Krista Tippett: Oy!

January 11, 2015 • 9:50 am

One of the downsides of doing grocery shopping at 7 a.m. on Sunday is that, if you’re listening to National Public Radio (NPR), as I’m wont to do, you’ll probably have to hear the unctuous Krista Tippett and her “On Being” show.  The American version of a less scholarly Karen Armstrong, Tippett never met a religion she didn’t like, often making a warm and fuzzy conflation of religion and spirituality. In other words, Tippett is in love with the numinous, particularly if it’s expressed in deepities that make the listener feel smart.  On today’s show, God help me, I heard her say something like this, quoting someone whose name I can’t recall:

“____________ once said ‘The soul is composed of attentiveness.’ I think we need to make a space for that.”

Jebus in a chicken basket! What does that mean? If ever there was a deepity, that is one. And Tippett makes a good living from deepities: her show, formerly called “Speaking of Faith” (I suspect the name change reflects her realization that many Americans are turning away from faith), is quite popular, and she’s even garnered a National Humanities Medal and a Peabody Award for broadcasting. Such are the accolades that accrue to those who coddle faith, defanging it for public petting.

But does any reader actually like this show? I can’t imagine why. It’s like a mental massage: you may feel good as your mind is soothed by Tippett’s warm and oily lucubrations, but an hour later the effects have worn off.

I would love for National Public Radio to have a show focusing on rationalism and secularism. But that’s unlikely given that some of its funds come from the U.S. government, and NPR has already been accused of extreme liberalism by members of Congress. I fear that it will be a cold day in hell when you hear an NPR show called “On Rationality.”

I was going to have a contest asking readers to explain why the soul is made of attentiveness, but that’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

118 thoughts on “Krista Tippett: Oy!”

      1. Ever heard of “Science Friday” by chance. Two hours of science and rationality. Try it you’ll like it!

        1. I used to listen to Science Friday on my way home from work when I was teaching. I actually really liked Juan Williams (can’t remember the name of the NPR show)before he resigned I believe under some kind of cloud.

          2. NPR fired him after he went on Bill O’Reilly and said: “I’m not a bigot, when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

  4. “defanging it for public petting”, is what a whole lot of Muslims do when seducing/wooing a potential convert into the Ummah (usually females). Present all the nice cuddly petable bits and pieces while leaving out the poison and fangs. Those come later, once you convert, when suddenly all the things that made Islam special specifically because you were female are now pushed aside as the the very long list of what you are no longer allowed to do specifically because you are female are now presented. Do your homework, ladies, it could save your life.

  6. If the soul is made of attentiveness, then, since a large percentage of American have an attention span of 2 microseconds, they have no soul.

    /end of tortured metaphor.

    1. Then your soul is also strongest after a cup of coffee, and fades in the evening, and disperses entirely while you sleep. It might be absent altogether during the morning and evening commutes.

        1. Being retired, I can forget about commuting and just contemplate my navel; or go direct my attention to playing billiards.

          I do have soul, which they spell funny at the fish counter. It is $8.99/lb

          7. “The piece of cod be with you.”

            May your codpiece give you no peace.

            (Re: Hitch: “When I determined that my male member was not going to give me any peace, I became determined to give it no rest”)

    1. The BBC invited Richard Dawkins to broadcast an alternative “Thought for the Day” on 14th August 2002. This is a transcript:

      When a terrible disaster happens – an air crash, a flood, or an earthquake – people thank God that it wasn’t worse. (But then why did he let the earthquake happen at all?) Or, even more childish and self-indulgent: “Thank you God for the traffic jam that made me miss that plane.” (But what about all the unfortunate people who didn’t miss the plane.?)

      The same kind of infantile regssion tempts us when we try to understand the natural world.
      “Poems are made by fools like me . . . But only God can make a tree.”
      A pretty song, but an infantile explanation. It’s too easy. Lazy. The moment we put a little effort into thinking about it, we realise that God the creator is no explanation at all. He constitutes a bigger question than he answers.

      Once, we couldn’t do any better. Humanity was still an infant. But now we understand what makes earthquakes; we understand what made trees. Not just trees like oaks and redwoods, with their underground root system like a huge, upside-down tree.

      The arteries that leave the heart branch and branch again like a tree. There are about 50 miles of blood vessels in a human body. Nerve cells, too, branch like trees. They are so numerous in the teeming forest of your brain that, if you stretched them end to end they would reach right round the world 25 times.

