Think and be hated. Feel and be loved.

A reflection on the lessons of academia and culture

When I was in high school, there were defined standards we were expected to achieve. I don’t have it in front of me, but the school referred to it as the “Profile” or the Profile of the Grad at Grad.

From what I gather, the Profile still exists. I’m not sure how much if any the details of it have changed in 30+ years.

It was a vision: The Profile of the Jesuit High School Graduate at Graduation. They wanted us to have achieved those standards by the time we finished at Jesuit High School in Portland, Oregon.

I don’t know who exactly developed the Profile, but the standards were well-defined. Yet in retrospect, a bit cringey and borderline-modernist for my current tastes.

Modernism was condemned by Pope Pius X in the 1907 encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis, calling it “the synthesis of all heresies.”

The major bullet-points were thus:

• Open to Growth

• Intellectually Competent

• Religious

• Loving

• Committed to Doing Justice

When I attended Jesuit, and especially as the decades have gone on, the platitu…