With a sermon title like this, I suppose I've got some explaining to do.
Let me begin with the growing consensus about the number one "cultural misfit" in America today: The Intellectual. Simply put, smart people are rare. On this point, agreement could not be stronger. Al Gore argued it in his recent best-selling book The Assault on Reason. Bill Moyers regularly calls attention to it on his TV show and in essays with titles such as "The Delusion is No Longer Marginal." Cultural critics bemoan it in best-selling books like The Age of American Unreason, The Dumbest Generation or What's the Matter with Kansas? The popular anti-religious writers known as "The New Atheists" rant against the spiritual version of it in books like The God Delusion. And it's not just a snooty liberal thing. Conservatives sounded the alarm first in such well-known books as The Closing of the American Mind.
These thinkers differ in a thousand ways but on this issue they speak with one voice: Computer screens rather than the classics have our attention. T.V. rather than conversation takes up our time. Ideology - conservative and liberal alike - has our loyalty, rather than logic or evidence. They point out that we've lost the ability to pay attention; 15 second sound bites and two paragraph newspaper articles are about all we can handle. They cite surveys which show that a majority of us believe that the Bible is literally true, with an astounding 60% of us believing that the bloody predictions of the Book of Revelation are a certainty - with Jesus coming down soon to personally take out atheists, Jews, Muslims, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. Half of us apparently believe in ghosts, angels and demons. Tons of us believe evolution is a hoax. A frightening number of citizens still say Saddam Hussein helped plan 9/11. An even more frightening number of college students can't find Iraq on a map! Very few of us can name the number of justices that sit on the Supreme Court. But maybe even more unsettling, most of us - without a moment of thought - can quote the exact number of days Brittney Spears recently spent in a mental health center after shaving her head.
Simply put, our minds are closed and our heads are full of fluff. That's the consensus.
Which brings me to my sermon title - or at least the first part of it: Are you stupid?
Now don't worry, I'm not going to make any of us answer that out loud! But it is a serious question. For two reasons. First, these cultural critics aren't talking about everybody BUT Unitarians. Make no mistake; they mean us too. No matter how highly we think of our selves and our big brains, very few of us would withstand their assessment of what counts as an "adequate American intellectual." They most certainly see us infected with the dim-witted disease as well - "pseudo-intellectual" is the pot in which we are put.
So that's the first reason it's important to wrestle with "the stupid question" this morning. But the second is just as, if not more important: our answer to this question has significant implications for who we are as a church and how we define our most critical task. You see, if stupidity really is the major affliction of American souls today, than how can our highest calling be anything but the encouragement of deeper thinking? How can our task be anything but reclaiming our once proud identity as "America's Reasonable Religion"?
I won't launch into a detailed history lesson right now - our UU101 and upcoming UU Identity classes are a better place for that. But it is important to remember that throughout most of the early 20th century, our mantra as a religious movement was basically the single battle cry of "Reason, Not Revelation!" For us, the divine voice - if one could call it that - spoke through the mind's logic, not through the words of a holy book. We set aside Jesus and proclaimed the scientific method as the new and true savior of humanity. For a very long time, this is what defined us as religious misfits - we were about the business of creating "thinkers," not "believers."
Now over time this changed. During the latter part of the 20th century, many UUs rightly argued that being a religious person involves more than simply being a brain on a stick. We have bodies and emotions, intuition and hungers that need to be part of the equation as well. So reason was removed from its pedestal and was forced to share center stage with a more holistic cast of characters. Some would say, however, that reason actually got shoved off the stage. And there is a good argument to be made that this is indeed the case. And so now, with this supposed "stupidity crisis" facing us today, it would seem a perfect time for us Unitarian Universalists to start talking about and advocating reason again.
Now on one level, we could stop right here this morning and simply answer, "yes." It doesn't take much to see that intelligence needs to become a serious religious concern. Religion is about human wholeness and thriving; it's about all that which offers life over and against all that threatens to take life away. And in just about every case of what threatens to take life away - whether we're talking about bigotry, war, poverty, or climate change - stupidity most surely plays a part. Simply put, stupidity kills. So, yes, without a doubt, reason, needs to become a primary religious concern.
But on another level, I'm not sure it's all that simple. So before we rush head-long into making the creation of smart people our sacred cause and into declaring dim-wittedness to be the devil, I think we need to take a step back from all the "stupidity is a crisis" talk and ask the more fundamental question of: "Is stupidity really the thing we are looking at?"
And here's where that second part of my sermon title comes in this morning: "Or are you just unsure which kind of jeans you want?"
