“Is UU history relevant?” seems to be the question of the hour. I want to add a word of caution.
Relevance isn’t a project. It isn’t something you prove or disprove. To say that coming from the other direction, if you have to prove something is relevant, it isn’t relevant.
Modern Christianity raged with the question, “Is Christianity relevant to the modern world or not?”
Which was followed by, “Of course it’s relevant! How could you ask such a thing?! Don’t you love Jesus?! Isn’t he good enough for you just the way he is?!”
Which was followed by, “Why don’t you care about modern people living in the modern world?! Do you like making oppressed people cry?!”
Which was followed by, “I’ll see you in hell!!” Which, interestingly, was the one thing both parties agreed about.
Let’s not have that kind of conversation about relevance.
Relevance is the sort of thing that’s straightforwardly obvious in a way that jumps up and bites you. Snake bite relevance, you can call it. You know it when someone points it out to you. Or when it jumps up and bites you in the ass.
We can’t let the relevance of UU history be a matter of knowing the academic history. If UU history’s relevance were that obvious, it would be jumping up and biting us, and we would all already know.
I know that UU history is relevant in an MDiv kind of way, but not in a snake bite kind of way. Am I just not going on the right hikes?
Even if UU history’s relevance were relevant in a snake bite kind of way, which it really, really is, by the way … you will not already know that, you can not already know that, because nobody knows the history to see the relevance. If you were constitutionally unable to see or feel a snake, snake bite relevance would get irrelevant, even though it could kill you. Just so, UU history is snake bite relevant, and UUs go soooo adrift because no one sees or feels that snake! And not being able to see or feel it just might kill us!
Snake bite? What snake bite? *passes out*
I’m really glad that you’re raising the question, Chutney, because it’s one that the larger culture does not want us to ask. Too many agenda depend on us not being able to take a historical perspective, but simply react like a protozoa being poked with a stimulus. Buy! Vote! Shiny! Urgent! Nope, no snakes here!
In my life as a person of faith, in my work as a UU minister, and in my studies bringing together science and religion, I come back again and again to this truth: a historical perspective is VITAL to living with wisdom and creating justice. As long as we are willing to allow monetary profit to be what determines the moral bottom line for our world, a larger perspective will always be dismissed as irrelevant. And, as long as we allow history to be labeled irrelevant, the financial bottom line will continue to drive the moral equation. We must not allow it to happen — this is one of the moral imperatives I bring to my work as a UU minister.
Forget the UU qualifier: history is important to everyone. It can provide a guidepost of what not to do and provide guidelines of what may be in everyone’s best interest.
I share your concern, Chutney, but I feel that increasingly in this society we have lost our grasp of history and thus we live lives disconnected from our past: a study of history could have prevented the chaos now raging in Iraq, it could have been used to revamp the AO/AR program making it relevant to today, and it can be used now to unify us together and remove the cross-cringe or cross-indifference that seems to characterize so many Unitarians.
But I think it’s up to us, the intellectuals, to reframe the argument so that it doesn’t become a destructive force. It all starts with us, then it trickles down to the rest of the members.
Judith, so we’re not even aware of the snake, much less the bite. Telling…
Anon, but that sort of generic importance isn’t going to grab anybody. We can’t expect the whole culture to turn around so that UUs will know, generically, that UU history is important. But I think that’s why you’re (also) laying the responsibility at the foot of the MDivs. (Or intellectuals, or as Peacebang delightfully put it, the smartypantses.)
I think it being the domain of intellectuals is a root of the problem. Only MDivs and a very few laity know the history well enough to speak to it. If people are expected to have an MDiv’s knowledge of UU history in order to be considered adequately informed, then we’ll never get there.
Without that clear snake bite relevance spelled out, no one is going to get engaged unless they’re interested in history anyway. Since it is the domain of the MDivs right now, and since there is no reason for laity to start working their way through the fellowshipping book list, if it doesn’t happen, it will be the MDivs’ fault.
I’ll say that again: If laity continue to not see the snake bite relevance, it will continue to be the smarthypantses’ fault. Sure, everyone has a responsibility. But why would anyone start in on it? Because they’re supposed to want to?
Are not the ranks of UUs intellectuals, by in large?
If they are, then I cease to understand why they couldn’t understand a broader concept of UU history. But as a teacher, I understand that some concepts are so submerged underneath the crap we’re inudated with on a daily basis that it takes the intellectuals to point it out and reframe the argument so that the average Joe and Jane can understand it.
It’s a travesty that the average UU has no concept of the denomination’s history. The question then is how do we make it so that UU history is seen as important and vital to the cause? It’s no different than when I see my students’ eyes light up after I’ve pointed out some crucial point in this country’s history that really opens up their eyes and makes them learn how to think critically.
One of my beefs with UUism in general is that it, for whatever reason or another, has lost its grounding with its history and with its policy. You have to learn the secret handshake and do your own digging. No one has left the garden path open for you to puruse. The insecurity and elitist attitudes of many UUs is to blame for this.
But this is no different than any other religious movement. We as human beings have short attention spans and even shorter concepts of collective memory.
Thus, in my humble opinion, it’s always going to be the smartypants who have to keep the good ship UU on the right course. Call me elitist, but the older I get, the more I find the liberal idea that provided enough education, people can rise above their station little more than an exploded myth.
It takes a special person to look at the world and dig layers beneath the surface and not confuse that surface as all there is to know. We in education call those sorts “self-directed learners”.
I think every UU has the propsensity to be a self-directed learner, but it’s up to the intellectuals to show them the way.
My two cents.
I think UUs like to think of themselves as intellectuals, by and large. I don’t know that it’s the case anymore. Who are the great UU intellectuals right now? I can’t think of any off the top of my head. There’s a difference between being a smartypants and being an intellectual.
Chutney: If people are expected to have an MDiv’s knowledge of UU history in order to be considered adequately informed, then we’ll never get there.
What is the “there” that you’re speaking about? This is part of the challenge of our conversation, IMO. I think it’s easier to intuit that we’re not “there” yet than it is to define what the “there” is.
Anon: One of my beefs with UUism in general is that it, for whatever reason or another, has lost its grounding with its history and with its policy.
I think you might mean “polity” here, Anon, our tradition of governance. In any case, I’d opine that we’re losing touch with our roots because we’re a part of the larger culture, and we’re not immune to its intense interest with novelty and sensationalism. One of my biggest beefs with the state of our nation today is how successfully anti-intellectualism is thriving. Not only is thinking boring, it’s also somehow unpatriotic, dangerous, and even lazy, as if it weren’t real work.
I want to reaffirm Anon’s earlier comment: “Forget the UU qualifier: history is important to everyone.” We couldn’t be made to be sheep if we could keep looking to a larger picture. Being an intellectual means that, IMO, I affirm that it’s worth the effort to think before responding, reflect before acting. What would it mean to be a “great UU intellectual”? Would it mean that we’d be famous? That we’d be in a position of influence or power? Again, I think it’s worth defining the goal that we say we’re failing.