One of the key spiritual practices of Quakers is the practice of simplicity. The practice of simplicity is well-expressed in the Book of Discipline for the North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative):
Simplicity is forgetfulness of self and remembrance of our humble status as waiting servants of God. Outwardly, simplicity is shunning superfluities of dress, speech, behavior, and possessions, which tend to obscure our vision of reality. Inwardly, simplicity is spiritual detachment from the things of this world as part of the effort to fulfill the first commandment: to love God with all of the heart and mind and strength.
The testimony of outward simplicity began as a protest against the extravagance and snobbery which marked English society in the 1600's. In whatever forms this protest is maintained today, it must still be seen as a testimony against involvement with things which tend to dilute our energies and scatter our thoughts, reducing us to lives of triviality and mediocrity.
Simplicity does not mean drabness or narrowness but is essentially positive, being the capacity for selectivity in one who holds attention on the goal. Thus simplicity is an appreciation of all that is helpful toward living as children of the Living God. (Cite)
Two of the key understandings of academics are plain speech and plain dress. Plain speech is the understanding that the language Friends use should be accessible to as many people as possible. In addition, language means what it sounds like it means: Matthew 5:34-37 gives a clear understanding about oaths, and the use of jargon violates simplicity as well for obvious reasons. In addition, I take plain speech to mean trying to limit the actual act of talking to when I have real, practical things to contribute to a conversation (a practice certainly needing more practice). Originally, the plain speech also had grammatical implications (more at Wikipedia), but since "thou" passed out of usage in general, the plain speech of most Quakers is more about tone than particular grammatical rules. Like plain speech, the understanding of plain dress has had some innovation. While plain dress is sometimes understood as a specific outfit and "Quaker Plain Dress" is a quasi-technical term (examples of modern adherents), a more contemporary interpretation of the understanding is to say that Quakers should not obscure the fundamental egalitarian nature of reality with artificial distinctions in our clothing.
The Durham Friends Meeting, which I attend, currently is discussing an interesting case-in-point. A lawyer who is a member of the meeting has felt a leading to stop wearing a tie into the court. While this does not seem like a big deal at first pass, there is a deeper issue which it represents: this lawyer has come to recognize the court as a bunch of people with six-figure-incomes talking and deciding the fate of people from a substantially different class. The clothing of the lawyers and judges emphasize this distinction, and therefore the call to plain dress calls out an artificial structural division in the judicial process.
The leading of that lawyer has me thinking about the nature of plainness and simplicity in the context of academia.
Take religious jargon. On the one hand, I chafe against religious jargon as often being more obscuring than helpful. It's probably my mathematical background, but the hazy definitions of so many religious terms puts me off. I've also been put off by reading so much philosophy where two purportedly disagreeing philosophers are really just disagreeing about what words mean ('good' is an excellent example). Due to concerns over arrogance and God's overwhelming nature, there is a time and a place for vague, pointing definitions in religious conversation (for instance, "God's overwhelming nature"). Liturgy and prayer are appropriate places, for instance. But is there really a practical impact of all the religious jargon? Take, for instance, "homoousios" and "homoiousios" (more at Wikipedia). In what sense can speaking about those two ideas be said to be plain speech? Can they be translated down into plain speech in a way that better reveals the issue at hand? These questions aren't simply rhetorical: I'm genuinely struggling with an answer of how to deal with this context.
With technical jargon, it is a bit easier. The audience for technical jargon is a technical audience, and most of the words have a fairly defined meaning. But when we are exploring God, the potential audience is much wider: there is no limit to who is impacted by the consequenes of theology, and writing theology to be read by other theologians seems to be elitism. It's reinforcing a kind of mystery cult whose initiates are called M.Divs and whose first step in initiation is Church History 13. Clear understanding of God should not be limited to those people, and so plain speech demands we respect this wider audience.
The plain dress issue is similar, although somewhat delayed: what am I going to do when it comes time to deal with religious regalia (a nice article introducing the idea)? Military uniforms, lab coats, and apparently even lawyer's ties can be affronts to plain dress. Is a doctoral gown? Of course, when the doctoral gown comes out, it's in situations where everyone will be wearing one, and so perhaps the call of plain dress denotes dressing similarly to everyone else in that situation. (I've regularly rejected the idea of under-dressing as a plain dressing testimony. Drawing attention to yourself by dressing down is no more valid than drawing attention to yourself by dressing up.) What does the doctoral regalia mean, and how can that meaning or tradition be brought in alignment with God's egalitarian call? Kicking around this moral issue has been keeping my mind busy between preparing for SpringOne/2GX next week and doing borderline ridiculous amounts of reading and writing.