      In the face of such wonders, do you fall back, like a child, on God? “It’s so wonderful, so complicated, only God could have done it.” It’s tempting, isn’t it. But it’s not a real explanation. Not the kind of explanation that actually explains anything. And it’s nowhere near as poetic as the true explanation.

      Because the beauty is that humanity has grown up. We now know the true explanation. It’s gloriously simple once you get it, and more wonderful than our forefathers could ever have imagined. It makes use of yet another tree. The family tree of life. It began with something smaller than a bacterium, and it branched and branched to give all the species that have ever lived, whether extinct like the dinosaurs, or still hanging on like our own. Evolution really explains all of life, and it needs no supernatural intervention of any kind.

      The adult response is to rejoice in the amazing privilege we enjoy. We have been born, and we are going to die. But before we die we have time to understand why we were ever born in the first place. Time to understand the universe into which we have been born. And with that understanding, we finally grow up and realise that there is no help for us outside our own efforts.

      Humanity can leave the crybaby phase, and finally come of age.

      2. “He [God] constitutes a bigger question than he answers.” That–right there–neatly sums up almost all of my personal beliefs on faith.

  9. My local supermarkets open at 7 am but the fish counter is not filled up until 9:30. I don’t like playing the game “do you have any…”.

  11. Ah, but those would be METAPHYSICAL fish in a SUPERNATURAL barrel. Such fish are notoriously difficult to locate, and such barrels are notoriously poor at containing the special Water O’ Numinousness that sustains these fish. Consequently, your contest, requiring bullets of mere logic and meaning, might be more challenging than you suppose!

    1. Deities like roaches are always hiding in the shadows. Unlike roaches, no deities appear when the light of science is shown upon those dark areas.

  12. It means that if you think you have a soul you are spaced out and if you don’t think you have a soul you can be accused of having attention deficit disorder by Krista Tippett. In any event, there is a practical side to attentiveness, like looking both ways before you attempt to cross the street.
    My wife has observed that NPR commentary has gotten treacly and mushy over the last few years.

    1. In all fairness, while the Krista Tippet never met a numinousness she didn’t like, she’s no match for Karen Armstrong, the Diva of Deepities.

  14. I like listening to that show, precisely for the reasons Jerry outlines in the post. It’s my only contact with the feeling-good-about feeling-good belief-in-belief crowd, and I figure I might as well know how that spectrum of the world thinks. For some reason neither the host nor her guests grate on my nerves too often, though I confess that once in a while I have pointed at the radio and shouted at it. It’s like religious elevator music.

    1. Careful. You might end up falling into the vortex.

      No point of return may be ahead. 🙂

    2. NPR covers so many things so well, but faith and politics are no longer among them – it’s hard to tell if they’ve really changed the programming so much from, say, 25 years ago or if it’s that I’ve changed; I think it’s both.

      I don’t know how to say it, but there is a commonality in the politics and faith coverage. Deepities, I guess comes closest, bland smart-sounding statements to make you feel inclusive and pithy – so much pith! Just gallons and gallons of pith!

          1. I have an old New Yorker cartoon on my fridge (can’t seem to find it online) in which a middle-aged guy is eating an ice-cream cone with sprinkles and, with tongue out, says to his wife:
            “Thprinkles.”

          6. Yeth, we do.

            *Chocolate* sprinkles are incredibly popular in the Netherlands. See: http://www.deruijter.nl/producten/chocoladehagel-puur.aspx

            When I was working with a company based in Delft, they had chocolate sprinkles on the lunch tables, along with the cold meats, cheeses, and apple spread, as a sandwich filling. One of the staff was British; she remarked that she’d been incredulous when she first saw “grown people eating chocoolate-sprinkles sandwiches”! It didn’t surprise me so much, because my Mum is half-Dutch–half-Flemish, and I’d been brought up on sprinkles sandwiches! (Well, not really. They had been a special treat.) One of the other visitors, an Italian, wanted to come and live in the Netherlands so his kids could have sprinkles sandwiches for lunch rather than pasta!

            /@

      2. ” . . . it’s hard to tell if they’ve really changed the programming so much from, say, 25 years ago or if it’s that I’ve changed; I think it’s both.”

