youngsters, they did not receive the affirmation and affection required for self-confidence and self-possession in peace. So their lives are driven by the nervous pursuit of all the trappings of "success" that will draw the praise of others. For a person like that, when push comes to shove, they are going to land on self-preservation and self-promotion. It's their ultimate concern.
In a way, all values could be graphed on a chart divided by self-preservation and self-giving. Self-preservation is the primal instinct we share with all other animals; it's the law of nature. Self-giving is the "law of love." It is what makes us human. It is the step over the threshold of evolution to the human condition. All of us have the instinct to self-preservation and it is never going to go away. And thanks be to God, because without it most of us wouldn't have survived adolescence! The ultimate mistake is to make it our ultimate concern, "What can I get for myself?" rather than, "What can I do for you?"
Ultimate concern, as I've said, is the extended sense of religion. The English word, "religion," comes from the Latin, "religio." The verb "ligo" means to bond, to join, to connect, and "re-" means "back again." In other words, "religion" has to do with relationships, with the bonds we have with others. In the exercise of dialectic and foundations, we are sorting out to discover and choose how we are related! How are we related to ourselves, to other human beings, to the world, and, finally, to God? It is who we are for them, and who they are for us. And it is on the basis of our relationships to them that we discover how we are to treat them.
Woodstock's Way
Once we become conscious of the way our "Hidden Persuaders" influence our judgments ("This is what happened") and decisions ("This is what needs to be done"), we see it working in just about every newspaper article we read. It happens on Capitol Hill every day. Look at the debates about campaign finance reform and freedom of speech, national security and personal privacy, faith-based communities and church-state separation, welfare and work. We see policies crafted every day, and we can't but wonder whether the legislators are in touch with their hidden persuaders, whether they are choosing freely how to deal with those hidden persuaders. Are they experienced in the exercise of dialectic and foundations?
The exercise of dialectic and foundation is not only central to all Woodstock projects; it is the distinguishing characteristic of Woodstock's work. It is what distinguishes Woodstock from other think tanks. It is not that the others are oblivious to hidden persuaders. It is, rather, that for Woodstock this exercise is central and essential. It is "theological" reflection that Woodstock does - and that means reflection for the discovery and evaluation of the "ultimate concern" in "what's happening" and "what's to be done."
Basically this is, as I've said, what we do in every project: globalization of the economy and cultures; the role of forgiveness in conflict resolution; the role of lobbying in a democratic society; business ethics and corporate social responsibility; interreligious dialogue and education; the church and social justice.
I hope it is clear why Woodstock's contribution to the debates shaping society today is invaluable. If we fail to situate our choices of policy, planning, and action within the broad context of the hidden persuaders imbedded in religion, social cultures, and personal horizons, we will simply continue to talk at cross-purposes, to exacerbate misunderstandings, to foment resentment and hostility, and end up in war.
On the other hand, by uncovering our roots, by coming to know ourselves, by getting in touch with our hidden persuaders, we open up the possibility for dialogue, dialectic, discernment, and the discovery of our common familyhood under the skin. We might even begin to build up the Kingdom of God right here on earth. That's Woodstock's dream and mission.