I studied philosophy in college. I enjoyed law school. I work when I can as an appellate lawyer. I read few novels but a lot of philosophy and legal theory. I enjoy the clean, crisp flow of well-honed arguments and get a kind of goofy joy at watching the interplay of concepts and abstraction. By temperament, I am a theorist, but I, alas, live in world where as often as not stories hold sway.
Despite the valiant efforts of some to impose theoretical structure on our theology, Mormonism is ultimately at the mercy of narrative: stories about the Son of God, prophets, and angels with golden books. The theorizing is generally secondary and post-hoc. To the extent that we have had any serious scholarship or intellectual work done on our religion it has been disproportionately done by historians, and their cadences lurk in the background of virtually all of our discussions. Indeed, even our most intense theological debates get framed in terms of the proper way to structure our historical narratives. Witness the fireworks over the historicity of the Book of Mormon, or the debates of decades past over the New Mormon History.
Why my suspicion of narrative? Why don’t I simply embrace the fecund ambiguity of stories? In a sense I do. I read the stuff, learn from it, and enjoy it. My love affair with theory has made me suspicion of theory as reductionist and ungrounded — “fried froth” in John Taylor’s uncharitable and striking phrase. On the other hand, I am equally suspicious that narrative all too often backs into vacuousness. Consider history. What is it that historians do? Ultimately, I would argue, they simply tell stories about the past. The sorts of stories that they tell are disciplined by norms about documents and sources but in the end they are weavers of tales, Homers or Miltons hobbled by facts and pedantry. Of course, the historians hope for more. They have ambitions of explanation, but at the end of the day they are not horribly well equipped to offer theories with any real traction as generalizations. Always, we are sucked back to the particularity, to the narrative, and the theory is battered and diminished by demands of the historical moment until we come full circle back to the story. Armed with their insight — “It is the particularity and the historical moment that matter!” — the historians triumphantly march forth, poisoning the well against other modes and ways of understanding until they become almost unimaginable, and Mormon thought becomes confined within the boundaries of the MHA.
If Plato was wrong about banishing the poets from the well-ordered city, he was at least right to the extent that it ought not to be given over completely and utterly to their care. There must be resistance!
Nate, the distinction your draw between narrative and theory doesn’t hold. Or rather, if “theory” can be seen to include most forms of philosophical explanation, and not just the pure “interplay of concepts and abstraction,” and if “narrative” can be understood as incorporating most forms of story-telling, and not just a rigorous historical methodology “disciplined by norms about documents and sources,” then in that case the distinction doesn’t hold. On the contrary, I think the very best theorizing is done through and by way of embodiment and particularity, while the very best stories elucidate by their own structure important theoretical and explanatory truths. Think Alsadair McIntyre, Paul Ricoeur, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hannah Arendt, George Grant, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Charles Taylor, etc., etc. Your bias in favor of analytical philosophy is showing; it’s only in the Anglo-American intellectual world where historians and theorists seem at odds with one another. In the Continental intellectual world, they can’t do their work without one another.
Of course, John Taylor probably would have thought phenomenology was so much intellectual dross too. But then, he had a church to run.
A further problem is that history allows people to include theory in an indirect way, without admitting that there is any theory and without subjecting the theory to the necessary rigorous discussion and (possibly) testing. Consider the Latter-day Saint doctrine of the godhead, which is certainly theoretical in character. This doctrine is often taught as a direct consequence of the first vision narrative. In these discussions, the first vision narrative from the Pearl of Great Price is always used, disregarding the other extant narratives or narrative fragments. This is relevant because the other texts at least apparently support different ideas about the godhead. But these alternative possible theories are typically suppressed in Latter-day Saint discussion, as are the documents that might support them.
At this point in time, believing Latter-day Saints share a pretty homogeneous doctrine of the godhead, and the confidence we have in that doctrine must come from somewhere. My guess is the more directly analytical revelations of the Doctrine and Covenants are the source. But when we pretend to derive them from the history of the first vision, simultaneously suppressing part of that history, we are, I think, really acting to shield the true sources and structure of our theory and doctrine from proper scrutiny.
Some of the best theories have been taught via narratives. Consider Plato’s allegory of the cave & Hart’s King Rex just to name a few. Ayn Rand is another example that comes to mind who almost exclusively propounds her theories through stories.
Now I would distinguish these from what you seem to have the distaste for–story telling for story’s sake and not with a specific theory you’re trying to explain. But I think this is a hard line to draw, as Russell explains. Besides objective historians who are merely trying to gather facts, and not prove some point, the vast majority of stories that I’ve read are written to explain a theory or portray a worldview. The Book of Mormon is the perfect example. Although a historical record, it is written with the express purpose of showing how the Lord watches over and cares for his people.
