A name for uncertainty
When people learn I studied linguistics in college, they are generally unimpressed to discover that I frittered away my four years studying theoretical syntax–c-command, head movement, control theory, and a host of other words and word combinations whose meanings I no longer remember or frankly understand. What they had hoped to hear more often than not was that I had studied how people use language to shape and interpret their world, what the “meanings” of words are, something like the academic discipline of sociolinguistics, perhaps merged with popular semiotics. I confess I had a great time as a Chomskyan linguist, but this decade-or-so later, I feel the same fascination non-linguists do with how language can be used rather than with the formal structures of meta-syntax, as intriguing as they are (with apologies to my former teachers).
As I work this weekend on a conference talk on devotional phenomenology[1], I have thought about uses of language within a sector of readerly Mormonism. Many of us, myself included, have used the term “agnostic” to refer to specific line-item doctrines, teachings, or proposed facts to which we are unable to witness reliably. We do not say, “I don’t have a testimony of that,” or “on that point I am uncertain,” or, in an older stock phrase, “I’m saving that one for the Millennium.” We tend to say “on that point I’m agnostic.”
At some level, these phrases all possess the same semantic kernel. They indicate that the speaker does not know a specific point to be true. For some speakers, though, “agnostic” adds the probability that no other speaker knows or could know that specific point to be true. For others it remains a personal rather than global declaration but is more directly a public act of identification. With the use of this term, the speaker invokes participation in a community of seekers after truth whose sources of understanding are diverse but tend to fall broadly within an “enlightenment” framework. Such a usage may create a rhetorical chasm between this speaker and another, similarly uncertain, speaking from within another sector of the Latter-day Saint faith community.[2]
My question is this. What would happen if we partial agnostics started pronouncing Sibboleth Shibboleth?[3] If those of us who navigate diverse currents of knowledge and meaning used the terms of religious tradition to describe our uncertainty? Could this strengthen bonds among sub-communities of the Saints? Would it, on the other hand, be disingenuous or subversive?
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[1] I’m not entirely sure what this means; I think I just made it up. Religious scholars use phenomenology to describe academic research that is sympathetic to the subjects of observation. By devotional I think I intend an academic-sounding synonym for “faithful” or “inspirational.”
[2] I could also have just said “the Church.” See footnote 3.
[3] The bellicose Gileadites used differences in pronunciation of this agricultural term to ferret out Ephraimite refugees and then slaughter them (Judges 12: 5-6). Thank heavens for the Old Testament.
[4] This footnote is meant to pay homage to Ronan, the future Headmaster.
I am way over my head on this list.
Are you saying we should just come right out and say “I don’t have a testimony of that principle”? I tried to teach a lesson about testimony in RS once and included a section on how our testimonies grow at different rates in different areas. The sisters were not very receptive. I guess they each received a full blown testimony of everything when coming up out of the font. I, unfortunately, didn’t and still struggle with some things after 20+ years of membership. I am afraid they thought I was encouraging doubt, while I thought I was encouraging honesty.
Comment by Ruth — May 11, 2008 @ 5:57 am
Nice point about whether or not we should seek to be a part of the community or to hold ourselves apart (and, by implication, superior to) the community and how that affects our brotherhood with the Saints.
BTW, my favorite linguist’s blog is at: http://ozarque.livejournal.com/
Comment by Stephen M (Ethesis) — May 11, 2008 @ 6:32 am
Ruth, don’t worry, we’re all in over our heads with Sam! I’ve known him since college, and still find myself scratching my head sometimes, wondering what in the world he’s talking about. This is one of those times
Comment by Kristine — May 11, 2008 @ 6:37 am
Perhaps not as subversive as using footnotes that are either out of order or do not have a reference in the text.
“Thou shalt not trifle with ye style guide.” (APA 3:16)
Comment by JT — May 11, 2008 @ 8:24 am
Sorry for being obscure. Dude, Kristine, you’re the one who was always talking about the German Enlightenment and deconstruction and inscrutable musiscology (which we all found quite fetching, by the way).
