Whiplash (the film) and Biblical Studies: The Danger of Ignoring Sapientia/Sophia

Whiplash

I have to say within the first x number words that this post gives a review (of a certain kind) of the film Whiplash, starring J. K. Simmons and Miles Teller, otherwise people who stumble on it from a google search might not realize that it reviews the film. (Even after reading it, they might still say that is is a crackpot review or that it is totally not the kind of review that should be written etc, but at least at the outset they know that it does address the film, rather than, say, physical whiplash as a metaphor for something in biblical studies, in which case, any time spent delving into the post might be seen as wasted time, indeed stolen time).

However, my review of the film is not simply that. Rather, the review is the first or introductory element in the larger post, which fits into my growing theory of "Incarnational" imagination or literature that I have begun developing in my two recent posts on Tolkien and my post on a dual-layered chiastic structure in the Harry Potter series ... yes, I know, a diverse, some might say scattered, body of works through which to develop the theme, but that is how my mind works. This film, however, does represent an instance by which to bring a work that is straight-up contemporary drama into that mix (and the biblical studies part of the essay brings in more "scientific" literature, as I critiqued that aspect as well in the post on "Tolkien versus Shakepseare").

My basic review of Whiplash is that the film is a very tough piece of drama and focus on the quasi-mystical aspect of performance in music (in particular, for this film, jazz) ... that "feel" and the "getting it" that can't be quantified or pinned down to describable technique (I lived for a bit in a group boarding situation with, among others, one good friend and two guys who played violin semi-professionally - the one taught it in a local center and the other returned to work on an MFA in performance after finishing his MA in philosophy - and one day I told my good friend that I thought the two guys were really good when I would hear them practice in their rooms, and my friend replied "have you ever hear Anthony's friend John Henry play? you would notice the difference," and then one day I could only hear somebody downstairs playing and I thought "that's not Anthony or John Michael, that must be John Henry," and so I snuck downstairs supposedly for a drink and saw that it was indeed John Henry test driving a new violin Anthony had gotten, and I could hear the difference in playing ... that guy had a touch; he was caressing sounds out of that instrument that I had never heard in that house before, AND supposedly he only played casually anymore because working on it professionally took too much out of him and impacted his health, which I mention because it resonates a lot with what unfolds in Whiplash)

So, my review is that the film is strong, very strong, on the drama front. But the second half of my review is that I have a problem with the film on the level of what it supports that makes it such that I cannot give a positive review for it overall. My problem with the film is on the ethical level: I think that it puts forth an "ends justifies the means" ethic, and this is the important part, even when the means involve a direct contribution to a person committing suicide.

I cannot take the space here to recount all the details; the reader will have to already have seen the film Whiplash or go and watch it. The important details are that (1) Fletcher's (J.K. Simmons' character, the music instructor) instructional method is brutal (this is the means) in an attempt to produce, out of the pain, that one great performer (the ends) and that (2) that method has directly contributed to a previous student committing suicide. Bur before I go further, I will dispense with a red herring (the common term for an issue that might be raised that distracts from the main argument but, in reality, has no impact on it). This particular red herring is one that examinations of drama are particularly drawn to because of the inherent "realism" criteria for drama. The supposed objection is that the suicide cannot be laid at Fletcher's feet because it is unrealistic that his teaching method would single-handedly cause the suicide or even be the major factor in it. The real question, however, is not what would be most like "real life" but what the film itself portrays as having been the case, and I would argue that the film portrays Fletcher's method as concretely interacting with psychological conditions in the former student in such a way that the method really did contribute substantially to the suicide. Somebody may be able to argue against my reading of the film and say that my claim of what the film portrays is not correct, but one cannot claim that the "real life probability" issue nullifies the blame even if I am right about what is portrayed. The question is the statement that the piece of art makes, not whether the statement accurately hooks onto reality external to the piece of art.

The"ends" and "justifies" parts of "ends justifies the means" comes in the final scene in the film, the performance at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (and, oh, was there a twinge of nostalgia in my heart ... I spent so much time in and around that part of Manhattan, a block or two from Fordham's Lincoln Center campus, Broadway, Columbus, and 65th, that it became no longer just "visiting" that area ... it was part of where I lived and breathed and had my being for seven years). That awesome drum performance by Andrew (Miles Teller's character) is the culmination of the film: Fletcher holds him and slowly builds the speed and intensity in a crescendo right to the final screen blackout. Andrew is in the zone of the performance and there is resolution of the conflict with Fletcher. When Andrew first kept playing, Fletcher turned around with that "WTF!" look but then saw what is happening, that perhaps the moment of the long-sought great performance, the one mystical moment that makes it all worthwhile, is finally here, and he jumps right into directing Andrew's performance. I would argue that only somebody thoroughly inept at reading a film could see this as anything other than the great "happy ending."

