A Healer’s Geste

Leisure, Part 2; The Philosophical Act, chapter 1

Here, Brandy, is the summary you promised. ;)

I think this is the best chapter in the book so far. It was much easier to hang onto than the first part.

There is also a great discussion in this chapter of what “liberal arts” means, but I was planning on a post about that in my Pursuing Classical Education series, so I’ll save it for that.

Leisure: The Basis of Culture Part 2, Chapter 1

Pieper’s Main Point

Thesis: “A philosophical act is an act in which the work-a-day world is transcended.”

Definitions:

Philosophical act: “The philosopher [... is] concerned with the mirandum, the wondrous, the astonishing, or whatever calls for astonishment or wonder. [...] Philosophy is ‘useless’ in the sense of immediate profit & application. [...It] cannot callow itself to be used, [...] for it is itself a goal.” The philosophical act is joined in kind with poetry, love & death, and worship. “The philosophical act, genuine poetry, musical experience in general, and prayer as well — all these depend on some kind of disturbance.”

Work-a-day world: “this world of uses and efficiencies, of needs and satisfactions, this world of ‘useful good’, of the ‘common utility.’” “The demands of the working world grow ever more total, grasping ever more completely the whole of human existence.”

Transcendence: “The genuine philosophical question strikes disturbingly against the canopy that encloses the world of the citizen’s work-day. [...] in such an experience, man senses the non-ultimate nature of this daily, worrisome world: he transcends it; he takes a step outside it.”

When the utilitarian world is the starting point and the ending point, “all the various forms and methods of transcendence must themselves become sterile. [...] But worse than the mere extinguishing or silencing is the distortion into false forms of the original; there are such pseudo-realizations of those basic experiences which only appear to pierce the canopy. There is a way to pray in which this world is not transcended, in which, instead, one attempts to incorporate the divine as a functioning component of the work-a-day machinery of purposes. Religion can be perverted into magic so that instead of self-dedication to God, it becomes the attempt to gain power over the divine and make it subservient to one’s own will. [...] And further: love can be narrowed so that the powers of self-giving become subservient to the goals of the confined ego [...]. There are pseudo-forms of art, a false poetry, which, instead of breaking through the roof over the the work-a-day world, resigns itself, so to speak, to painting decorations on the interior surface of the dome. [...] Finally, there is a pseudo-philosophy, whose essential character is precisely that it does not transcend the working world. [...Such is] more hopeless than the naive self-closing of the worldly man against what is not of daily-life. [...] A psuedo-philosopher will never be disturbed.”

However, when philosophy is at the heart and soul of a society, when people think about metaphysics without an agenda in mind to justify by their philosophizing, true utility becomes possible. When utility is the beginning and end, it kills. When philosophy & wonder are the beginning, utility will follow as a fruit.

Conclusion: “This thesis, which comprehends both the freedom and theoretical character of philosophy, does not deny the world of work (in fact, it presumes it as something necessary), but it maintains that true philosophy rests upon the belief that the real wealth of man lies not in the satisfaction of his necessities, nor, again, in ‘becoming lords and masters of nature,’ but rather in being able to understand what is.”

My thoughts

The connection I kept making with Peiper’s thoughts was with business-type philosophy. The “How to Succeed” and time-management sort of books, and the latest trend of “life coaches” and “business coaches.” One of our local radio stations has a 60-second spot they give throughout the day to one such local — Christian — guy, who always has something pithy and “inspiring” for motivating people or for doing business well or some such goal. Even when the stated goal is to treat the people around you like people, it all still seems to be manipulative to me: “I’ll treat them like persons because that’s the best way to get what I want from them.” I do get enamored from time to time with the time-management sort of books like Getting Things Done or Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And there are gems of insight in them. But last time I went through such a phase, I couldn’t get more than a few sentences into any of the books I got from the library. Now, thanks to Peiper, I have a category for what the problem was: trapped under the canopy. It was all so centered not only on self and self-actualization, but on the work-a-day world, the world that is all about utility and efficiency. Stuck. Not transcendent, not theoretical, just how to manage within this busy, crazy world.

These business-theory models seem treat people like individuals not because it’s right, but because that’s actually the best way to be efficient. Sure, that’s because operating “with the grain” of the way God made the world actually does work better, but approaching the issue from the utilitarian angle has it all backwards and no matter what you say or do, if your reasons for so acting are manipulative and selfish, you’re not treating anyone as a person, but as a tool. But, I’m also a person who wishes she never had to deal with retail commission-based salesmen. The whole model makes them have to act like they’re “for me,” but it’s really all about getting what they need from me.

So, Peiper has given me the justification for reading philosophical, theoretical type books, whether they be educational or theological. I had thought, when I last checked out my pile of “management” type books, that what I needed was to get my head out of the clouds and focus on the reality of day-to-day life. And I do. But the management books were not the way to do that this time around. Besides, just like the classical education books, once you’ve read 3 or so, you’ve got the gist and the rest are just variations and nuances. And management books are too sterile and non-theoretical and non-philosophical (or, pseudo-philosophical, Peiper would say) for nuances to be interesting or helpful. So, now, I’ve got my day-to-day reality check in the form of a daily to-do checklist/schedule, and a mix of philosophy & reality in the quotes & verses I pulled out in my habit series that I have been reviewing every morning before beginning. You do need to know what you need to do, but it helps you actually be motivated to accomplish it if you know the overarching why of what you do. Or, at least, it helps me, being one of those Idealistic sorts. Is there such a thing as a practical, administrative idealist? :)