At my dissertation proposal meeting, supposedly a scientific consultation to massage and critique my research program, one of my esteemed faculty members asked me what I thought of his idea. “Well,” I said, “naturally I want to do as little as possible and still get my degree.” A hush of epic proportions descended on the little group, whereupon my chair muttered in a barking but muted voice, “Michael, never out loud.” He made it clear by his tone that scientific culture insisted that my dissertation represent a thirst for truth, and by his words that he condoned a desire just to get it done as long as I kept quiet about it.
This is what the Jews mean when they say, “Dress British; think Yiddish.”
I wanted my children not to feel guilty about anything they thought, even as I wanted them to be careful about where they spoke it. Free thinking, like masturbation, was to be enjoyed in private and among select friends.
As far as I can recall, I lied to my children only once. Little had picked up some advanced verbiage from Big, and I was admonishing him not to say certain words in certain places while reassuring him that he could say to me anything he wanted. But then I was hit by a sense of my own power, something parents can indulge at any time, the sense that I could tell him absolutely anything and he would believe me. Did I use my carefully constructed credibility to sell him the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, or God? No. Instead, I told him that there was one word that was so bad that it must never even be written much less spoken aloud. He wanted to know what that word was, but of course I couldn’t inform him without saying or writing the forbidden word. He begged me for ownership of that weapon that was so powerful it could disrupt any occasion, so I took pity on him and told him that I would say it one time, and he must never repeat it. “The word is Jeshoshaphat.” He nodded grimly, aware of the immense power and, with it, the immense responsibility he now wielded. He was about five years old. A year later, I dropped a plate of pasta in the kitchen and I cried out, “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat.” He looked at me with horror, surprise, alarm, and finally betrayal as he realized that it was just another word. He hasn’t really trusted anything I’ve said since.
All this time, I thought I was honest with my children to make them think they could rely on me, on a benign authority whom they could question and expect an honest response from, an authority who would bless their critical thinking. But maybe the edge for generating critical thinking goes to the parents whose children learn with dismay that there is no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy. Maybe their kids learn to question authority at the deepest level, the level driven by disappointment and suspicion. Maybe the therapists who come late to sessions and intrude with other agendas and pull rank on their patients to pressure them into not complaining—maybe those therapists are generating free thinkers in a way I never could by telling the truth.
A year later, at my dissertation orals, I employed the good advice I had received from a clinical supervisor: “Get them talking to each other and they won’t interrogate you.” I nearly made it through the two hours with the art of conversation when one of my committee members said, “Hey, we haven’t asked him any questions yet.” A statistician, he said, “How can you use the output of a discriminant function as a continuous variable?” I said, “Simple. If there was something wrong with doing that, you’d have spoken up long before now.” All four of them started shaking their heads, and it was the art historian on my committee who said, laughing, “Michael, never out loud.”
Michael Karson, Ph.D. 