Robert Thurman, "Wisdom" and:
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Reconciliation (Assignment 1)
Context:
- Many of you have been raised in Christian, Jewish, or Muslim traditions or within cultures informed by monotheistic belief systems. Thurman speaks from assumptions that may seem alien to you.
- One particular challenge may arise from the fact that Americans and many others in the world have been taught to value “individualism” highly.
- The task for many of you, therefore, will be to set aside knee jerk reactions that object, “Whatyamean there is no self? No way!”
- In class, you will be helped through a “temporary believing” exercise that may help you develop an effective approach to challenging readings and ideas.
- Some of you, on the other hand, may have been raised in one of the Buddhist, the very different Hindu, or other non-monotheistic traditions or cultures. Others may have chosen to study or embrace such traditions.
- The challenge for you may be to avoid an equally knee-jerk “Hooray for our side” reaction.
- Although each of us may have slightly different stumbling blocks to avoid and new territory to explore, we share one task: to develop a project that approaches the assignment question in an open-minded way that seeks to discover ideas and perspectives we were not aware of before we began working with the article.
- We have been discussing “reconciliation” as envisioned by the South African post-apartheid commission. They saw uncovering and speaking truth as the key to reconciling victim and victimizer to stop the cycle of violence and move forward to make human life better. Throughout the term, you will discover new layers, new colors, and new richness in the concept of “reconciliation.” Start allowing it to grow now.
Assignment Question: How can what Thurman means by “selflessness” facilitate reconciliation between persons and among groups in the world?
Questions to Prime the Pump:
- What is the difference between what you thought “selflessness” meant before you studied Thurman and what explains that he means by it? Be careful not to oversimplify his complex definition.
- Thurman says the Buddha understood that “selflessness kindles the sacred fire of compassion” (53). What does this mean? What is the relationship between compassion and reconciliation?
- What kinds of “reconciliation” might be facilitated by selflessness?
- Thurman claims selflessness “does not mean that you are disconnected,” but rather that we are all “still totally interconnected.” If this is true, what difference does it make?
- What is the difference between an “ultimate self” and a “relative self”?
- In a Publishers Weekly article quoted in the Riverhead edition of Infinite Life, the reviewer wrote: “Among the riches offered here is the insight that we do not become faceless blobs as we realize our selflessness and the infinite nature of our lives but true individualists.”
Karen Kalteissen, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From Reconciliation.
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Jonathan Boyarin, Oliver Sacks, and Robert Thurman
Use Boyarin’s Waiting for a Jew: Marginal Redemption at the Eighth Street Shul by and Sacks’ The Mind's Eye: What the Blind See, to show how consistently excelling at a chosen endeavor, as opposed to being “average” at it, might prevent one from attaining the ideal of selflessness as described by Robert Thurman in Wisdom.
Things to think about:
How does being “average” make one feel?
What does being “average” at something prompt one to do?
What are the personal drawbacks of being skilled in one’s chosen profession or at any task, in general?
What are some of the positive outcomes of failure?
What does a novice have that an “expert” lacks?
What changes when one transforms into the other?
Can one choose to relinquish an ability?
Why is it hard for an “expert” to act otherwise?
What steps must you take to strengthen your less dominant hand?
Monika Krishan, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From “Identity” Lies in the Eye of the Beholder.
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Happiness, Wisdom, and Work (Assignment 2)
In “Wisdom” Robert Thurman argues that the ideals of Buddhism, which are fundamentally different from the western emphasis on the individual self, can help us achieve our best potential. In “Futile Pursuit of Happiness” Gertner examines the work of psychologists who study our predictions of happiness.
How do the ideas in Gertner’s article confirm, complicate or contradict Thurman’s belief that it is possible to achieve happiness by transcending the concept of ‘self’? Would our society benefit if we could go beyond the ‘self’?
Your answer must use both Gertner’s and Thurman’s essays to support your own project. (do not simply compare and contrast Gertner and Thurman) You should also incorporate quotes in your essay and have proper citations. (MLA Style – see Easy Access p197)
In this paper I want to see that:
- you considered the ideas in both texts and put them into conversation with each other
- you have your own project that goes beyond the ideas in Thurman and Gertner
- you are choosing relevant quotations and examples, and you are explaining the connections between this evidence and your larger project (each paragraph should try to have quotes from both writers)
- you are proofreading your essay carefully for grammar and spelling errors
Alla Gaydukova, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From Happiness, Wisdom, and Work.