In plainer terms: say there’s something we don’t know for sure, some point of doctrine, like, say, whether there will be roads in heaven or whether the JST is a new translation of lost texts or a revision of existing texts, or whatever the topic might be.
we have a few ways to say it. one way is “i’m agnostic about it” Another is “i don’t have a testimony of that” Another is “I’m uncertain on that point.” Often self-styled intellectuals (like me, I confess) will choose “agnostic” as the phrase, which lets people know that we are part of a community of self-styled intellectuals, which sets them apart from other believers in the Church. I’m thinking about using fewer phrases in my speech that identify me as a self-styled intellectual, and I’m wondering what that would mean practically. I’d believe the same things, but I’d be communicating those beliefs in phrases that don’t come naturally to me.
Ruth, your lesson sounds very important and useful, and it’s fascinating to me to hear how it was received. It may be worth remembering that one way to view testimony among us is as the equivalent of the evangelical “born-again” experience. (Doug Davies has made a similar argument in his Mormon Culture of Salvation.) You know, in Puritan churches (at least in New England) you weren’t allowed to join until you could relate your “testimony” publicly and with some sort of proof. The stakes to a missing or weak “testimony” were extremely high.
Comment by smb — May 11, 2008 @ 8:25 am
And guilty as charged, JT. I fixed the notes, but the final note is my humble nod to what could be great in postmodernism. And to a great Headmaster.
Comment by smb — May 11, 2008 @ 8:27 am
smb, it’s a question of performance for multiple audiences, isn’t it? When I say to you that I “have doubts” about certain issues, you hear my meaning in the sense that I intend it: I have a desire to believe idea X, but there are certain as yet unresolved issues that complexify my relationship with idea X. Other audiences hear the same phrase to mean something like: I reject idea X, can never be persuaded to embrace idea X, and have chosen this position as a rebuke against those who accept idea X. So for these other audiences, a better way of enacting the idea I’m trying to communicate might be something like: “There are still a few questions about that which I haven’t found answers to yet.” This, I think, really does accurately express the original idea, given the problem of translation across multiple vocabularies.
Of course, there is one underlying problem: sometimes failures of communication hide disagreements and bring subgroups of Saints closer together than they would be if they all understood each other perfectly. If everyone in the church knew exactly what everyone else meant when they said “I have a testimony,” I think we’d probably feel a lot less united than we do today. So failed communication may have positive, as well as negative, consequences in our lives.
Comment by J. Nelson-Seawright — May 11, 2008 @ 9:09 am
jns, well put.
Comment by smb — May 11, 2008 @ 9:16 am
Sam, I’m agnostic on this subject.
Comment by Kevin Barney — May 11, 2008 @ 10:42 am
I’m thinking about using fewer phrases in my speech that identify me as a self-styled intellectual
Oh Sam, you are so adorable.
Comment by Ronan — May 11, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
I would rather avoid misunderstanding from some than be understood by many - which means I often end up with long, convoluted statements full of disclaimers - which means my attempts to avoid confusion and misunderstanding sometimes cause confusion and misunderstanding - which probably is proven in this comment.
Usually it would be better to limit my statements to “yea, yea and nay, nay”. In that spirit, when I am agnostic about something, I tend to say, “I’m not sure,” or “I don’t know.”
In summary, I echo JNS in the first question of #7. It’s all about the audience.
Comment by Ray — May 11, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
I sometimes find that it goes the other way. The way members of the mainstream faith community use language has a way of isolating and marginalizing those who are not in the mainstream. For example, testimony statements like “I don’t just believe, I KNOW” and “I know with every fiber of my being” are distancing maneuvers from those of us who only believe, or worse, hope - even when they are said with absolute sincerity.
I don’t think merely changing our terminology is enough to eliminate gaps in understanding. You may want to stop self-identifying as an intellectual, but it’s going to squirt out the sides somehow. You are what you are.