So, I guess the question is which stories contain this value and which don’t. And when are allegories preferable to more abstract discussion? I’ve been in law school too long already that I’ve forgotten what abstract discussion is, so for me any discussion of a theory void of a case or example is itself abstract.
“If Plato was wrong about banishing the poets from the well-ordered city …”
The irony, of course, is that Plato himself was a remarkable poet. Did Plato’s drastic proposal include only a particular kind of poet or poetry? Is it a clever self-accusation? Was it intentionally overstated to make a point about the power that “poetry” exerts over society?
“Some of the best theories have been taught via narratives. Consider Plato’s allegory of the cave…”
Aside from narrative high points like the cave, Plato deploys literary elements (wordplays, irony, etc.) to dodge what I think Nate means by theory. Often (but not always) he seems more concerned about clear thinking, intellectual agility, living in the mind and letting the body go (i.e., ways of thinking and living) and not particular ideas or explanations.
When it comes to imagining or presenting ways of thinking or interpreting—ways of creatively engaging the world, “poetry” and “theory” do seems to harmonize or compliment each other more than Nate’s post lets on.
Re: Plato
In one of his letters (an undipsuted one) Plato says that he has never written down what he actually thinks/believes, so we have no idea if Plato really wanted to ban poets or not….
Ivan: of course, Aristotle claimed to know and respond to Plato’s unwritten doctrines.
[I know … I know … Aristotle’s claims about Plato do not settle much. But they are interesting in light of Bloom’s anxiety of influence idea. Overcoming one’s teacher requires one first to pin his teacher down to something!]
Ivan: Actually we don’t, since your reading assumes that he was truthful when he wrote that he was never truthful when he wrote. Classic liar’s paradox.
Nate, thanks for choosing history as your whipping boy today, instead of literary theory–it can get tiring being constantly on the defensive! :)
It’s funny that you say this, though. A good number of your own posts here on T&S are just plain old good stories.
Russell writes:
“while the very best stories elucidate by their own structure important theoretical and explanatory truths.”
I completely agree. But if I understand Nate correctly, part of the problem is that these theories and explanations aren’t easily portable and applicable to other cases, times, places — they lack the power to generalize.
And when I think about the literary theory that I find the most interesting, I think Nate has a point. As much as I find power in and enjoy Bloom’s _The Anxiety of Influence_ or Barthe’s _S/Z_ or Gardner’s _On Moral Fiction_ or even Judith Butler’s Lacanian reading of Henry James’ _The Turn of the Screw_ [don’t laugh — it’s freakin’ brilliant, but so idiosyncratic that it would absolutely not work with any other text and is about the only ‘psychological’ reading of canonical works that I can stomach], I would hesitate to extend those theories beyond the boundaries of the author’s project and perhaps even beyond the narratives, the texts that the theorists use as examples. Sure, one can bring these works into the discussions of other works, but (almost) always in the mode of further narration and localized explanation and not as *the* governing theoretical model. There are grad students who try and do that — but that’s just first blush enthusiasm about theory, and it never works [anybody else having flashbacks of that annoying person who wanted to apply Frye’s ‘archetypes’ to or give a reductionist ‘Marxist’ or ‘queer’ reading of *every* *single* *book* on the reading list?].
Of course, while I think that Nate has a point, I’m not convinced that it’s one that really matters — as his often wistful tone when he brings this up suggests. Not to reduce it all to personal preference, but still — there are some of us for whom the interplay of narratives is enough, and we don’t need none of your stinkin’ hoity-toity all-ecompassing theories. [although, I still love theory and am open to the possibility of a particular model changing my mind].
On the other hand: word up to this — “the historians triumphantly march forth, poisoning the well against other modes and ways of understanding until they become almost unimaginable, and Mormon thought becomes confined within the boundaries of the MHA.”
It does seem as if Mormon thought is over-historicized.
There is always some kind of theory behind a narrative, even if it is a muddled or even unconscious one. And, any concrete implementation of theory is always a narrative of sorts. The longer I am a physicist—supposedly a very theoretical discipline—the more I suspect that what we’re doing is constructing narratives. And what is a lawyer doing in front of a jury, if not constructing a narrative? Or in a negotiation, simply an arduous and adversarial form of collaborative plot generation?
Jesus of Nazareth was a storyteller, not a theorist.
This brings to mind my civil procedure professor’s routine response to a question that required an application of general doctrine/ theory to a messy set of real or imagined facts: “let’s not let this perfectly good theoretical discussion get bogged down in reality!”
And that was it. His point was to illustrate the structure underlying the law—or perhaps superimposed on law as a sort of rational dam to hold back the waters of untheorized interpretation. He declined to speak extemporaneously about what a trial judge would have to do in that situation—pay close attention to details (the “historical moment” in Nate’s post), and assign both weight and credibility within the constraints of the relevant doctrine and theory. Apparently he doubted the pedagogical value of attempting to analyze details in terms of doctrine and theory without doing so well.
