This Weekly Edition of Inkwell features Josh Nadeau
THE RESEARCH IS quite clear: “I am right and you are wrong.” And as much as it may pain you to read that, as much as it may not ring true to you, trust me (and there’s a whole literature on this), it is. Your opinions on culture or theology or, God forbid, politics, are a bit, shall we say, pedestrian.
If you had simply done the work, read the required books, well, faithful reader, you too would clearly see: “I am right and you are wrong.”
Because the data is definitive: whatever this mind of mine decides to write upon is as close to a transcendent truth as we meager humans can arrive at. And peer review proves this.
These reports, essays, or in the common parlance, think pieces, are not just the clever, algorithmic incantations of social alchemists. No, no, no. How could one, such as me, succumb to these trivial matters? There is too much at stake!
In this, our modern times, we face a tsunami of *dilemmata* (it’s latin, look it up) and these words, my 1,500 or so twice monthly, will surely solve them all. If only you opiate addicted masses would simply READ them.
The barrier to entry must be the precise level of expertise and technical requirements necessary to parse out such exalted particularities of prose. It could never be, as seldom the accusations have come: pride.
There are other accusations, too, but we can readily address those, and, as such, galvanize the main thesis of this treatise: “I am right and you are wrong.”
PSEUDO GNOSTICISM
A charge levied against us, the omni-benevolent academic class, is that these articles of ours are gnostic in nature. That the solution to the problems of our cosmos are simply a kind of intellectual ascent; a secret knowledge that if one would only understand, they would find an erudite salvation.
The deficiency in such propositions stem mostly from a severe lack of understanding. I am hardly the first to say such things. People may, in fact, live and move and have their being, in and through their bodies, but it is the mind, and only the mind, that governs and appropriates our perspective of reality.
A close and personal friend of mine, you may not have heard of him, once said, “I think therefore I am.” And if I think, and can teach the prosaic to do the same, we might therefore be. It is, then, as the scholarship will show, quite apparent that thinking will change being. And if it is required of me to keep writing, because the problems of the world have not been settled, then it must be due to the fact that you, the other, have not yet metabolized the knowledge offered…Hence the seven part series on proto-deconstruction and reconstruction within the medieval mindset.
ALL HEAD, NO LIFE
Further still, there are indictments against the colloquial think piece, claiming that these writings bear little resemblance to the lives of normal people. Surely, those imposing such impeachments must realize that our time is much too valuable to be spent doing ordinary, human activities.
There must be a group of us, and praise be that many of us are statistical anomalies with regards to our intelligence quotients, who acquire a knowledge by which those of a different standard deviation can then interpret their life.
Some humans must live in the real world, and do the banal tasks of garbage-trucking or emergency-nursing or, imagine, child-birthing, so that people, such as myself, can take the requisite time to study. And even me, as cerebrally advanced as I am, have been, from time to time, forced to use the toilet.
A body, after all, is confined to a grimy location; but my mind, properly deployed, can be everywhere all at once, and more specifically: nowhere.
NOVELTY IS A VIRTUE
You will find, if you dig deep enough, a pejorative exacted against some writers. That all we are doing is trying to repeat very simple, almost trite ideas, in some novel, or clever fashion. Psychological analysis has since well established that such insinuations are actually borne of jealousy, not from any landmark studies or expert evaluation.
Imagine reducing my research to mere opinion, or, even more scathing, my thesis statement to be tailored towards algorithmic manipulations—the nerve that someone as educated and developed as myself would use catch-phrases, or controversy, or wit as a way to exploit you, as a way to gain a following or to purloin “likes” from you.
Yes, it is true that my writing is due adulation; and surely, we can all attest, such groundbreaking research deserves its proper recognition, but to charge me, ME, of letting an algorithm dictate my titling, my propositions, my PERSON; shameful.
THE ETHICS OF MERE PERSUASION
This may begin to feel monotonous, but, I assure you, it is well worth enduring the onslaught of derision that we, the aforementioned scholarly class, face. Why? To ensure you do not yield to such juvenile grievances. You must, even if you cannot understand, simply agree with me. Remember: “I am right, and you are wrong.”
