A Quiet Radical

One of the most meaningful lessons I ever learned in college came out of a required class that had nothing to do with my major and everything, as it turned out, to do with the way I have lived my life.

As a freshman at Chapman in the fall of 1970, I took an entry-level class in philosophy that probably would have curled my mother’s toes if she’d realized what a radical there was teaching it. My parents were both conservative – my mother falling on the “ultra” part of the spectrum. In our family, she was the final arbiter of what was acceptable and what wasn’t insofar as education, behavior, and ideas went. That’s not to say that my dad didn’t have opinions. He did. He just didn’t express them as often and was more easy-going about things than my mom. And if he didn’t have a strong opinion one way or the other, then my mom’s word became law. I was happy enough most of the time to float along, as most children do, accepting the world as presented through my mother’s eyes.

So there I was in a class that was required, facing a professor who was old enough to be my grandfather, and learning that this rather benign, gentle soul had been a conscientious objector in WWII. Oh, no! My first reaction was horror. He must be a Communist – and those of us raised in the 60s who had participated in the duck-and-cover drills through our years in grade school knew what that meant – well at least I knew it was something evil and to be avoided. And by the standards in my house, by everything I had had drilled into me, there was no question but that I should be standing up, marching smartly out of the classroom, and immediately calling my mother so that she could demand my reassignment. (And yes, she would have expected to be the one to handle this – not me.)

But a strange thing happened – and it became my first act of rebellion as a college student. I sat still and I listened.

And as Dr. Paul Delp spoke and explained why he’d made the decisions he did, I found my horror turning to fascination. He wasn’t evil. He wasn’t a Communist. He didn’t hate his country – he just refused to carry a gun and shoot someone. He was, quite simply and sincerely, a pacifist. And he had made that stand in an age where such a declaration was not popular. So after facing the onslaught of disapproval and public ridicule, he had submitted to the necessary inquiries, including a formal meeting with a representative of the President of the United States when his initial request was denied, and ultimately was granted formal CO status.

I returned home that evening to my own inquisition as to the professors I had and what they would be teaching, instinctively protecting my right to take this class by glossing over the first day’s lecture and simply saying that the professor seemed nice enough and that we would be reading about a lot of the different philosophers to get a brief idea of what they had each said. My mother seemed pleased that no one particular philosophy was going to be taught to the exclusion of others (i.e., I wouldn’t be taught anything inappropriate that didn’t match with our belief systems), and that was the end of the discussion. Thereafter, I never really mentioned the class.

I must stop at this point and defend my mother. She was a good mother who loved her family ferociously. But as I stand on the other side of some years of experience and perspective, I can see that her own demons and flaws shaped her view of life – just as it does for us all. But the bottom line in all of this was that my mother loved me and she sincerely believed that her actions were always in my best interests. That said, I do not believe that she would have been happy with this class.

To be honest, I don’t really remember much if any of what I learned in that semester insofar as the philosophers go – and that is no reflection on Professor Delp’s teaching. At this stage in life, the best I can claim is to recognize some names that I might not otherwise have known. But what I do remember, and use to this day, is an exercise he gave us every week—the “thought paper.”

We were required to explore, in writing, something each week. Something we believed or had questions about, something that was troubling us. The only rule was that it was not to be a rehash of what we were reading – unless there was a point that was niggling away at us. He liked the exercise of writing it down because it forced us to face the issue and bring it to some conclusion. There wasn’t an assigned topic, and I have to admit that at first that was a bit disconcerting to the structured individual in me. But being the good and faithful student I was, I went ahead and tackled the assignment with my usual determination to do exactly what we were being told to do. I jumped in with both feet and confronted the question of the war. Vietnam was raging at the time and my parents were fervent hawks. And in my house, disagreement with their views was enough to cause near apoplectic fits.

A funny thing happened during that paper – it became less about the war and more about my inability to raise these questions at home. For the first time, I admitted that I might not always agree with my parents and that revelation in turn raised a lot of questions about how that made me feel. There was no question as to how writing that paper made me feel – it felt like treason, and I prayed my parents never saw it. But I turned it in.

The paper came back and, frankly, I don’t remember if there was a grade or not. What I do remember is that he wrote that it took courage to question what we’d been taught and that for a belief to be our own, we had to think it through and find our own answers. Sometimes we would end up agreeing and sometimes we wouldn’t—and either way was fine—just so long as whatever we were clinging to was truly our own and that we were prepared to defend our views based on actual belief.

I have used this approach to problem-solving ever since. The big issues, the issues that are painful and/or difficult – those aren’t fun to tackle. They’re uncomfortable and often if we simply try to “think” about them, our minds become co-conspirators in avoidance, skittering away to other topics that are either more fun or at least less difficult. That’s normal. But the very process of committing them to paper allows me to take control of my thoughts. By forcing myself to write my questions down, I discover that the real question or reason for concern is often not what I thought it was at first blush. It helps me dig deeper to see what it is that’s actually bothering me. And once I’ve gotten to that point, once I have faced and actually articulated whatever it is that needs to be dealt with, I have a starting point because I finally know what the real issue is. And if the answer is that there is no answer, then it’s easier to let it go because I know that I’ve honestly thought it through.

I think, somehow, that Professor Delp would not mind my inability to discuss the philosophical differences between Kant and Nietzsche. I believe he would be delighted to know that more than any other one thing I learned in college, I have used the thought paper in my life. I have taught my son to use this technique and have shared it over the years with friends and co-workers facing dilemmas. I feel like I owe such a debt of gratitude to this quiet radical – this lovely, gentle, brilliant man who passed through my life for a few brief months so many years ago leaving an indelible impression and invaluable tool for me to carry forward.