Seeking Wisdom in Tradition

A summary of:
Schultze, Q. J. (2002). Habits of the High-Tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age. Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, MI, USA.
Chapter 3 - Seeking Wisdom in Tradition

Schultze begins by mentioning the "simplicity movement," whose adherents quip, "Maintaining a complicated life is a great way to avoid changing it" (69). As much as we can rhapsodize about a simpler time, and even wish to return to it, not only can you never put that toothpaste back in the tube, but as Schultze says, "Slowing down our rate of retrieving and disseminating information is a necessary but insufficient step in our journey toward reclaming the habits of the heart" (69).

The point of this chapter is threefold:

1) We need religion as an anchor to a greater, more meaningful continuity; or to what Schultze argues religion creates/maintains: "an overarching metanarrative" (70). I am reminded again of Joel Mason's sermon about being participants in a story when we come to church. This chapter asks how we can possibly understand ourselves without understanding our history and that narrative. Tradition is not silly; it is truly important to our understanding of who we are. One definition quoted here is that "'tradition' [is] the 'living faith of the dead'" whereas "traditionalism" is the "dead faith of the living" (74). Schultze defines religious tradition as "a transcendentally framed and morally directed way of life that faithfully aims to rebind the broken cosmos from generation to generation" (75). The problem we have to reconcile with this view, however, is that fact that the world our ancestors was describing no longer exists; things are profoundly different as our understanding of the world has grown. But then the value of traditions is that they are "direction-setting 'maps of reality' that generations of wisdom-seeking communities of faith have already charted" (76). Simply put, "Without history memory, there can be no wisdom" (89).

2) We need to cultivate more advanced listening skills. Think about the extreme we have arrived at where we literally shout into the ether with tools like Twitter. We don't even presume anyone is listening to us. But what should we do? Forcibly silence the chatter? Schultze mentions attempts (successful ones!) to establish "Quiet Zones" in America: "Establishing these zones was not only a reaction against noise but also an action in favor of practices such as healing and learning" (77). (As Havel shows, having enforced silence and time for contemplation - being jailed for years - is a great way to cultivate depth of thought.) It is worth considering that monastic rule is not "'Do not speak' but rather 'Do not speak unless you can improve on the silence'" (78). This requires a combination of moderation and reflection. How can technologies support this notion?

3) "we are all responsible not jut for seeking virtue but also for passing it along to each generation" (71). For example, one concern is that "impressive messaging could potentially cut us off from tradition and unravel the tapestries of gratitude and responsibility that bind us to God, neighbor, self, and creation" (81). This third point is linked to the point I was making in my last post about the value of memory to society. Interestingly, Schultze goes on a bit of an unpredicted discussion about the importance of "caring" as part of being responsible. (More predictably, this evokes questions about sustainability and corporate social responsibility, which Schultze glosses over except to say that we need to care for God's creation.) One example of this caring that we can find on the Internet, which I personally quite like, is MS Softserve. This website was created in recognition of the emotional impact of information, which can derail a person who has recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. This website allows the user to judge the level of intensity of the information they can cope with receiving at the moment.

Again, I'm a bit wary of Schultze's faith in religion. He says, for example, "The root word religio means ‘to rebind.’ To act religiously in the world is to rebind the broken cosmos” (72). I might attribute such loftiness to spirituality, but I am reticent in applying it to religion, which is so complicated by politics and embittered by centuries of fighting with other religions. This is just one reason I recoil from talking about "religion" - as if you can meaningfully even speak of it as a coherent thing, when it is composed of such different traditions.

But I think this is a useful test for developing technologies: "Do they foster the joy and harmonious shalom, or do they sustain alienation, conflict, unhappiness, and injustice" (72)?