Abstract
For years I have had leadership students read The Intellectual Life by A. G. Sertillanges. Written in the 1920s by a French Catholic, the book is one of the most practical guides ever written for those who prize the intellect. Now, Zina Hitz has brought further refreshment for those of us who wander, Lost in Thought. But do not neglect the subtitle: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. We can become mired in the drudgery of what we do in the university or in our offices. So, to be told there is delight in our experience gives us reason to smile instead of slog, be joyful in our work rather than groaning in our grind. To wit, Hitz found her own intellectual restoration in washing dishes (1). Perhaps, we, in the academic-intellectual class, should consider “getting out” more; climbing out of the deep hole we dig into our specialties, something Hitz refers to as insularity (11). We could pull ourselves out of the darkness, discovering what Hitz calls “hidden pleasures.” If nothing else, look at her picture on the flyleaf cover. It seems Hitz cannot wait to pull back the curtain.
The prologue focuses on Hitz’s belief that if a person has a desire for the life of the mind it is a “natural good” (24) for all humans. “Learning, Leisure and Happiness” is the title for Hitz’s introduction where she encourages all people who want to “inquire with me” (49) to enter here. Chapter 1 develops the inner life of the intellectual. Hitz answers the question, “How does one go about accessing the nature of inquiry or entering a ‘refuge’ from the world?” Chapter 2 discloses the intellectual’s mortal enemy: the human heart, how our fallenness attacks our best academic plans. Hitz rightly recognizes that the problems of lies, lay with us (80–84). Chapter 3 explains that the best practice for some intellectuals is to “live out of books.”
Hitz begins the book in her childhood, books stacked on her bedroom floor, learning that “learning was a joy” (3). Discussions around a dinner table or classrooms where “our teachers spoke to us as if our ideas mattered” (5) began building her intellectual life. Retreat to a community of charity was a benefit to Hitz (20). Helping others, specifically her neighbors (13), might be a good place for all of us to begin. By being present with our neighbors, in effect we are saying, “You too can appropriate intellectual activity as a natural good” (24).
All humans ask, “What is all this for?” If we are wise, we begin with Hitz and her desire for a “final end” (31). The tradition Hitz follows begins with Plato and Aristotle who taught that our vocation should be “sought for its own sake” (35). Hitz is clear. To her, the intellectual life comes with responsibility, a “person-to-person service” needing to be “renewed from the grass roots” (48–49). As intellectuals, we are accountable for our knowledge; to help people, to prepare our students, to see connections with all of life, to remember we work, not for ourselves, but for He who has given us our gifts, “studied by all who delight in them” (Ps. 111:2).
Hitz peppers her pages with human questions for the academician, reminding us that “human questions are always the best questions” (7) (3–4, 6, 26, 46). Story after story after story of intellectual lives and their beneficial pursuits dot the pages of Lost in Thought. The story of Jesus’ mother Mary as a studied thinker is both eye-opening and exciting (60–63). The student “failure” of Albert Einstein is recounted by focusing on his “cloistered” curiosity (64–66). Prison developed the intellectual proclivities of Andre Weil and Malcolm X (66–71). Romanian political prisoners refer to their time behind bars as “university” (97). At every turn, the need for aloneness to support scholarly processes is given face by the number of persons referenced (71–80). Hitz reminds us through narrative that the need for teaching Church history brings us face-to-face with many thinkers who have preceded us.
The multiplicity of international connections makes the reader think to herself, “If all humans follow intellectual pursuits, there must be something etched in our humanness that makes it so.” Hitz necessarily wrestles with her own ambiguous response to “learning for its own sake” in the form of a question mark (110–112). Is this pursuit one of self-fulfillment or a connection with “other human beings” or a “transcendent being?” A decidedly Hebraic-Christian response is at the ready. The Psalmist pock-marks his writings with “all mankind ponders what YHWH has done” (Ps. 64:9), bringing “shouts of joy” (Ps. 65:8) resulting in “worship” (Ps 66:4) and “praise” (Ps. 67:1-5).
Hitz acknowledges what every scholar knows: the life of the mind is hard, hard work. Considering scholarly difficulties it is best not to become enamored with distractions. Wealth, in Hitz’s view, “is a tool, a means; it cannot stand on its own as an ultimate goal of a human life” (124). However, she concedes, the “leisure” to make scholarship possible, of necessity, demands what we all would desire—patrons to subsidize our efforts. “Social ambition” can overtake others’ bookish pursuits when we care more for our own accomplishments than adding to the accrued knowledge to benefit others (124–127).
“Redemption of the mind through philosophical discipline” (128–161) is linked to many great thinkers, beginning with Augustine. Hitz well tempers redemptive applications in her final pages, noting that justice is not served by its reduction to “a set of rules for the use of language” (163). Further, she questions “the socially concerned,” explicitly stating, “The desire to make a difference turns out to be a desire to make a splash” (172–173).
Hitz saves her most serious harangue for “our opinionized universities” (192–201). She punches and knocks out other cherished academic stereotypes. One may thoroughly disagree, as I do, with her equal vilification of “viewpoint diversity.” Hitz complains it is just another “indoctrination” (193); but we all hold our own viewpoints, including the author herself. Yet, Hitz’s strongest line, left for the last pages, reverberates throughout her book. Universities “produce reams of research, much of it completely disconnected from any recognizable human question” (200).
My final handwritten note in my own copy of Lost in Thought is of crucial concern for all academics: free inquiry is only possible in a free society supported by a world not made by human hands. The Personal Eternal Triune Creator has made us all to bear the mark of His intellectual proclivities. Yes, suffering may be its own university. But, thankfully, Hitz published her book with the benefits of freedom. So, I would say to all of us who labor at our desks, over our laptops, in our laboratories, among the library book stacks, that we allow Lost in Thought to energize us, especially if we labor in places of openness, affording us independence. Ours is a labor which should bring us joy. I return to the picture of Hitz on the flyleaf of the hardcover edition. Her picture says it all. The joyous, sprite, gleeful look, the dance in her eyes, says Zina Hitz is thrilled to share her insights with us.