Blue Cord

It has been almost three weeks since I last posted, so I thought I would let people know there is a good reason for my absence.

This whole month I have been busy writing articles for the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. I wrote about one hundred articles for it when assignments were first made, but last month they contacted me to ask if I would be willing to write a number of articles that other scholars had failed to submit on time. Since I had just finished up at Wartburg College, I agreed to do it.

Two weeks ago they decided that they needed additional editors working on the project as well, and they asked if I would be able to do that. I was more than happy to agree, so I am pleased to announce that I am now working as an editor on the fourth and fifth volumes of the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. No, I am not one of the big-name editors who are listed on the front of the book. Instead, I am just one of a number of editors who reads through the articles to format them correctly, double check citations, insert transcriptions, and make any number of other changes as needed.

I am thoroughly enjoying the work. Basically, I get to read Bible dictionary entries all day, which I do often enough even when no one is paying me. And since I have to read articles that I wouldn’t necessarily read otherwise, I am picking up a lot of new information.

Nicholas Carr has a fascinating article in the current issue of Atlantic entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”¹ In the article he discusses the fact that the Internet is changing not only the way in which we access data but also the way in which we process it. Drawing on his own experience and the research of others, Carr discusses the way that the media through from which we draw information actually rewire our brains. He laments his own transformation from someone who used to be able to delve deeply into books and process their arguments into someone who gets distracted easily when a complex argument goes on for more than a few pages.

Carr states:

Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even a new sense of the self. “We are not only what we read,” says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist . . . “We are how we read.” Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we tend to become “mere decoders of information.” Out ability to interpret text, to make rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.

As a biblical scholar, this is troubling to me. The Bible is not exactly a book that rewards skimming. Of course, the style of biblical study that we do now is very different than that done by Christians and Jews throughout most of our history, since easily flipping back and forth between passages became possible only when we developed the technology to print comparatively small books that contained the entire Bible. And up until the last few centuries, the vast majority of Christians didn’t read the Bible themselves; they only heard it read, usually in the setting of worship.

Of course, Carr is aware of history enough to know that previous changes in technology also changed our way of thinking, so he admits that his predictions of doom may not come to pass. After all, as he points out, Socrates lamented the spread of writing, predicting that it would lead to people receiving information without receiving instruction in critical thinking (a charge that has also been leveled against the Internet). But while some of Socrates predictions concerning the effects of writing did come to pass, writing has also benefited us in ways that he could not have imagined. The same is true of the Internet. We do, however, need to recognize that the boon of the Internet also carries with it the possible bane of losing the ability to read deeply.

I have to admit that my own experience mirrors that of Carr. It takes more of an effort for me to read large sections of text (with the exception of fiction). I used to attribute this to the fact that I am getting older² or to my depression³. But now I know the truth: the Internet maked me unsmart.

1. Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Atlantic 302.1 (July/August 2008): 56–63. [back]
2. I turned all of 40 this year. [back]
3. Which affects my ability to concentrate and retain information. [back]

A friend of mine forwarded this story to me today. Last week, a 78-year-old man crossing the street in Hartford, Connecticut, was hit by a car that was traveling in the wrong lane. The car did not stop. Neither did anyone else. The entire event was caught on a surveillance video. For those unfamiliar with Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), this video serves as a re-enactment. The only difference is that there is no Good Samaritan in this story.

As the man lay conscious and bleeding on the pavement, no one stopped. Cars continued to roll by. Some slowed, but eventually went on their way. One car approaching in the lane in which he lay stopped for several seconds, then did a u-turn and went down another street. A guy on a motorcycle circled around to take a look, then headed on his way. Pedestrians on the sidewalk didn’t even approach the guy for the first half a minute, and even later they only got within five feet. The most anyone could be bothered to do was to call 911, which only four people out of the twenty-five to thirty people around him did. Eventually, a police car that happened to be driving by stopped to help him.