        Well, I’ve changed a bit in the last 25 years, no doubt. But, nowadays I find myself far more frequently reaching for the radio “off” button during NPR’s “Morning Edition” then I did during Bob Edward’s tenure. Not a few times I don’t listen at all. I don’t need some snarky, “edgy” presenter borderline yelling the news at me or expressing faux surprise/shock at something an interviewee said, or imposing his bloody personal opinion, or two presenters cutesy-wutsey alternating sentences, as if that is supposed to somehow engage my interest and entertain me.

    3. I will sometimes choose programs like this, or out and out preaching shows, just because they fascinate me so.

      LOvE the “defanging for public petting” picture! Perfection!

  16. I would love for National Public Radio to have a show focusing on rationalism and secularism

    Well, there’s Science Friday. It’s the most rational and secular show on NPR, even if rationality and secularity are not the focus, per se.

    The program Forum on my local NPR station, KQED, is hosted by self-described “agnostic” and secular Jew Michael Krasny. He frequently has guests who “get spiritual” during conversations and he has a very subtle way of respectfully pointing out contradictions.

    1. Of course, that station is based in San Francisco — I lived there for about 2 years as an adolescent, then spent about 10 years as an adult living in the Silicon Valley region. I don’t think such a radio show would arouse too much controversy there. Not so in the Bible Belt city of Jacksonville, FL, where I currently reside. I wish our NPR station had such a show, but it’s financially hurting as it is.

  17. Now Jerry, surely you must agree that you’ve got to be pretty damned attentive to fill a soul that ain’t there with with your personal savior who ain’t there either. Sadly, I’m not that attentive – perhaps hallucinogens would help.

  18. A southern baptist from Oklahoma and graduate of the Yale Divinity School.

    What else could you do but cash in on god.

    1. I’m starting to think of Divinity schools as a sign of weakness from the college in general.

      Harvard, Yale, etc….it doesn’t make the slightest difference. If you believe in religion you’ll be more concerned about explaining its good sides.

      Even in the face of the bad.

      Intellectual hypocrites.

      1. The old East Coast schools tend to have divinity programs. They provide a career path for those students who lack inquiring minds. In other words, an easy major.

  19. You triggered a yearning in my space to consult the oracle (Random Deepak Quote Generator) which enlightens with:

    “Eternal stillness meditates on pure chaos”

    3. Well it told me that:

      “Evolution compliments an abundance of external reality”

      and,

      “Your body is only possible in universal human observation”

      So there.

    1. Mmmmm and Tom Waits’s Chocolate Jesus for dessert! “When the weather gets rough and it’s whiskey in the shade, it’s best to wrap your savior up in cellophane. He flows like the Big Muddy but that’s okay – pour Him over ice cream for a nice parfait … !”

        1. I don’t care if it’s cold and hairy
          Long as I got my Virgin Mary
          Glued (screwed?) to the dashboard of my caaaarrrrr….

  21. I have heard Tippett several times, and science preserve us, our library hosted talks by her (without any help from me).

    While I can remember the sound of her (irritating) voice, I cannot remember one ever loving sentence that she has uttered.

    I even have to work to recall the sentences above. Word salad? More like consonant crudité.

  22. “the accolades that accrue to those who coddle faith, defanging it for public petting” What a well-crafted takedown of that oleaginous grifter.

    I *didn’t* turn on my radio at 7 this morning so I could avoid her. I wish they’d move her to the 5am slot…

  23. I listen to KP about 2 to 6 times a year (closer to 2 these days).

    IMO in the atheism category, Krista Tippett did poorly on Sam Harris’ alleged Islamophobia but did a decent episode on his writings on meditation, and had a pretty good interview with Lawrence Krauss.

    She’s way too nice. She NEVER criticizes ANY religion. Karen Armstrong can be severe on fundamentalism. According to a New York Times profile of her, “She said she would not interview a proponent of intelligent design or a strident atheist, believing such guests would only polarize the discussion, though she has done shows about torture and the Sunni-Shiite divide within Islam.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/us/29religion.html?_r=0) This is a bad form of “timidity” (NY Times word) and shows lack of courage.

    Her book on science and religion (entitled “Einstein’s God”- it’s a series of interviews with religious scientists) is as one Amazon reviewer put it “rambling and superficial” (I did not read all of it)- it’s a primo example of fuzzy thinking, but IMO she can be quite good with artists. I liked her interview with cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

    My loose impression is that she has gravitated away from an interest in institutional religion towards more what I suppose might be called “spirituality”.

