Absence of the Intellectuals

- thoughts on graduate students who have committed murder

No matter how loudly the scientist commanded the flea to jump, the flea made no response. So the scientist recorded in his notes: "a flea loses its hearing once its legs are removed."

By Tiandao Yang

True intellectuals are hard to find

In July, 2004, when the shocking kidnap and murder case of a young Chinese girl, Chang Tong-Yueh, in Canada was solved, Chinese graduate student Chen Ming was convicted of first degree murder. In September, 2004, Y Dan, a graduate student at Purdue University, killed a Korean sister and later committed suicide in prison after serving 2 years of his life sentence. He used exactly the same method to take his own life as Chang Dong, who was had killed his girl friend and was himself a graduate student at Kentucky University. In February, 2005, Wu Chia-Hung was sentenced to 21 years in Norway for killing his cousin and his girl friend. Wu was a graduate student there. In March, 2005, Yang Nan was jailed for being involved in the murder of a real estate agent in California.....

It is no longer novel to hear of murders committed by overseas students. Although tragedies like this cannot prove the failure of higher education, they do demonstrate that knowledge or good degrees cannot prevent human beings from behaving wickedly. How is it possible for ambitious overseas students to turn into brutal murderers? There is no easy answer to this question. In a society where so much emphasis is placed on the pursuit of materialistic goals, what kind of knowledge can give people direction for their lives? Intellectuals have been called "the foundation of the nation" and "the conscience of the people". But does this kind of intellectual really still exist?

A Chinese writer, Wang Shur, wrote a book entitled "The naive fear nothing". This title reflects well the attitude of the present generation. A naivety which knows no fear has become young people's weapon - and a horrible reality.

Actually most people are still interested in the pursuit of knowledge. This is why so many parents support their children going abroad to study. They believe that their children's future is more valuable than their own finances. Knowledge can open the door to freedom, self-confidence, self-realization and a wonderful life.

After a number of professors were hired at extremely high salaries at Ching-Hua University, many national universities followed suit, showing that knowledge is highly valued in China. But then it became obvious that scholars were relatively easy to find, for today's knowledge explosion society is producing large numbers of 'professionals'. However, true intellectuals are not so easy to find.

Bertrand Russell was regarded as a great scholar and philosophical giant. He made a famous statement, "A beautiful life is one inspired by love, and led by knowledge." Many people are familiar with this saying. Russell admitted that one of the factors that motivated him in life was "the pursuit of knowledge". However Russell's private life came in for much criticism. Paul Johnson, the "morality spy", wrote a book called "The Intellectual" in which he criticized the private lives of Russell, Rousseau, Sartre and others. In doing so, he wanted to prove that "an intellectual has no morality". Russell joked that, "I never call myself an intellectual and no-one dares to say that I am. I believe that the definition of 'an intellectual' is 'someone who pretends to be knowledgeable'. I do not believe that this definition is appropriate in my case." This ironic statement seems to state certain truths: that a learned person is not necessarily moral, and that even those who teach others may not be true intellectuals.

The hearing ability of fleas

So what is an intellectual? The British philosopher Susan Stebbing in "Thinking to Some Purpose" states that "If a person is capable of clear thought then he is an intellectual." This definition resembles the 12th century definition of "intellectuals" as "professionals who utilize thinking to pass on ideas ".

In fact, knowledge does not automatically lead to clear thinking. The accumulation and exploration of knowledge does not automatically lead to the development of science. In our search for knowledge, we may easily neglect deep thought.

There is a story of a scientist who was using the inductive method to observe the reactions of a flea. He removed one of the flea's legs and then ordered it to jump. Its responses continued to be quite good, until he removed the sixth and last leg. After this, no matter how loudly the scientist commanded the flea to jump, it made no response. So the scientist recorded in his notes: "A flea loses its hearing when its legs are removed."

Actually everyone has their own unconscious definition of "knowledge", but our criteria for making our "definition" may not be so easily discerned. This fact is well-known and is why someone has stated that "all human knowledge is individualized knowledge, and can neither be completely objective nor satisfactorily proved false". This is why modern man feels a sense of frustration: We have accumulated reams of facts and statistics, but we cannot agree on an accepted standard for our "defining".