In the process of reading cases and analyzing how particular facts relate to the relevant doctrine and theory—and then attempting to apply to the case at hand what one knows about doctrine and theory due to their understanding of the particular facts of the earlier cases—there is a constant oscilation between the general (doctrine/ theory) and the specific (particular facts, “the historical moment”). In short, theory and particular facts depend on each other for their meaning. Incidentally, however, legal education (which is dominated by the reading of appellate opinions and memorizing of outlines of rules) tends to instill an unfortunate bias toward over-simplifying generalization, theory, soft-con law, and their ilk.
Is my assessment applicable in general? Is there really a tention between theory and particular “historical moments?” Or can we only really understand one in terms of the other?
Shawn: I actually think that in some ways that law provides a nice integration between them. I am enough of a formalist to believe that the law exhibits coherent doctrinal structures that have some sort of immanent rationality that can be stated in theoretical terms. On the other hand, I suspect that in most interesting cases — such as cases where clients are willing to pay attorneys hundreds of dollars an hour to determine what the law is — these theoretical constructs will not decide the issue. What is required is the application of judgement, both by the lawyer in stating what the law is, and by the adjudicator in deciding the case. I take is that “judgement” is that je ne sais que of knowledge that comes from immersing oneself in the cases, and allows one to determine when a doctrinally clever argument simply isn’t going to work. I doubt that this skill can be stated in theoretical terms, but comes instead from the vast accretion of “stories” if you will, what Llewellyn called “situation sense.”
Amen to Russell’s criticisms (#1).
As for Plato, Ivan, the 7th Letter has often been disputed (see #5). Though most scholars today accept it as genuine, not all do. However, assuming that it is an authentic letter, Nate’s response (#7) doesn’t apply because Plato’s point was clearly (in context) about public communication rather than private. The dialogues are public; the letter was private.
Also regarding Plato: It isn’t only that he included narratives like the allegory of the cave in his dialogues (and they are all over the place in them). It is also that he wrote in a dramatic, poetic form. The dialogue is a narrative, dramatic form rather than a philosophical one. (Aristotle also wrote in dialogue form, but none of them have survived.)
Christian (#10): I don’t think it is true that there is always an implicit theory behind a narrative. It may be possible to deduce one or more theories from some narratives, but that deduction doesn’t demonstrate that the theory was already implicit in the narrative. It is just as easily understood as a construction based on the narrative rather than a discovery of something in it. However, I think you are right that theories often, though perhaps not always, turn out to be a way of telling a particular, generalized story.
Plato . . . Hart . . . Rand —
So I guess Blaine is providing both point and counterpoint here. (Perhaps stories are good; but, then again, maybe not.)
Isn’t the main problem between stories and “theory” that stories aren’t particularly concerned about making ideas clear?
Westley: You’re that smart?
Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Westley: Yes.
Vizzini: Mormons.
[Sorry, I could not resist.]
Clark: There are reasons to make ideas clear, but surely it isn’t either the primary or the sole function of language. If people need to make ideas clear, they shouldn’t use narrative to do so. But that leaves lots of other reasons for narratives.
Nate: I don’t remember what you said, but I do remember that on the last day of the community class you took from me you said something that made it clear you were uncomfortable with what I had been doing. Now I understand why: I was doing philosophy using narratives as a tool for reflection. It has taken a few years, but my light bulb just clicked.
“It does seem as if Mormon thought is over-historicized.”
And yet (this is for Nate et al.), the man who was perhaps the first and greatest giant when it came to attempting a theoretical approach to Mormon theology, B.H. Roberts, is perhaps most widely remembered as a historian. This is very strange, as he was not really trained as a historian (or anything other than a cowboy for that matter). His “Comprehensive History,” however, still stands alone for its breadth of scope (if not for its quality). Although some may say “Mormon thought [whatever that means] is over-historicized,” there is still so much that remains to be done and Mormon history is still a very young field. Also, not much has been said here about the early leaders’ attitudes toward the “corrupt creeds” and “spiritualizing” of the scriptures rife in the religions of JS’s time. This discomfort with religion that gets too big for its britches (read: academic) is still a very present legacy of our backwoods beginnings. I think that’s a legacy we shouldn’t throw away, as that is part of what is so unique about Mormonism: credophobia (I know, I know–it’s an unholy mix of Latin and Greek). Wouldn’t JS be terrified if he could see what the Articles of Faith have become?
Sorry, now that I read it, the second half of my post sounds really smarmy. Smooth and smarmy if you will. Disregard the tone and heed only the narrative.