Intellectual No More

My capacity for critical thought has diminished. This became abundantly clear to me during the Q&A portion of a lecture I attended tonight. Vroman's, my favorite bookstore, does an author speaker series at All Saints Church in Pasadena. I've always wanted to go and tonight was the night. The author was Diarmaid MacCulloch, a professor from Oxford and the author of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. I had lofty ideas of going to his lecture, then buying his book, having him sign it, reading it, and then passing it along to an overseas friend. I took one look at the 1000-page monster and immediately knew I would never read that book. I was delighted to find out that the BBC did a documentary about it, so I can still get the flavor of the book without actually reading it. I'd never make it through page two.

He was nice to listen to and I appreciated that he didn't speak more than 45 minutes before taking questions. I'd say I didn't understand half of what people asked. Then I looked around and noticed that EVERYONE WAS OLD and wondered why there was no one my age or younger. It occurred to me that in this stage of life I think people are so caught up in reacting to what comes their way, dealing with problems, and establishing themselves, that time to just think and debate ideas seems like a luxury they can't afford. I get it. I noticed the immediate drop in the number of books I was reading right after college. Too busy dealing with life. But I do miss it. I miss having new thoughts, being excited by an intellectual discovery or an exchange of ideas.

Of the questions I did understand, someone asked him about his thoughts on the rise of fundamentalism in America. He made a good point. He said he noticed a lot of people who seemed "very cross". He suggested that it could be attributed to "the rage of the heterosexual man at losing his place in society." I found this an interesting thought which seems to have truth to it, in many realms. Someone also asked why he thought abject secularism had been embraced by Europe. He said that because Europeans are ashamed of some of the ideologies they embraced (like Nazism, Fascism,etc.), they are now rejecting ideologies all together. It doesn't help that the Catholic Church cozied up to both movements. All very intriguing to think about. I think I like thinking again.....