Blog Post

Thinking About Irreverence

Michael Kroth • Jan 06, 2019

"Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense." ~Mark Twain

Irreverence-Reverence Series - I

Thinking About Irreverence. Profound LIving. Michael Kroth.

For several years, I have been very interested in the idea of "irreverence" and what it means "to irrevere" (a verb I coined, since there is a verb for reverence, why not one for irreverence?) (see Kroth, 2017). As those who read my essays know, I have been walking down a path of spirituality these last few years, interested in what it means to "go deep".

Along that path, though I haven't talked much about it lately, I still think irreverence is a key part of "going deeper". Sometimes, oftentimes, we need satire to skewer our comfy belief systems and comfy lives. We need humor to make fun of our politicians and of our pretentious selves. We need to laugh at ourselves. How silly we are! How puffed up we are at our own importance or "wisdom"! We need to dance when it's not acceptable. We need to wear orange when everyone else is wearing blue or red. We need to create architecture that busts the current norms.

I believe there is a need to irrevere in this world, just as I believe there is a cognitive and a visceral and a metaphysical need to revere. Tying those two together, in my way of looking at things, can lead to profound learning and living. Going deeper and vaster than one could have ever imagined possible is something worthy of a life well lived. But you can't do that by sticking with what you've been told, without exploring or pushing or finding out for yourself. You can't do that by simply accepting "This is the way we've always done it." You have to test it out for yourself. Maybe after going deep you'll stick with wearing red, or continue wearing blue - but maybe you'll go to rainbows or grays or vermilion or chartreuse or fuchsia or teal. Or maybe you'll wear red and blue.

Just as one nation's patriot is another nation's terrorist, so is one religion's heretic a saint in another place or time. The question, for me, is how can reverence and irreverence, working together, move us toward depth.

Irreverence can be mean-spirited and self-serving, what I call "gratuitous irreverence" simply to be mean-spirited and self-serving. The mean-spirited part is to be eschewed, the self-serving part might just be having some fun. But it can also be what I have called "transformational irreverence". I will come back to that idea in a later essay. Transformational irreverence occurs when a person posts ninety-five theses on a door and changes the world. It occurs when a scientist declares the earth to revolve around the sun and not the way that everyone has always said. Transformational irreverence occurs when people express their individuality in ways that change social norms forever. Think the 1960's. Transformational irreverence, for us as individuals though, can occur when we move in ways that allow us to become more authentically who we are, rather than what others would have us be.

It's risky. It's a push or a push back. Sometimes it's just baby steps, just a toe in the water. Sometimes it's stepping off a cliff.

Caveat emptor.

So, today is a shout out to irreverence. It's not an easy idea for most of us. We've been acculturated to fit in, after all.

Here is how I defined (with minor adaption) irreverence a few years ago:


Thinking About Irreverence. Michael Kroth. Profound Living.

Irreverence

Irreverence is laughing at hypocrisy, making fun of something, acting silly, breaking molds, going against the grain, protesting the power, it’s the Daily Show/Colbert/Oliver. Comics. Irreverence is Jesus in the temple outrageously telling all the Pharisees they are hypocrites, testing the establishment, Martin Luther giving the Pope heartburn over being indulgent about indulgences. It’s Paolo Freire working it for the peasants in South America, taking on underlying oppression through education, larnin’ them that they weren’t born to be trod upon, and it’s Saul Alinsky sharing some rules for rads in order to inspire his peeps to break some rules. Irreverence is Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus.

The same action may be seen as irreverent and blasphemous by one person and as a calling and a sacrifice by another.

Irreverence is breaking the rules, living outside the norms, testing the waters, breaking out, breaking taboos.

[Nothing inherently wrong with rules, we need 'em to live together as a society. But some rules are just there to keep people in their lanes, to enforce conformity. These are worth questioning, sometimes testing, right?]

It is living fully, not artificially constrained by imposed rules; it’s being burned at the stake for something you believe in; irreverence can be a path to new, expanded, more holistic truth. Irreverence can be a piece of art, a play, a letter to the editor or simply dancing in a small, close-minded town. (See Footloose …or maybe something from our youngest Congresswoman) It’s the court jester telling the king he has no clothes and it’s carnival – yeah, masks and all sorts of crazy you’d never do in your day job. It’s Romeo and Juliet taking off and telling their folks, the Caps and the Monts, to take a hike, and it’s Dylan pulling out the electric guitar at Altamont. Sacrilege! It’s being free, not constrained by societal standards. Irreverence is breast feeding in public (note to self – this example is becoming outdated). Outlandish clothes. Shocking creativity. Irreverence to one body of people may be reverence to another. Questioning your own group’s beliefs’ll get you shunned or worse. Irreverence is breaking with the past, with tradition, with the straitjacket of society. Irreverence is seeing and sharing a larger truth than the current one. Irreverence is being true to something sacred inside, not acceptable (yet) to the world. Irreverence is transformational or just a pain in the rear or simply cross-dressing on a Friday night (again, this example is getting outdated). Irreverence is a state of “not-reverence”. Om mane padme ommmmm….

People can be irreverent but nature never can be because nature is always genuine and irreverence is always cultural, always based on how we define ideas or actions inside our own heads. Even the camouflaged predator is genuine, they want you for food. They are true to their nature. Words mean nothing to nature.

But they do to us.

Yeah, that’s how I define irreverence. Today anyway.

It's risky. Not to be taken lightly. Sometimes it's just asking oneself a question. Sometimes, it's just asking someone a question.

Sometimes, it's just dancing.


"It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it." ~Jacob Bronowski

Reference:

Kroth, M. (2017). "Irreverence." Human Resource Development Review 16(1): 100-108.
Is there a need for irreverence in our field? This article lays out a case for what the author calls 'transformational irreverence' and also 'reverence' in our work, along with some approaches to encourage them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)


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