    I suspect that she wants to redefine “soul” as a word for a process in the mind rather than as some kind of non-material substance that is an add-on to the body.

    She never quite descends to the pretentiousness of Deepak Chopra, but I can’t say she’s profound.
    But I honestly do not find her to be “unctious”. That’s a word I reserve for slippery snake-oil salesmen like William Lane Craig, who grossly confuse rationality for rationalization, or TV preachers who confuse emotionalism with emotion, or scolds like Jerry Falwell who confuse moralism with morality, or phony psychics like John Edwards who confuse spiritualism with spirituality!!

    1. I’m wondering who Tippett would consider a “strident atheist” beyond the bounds of interview material, if she’s already dealt with Harris and Krauss. Dawkins?

    2. “Unctuous” is the perfect adjective for Krista Tippet. I’ve been using it to describe her for some time, and just assumed it was copyrighted. My lawyer will be in touch, Jerry!

      1. Well she IS unctious in the sense of being overly flattering of her religious guests, but I find her mainly to be just fuzzy-minded.

  25. being of sound mind and body..well, not so much body. i suffer from ”the oys”..oy, i got such a pain or oy, it hurts right here..
    anyway, i do not understand her deepity. attention from where or from what? certainly not froma pablum spouter..
    i agree with the reader. it would be great if you had a show on npr..

  27. I actually have a blog about NPR and am the uncrowned king of Tippett criticism. I am so proud that for a long time, and perhaps still, my blog was the very first result if you google “Kirsta Tippett annoying”. Believe it or not people search on those terms weekly.

    Her show is treacly to the point of nausea.

    Here are some of my posts about her:
    https://airbagmoments.wordpress.com/tag/krista-tippett/

    In fact you unintentionally plagiarized my obvious sentiment from one of them that Krista never met a religion she didn’t love.

      1. I really I hope I get the opportunity to use that phrase & that when I’m presented with said opportunity, I recognize it & remember the phrase.

  29. “the soul is composed of attentiveness”.

    That is the kind of poppycock that used to bewilder me in the 60s. It worried and depressed me that I didn’t understand it. Now I understand it very well.

  30. The sole is composted in a tent in Inverness? Is that what she meant to say?

    Still no clue what the significance is, but at least it makes grammatical sense. Maybe she’s describing the Scottish version of lutefisk?

    b&

  31. “The soul is made of attentiveness” because when I read those words strung together in that order then I feel a warm, pink glow inside. Little dancing cherubs that only I can see start to orbit around my head, and I realize a connection with God that I had been ignoring all my life b/c I was too much concerned with material things.
    Nah.
    I think I will pop over to an earlier post at WEIT and see what the new comments are. Wheeeee…

  32. This reminds me of the old joke:

    Q: Why is a dog?

    A: Because it has two ears; especially the left one…

    – evan

  33. I sometimess wish there was a like button on your site so I could hit it everytime I liked something you wrote, but then I”d likely be hitting it daily. I am particularly moved by this piece, which I loved and agree with wholeheartedly.
    Your posts are the smile in my day.

    1. “I sometimess wish there was a like button on your site so I could hit it everytime I liked something you wrote”

      There is, just after the article and before the “Related” links. Or maybe that appears only if you’ve logged in to WordPress.

      /@

  34. I was going to have a contest asking readers to explain why the soul is made of attentiveness, but that’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

    What’s wrong with shooting fish in a barrel, if your intention is to eat them?

    “‘The soul is composed of attentiveness.’ I think we need to make a space for that.”

    A classic deepity. It can be interpreted in a way which is “true but trivial” or “extraordinary but false” — with both meanings switched regularly and easily in order to 1.) grant credibility to the extraordinary one and 2.) shut up critics.

    The “true but trivial?” That when we slow down and pay closer attention to things in our life, the world, and the universe, we discover and create a more meaningful appreciation for these things. This encompasses the wonder and curiosity inspired by the scientific spirit as well as the gratitude and love inspired by the humanistic impulse. What we are, who we are is expressed and informed by what we look at — and how deeply we think about it.

    It’s “trivial” in the sense that it’s not new or particularly controversial. Nor is there any necessary connection to the overthrow of the naturalistic paradigm. As JonLynnHarvey said at #23, we are free to “redefine “soul” as a word for a process in the mind rather than as some kind of non-material substance that is an add-on to the body.”

