The Emperor's New Clothes By Hans Christian Andersen
The Intellectual Imperative
One of the most compelling stories in children’s literature is Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. It tells the story of two charlatan tailors who promised to weave invisible clothes for the emperor. This robe they said will only be seen by people of high stature and will be invisible to low-born, uncultured citizens of the kingdom. The emperor “wore” the invisible clothes on the day of an important parade. Everyone in the kingdom, including the wisest men, pretended to be impressed by the Emperor’s robe for fear of chastisement. The king marched in the parade in gallant exhibition of his clothes until a young boy in the crowd shouted, “But the king has no clothes!” Sometimes it takes the impudent honesty of a child to speak the truth that even the most accomplished, well renowned and proficient among us are afraid to deal with. Truth is often a daunting if not a precarious subject. One of the primary tenets of the Blue and Silver is to “speak up for those who cannot speak, protect the rights of those who are poor, helpless and needy” (Prov. 31:9). This can only be done if truth is upheld in whatever situation, no matter how awkward or distressing the consequences of it sometimes are. This year’s theme for the 64th anniversary of PCU is “Declaring the Lord’s Favor”, a premise that resonates with magnificent …show more content…
achievements and divine indulgence. However when we declare that the Lord has favoured us, are we conveying a truthful assessment of the condition of our university? Or is it just a form of false piety in the hopes of avoiding having to answer the pressing issues that are significant to the daily lives of our students? Yes, in the midst of our festivities there remain questions looming in the minds of many of our students about certain issues that affect our lives as members of the PCU community. Some of these questions involve the dramatic increase of miscellaneous fees as well as the seeming vacuum in leadership with the absence of regular BoTs and president, on top of those is the management of the system of education within the university. At the start of second semester there were classes that were dissolved, class schedules hampered and students frustrated and confused with the delay of the transfer of information in what should have been well organized classes. It is our right not only as constituents of this academic institution but as members of a community of intellectuals to be aware of the truth about these matters. It is our right as members of a thinking public to make inquiries to understand where our money and loyalty goes. In the past, many students have realized this right and demanded dialogues with the administration only to cause conflicting emotions between the administration and some student groups. Terminologies like “pro-administration” and “anti-administration” have been coined as part of a general description of a student organization within the university. This should not be the case in our Christian university. We should not break up the composition of the university into pro and anti administration units. As a Christian institution, we are all one body. Everyone should be pro-PCU. What of the truth then? How do we deal with communicating truth in the midst of conflicting emotions? The Bible admonishes us in the fifteenth verse of Ephesians 6 to “speak the truth in love”. This suggests that truth is not only what is important, but how we communicate it matters a lot. Truth should not always come out in the form of an expose’, where the administration is usually cast in a bad light. By doing so, we damage the vision of our university of faith, character and service. For students, a posture of inconsolable anger for not attaining the changes that we demand within the time period that we demand does not mirror our Christian faith. Most of the time, speaking the truth is not the issue but how we say it. The Apostle Paul reminded us in 1 Corinthians 13 that even if we “speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity” we become “[as] sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal”. We have to remember that our communication must be stirred by love, in this case, love for our university, administrators, classmates and the whole PCU family. Before we chalk up our grievances to the administration as merely verbalizing the truth, let us check our motives and see if we are speaking out of love and concern for our university or just venting our anger. As intellectuals in our esteemed university, it is a must for us to be committed to the truth and veer away from personal agenda that destroys our unity as a Christian family.
This commitment to truth however must be within the boundaries of love and a quest to improve our university. Truth be spoken, we are indeed favoured of the Lord this year. What our university has gone through for the past 64 years is an epic example of the hand of God preserving an entity. We have weathered 64 years of shared joys and pains, triumph and pressures. Most importantly we have done so with dignity and
fortitude. There will always be disagreeable people and sometimes they can be found in the highest ranks of our university leadership. But it doesn’t have to mean that we can judge the quality and success of our university based solely on who we find pleasant or not. And even if some of these people cross the bounds of unpleasantness by violating the written and unwritten laws of conduct, we do not cry “CRUCIFY” nor do we celebrate their eventual collapse. Like the kid in Hans Christian Andersen’s story, we dare raise our voices not to ridicule the king but rather out of fear that people outside our “kingdom” would scorn us for not covering our ruler’s nakedness.