But, of course, as I have stated, I think the message is clear that that happy ending justifies even something like a former student's suicide as part of the path to it, that that ends justifies means that are distinctly prone to such a thing. And I have a problem with that.

Three Elements: Techne, Scientia, and Sapientia (Sophia)

The real content of this post, though, concerns three things that I see as always elements in a piece of art like a film. To the first I will assign the Latin term techne, by which I mean technical prowess, in film, prowess with shooting and editing, lighting, camera angles, CGI, and the like. The second I will call scientia, by which I mean (for film) the arts of story-telling such as plot pacing, character exposition, dialogue crafting, use of score/music, and the like. The last I will call sapientia, which was most often used to translate the Greek term sophia, which means "wisdom." In film, I mean by this term the themes of the piece, what is actually said using scientia and techne.

(Please note: all three of these terms are used by medieval scholastic philosophers and theologians in discussing knowledge. I am not using them in that sense here; I am rather borrowing and adapting them to the issue of "art" in the modern sense. But I do believe that the analogy is apt because the medieval use is fitting for such an analogy; I'm simply not going into that original sense. For my discussion, the terms mean what I have just described.)

My main point for Whiplash is quite simple: good techne and good scientia are not good enough; there must be good sapientia. And in this film I see a bad sapientia (a bad "wisdom") stated: the ends justify the means. If if the means distinctly lend themselves to concretely and substantially contributing to a suicide, they are justified if the end produced is the mystical performance moment or the truly great performer (although, notably, not the one who committed suicide). And with this I disagree. And so, no matter how impressed I am by the camera work or the pacing and dialog etc (with the techne and scientia), I have to give the film a negative review (but hopefully one in which I am laying all my cards on the table so that what exactly I am saying is clear and concise).

Sapientia Happens

But I have a further point to make on these three things, tehcne, scientia, and sapientia: the third always occurs. It is not simply that one should try for it; it is that it is unavoidable whether one consciously tries for it or not. It is not that there should not be "art for art's sake"; it is that there never is art for art's sake, techne and scientia for their own sakes.

I may get myself into hot water here with some (as practicing a "hermeneutic of suspicion"), but I am going to liken sapientia to rhetoric and echo the idea that a friend once told me a post-modern philosopher (whose name I cannot remember) put forth: all thought is rhetorical in the first instance. This means that not only is all speech made to external parties rhetorical, seeking to convince them of a particular point, to persuade them, but even the first instance of internal thought in any propositional or predicative form is aimed at persuasion. One might ask "well, who is the thinker trying to convince?" They are trying to convince the only person they can convince by internal thought, and I think the person who remains (in a fallen world) the most important to convince all the way through any communication process even with others ... themself. "Thought" in the sense of propositional content is really only an interpretation of prior, more raw sense impressions, in this case, internal "sense" impressions of what is true in reality, often what is logical, an interpretation and spinning aimed at convincing ourselves that what we want to believe is the case is actually the case. There is no action without motivation, and "thought" in the sense of propositional content, is an act ... thinking is an intentional action, and it always has a motive. Art is also an intentional action and always has a motivation to convince somebody of something

At the end of the day, not even "objective science" (description solely for the sake of description) is possible; it is, ironically, a myth, in the pejorative sense of the word (there is a positive sense, but that's a discussion for another day). One can look at my comments on "science" in relation to drama in my post on Tolkien versus Shakespeare and do some comparing to see what I think of the idea of "pure drama" ... it's what I called "skewed drama" ... and impossible.

My point with something like a film, especially the advice I would give to young film makers, is not to become so wrapped up in techne and scientia that you forget to be concerned about sapientia/sophia because somebody is going to come along and fill that in in your film no matter what, whether it is only the audience themselves or somebody like screen writers or producers who know how to get what they want in a film to influence audiences with certain ideas. The sapientia, the thematic statement, is always going to be there no matter what because the audience is always hardwired to look for it (if you or the producer really don't provide it for them, they will make it up for themselves) ... that is simply the basic definition of communication ... it is always "something" that is communicated ... and communication is what we are hardwired for as, to quote Aristotle, "social animals" (not to put it too tritely, but "communication" is how "community" happens)

(Side note: I should close out this section by addressing the concern of my possible "hermeneutic of suspicion." I think it is unavoidable, but I don't think that it is all that there is. It seems to me that there has been far to much demonstration to deny that, from the moment we are able to conceive of an "I," a "me," we are psychologically hardwired to protect not just that "me" as a physical self, but that very concept of "I/me" ... to see ourselves as a good person, a productive person, a person with insight into the real situation. In communicating with others, I think it is undeniable that, to a certain extent, we seek to convince others of our insight so as to have them as "props" in this little film we each have of our "self." This sounds like a very jaded and suspicious thing for me to say. But I think it is just a part of what it is to be a self-reflexive psychological being, at least in a fallen world. The question is whether it is all that is possible. And think the answer is "no." I think altruism, true openness to "the other," as post-modern thought likes to put it, is possible alongside the drive for preservation of the "self-image" as good.)