Bear with me; this will all come together in a moment!
I want you to think again about the reading Kaaren shared earlier. Remember how our friend Barry Schwartz ended it? His traumatic day at the jeans store left him face to face with what he called "a new problem that needed to be solved." And what was new about it? It was a problem rooted in the overwhelming amount of choices and information confronting him, an overwhelming amount of choices and information that he says led him to feel "no small amount of self-doubt, anxiety and dread."
Notice not one word in there about stupidity! And yet if we hadn't let Barry explain his problem for himself, if we had instead, let's say, interviewed the jeans salesperson, I can guarantee you we would have heard the word "stupid." Because, of course, Barry is sadly stupid about jeans. What a lack of awareness! What lack of knowledge! What lack of ability to clearly articulate and think through all the complexities and various perspectives about the world of blue jeans!
Indeed, Barry isn't just stupid, worse than that, he's become an "easy fit" ideolog!! He's retreated from the debate and put the rest of the jean options out of his head. He won't even consider the "relaxed fit" or "stone washed" perspectives - even though it is very likely that "easy fit" may not be the logically best fit for him. But he will never know because he's willfully closing his mind to other options. He's told us - he's confessed - that he won't even hear any more evidence. He's decided, knowingly, to remain ignorant. What a dummy!
You see where this is taking us, don't you? Poor Barry's not a dummy. Not at all. He's protecting himself. To listen closely to Barry is to understand that what appears to be stupidity and narrowness of thought is really a strategy to ward off the experience of being overwhelmed. Barry isn't dim-witted; he's holding on for dear life, trying not to drown in what he fearfully calls a sea of "self-doubt, anxiety and dread."
Ok, so that's a bit dramatic, especially since we are talking about blue jeans. But of course we're not just talking about blue jeans. Barry's day at the jeans shop echoes just about every area of our life where choices are involved - be it political choices, personal choices, moral choices or spiritual choices. THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH!! Too many options. Too many perspectives. Too many dimensions to consider. Sure we've always been intimidated by the complexity of social and personal choices, but today the thing that stands out is not the complexity as much as the sheer volume. It's one thing to tackle the early 20th century choice between Catholicism and Protestantism; it's quite another to knowledgably sort through the 21st century options of mainline Christianity, evangelical Christianity, reformed Judaism, conservative Judaism, , Sunni Islam, Shiite Islam, Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Hinduism, New Age, Spiritual UUs, Humanist UUs, Atheists that believe in Grace. . .and the list goes on.
And what about your social consciousness? I mean, what's your position on the war? Are you a neo-con? A Cindy Sheehan Peace nik? Or an old school pacifist peace-nik? A just war advocate? Or a real politik liberal? A soft-power convert? Or a hold out for realistic Wilsonianism?
And it's not just your position on the war, but you should know your position on the environment as well. Not to mention the other "essential" social issues of our time: globalism, free-trade, health care, immigration, peak oil (not just global warming), campaign finance, world poverty, Isreal's right to statehood, privatization of jails, not to mention whether or not you think Roger Clemmons lied. (Which, by the way, he did!!)
Again, do you see where I am going? What is it exactly that we are looking at? Is it really simple stupidity or a bunch of people acting out the experience of it all being too much?!
Later in his book, Barry Schwartz writes this: (No paragraph, I believe, is more important for understanding the modern American psyche than this one.)
"When people have no choice," he writes, "life is almost unbearable. As the number of choices increase, the autonomy, control and liberation this variety brings is powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negative consequences escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choices no longer liberate, but debilitate."
I don't think that word "debilitate" can be emphasized enough. Human beings simply can't function without a clear sense of identity - a clear sense of knowing who one is, what one believes and what needs prioritized in one's life. In a world of ever-changing and overwhelming information, establishing and holding on to this clear sense of identity is no small task. In other words, the massive volume of perspectives and priorities competing for our attention doesn't just threaten to overwhelm us, it threatens to cripple - even prevent - our sense of self. As one social activist said to me recently, "I knew who I was in the 60's. A lot was happening, but somehow it felt like things were more focused. The war and the civil rights act were "my things." People disagreed about the war and civil rights, but everybody was talking about them. Today, it's a different thing each week. And it's hard not to get sucked into the next newest thing. Issues come and go too quickly for me to figure out what "my thing" should be. It just keeps changing and nothing really sticks."
My friend and I kept talking. That line of his, "nothing sticks," seemed important. I asked him to say more, which led him to this sad but important comment: "I'm having trouble sticking together myself. So I'm beginning to change my approach. I've decided my new mantra's gotta be 'hold on tight!' When I settle on something, I've got to dig in. Shut everything else out."