Comment by Ann — May 11, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
Ann, I actually find it comforting to translate (internally) those assertions of certainty into terms I understand, again this devotional phenomenology, which seeks to understand the broader and sometimes deeper meanings of what people say within a personally spiritual meaning world. By engaging that translation, I find I am able to relish the pleasure they find in certainty and the uses to which they put it. I do not feel left out when they use terms like those, precisely because I am able to translate those terms into something I understand.
As for being what I are, that’s true in an important sense, but I like that within Mormonism we can aspire to change and be changed and more importantly can participate in imagined communities.
Comment by smb — May 11, 2008 @ 3:43 pm
“I don’t know,” usually works for me.
Comment by P. K. — May 11, 2008 @ 4:10 pm
Sam, I don’t know. There’s something that doesn’t sit right about this degree of self-conscious adapting to one’s audience. There’s an element of judgment and paternalism in deciding when you need to eschew the vocabulary that is a result of your education and training that bothers me–like it or not, you’re making an assessment of someone’s capacity to participate in a community defined by success in an arena our society generally considers valuable. There’s something yucky (to use the very technical term) about trying to figure out if someone is as educated as you are in order to calibrate your speech.
Then again, this could all be sour grapes because I’m such a lousy extemporaneous speaker and want to be proud of never having mastered academese
Comment by Kristine — May 11, 2008 @ 5:57 pm
I say just speak how you speak, and count on the gift of interpretation of toungues to assist the intellectual plebs in understanding your convoluted and garbled jargon.
HTH!!
~
Comment by Thomas Parkin — May 11, 2008 @ 6:10 pm
It would appear that I have communicated my thoughts in a garbled way, which I will confess is not out of character for me. The academicese that is a problem in this post is just the way I talk/write. I don’t have a great way to solve that problem, nor, I suppose, am I that motivated to do so.
I had in mind more the ways that we talk about faith and spiritual experience, what verbal cues we give to others about what we value and how we value them, particularly within Mormonism.
I agree, though, that it is a complicated matter to understand how best to care for others who differ from us within our faith community.
Not sure what HTH means.
Comment by smb — May 11, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
sam,
Hope that helps.
Comment by Mark IV — May 11, 2008 @ 6:41 pm
I’d wager there are plenty of non-self-styled intellectuals who are quite familiar with the word. They might even identify themselves as ‘agnostic’ during a particularly aggressive Sunday School lesson. Thus I’d say stick with it if you think it helps signal association with like-mindeds as I’d expect only minor collateral damage among the mainstream of LDS churchgoers.
Funny though, I had always imagined you more of a HPSG adherent than a Chomskyite. Noam seems somewhat lost to the profession anyway, with few (if any) non-political books or articles since the turn of the millennium.
Comment by guest — May 11, 2008 @ 6:53 pm
sam,
I should have put a bink ole WINK in there. I’m sorry.
I think it’s a great question and deserves a real responce. I’m especially interested in commenting on how our langugage is part of choosing and communicating our identity - and how the fact of choosing an identity differentiates us within a broad community, like the church.
~
Comment by Thomas Parkin — May 11, 2008 @ 7:10 pm
guest, I’m dyed-in-the-wool New England Puritan when it comes to my intellectual background, so never really thought much about Stanford at the time. Noam is still the smartest person I’ve ever met, but he has retired somewhat from linguistics. His academic papers since about 2000 have largely been summative and interpretive rather than arguing new technical ground. I loved doing theoretical syntax back in the day, though. Chomsky in linguistic action was truly a thing of beauty.
Thomas, no problem.
Comment by smb — May 11, 2008 @ 7:42 pm
#15 - Kristine, I used to speak to everyone in whatever “format” was most comfortable to me. I had two particular experiences that changed my approach radically.