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Happiness, Wisdom, and Work (Assignment 3)
How can the individuals in our society effectively overcome years of social indoctrination into ‘’master-servant relationship’ in the workplace without compromising their right to individual happiness? How are Greider’s reforms, based on collective happiness, possible in view of the ideas of Thurman and Gertner?
If you think that the individuals do not need to overcome years of social indoctrination you will need to explain in detail the reasons behind this conclusion. You must use all three texts to support your ideas.
Your answer must use Greider’s, Gertner’s and Thurman’s essays to support your own project. You do not need to pay the same amount of attention to all the three essays, but you should use and refer to all of them (at least once each) in your paper.
You should also incorporate quotes in your essay and have proper citations.
In this paper I want to see that:
- you considered the ideas in all three texts and put them into conversation with each other
- you have your own project that goes beyond the ideas in Greider, Thurman and Gertner
- you are choosing relevant quotations and examples, and you are explaining the connections between this evidence and your larger project
- you state your project and the way you will achieve it (road map) at the end of your introduction. (your project and road map can be a couple of sentences long)
- you are using effective topic sentences
- you are proofreading your essay carefully for grammar and spelling errors
Alla Gaydukova, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From Happiness, Wisdom, and Work.
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Reconciliation (Assignment 2)
Context:
- Robert Thurman writes about the tendency of one “self” to think of itself as pitted against another self, or even more dangerously, one self believing that it must fight to survive against Them--all the rest of the selves in the world.
- Deborah Tannen is also concerned about the “I vs. I” or the “Us vs. Them” way of thinking.
- One way to look at “reconciliation” is as the art and process of getting beyond the “vs.” in human relations.
- Many important 20th and 21st century thinkers, including the post-apartheid South African commission, believe that one of the keys to reconciliation is “truth.” We must discover, reveal, and speak the whole truth – or as much of it as we can uncover—before we can hope to reconcile differences and move on.
Assignment Question: What can Thurman’s ideas suggest to us about the roots of the argument culture in Western society?
Questions to Prime the Pump:
- What truth can Thurman’s ideas about self offer us to understand and begin to reconcile the oppositional forces Tannen describes?
- What happens to the search for truth and reconciliation when knowledge (as Deborah Tannen claims) is seen as forming “warring camps”?
- What is the relationship between the “basic assumption” Tannen asks us to question and the basic Western assumptions Thurman questions?
- Tannen’s chapter includes a section on “The Cost in Human Spirit.” Could Thurman’s article have a similarly titled section? Where? In what way?
- Tannen suggests the benefits of getting beyond “dualism” by which she means the “absolute and irreconcilable principles continually at war.” Does Thurman make a similar claim? What do the two authors together suggest those benefits might be?
Karen Kalteissen, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From Reconciliation.
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Reconciliation (Assignment 3)
Context:
- The “Us. vs. Them” or “I vs. You” antagonism that we have studied in Thurman and Tannen rears perhaps its ugliest head in Beth Lofredda’s study of Matt Shepard’s murder in Laramie.
- Both Tannen and Lofredda express disappointment in their academic colleagues, both for what they do and what they fail to do. The academic establishment may illustrate, for them, Abba Eban’s famous quip about groups that never fail to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
- The core purpose of “reconciliation” as it was conceived in post-apartheid South Africa was to halt the cycle of violence and allow both victim and victimizer to get on with the business of making human life better.
Assignment Question: Can Tannen and Thurman help us understand the causes of homophobia and its violent expression? Can this understanding provide any guidelines for reconciliation between gay and homophobic Americans, “to break the cycle of violence and get on with the business of making life better”?
Questions to Prime the Pump:
- What are the roles of fear, anger, sadness, vilification, and untruth in Lofredda? In Thurman? In Tannen?
- What are the consequences of “dehumanizing” the “other,” as Lofredda suggests that Henderson, McKinney, and some CSU students did? What happens when the second “I” (in Thurman’s “I vs. I”) becomes nonhuman, invisible, nothing?
- When Lofredda looks at the response in Laramie in the first days after the attack, she identifies the widespread reaction of “outrage” among some but the relatively limited commitment to the “hard, slow work of social justice” (437). How would Tannen and Thurman explain these responses? How would you explain their roles in reconciliation?
- What is the difference between what Thurman describes as the “relative self” and what Lofredda describes as the “dehumanized” self of the Other?
Karen Kalteissen, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From Reconciliation.
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