catapult magazine

“A shallow mind is a sin against God. A man who does not struggle is a fool.”

—Chaim Potok

Isn’t shallow talk the whole focus of Chaim’s quote. I guess I don’t really understand your problem with it or your argument Dan. Do you agree with a distinction between shallow and simple?

I don’t have a problem with shallowness and simplicity. I have a problem with deep and shallow. Simplicy and complexity I understand.

“Deep” is something you never call yourself. It’s something other people call you when they don’t understand what you’re saying or are in awe about what you managed to say. “Deep,” in my experience, is generally a word used by “shallow” people to describe people they admire/despise.

“Shallow” is also something you never call yourself. It’s something you call other people when you think they’re intellectually lazy or disinterested. “Deep” people call people who aren’t like them “shallow.”

Why do we need to keep using such unimaginative language? Deep and shallow are so vague and subjective as to be nearly meaningless. Instead of shallow, why not use words like lazy, sloppy, unaware, disengaged, accepting; and instead of deep, use words like thoughtful, engaged, cricial, articulate, aware, sharp?

Notice, Norbert, that I didn’t include simple as a replacement for shallow, although I do think people often equate the two. Does this help to clarify my objection? My first problem with Potok’s quote (out of context though it is) is that it comes off as elitist and can easily be read as a dig against dumb people. Second, considering the vagueness of the term “shallow mind” his statement is rather meaningless. I’d ask him to clarify.

I’m not ready at this point to comment on the part about struggle. As kristinmarie said, nobody can really avoid struggle, and people struggle in all sorts of different ways. So I’m not sure what his point is.

Deep.

Sorry. Couldn’t resist. This makes sense to me. I understand the differentiation now. I guess I still don’t have a problem with the quote, but I see your viewpoint now. Thanks for clarifying.

And just to be really clear, Norbert, I certainly hope you never, ever looked at my butt in high school. That would have made Chuck very angry.

I enjoyed your discussion about deep and shallow – which, I might add, sounds like bad porn (is there such a thing as good porn? Discuss amongst yourselves …). I had some thoughts I was going to add to the discussion, but it appears to be over and I really wasn’t going to enlighten anyone anyway. NEXT!!

Since I started all this, I figured i’d better weigh in. The reason I like the quote and posted it in the first place has to do with what Norb was nicely getting at. God calls us to think about stuff and sometimes struggle with stuff. I don’t think that the quote is in any way saying that mentally handicapped people, or people who are not Nobel prize winners are somehow sinful. Rather the quote argues that those who let themselves be shallow, try not to think, and ignore God’s world are sinful. I think maybe we got distracted a little bit with the moral dimension of Norb’s examples —and apparently by something involving Miss Annie that I am in no way qualified or interested in commenting on :) . In fact, when we take the easy way one, see problems in black and white, think no further than “My country right or wrong” or “All women are lousy drivers” or “We ought to just nuke ’em and let God sort ’em out” or the like, that is a sin. God gave us brains, and we are supposed to use them. I think Norb’s example of the special olympic kids saying"this is great" is an excellent example. That is a simple thought, but also a profound one.