1) I had a manager in educational publishing sales who told me to stop speaking like a graduate school teacher. I had never worried about it, but he told me that nobody likes to feel ignorant - especially educators. He said that people look up to someone within an academic setting who sounds academic, but that those same people don’t want to seem inferior in smaller, more intimate settings - like the sales calls and events in which I had the majority of my interactions.
He was right, and when I learned to “speak to them as they spoke to me” there was a marked and obvious change in my job performance.
2) I learned early in life from a wonderful teacher to make sure whenever I spoke in public to focus on presenting my message in a way that was understandable and engaging. When someone is reading a comment like this, it is possible to stop, go back and read more slowly to gain better understanding. That is not possible in an oral presentation, especially where making an emotional or spiritual connection is of paramount importance. If the brain is trying to understand or has shut off because understanding is too difficult, it’s extremely hard to make an emotional or spiritual connection.
Having said all of that, one of the most important lessons I learned from more than one exceptional teacher (in church and in school) was that it’s OK to not know something - that it’s OK to say, “I don’t know; I will find out.”
Comment by Ray — May 11, 2008 @ 8:00 pm
Ray, I’m sure you’re right. Fortunately or un-, nobody has ever accused me of sounding like a graduate school teacher, so maybe I don’t get the dilemma because my speech tends to make people around me feel smart. I also think (though they might take the “Radcliffe” off my diploma for saying so) that women have a different terrain to navigate here than men do–I would have to sound much more erudite than you would to create the same sense of intimidation.
Comment by Kristine — May 11, 2008 @ 9:18 pm
K, just don’t take the Haglund off your diploma, and you’ll be okay. Your memories are a) selective and b) too self deprecatory. You were and remain all sorts of wicked smart. But what you say is generally true, we culturally disadvantage women in these types of encounters.
When I’m teaching or speaking publicly, I tend to adopt Ray’s mode. I vacillate in more private environments like the ward house.
Comment by smb — May 11, 2008 @ 9:29 pm
#23–Totally agree, Kristine. I was thinking the same thing while reading Ray’s comment. Women are also more accustomed to being subservient to those around them, and more skilled in being chameleon-like in order to adapt to the particular needs of whomever we are being subservient to at the moment. These skills are both a blessing and a curse. This is something I struggle with constantly when teaching undergraduates. I am quite able to slip into their dialect, and doing so can have some short-term benefits, but possibly long-term costs if they begin to lose sight of the fact that I am an authority, etc. But that subservience/chameleon conditioning is pretty strong–it’s really hard to fight the subconscious impulse to do that.
Comment by sister blah 2 — May 11, 2008 @ 10:00 pm
(And of course, when I say “more skilled…” I mean by conditioning not innately; don’t anybody be trying to take my feminist card away.
)
Also, Sam, in regards to the original post. I have no flippin clue what you were saying. But getting a picture of what you meant from the comments, maybe I missed your point because I don’t view “I’m agnostic about it” as being overly problematically high-brow. Perhaps I am simply blinded by my own academicness. FWIW, if I were speaking to an unfamiliar person, or teaching GD, I would probably say “I don’t know” “I don’t understand X” or “I struggle with that one.” If I were speaking to a familiar person, I’d just say whatever I felt like saying.
Comment by sister blah 2 — May 11, 2008 @ 10:09 pm
Good luck Sam in trying to hide your education and intellectuality to fit in with a broader set of members. As you know phrases alone are not the only identifiers here. Your phonology probably announces you educational and class status, as does your syntax, let alone your lexical choices. Sociolects are very hard to avoid.
I think the question should not be how do intellectuals modify themselves to fit in but how do you build a common community which includes lots of differences, among them a set of hypereducated people. Unfortunately, that problem is not one the intellectuals alone can solve.
Comment by David Knowlton — May 12, 2008 @ 6:19 am
David, your #27 “How do you build a common community…?” is spot on.