We admit that today's science can help us to discover facts and forward the progress of technology, but it is incapable of establishing a significant value system for human life. We can send people into space, but we cannot stop young people shooting their innocent classmates. In Ecclesiastes, the Bible says, "For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief." (Ecclesiastes 1:18). If we simply boast about how much knowledge we have accumulated, our knowledge may become our slave-master. However, knowledge is not just about "facts"; it is actually about the relationship of the facts to one another. The main responsibility of the intellectual is to perceive the order which underlies the knowledge, and to confirm the relationship between the facts we know. Intellectuals are not technicians, but thinkers. Although modern man may live in fear due to information overload, scientists remind us that a human being still uses just two percent of his brain capacity. The reason why our lives cannot be renewed and given new vigour and vision is not because we are incapable of finding a complete solution, but because we do not have the curiosity to ask, "who or what are we? what is the highest value in life? how ought we to behave and what expectations should we have in this tumultuous world ?"

The end of the road

Christian faith is an ongoing process of seeking and asking. On the journey of faith, although it may seem hard or hopeless at times, we can always continue to seek, because God is real.

If we believe in God, we will not be satisfied with either a dead faith or a habit of tolerating non-debatable facts. We will need to prepare ourselves for a thinking style that continually seeks fundamental direction for our lives. As Daniel L Migliore said, "Christians must raise questions and create movements to fight against unquestioning acceptance. We must continue to question any unverified hypotheses regarding God, ourselves and the world."

We shall continue to raise questions and to seek knowledge, not only because God will always be beyond us, but also because the world will always challenge Christianity. So, Christian faith will create thinking people. It moves Christians to question concepts like 'authority', 'wealth', 'culture', 'the crowd' etc.

The Bible in many places stresses the importance of knowledge. In the Old Testament, God reprimands his people "They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good." (Jeremiah 4:22). He declares that "my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6). God's warning in Hosea is: "Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests "(Hosea 4:6). Christians are a priesthood. We have a mission to seek after knowledge. The Bible teaches us that knowledge shows us the way to renewing our relationship with God. The Bible demands not only that we understand, but that we obey. Unless we endeavor to actually do good, our head-knowledge of or research into how to go about being kind, or our discussions of good deeds are meaningless. It is the same for knowledge about faith, and even more about common sense. The responsible use of knowledge is to put what we know into action, and to utilize knowledge in actual appropriate behavior. Humanity's downfall was due to our desire for knowledge, a desire as strong as our desire to hide the truth. Christians are like the intellectuals: you must not only talk about what you know, but you must also live it out. 

We can see why, in the Bible, both Jesus and Paul directed their most serious rebukes at those who claimed to know. For knowledge is like a double- edged sword, and can be equally applied to evil or to good purposes. The Bible reminds us that it is only love that can dissolve the hidden dangers of knowledge, and direct our desires and motivation in our pursuit of knowledge. Without love, knowledge is nothing, and the pursuit of knowledge can become empty. Knowledge without love is like marriage without love: worthless. "It is nothing," as Paul said. (I Corinthian 13:2).

Real intellectuals are always kind. They never cease to love, encourage, and build up other people. The priest St. Bernard of Clairvaux said, "Some people seek knowledge simply for its own sake - this is curiosity. Some want to be considered knowledgeable and so they seek after knowledge - this is vanity. Some seek knowledge because they want to profit from it - this is cunning. But there are those who seek knowledge so that they may inspire others - this is love."

Conclusion

Although professional scholars are highly valued in the present era, the concept of the intellectual has been gradually forgotten. It is this absence of true intellectuals which is the background to our culture's becoming shallow and arrogant, to human hearts becoming increasingly hypocritical and devious and to society becoming corrupted and morality powerless.

These tragedies involving overseas students are heartbreaking, but they should also motivate us to pray with urgency. May the scholars and students of this generation become deep thinkers ! May they humble themselves to obey the truth, and demonstrate love and faithfulness on their journey in the pursuit of knowledge!

The author is from mainland China and lives in Chicago.