Life Lesson #5

Lesson #5 - the importance of critical thinking. I will cite two important teachers here. Jan Narveson, with whom I took first year Philosophy, and Walter Klaassen, chaplain at Conrad Grebel College, and theology teacher. I cite them both because they were completely different, opposite really in their affirmations. Narveson was a true philosophical sceptic, a non-believer. Klaassen was just the finest kind of believer, one whose belief was always changing, always alive, challenged by doubts and reason and further learning, but which was strengthened in the process. But both men in their own way taught me the value of critical thinking, of always challenging my own assumptions, particularly the core ones, of being open to challenge. Jan Narveson could excoriate certainties, especially those which hadn’t been thought through, or reasoned. Walter Klaassen a little more gently led us from our own certainties into a world of thinking for ourselves, of reaching for an authentic system of belief.

Years later I was sitting in the congregation at Riverside Church in NYC… listening to the great William Sloane Coffin, who asserted about himself and his tradition at Riverside – “We,” he said, “are seekers of truth, not possessors of truth.” And I thought to myself – YES = he’s right, and it was a principle I learned here in W’loo… We are seekers of truth not possessors of truth. We embrace ambiguity, but never give up the search.

And along these lines I want to credit my study of Keats here – with Warren Ober I believe it was – who taught us the Keatsian concept of “negative capability” – of the artist’s necessity of embracing doubt, uncertainty, openmindedness… of seeing the other side of an issue…

This is absolutely critical in my business, where it’s so easy to be locked into creeds and fashion…

E.g. I’ll give you one example where I’ve grudgingly applied negative capability. Subject of original instruments, period instruments. The period instrument movement began in the 70’s – certainly came to prominence. And I instinctively disliked it. All those scratchy out-of-tune gut stringed instruments, the reduction in instrumental forces, the orthodoxy, the smugness that goes with the movement. So, I’ve always been out of step with that and said so. But over the years I’ve had to challenge myself – to admit that there ARE some very fine period instrument practioners: Ton Koopman and his Amsterdam Baroque are a good example (just a fabulous musician). Tafelmusik of Toronto, especially when they have a good conductor like the Austrian Bruno Weil. I’ve had to admit that the period insrument movement, the “let’s get back to the composer’s intentions” school has had a profound effect on classical music making – from the baroque to the classical and romantic periods – I still prefer hearing a Beethoven Symphony on modern instruments, but I especially like that now with faster tempos, greater transparency, lighter touch, more drama, more urgency, less reverence. So I’ve modified my views, shall we say, urged on by my own recognition that to hold on slavishly to a point of view, without regularly bashing it with challenges, fossilizes us.

Mr. Eric Friesen (BA 1967)

Life Lesson #5

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