We say the words, but do we really understand their meaning?
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“I give all the thanks in my power. And what is in my power is merely praise, since I have no money. How enthusiastic I can be, if I approve of what somebody says.”—Socrates to Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic, 338b
Our educated élite often reminds me of Matthias Schlitte, the German arm wrestler with the massive right arm and the puny left arm. Some of our intellectual muscles have been trained intensively whilst others have been left to atrophy. Our educational system is good at teaching us how to attack intelligently. We learn well how to rip apart, how to tear down, how to dissect: how to find flaws, fallacies, and foolishness in pretty much anything. But our educational system never really teaches us how to praise intelligently. One of the consequences of this lopsided education is that many of us—especially the well-educated—sound smart when we hate and stupid when we love. If we hated the movie, we know how to articulate why in a reasonably elegant fashion. But if we loved it, we invariably fall back upon empty rhetoric and meaningless clichés.
To combat this problem in my own small way, I teach my students how to write a really good love letter. They think it’s going to be easy. And they’re almost all wrong. Most discover that writing a really good love letter is hard—just as hard, incidentally, as writing a really good letter of recommendation. Because you’ve gotta avoid general statements and be as specific as possible. And you’ve gotta get every single one of those little details right. Because writing a love letter is like casting a spell: a spell that can be broken by the smallest misstep. For instance, if you go on and on about those beautiful brown eyes in a love letter addressed to your green-eyed girlfriend, you can kiss that budding romance goodbye. Likewise, if you go on and on about that magical night on Rye Beach in a love letter addressed to a boyfriend who’s never been to New Hampshire, you better start looking for a new boyfriend.
——John Faithful Hamer, From Here (2015)
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Photo: Flickr/Flazingo