Comment by Ann — May 12, 2008 @ 7:57 am
David, I don’t think hiding/not hiding social class is the main issue here, is it? (I agree that it’s impossible, but I think that’s another story.) After all, it seems that there’s some evidence in favor of the proposition that the middle classes and above are substantially overrepresented among the group of active, faithful Mormon members — and, perhaps, even more overrepresented among the group of Mormon leaders.
As I read the initial post and the subsequent discussion — a problematic indicator, to be sure, but one that at least motivated my earlier contribution to the conversation — Sam’s dilemma is less one of whether to try hiding his educational level and other class markers and more one of whether to try to find ways of expressing what might be slightly heterodox (or at least open to heterodoxy) modes of faith in more orthodox ways. That is, this may be at least as much about faith styles as about class signifiers. Although I think it’s fair to say that Sam’s personal faith style is profoundly class-marked…
Comment by J. Nelson-Seawright — May 12, 2008 @ 9:17 am
I think you build a common community by speaking honestly from the heart. You can’t talk down to people and some concepts require words which may be out of the range of most folk’s everyday vocabulary. On the other hand, many things are clearer if spoken plainly. The “plain and precious truths” in the Book of Mormon are an example of this. For some reason, I think Ray has the hang of it.
This has been a very interesting discussion. I have been concerned for a while that the church in the US is, in some ways, a rather elitist organization. I hadn’t really thought about the impact language has on that, but it is bound to be considerable. It is a shame, because the ones who can gain most from the Gospel are those who don’t have postgraduate, or maybe even high school, degrees.
And, no, I am not saying anyone here is an elitist. It is your own business whether you are or are not anyway. I am thinking much closer to home.
Comment by Nora — May 12, 2008 @ 9:48 am
Jay (#29), I find this thread fascinating, because my background is in ancient rhetoric. Fundamentally I view this all as an exercise in testing and trying the best way to effectively communicate. To be honest, I am more interested in nonmember attempts to communicate via our language than with sub-communities of Saints, etc. I find it much more fascinating to hear non-Mormons as they begin to approach our sibboleths and as they try to incorporate some of our anachronisms into their communication. Think of an investigator bearing her testimony for the first time, or of a non-Mormon attending BYU. Those situations can teach us, I think, what you may be looking for Sam in terms of navigating currents of meaning. Maybe we can look there to some of the answers re: subcommunities and internal fracturing via language.
Comment by Steve Evans — May 12, 2008 @ 10:30 am
J. good point. However it depends on how you define class.
Even though members may be more likely to be middle and upper middle class, they have a different educational background, and often work or life experience, than intellectuals, whatever their doxic level.
Mario de Pillis would support you, in part, because he strongly argues–against the standard wisdom that intellectuals tend to be liberal in their Mormonism–that there are conservative intellectuals within Mormonism. But, in the way the term intellectual is generally used it would map more on the unorthodox than orthodox side of things, even if people engage in orthopraxis. I suspect, however, that even conservative intellectuals do not always find themselves at ease with the ordinary level of discourse and sometimes may even find themselves a bit distant from orthodoxy.
But, I always wonder who defines orthodoxy and why?
While in the real world situation of stakes and wards I certainly understand the need to diminish difference in order to get along, still I wonder ideologically and ethically why one should have to dissemble discursively. Though I dissemble lots still the issue troubles me.
I also suspect that, for the sociolinguistic reasons listed above, the dissembling often does not convince very many people. It may exist more for reasons of courtesy or politeness, than as a means a genuinely avoiding difference. But that is an empirical question and I have no evidence right now.
Comment by david knowlton — May 12, 2008 @ 11:26 am
I think the question of intellectualism and orthodoxy (not praxy) becomes complex and fascinating in Mormonism, because Mormon orthodoxy is very open to specific forms of intellectualism. I mean, we are talking about the “Glory of God is intelligence/Seek learning out of the best books/etc.” faith. So I’m inclined to agree with de Pillis (and other thinkers such as Sterling McMurrin) who see conservative intellectualism as a strong presence in Mormonism. All those folks with well-read copies of Nibley’s Book of Mormon volumes on their living room bookshelves have to count as some kind of intellectual, don’t they?