Now, some might argue that no one around had any first aid training. They didn’t help him because they didn’t want to make the situation worse. That may be the case, but that should not have prevented them from providing the simple comfort of human presence. Just having someone there talking with him would have calmed him down and it would have helped to know that someone cared. But apparently no one did care. Not only did no one come to be at his side, but no one even bothered to stop traffic so he wouldn’t get hit again. Cars full of priests just kept driving by, while the Levites on the sidewalk stood and watched.

I grew up in the South, but I have lived in New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Midwest. Of all of these, I am not surprised that this happened in New England. Yes, there are a lot of good things to say about New England and there are some good people here. But in the seven years I have lived in Connecticut and Massachusetts I have seen more disregard for one’s neighbor than I have in all my time in the other regions combined. The surprising thing is that I am not surprised by this video.

For comparison sake, let me tell you what happened when I lived in Iowa in 2003. One day in January as I was driving down the street, the car in front of me struck a pedestrian. The fact that a car struck a pedestrian is the only similarity between the story in Iowa and the story in Connecticut. In Iowa, the car that struck the pedestrian stopped. So did a bunch of other cars. Within fifteen seconds, there were six of us around him. Someone who had a cell phone called 911, while the rest of us took our coats off to cover the man and support his head. Even though it was ten degrees below zero, not a single individual held back his or her coat. And while some of us went to stop traffic to keep the man from getting hit again, others stayed and talked with the man so he would know that someone cared and was with him.

The basic problem in Hartford boiled down to this: everyone expected everyone else to do something, so no one did anything. Unlike the scribe in the parable they didn’t even bother to ask, “And who is my neighbor?” When you can see a fellow human being lying bleeding in the street and keep driving by, you as an individual are seriously lacking in character. And when everyone present does that, your culture is in deep trouble.

The Baltimore Sun is reporting that the Orioles are filing paper work with Major League Baseball to replace the word “Orioles” on their away jerseys with the word “Baltimore”. The Orioles have not had their city name on their road uniforms since 1972. Orioles fans have been clamoring for the word “Baltimore” to be returned for almost four decades, and it looks like we will finally get our wish. The change will take effect next season.

The tradition is for the home jerseys to have the mascot name on the front while the road uniforms have the name of their city or state (or in the case of the Rays, a nearby body of water).¹ Most teams follow this convention. A few — such as Baltimore and Milwaukee — do not. I like the tradition because it maintains the connection between the team and its geographical location. Baseball, more than any other sport, has always been a place where you root, root, root for your home team. Increased mobility and cable TV have changed this to a certain extent, and you will always have people who cheer for whichever team is winning regardless of whether or not they have any connection to that city.² But true fans root for their home team whether they are winning or losing.

I became a Baltimore Orioles fan in 1995 when I moved to Baltimore to do my doctorate at the Johns Hopkins University. I had been a baseball fan all my life, but I had never lived in a city or state with a major league team. They became my home team and will remain so for the rest of my life. I have rooted for them in good times (the mid-1990s with Ripken, Palmeiro, Alomar, Anderson, Mussina, and Wells) and through the bad times (the decade of losing seasons they have had since 1998). I still have to stifle the urge to yell “O” when singing the National Anthem at stadiums other than Camden Yards. I teach my kids baseball the Ripken way (fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals). And please don’t mention the name Jeffrey Maier around me.

Although I live in Massachusetts, I have not joined the giant bandwagon that is Red Sox Nation. For me, it is a matter of faith.³ I don’t understand carpetbaggers who change their team affiliation whenever they move to a new town.  Cheering for a winning team means little if you haven’t also been with them during the down times. If I can wait 2000 years for the return of Jesus Christ, surely I can wait a few years for the return of a winning team in Baltimore.

1. The Tampa Bay Rays have the distinction of being the only team in MLB that is not named after a city or state. The team plays in Tampa, which is situated on the banks of Tampa Bay. [back]
2. Evidence of this can be seen in the large number of Yankees fans who were not born in or around New York City. [back]
3. Chicago Cubs fans know what I am talking about. [back]