One of the most compelling stories in children’s literature is Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. It tells the story of two charlatan tailors who promised to weave invisible clothes for the emperor. This robe they said will only be seen by people of high stature and will be invisible to low-born, uncultured citizens of the kingdom. The emperor “wore” the invisible clothes on the day of an important parade. Everyone in the kingdom, including the wisest men, pretended to be impressed by the Emperor’s robe for fear of chastisement. The king marched in the parade in gallant exhibition of his clothes until a young boy in the crowd shouted, “But the king has no clothes!” Sometimes it takes the impudent honesty of a child to speak the truth that even the most accomplished, well renowned and proficient among us are afraid to deal with. Truth is often a daunting if not a precarious subject. One of the primary tenets of the Blue and Silver is to “speak up for those who cannot speak, protect the rights of those who are poor, helpless and needy” (Prov. 31:9). This can only be done if truth is upheld in whatever situation, no matter how awkward or distressing the consequences of it sometimes are. This year’s theme for the 64th anniversary of PCU is “Declaring the Lord’s Favor”, a premise that resonates with magnificent …show more content…
achievements and divine indulgence. However when we declare that the Lord has favoured us, are we conveying a truthful assessment of the condition of our university? Or is it just a form of false piety in the hopes of avoiding having to answer the pressing issues that are significant to the daily lives of our students? Yes, in the midst of our festivities there remain questions looming in the minds of many of our students about certain issues that affect our lives as members of the PCU community. Some of these questions involve the dramatic increase of miscellaneous fees as well as the seeming vacuum in leadership with the absence of regular BoTs and president, on top of those is the management of the system of education within the university. At the start of second semester there were classes that were dissolved, class schedules hampered and students frustrated and confused with the delay of the transfer of information in what should have been well organized classes. It is our right not only as constituents of this academic institution but as members of a community of intellectuals to be aware of the truth about these matters. It is our right as members of a thinking public to make inquiries to understand where our money and loyalty goes. In the past, many students have realized this right and demanded dialogues with the administration only to cause conflicting emotions between the administration and some student groups. Terminologies like “pro-administration” and “anti-administration” have been coined as part of a general description of a student organization within the university. This should not be the case in our Christian university. We should not break up the composition of the university into pro and anti administration units. As a Christian institution, we are all one body. Everyone should be pro-PCU. What of the truth then? How do we deal with communicating truth in the midst of conflicting emotions? The Bible admonishes us in the fifteenth verse of Ephesians 6 to “speak the truth in love”. This suggests that truth is not only what is important, but how we communicate it matters a lot. Truth should not always come out in the form of an expose’, where the administration is usually cast in a bad light. By doing so, we damage the vision of our university of faith, character and service. For students, a posture of inconsolable anger for not attaining the changes that we demand within the time period that we demand does not mirror our Christian faith. Most of the time, speaking the truth is not the issue but how we say it. The Apostle Paul reminded us in 1 Corinthians 13 that even if we “speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity” we become “[as] sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal”. We have to remember that our communication must be stirred by love, in this case, love for our university, administrators, classmates and the whole PCU family. Before we chalk up our grievances to the administration as merely verbalizing the truth, let us check our motives and see if we are speaking out of love and concern for our university or just venting our anger. As intellectuals in our esteemed university, it is a must for us to be committed to the truth and veer away from personal agenda that destroys our unity as a Christian family.
This commitment to truth however must be within the boundaries of love and a quest to improve our university. Truth be spoken, we are indeed favoured of the Lord this year. What our university has gone through for the past 64 years is an epic example of the hand of God preserving an entity. We have weathered 64 years of shared joys and pains, triumph and pressures. Most importantly we have done so with dignity and
fortitude. There will always be disagreeable people and sometimes they can be found in the highest ranks of our university leadership. But it doesn’t have to mean that we can judge the quality and success of our university based solely on who we find pleasant or not. And even if some of these people cross the bounds of unpleasantness by violating the written and unwritten laws of conduct, we do not cry “CRUCIFY” nor do we celebrate their eventual collapse. Like the kid in Hans Christian Andersen’s story, we dare raise our voices not to ridicule the king but rather out of fear that people outside our “kingdom” would scorn us for not covering our ruler’s nakedness.