Listen to that one more time: "My new mantra's gotta be, hold on tight. . .shut everything else out."
Now, Friends, a few minutes ago I asked "What exactly are we looking at?" I want to change that question now, and ask, "Do you hear your own voice?" Because it's not just my friend and Barry Schwartz, it's all of us.
Let me answer my own question this morning: We're not stupid. We're just a bit overwhelmed by all the options and arguments. It's not about lacking intelligence as much as it's about the struggle to hold on to our identity - about feeling overwhelmed and giving into the temptation to shut out the other voices so that, for more than just a moment, we can experience the feeling of hearing and knowing our own voice. Rightly or wrongly, we just need a break. We don't want to hear "the other side." We don't want to see it from the "stone-washed" or "straight-leg" point of view. Just give us those "easy fit" jeans like we asked. We're tired of walking around without any pants on, for god's sake! Please, we just want to finally be able to put on a pair of pants!
But of course, the problem is that once we get those pants on, it's awfully easy to get comfortable. And because we are human, it's easy to fall into the trap of clinging tightly to that comfort. Let me say that again: because we are human, it's easy to fall into the trap of clinging tightly to that comfort. And THAT, friends, in my book, is the understandable but dangerous core crisis facing us today. And so as much as I admire and respect Al Gore and Bill Moyers, I think, on this one, they and all the rest have got it dead wrong. What we lack in our culture today is not smart people as much as people willing "to hold on lightly."
One more important thing about the modern mass market of information and choices whirling around us today: that volume of information doesn't just drive us to hold on tightly to our ideas; it also enables us to hold on tightly to our ideas. With such a well-developed and easily assessable smorgasbord of ideologies out there, nobody has to be a misfit anymore. The endless and easily-accessible options, enable us to easily find "our people." There was a time when a baby-boom, just-war, democrat with pan-theist spiritual leanings and love for blue-grass would have had to settle for her dog being the only one who "got her." But today, there are not only 3 dozen websites devoted to the "pan-theist baby-boomer babes for blue-grass," but they have their own magazine and radio show too! Simply put, in the world of niche markets, internet and mass media, misfits no longer really exist. Nobody's a loner - or, at least, no one has to be a loner anymore. Everybody can find "their people" to affirm them just the way they are. As one columnist put it, "Echoes of 'who we are' are easier to find today than ever!"
Hear that! "Echoes of 'who we are' are easier to find today than ever!"
What it means is that the true modern misfit is the one who is willing to step outside of their echo chamber and listen - not so much to their own inner voice - as much as to voices other than one's own.
And not just the true misfit, but OUR misfit. This is the misfit that UUs are most called to reclaim. That's why my sermon title this morning is not as silly as it might first appear. With our strong commitment to reason, it'd be easy for us to offer the world something that is close but ultimately misses the mark. What people need most - what we need most - is not reminders and encouragement to think better, but to get outside of our comfortable thoughts.
And with that in mind I want to end this morning with one of my favorite bad jokes:
Two traditional church members were going door to door. They knocked on the door of a Unitarian woman who clearly was not happy to see them. She told them in no uncertain terms that she didn't want to hear their message; she made it clear she was happy with her faith the way it was and then slammed the door in their faces.
To her surprise, the door did not close. In fact, it bounced back open. Seeing the two church members still standing at the door, she stormed back and fiercely flung it shut again.
But the door still didn't close. Furious, she grabbed the door with two hands and shoved it as hard as she could. But again, the door wouldn't shut.
Convinced one of these rude church members was sticking a foot in the door, she reared back to give the door a slam that would really teach them a lesson. Just then, one of the church members said, "Ma'am, before you do that again, you might want to move your cat."
My apologies to the cat lovers out there!
As I said, it's a bad joke, but it contains an important reminder: In a swirling and overwhelming world, it can feel necessary to hold on tightly. But holding on too tightly and shutting out all of the new views that daily knock on our door ultimately ends with us hurting what we treasure most as Unitarian Universalists: the pursuit of truth.
There is no doubt that part of pursuing the truth involves careful and complex thinking, but it's just not that simple; again, it's also a matter of having the courage and wisdom to get outside our comfortable, "easy fit" thoughts - the courage and wisdom to hold on lightly.
May that be the kind of misfit we help each other to be.
Amen.
NOTE: Barry Schwartz's book is: The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. It is a must read! Another good book to read in relation to this sermon is Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason. Although, this sermon takes a different position than Jacoby, her book is a very well done and highlights Unitarian Universalists throughout.
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