Well, I am deeply honored to have been invited to speak here this evening, and I'm affected

by Laura's very generous introduction that is possibly the most thorough introduction

I have ever received on any occasion.

It will be very hard to live up to such high expectations, and all I can do is try my best

and see if I can induce in you a sense of metaphysical jet lag.

I'm the one who just flew in overnight, so maybe I have physical jet lag, but I'm going

to try and induce a sense of metaphysical jet lag, which is a state of mind that both cultural

psychologists and scholars of religion might find appealing, or at least astonishing, and

it's certainly the way I often feel when I take a long trip to my field site in Orissa,

India.

With regard to that reference to controversial or provocative, I can't resist recounting

that I had a brother-in-law years ago who did a residency in the medical specialty of

dermatology, and he said to me once, you know, Rick, you only have to know two things to

do dermatology.

If it's dry, make it wet.

If it's wet, make it dry.

I told that to an anthropological friend, Ted Schwartz, who said to me, well, Rick, you

know there are only two things you need to do to do anthropology.

If someone asserts it, deny it.

If someone denies it, assert it.

And lo and behold, I actually teach a seminar at the University of Chicago occasionally

called if someone asserts it, deny it.

Some title is Critical Reason and Political Correctness in the Social Sciences, and we

try to take so-called received truths and examine them carefully.

It's a kind of Socratic experience.

As some of you know, I'm a cultural anthropologist.

You've learned that in this introduction.

I'm also, however, what I've called a confusionist.

This is not to be confused with confusionist.

This is a confusionist.

What is confusionism?

Its central maxim is the following.

The knowable world is incomplete if seen from any one point of view, incoherent if seen

from all points of view at once, and empty if seen from nowhere in particular.

That means the choice in life and in science is between incompleteness, incoherence, and

emptiness.

And when presented with that choice, I can't opt for incoherence.

Emptiness is too dehumanizing a distance for me.

So incompleteness is what I opt for, which means staying on the move between different

points of view.

The analogy might be sitting on a branch and starting to saw the branch you're sitting

on, but looking while you're sitting on that branch, not just doing the deconstructive

work, but doing the constructive work of seeing what you can see from that particular perspective.

Then the branch goes.

You go to another branch.

I happen to think it's eternal free fall, that you will never hit the ground, but I try

to stay on the move.

Now one of the most fundamental questions in the study of morality and religious ethics

is this one.

Why do the many peoples of the world disagree with each other in their concrete moral judgments,