Biblical Studies: An Analogy

There is no material connection between Whiplash and biblical studies. The connection is entirely an analogy done on my part. I am keeping bliblical studies in the mix, though, for two reasons. The first is that this analogical relationship is the form in which this whole set of issues and this post came into my mind. The second is that it makes the whole thing personal. Biblical studies was my official track (concentration in Old Testament) within the theology PhD program at Fordham University between 2006 and 2013 (when I officially discontinued my candidacy while working on the first chapter of my dissertation ... for a snapshot of the diss project, see my post "Once Upon a Dissertation"), and these issues were concretely in my mind all the time, not simply as the content of my studies but as the real issues of the relationship between those studies and what I believe.

In biblical studies, what I am calling techne is things like analyizing the linguistic structures and things like the use of chiastic structure in determining the boundaries of parts of the text, as well as doing the background historical research work in ancient Near Eastern materials (in the term used in the field, it takes place in the various types of "criticism": source criticism, tradition criticism, redaction criticism, canonical criticism, and so on). What I am calling scientia involves analysis of what themes are there in individual parts (say, the critique of kingship in the "Deuteronomistic History" [Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings as a hypothetical original whole] or the "Theology of the Land" in the Pentateuch) and how they interact with those in other parts.

Sapientia Level 1

I'm obviously breaking things out into more detail here because I have spent a lot more time in this material, but also because I think the Bible deserves a heavier treatment. What I will call "level 1" here is the analysis of the whole of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament (and there is a difference between the significations of those two names, but one that I think can be one of complimentarity, although, as someone who is creedally Christian, I have to see that complimentarity as hierarchical and say that I believe the Old Testament fulfills the Hebrew Bible). I'll use "Hebrew Bible" here because "Old Testament" crosses over into level 2, although, as I will describe, divine authorship is not the only construct that can operate in level 2.

An example of sapientia level 1 is Jon Levenson's Sinai and Zion. Levenson goes beyond simply the scientia of examining the Sinai and Zion traditions and their themes or even comparing and contrasting them. He goes to trying to draw out a unified theme for the whole of the TANAK (the Jewish canon, consisting of the Torah [Law], Neviim [Prophets] and Ketuvim [Writings]; hence TNK ... TANAK). But He does not try subject one to the other or to synthesize them into a whole that we as moderns would see as "consistent." Rather, his thesis is that the tension itself between them is the underlying "unified" theme (this is a very different way of looking at things, a very Jewish way ... I once heard my dissertation director say, in a class, concerning the "authority" of Rabbinic dialogue in the Rabbah literature and the Mishnah and the Talmudim that it is not any one Rabbi who is authoritative  but the very discussion itself; even when the participants disagree, the conversation is authoritative ... a claim that takes a lot of parsing for us Western moderns to be able get our heads around before we can even begin to ask the question of whether that characterization is "correct"]).

That making of a unified whole (even though the whole is precisely the tension between two poles, Sinai and Zion) is a first level of sapientia.

Sapientia Level 2

For me as (at least trying to be) a person of faith, a person with a creedal commiment, this is the real sapientia. It is the question of "what does it mean for me?" Basically, I think that there are two answers, and I think they are both always there, and most importantly over all, I think that the first must be subjected to the second, and most importantly for this discussion, I think that, just as I said it was dangerous for the young artist to neglect the question of sapientia because somebody is going to fill it in no matter what, I think it is important to be aware of ones stance on these two answers because, if one is not paying attention to sapientia level 2 at all (to either of the possible answers to its question), one will settle for only the first and, because they are not aware of even that fact, let that first one take the place of the second.

The first answer I call "my own history," and it means the answers to the questions like "how did these texts come to be within human religious institutions that have fed, down through the years, into the human religious institutions in which I was raised and that formed my own beliefs and sentiments? How did they lead to me being where I am now?"

The second answer, which I call the ultimate, is the answer to the question "What is God saying to me?" This is looking at the text not just from the standpoint of its institutional history, but from the standpoint of its divine authorship and authority ... two aspects of the same thing (as evidenced in the common root).

When I taught undergrad courses, I always tried to get them to understand that all scholars are looking for a plot: some are looking for the plot of "how does the presentation of this text flow in such a way that God is saying something to me through it; what is that plot?" while some look only for the plot of "how did the human history of these texts lead to where I am today?" But one way or another, everybody is looking for sapientia level 2 (and finding it, because that is what we do even if we have to make it up ourselves and read it into the text so that we can then "find" it there), even if they think they are being satisfied with stopping at techne or scientia or even sapientia level 1.