That said, I certainly agree that there are discursive strains between conservative Mormon intellectuals and many other kinds of Mormons. I would offer the speculation that the strains are qualitatively different than they are for more liberal Mormon intellectuals, and I’d suggest that at least sometimes conservative Mormon intellectuals are viewed by other Mormon subgroups with a kind of awe that liberal intellectuals rarely receive.
As to who defines orthodoxy, I’m told that the 1st presidency and the twelve regard the defense of some kind of “doctrinal purity” as their central mission. I suppose they may be the definers-in-chief. Why would they undertake such a task? I plead ignorance.
But regarding the ideological dissembling, if that’s the term we want to use (I’m not sure I fully accept the implication that there’s dishonesty involved in not bearing one’s soul at all times), in my experience it often is quite effective, especially when it’s practiced through silence. This is why so many liberal Mormons are surprised to discover that they aren’t the only liberal Mormon in their ward…
I share your concerns about the practice, though. I’d love it if we were all able to fully express our faith and our doubts without rupturing Christian fellowship.
Comment by J. Nelson-Seawright — May 12, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
David, JNS has understood my point, which is not about class. I am hopelessly overeducated urban liberal by class, but I’m chewing on how best to communicate spiritually with my LDS community. And I also feel that “dissembling” is entirely the wrong framing for this question. Makes it all too essentialist in terms of faith modes while making the situation more adversarial than it needs to be.
Comment by smb — May 12, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
Fwiw, I am considered an orthodox member of my ward and stake NOT because of the actual nature of my beliefs, but rather because of how I state those beliefs - and, perhaps more importantly, by how I live my life. I don’t actively or openly “battle the Brethren” in any way, and when I state my opinion about something in church I almost always do so simply as a statement of opinion - not as a challenge or in an argumentative way. Therefore, even though many of my personal perspectives and beliefs are quite unorthodox, my life and my actions are quite orthodox - and others accept me as orthodox, even though what I say often disagrees with what they say. They don’t see me as an opponent, so they don’t label me as different than they are.
As JNS said in #29, I “try to find ways of expressing what might be slightly heterodox modes of faith in more orthodox ways.” At its heart, that is much more important, imho, than the academic level of the vocabulary I use.
Comment by Ray — May 12, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
ok. drop the class issue. No problem.
Since you framed the issue in sociolinguistics, Sam, I think the issue is still tougher than simply finding the right way of saying you are “agnostic” on an issue. Ray probably has a good point about people seeing commitment and overall testimony and then not getting to caught up in other issues of difference.
But simply in terms of language in use there are so many linguistic things that announce intellectual. (I do not use the phrase self-styled, because such things seem to me more a matter of social reality rather than self identification.) A change of phrasing may nuance a point and make it more acceptable, but it doesn’t change the social reality of the speaker, it seems to me. It may not trigger problems, but it does not mean the person has nuanced all the other aspects of their speech that announce intellectual.
That point aside, the gap covered by the phrase is still a gap, possibly developed because of the style or complexity of the person’s thought, generated by what they have read, studied, and the overall social world of intellectuals. Though covered, the gap itself denounces the intellectuality and separates one from others who do not have that training and social world. Humor and changes of phrase can minimize its impact, but the reality is still there.
In my response I am thinking of Julie Lindquist’s monograph on her being from the Chicago working class, going to graduate school, and then returning to work in a bar in order to study language use for her dissertation. Though on a somewhat different topic (in which class is a relevant issue) still I think it illustrates something useful for this conversation. Linquist argues the metapragmatics of language in academic life are sufficiently different from those of the place she was from as to make communication difficult between the two worlds. I think arguably something like that may be true in many Latter-day Saint worlds.
Comment by david knowlton — May 12, 2008 @ 1:50 pm