I Allowed Myself a Rant: Tensionism

In my college days i was accused of a little something called "Tensionism." My friends--critical swashbucklers that they were--invented the term in order to poke fun at my attitude towards theological positions, philosophy, and theoretical preoccupations at large. I liked the possibility of coalescing two seemingly incompatible notions; i liked the idea of saying, 'i don't know' with a calm sincerity, even though certainty felt safer; i liked the excitement of a world bigger than i had imagined, scarier than i was told, and richer than i'd dreamed.

Not much has changed since those days. Probably in fact my tensionistic bents have multiplied exponentially since college. 


This is only natural, of course. I attend one of the most liberally minded universities in America, and am working on a degree in Liberal Arts.

Liberal Arts. You realize, i hope, that that's an actual degree. Liberal: it means i study everything.  If someone asks, "Hey Kevin, what did you get your degree in," i may simply and truthfully answer, "Yes." It means that by the time i am done i will have a certified masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania in ....what have you.The plaque on my future office wall will read:

Kevin Hughes

University of Pennsylvania
Master of "What Have You"

I'm being obnoxious. But i have a point to make too.

Tensionism, God bless it, is guided by the general principle that humans are dumber than they think they are, and therefore everybody just needs to calm the balls down. Look at the current political discussions and think about it: polarities dominate, everyone's an authority, everyone's freaking out, and the whole damn things' a giant kerfuffle. Now compare it to the annoyingly popular debate between Calvinism and Arminianism (btw notice how the best theologians are totally unconcerned with this question). People are freaking out. Now take the rantings of Continental philosophers and compare them to the ravings of the Analytic philosophers. Freaking out. Christians vs Atheists. Freaking out. The formatlists vs. the informalists. Essentialists vs nominalists. etc, etc Dear sweet me where does the list end, if ever?


Look: i've made it my (short) life's ambition to dabble in a lot of different areas, to get a feel for a lot of different experiences, and to engage a host of different people. And if there's one thing that a master of everything learns it is that no one is a master of anything. Someone may know a lot about something (and those who know the most tend to say, 'i don't know' the most), but no one knows much. The truth is that none of us has crossed the pons assinorum of any subject, and we are all more or less just trying to get by.

So give your self a hug, take a breath, and most importantly don't treat theory like its dogma. Have few beliefs and a vibrant imagination. Sentiments work best when tied to beliefs, not to probabilities. The rest will take care of itself.
the end