The investigations here are extensive and stand in stark opposition to yet another allegation: that our think pieces are preoccupied with persuasion, not truth or exhortation. That the academics are more concerned with being right than true. And if you will permit me to be quite human for a moment: Poppycock!
We use all sorts of literary techniques, not just to persuade or induce guilt, but to prove that our opinions are, de facto, sincerely true. The fact that truth so readily overlaps with our perspective seems to be quite a happy coincidence.
Persuasion is a helpful tactic, if for a moment, you desire to peek under the hood. Success has much less to do with being correct, and much more to do with seeming correct.
CULTURE AS PETRI DISH
Us outliers, the ones who have been tasked with delineating the world, interpreting it for those whom the language of the cosmos is mostly unintelligible, have also been implicated by reducing the grand scope of culture to scant hypothesis and controlled environments.
These say that culture is, and forgive me for the crass vulgas (more latin), mostly storied. That it exists within driving and competing narratives and that these narratives are complex and resist analysis by microscope or dissection. Such people will say, for example, that Androcles and the Lion, is an analogue for living. That we should seek to be some echo of Androcles the slave, who, upon escaping from captivity, sneaks into a cave and comes upon a lion with a thorn buried in his paw. Androcles removes it.
Years later, the story goes, Androcles is recaptured and thrown into the arena as punishment, to be killed by a lion. And, impossible probability, it is the same lion whom he helped. And the lion, in gratitude, refuses to kill, and lays at his feet. And these people will derive from this that kindness is never wasted even if one is unsure it will ever be returned.
But any analysis of this story will quickly determine it is not factually correct, or a viable strategy for the propagation of genetic material or intellectual propositions. The lion is not showing mercy, he is, like a Skinnerian Rat, simply adapting to stimuli. A shame that some would interpret the world through narrative rather than analysis.
THE VALUE OF ANALYSIS
And finally there is this growing hypothesis, my language not yours, that story transforms lives, and that the series of think pieces penned and keyed by my colleagues and I have amounted to nothing more than a crescendo of noise.
There is a pattern, most recently noted by scholars such as Bülshêt and Lyœr, emerging that seems to be rebelling against the rationalistic foundations of our society. These seem to think that more than sense data is required to transform the world, or solve its many problems. And we, in unison, retort: Prove it.
Prove there is more than matter to be assessed, and prove, if you can, that something more than premise and measured conclusions will save the world from the coming doom we face. Prove to me, if you can, that a poem or a fable, or, and I can’t believe I have to say this, a novel, will do more for the state of a person than a well tested and controlled experiment.
If physiological and cognitive changes are not immediately experienced or expressed in the reader, then surely, we can conclude such poetics have no benefit. If, in fact, a person cannot pocket a pithy platitude to flaunt at a party, and if these stories are more felt than uttered, then surely, we must let them fall to the wayside.
What we need is immediate and measurable proof that storytelling is of quantifiable benefit and aids in evaluating the microcosm of person and macrocosm of world. Prove it.
CONCLUSION
Hopefully this assessment of indictments has elicited a robust intellectual response within you. And I trust you are just as appalled as me that some will infer, despite all the above facts, that: “They are right and I am wrong.”
Studies are suggesting (I won’t bore you with a list of citations) that more and more people are beginning to demand more from writing. There are, and it pains me to say, dissertations suggesting that writing seeks to evoke a response of heart and soul, not mind and intellect. These are saying that the era of the think piece, the data driven reporting, the academic cunning, are a thing of the past. There’s a growing constituency that seems enthralled by the very ordinary and very local—personal and particular stories by which the universal scope of experience can come flooding through. And believe me, this will be a fad. It will not last.
We have not, as a species, spent much time telling stories, especially not in our primeval history. We have not shaped ourselves by myth and allegory and found our meaning within grand narratives. This is a modern ecstasy.
We must endure and hold fast, we must present lists and lists and lists of facts if we ever hope to save the world. The research is quite clear: “I am right and you are wrong.”
Josh Nadeau
Writer & Artist
Josh is the artist behind Sword and Pencil and is the founder of Every Day Saints. He is also the author of Room for Good Things to Run Wild and Heaven Meets Earth.
📸 Photography by Conor Sweetman
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thanks for having me !
The think piece to end all think pieces! We are saved. Logging off for the final time.