    In fact, we’re not only free to redefine ‘soul’ as a metaphor, we are positively encouraged to do so if we have any objections to:

    The “extraordinary but false.” The soul is a non-material substance that is an add-on to the body and we know this because that’s what we use when we pay attention to things. The more intensely you perceive the world, the more deeply you think about everything, then the more you will realize that there’s more to existence than nature. There’s the soul. Science can’t tell us the metaphysical truths we learn through the heart.

    Which is it? Both. It’s like the classic shell game. It shifts, it moves, it’s hard to track. It’s never where you think it is — unless you like it. That’s the key to the deepity: they’re formulated to work for their own support and approval. “The soul is composed of attentiveness” is a metaphysical claim for the supernatural nature of existence. Unless you don’t already believe in the supernatural nature of existence or aren’t trying to believe in the supernatural nature of existence.

    Then it’s the other one. So shut up.

  36. Luckily, Krista Tippet is not on any of my local NPR stations when I am likely to be listening. The transcript is here:
    http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/7194#main_content

    The source of the quote is a poet, Mary Oliver (deepities are so much deepier when an actual poet said them.) The full poem “Low Tide” is not on the internet. The quote used is, “This is the first, wildest, and wisest thing I know, that the soul exists and that it is built entirely out of attentiveness.” It seems to be a favorite quote among religious types who talk about clinical depression or burnout.

    What does is mean? I think the people who quote it like the first part – the soul exists! But the second part negates the first – if it is “built” entirely out of “attentiveness”, maybe some unenlightened people don’t have souls? Maybe the soul is just a construct for helping you get through a tough time? So you can throw in this quote by an actual poet that gives you license to feel that there is some hope.

    1. Actually, there is a cognitive scientist, Michael S. A. Graziano, who, with his colleagues, has been developing the “attention schema” theory of consciousness. See here.

      Oliver may have been (almost) right for the wrong reasons! 😏

      /@

  37. Luckily, Krista Tippet is not on any of my local NPR stations when I am likely to be listening. The transcript is here:

    http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/7194#main_content

    The source of the quote is a poet, Mary Oliver (deepities are so much deepier when an actual poet said them.) The full poem “Low Tide” is not on the internet. The quote used is, “This is the first, wildest, and wisest thing I know, that the soul exists and that it is built entirely out of attentiveness.” It seems to be a favorite quote among religious types who talk about clinical depression or burnout.

    What does is mean? I think the people who quote it like the first part – the soul exists! But the second part negates the first – if it is “built” entirely out of “attentiveness”, maybe some unenlightened people don’t have souls? Maybe the soul is just a construct for helping you get through a tough time? So you can throw in this quote by an actual poet that gives you license to feel that there is some hope.

  38. If the comments after her interview with Krauss are any indication, her audience deserves her.

  39. I find it pleasing that the post below this one is a fine example of attentiveness. It is photos of a cocoon and a moth and a plant that illustrate the attentiveness of the scientific mind in action. So I guess it also illustrates a lot of soul, whatever that is.

  40. I can’t imagine anyone with a brain having any interest in KPs “interviews” — nor is there any need to listen if you can reach the frequency preset buttons.

    I CAN recommend John Perry and Ken Taylor’s weekly Philosophy Talk…. pretty laid back with generally interesting topics and decent guests. NOT NPR, but widely syndicated on public radio and available as podcast.

    Perry and Taylor cover the gamut of philosophical topics. This week, fittingly, their topic is Death and the Afterlife…

  41. the unctuous Krista Tippett and her “On Being” show. The American version of a less scholarly Karen Armstrong, Tippett never met a religion she didn’t like, often making a warm and fuzzy conflation of religion and spirituality.

    The acolytes of Sithrak are coming to visit her, and soon!

  42. ‘NPR has already been accused of extreme liberalism by members of Congress. I fear that it will be a cold day in hell when you hear an NPR show called “On Rationality.” ‘

    There should be a show, the title of which incorporating a conservative/Republican term of derision: “The Reality-Based Community.”

  43. I (I am ashamed to say now) did used to like her show. Before The God Delusion ripped the scales from my eyes (so to speak).

    I wasn’t religious; but I had a big warm fuzzy place for religion. Ugh. Gak!

    1. Oh man, we’ve all been there. I was in love with buddhism in my late teens/twenties. 🙂

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