(Although, in retrospect, I seriously question the advisability of trying to introduce headier concepts like this to college sophomores, at least in the context of a course they are required to take ... and if you are a college sophomore who has wound up reading this post out of your own desire, I honestly seriously apologize if I have been a serious pain in the ass and difficult to follow.)

The History of Religions Approach

The "history of religions" approach is simply that first form of what I called sapientia level 2: studying how religious institutions form the texts, usually involving how surrounding religions and their concepts provided fodder. I think that, simply in and of itself, it is fine and even a necessary part of the process, at least in academic study, even as academic study that is properly "theological" and not just "historical." But it very often turns into that situation in which it supplants the "divine author" version of sapientia level 2 (in this form it also suffers from an error of putting all of the religions on a level playing field, which is problematic from the standpoint of being Christian or even Jewish, but it is also just the natural result of jettisoning the question of the divine author).

When you replace question-answer 2 (what is God saying?) with question-answer 1 only (what was the flow of human religious thought and institutions?), which supplanting I said I believe happens if you don't pay attention to sapientia level 2 at all (because sapientia level 2 is going to happen whether you intend it to or not), then you basically wind up at something like Marx's replacement of "God" with "the regularity of history," which is a very "scientism" approach and, basically, atheistic, and eventually ends in not having any motivation to read the text in the first place (even if it is only your kids or grandkids who finally realize it). Even from the "I want to know what my own story is" perspective, if that is all you are going for, you eventually realize that you can't change the past and you might not even be able to understand it enough to know whether you're about to repeat it or not, and even the "regularity of history" becomes fuzzy: if it is regular, can you avoid repeating it? and so why bother studying it? and if it is not regular, again, why bother studying it?

Just as you get sapientia in art (e.g., film) either way, and so if you neglect it you get somebody else's put in for you, so also, if you neglect sapientia level 2, true ultimate sapientia, in biblical studies, or settle for asking only question 1 of  level 2 (the sola history or religions approach), you wind up eventually getting the sapientia of atheism and abandoning the text all the way (I think this happens eventually even with the atheist who begins with the fiery motivation of saying "I am going to find out the real deal on these texts so I can show how they are wrong and use that to disavow those who used them to mess up my head," or even the softened version of "I'm going to convert them.").

Flotsam and Brettsam

(the draft "kitchen sink" of initial ideas)

The sophia winds up being there no matter what. It's just a matter of what sophia, or what sophia is let in because the scholar didn't consider the issue worth paying attention to it. The sophia advocated by especially Benedict XVI in his years on the Pontifical Biblical Commission, when still going by his birth name, Joseph Ratzinger, but also during his papacy, in his Apostolic Letter Verbum Domini, is the belief in the Bible as the Revelation of the Word of God ... basically that this is what is being studied and the reason for studying it. The alternative is the "History of Religions" approach. I am not saying that HoR technique does not have a valid use in exegeting the Bible. But I am saying that it is in error when it becomes the base philosophy in exegesis. And I am saying that, when exegetes accept the idea that they can practice the techne without any sophia commitment, this one will necessarily fill the void. This is a bit along the lines of Kant's "categorical imperative." The "imperative" there, as I read Kant, was not that "you have to do this (imperative mood); you better do this or you're not being a good thinker," as if you could do otherwise. The "imperative" is that you will (indicative mood) do this no matter what; it is unavoidable ... it is what humans simply do epistemologically. With sophia, I am saying that there will be one whether you want there to be or not. If you erroneously accept the idea that you could do the techne and scientia without the , what will happen is that somebody will come along and "take care of that aspect for you," since you didn't want to be bothered with it anyway.

The HoR sophia is basically that a history and comparison of religions from a human standpoint is all that you are doing, and the result is the idea that that is all there really is to do. That is all the Bible is, one religious book that can be compared to others solely for the purpose of seeing how we got to the place we are as a race, particularly in the religious dimension of thinking, purely from the human standpoint.

A possible other "meaning" is, not the story conveyed by the divine author, but the story of "my background." This is what I alwas said to my undergrad students.


Ultimately, I think both have to be there, but that there is, again, a hierarchy. The second must be based in the first version of it, which is "what is going saying to US?" (and this is not only ). The "us" is important because we are so defined by the communities of which we are members, and it is those communities, much more than we as individuals, that are the descendants of the communities in which the texts came to be. That history has to be taken into account because God communicated not just through individual words and grammar, but through history itself and in the history of communities of people in particular. But the "to me" is important to because I am the one reading it when applying it to my life; as I said above, there has to be motivation, and motivation happens on an individual level. The central thing, though, about sapientia level 2 is that the focus is the belief that there is a divine author and that he is the one communicating sapientia, wisdom, to me (and to us) through the text.