Right now, I am evaluating my philosophical journey--where I was and where I am now in the past 6 years, from virulently anti-religious bigot to a more understanding and respectful(-able) philosophical disposition.
One thing continues to bother me. A part of me feels as though I am making a concession. This notion has been gnawing at the back of my mind after someone made a remark at work a few months ago. It was a harmless indication of acceptance, but a kind of unilateral acceptance that made me a bit uncomfortable: "He's OK. He knows the Bible." It's a kind of strange tribalism, where it takes someone truly unique to move past the ideological barriers that divide people.
But I wonder... Would it be possible that someone could take the time to understand that atheism does not lead automatically to nihilism? That actually quite few of us godless heathens are Dmitri Karamazov or his father? Even Dostoevsky himself understood that there was merit to rationalism, setting Ivan and Alyosha up as equals in a debate which forms the entire purpose of the novel.
But there are two problems with this notion of a concession: What about the people I know and respect? Can't I use them as the standard by which I judge the respect I feel I deserve and ignore the rest of the population in this matter? Doesn't the fact that I have people who are able to reciprocate and appreciate the effort I invest into learning about religion satisfy me? And, more pressing, who am I doing this for? Am I doing this for myself, or for the kind of people who pay attention to the Religious Right, and wholly ignore Jesus' message in the first place?
First and foremost I am doing this for myself, and in a way I feel that my previous treatment of religion and the religious was somewhat unfair. I say "somewhat" because I still believe that fundamentalism deserves to be hammered into the ground.
I also believe that individual religions--especially Islam, which I wrote about previously--are misunderstood, and I want to play a role in rectifying that situation. I promise I will eventually read the Koran.
I feel that atheists, for their part--much like I find myself--could play a role in improving relations between major religions. Instead of trying to attack everyone (though it is understandable because we often find ourselves under attack), by virtue of being outsiders, could illuminate the similarities of the different religions in a way that is constructive and leads to greater understanding between them. However, I readily admit that gaining the trust of these religions is a daunting task, as we are the most reviled minority in existence and have been for a long time. Equally difficult, if this is any consolation, is their earning of our trust as a group because of this truth.
The more I consider the mechanisms by which tribes such as religious communities operate, the more difficult--nay, impossible--my utopian pipe dream becomes. "Utopia" actually means "nowhere" in Greek.
There is one major thing we would have to change about how we operate, and this goes back to what I said in a previous essay. We would have to look at religions not in a way that renders them true or false, but whether they are accomplishing what they claim to want to accomplish. We would have to look at their holy texts not as actual accounts of history, such as fundamentalists do, but how we would want them to be examined, as literature.
I've taken up all this time and I haven't said a word about Christmas.
Is there anything that needs to be said about Christmas? Should I give space to the imaginary campaign of the War on Christmas, which contradicts everything Christians should be working toward? Or should I give space to Congress, which actually had to fight to pass healthcare for 9/11 first responders (about which Stephen Colbert had quite a lot to say1), and congressmen who continually complain that they will have to work between Christmas and New Years?
No, I don't have to elaborate on any of that. None of that will ever change for the better. I will, however, share with you that, using Nicholas Kristoff's editorial as a guide, I donated $20 to Fonkoze to send a Haitian girl to elementary school for a year2. That's a pretty good Christmas present for a child over there, I think. Of the options listed, I chose the one which I believe would have the greatest impact.
Happy holidays!
1) "If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it." ~ Stephen Colbert http://www.casadeblundell.com/jonathan/the-genius-that-is-stephen-colbert/
2) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/opinion/19kristof.html?_r=1&ref=nicholasdkristof
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Solving the Deficit Problem
One of the most pressing issues during the past year and a half is the deficit. No one can deny that the United States has been spending far, far more than it can afford, and has not been doing enough to recoup the money it spends.
My task here is not to laugh at conservatives as they take $1.2 billion in earmarks after campaigning heavily upon the promise to cut or eliminate them entirely, but rather to figure out a way to make serious headway into this enormous problem.
I am guided by two facts: 1) There are things the government needs to spend money on, and 2) We are in a recession. Ideally, I would recommend that we wait until the economy recovers before we attempt to fix this problem (a suggestion advanced by Paul Krugman of the NYTimes), but I will do my best considering the fact that circumstances are less than ideal.
The first thing I would do is order a massive government study of the effectiveness of all programs over the past 20 years. I would use this to decide which programs to cut entirely. Then I would ask which programs could be reduced by 10-25% with minimal impact to society (under this category would be Social Security, Medicare, Disability, and Prescription Drug programs for the elderly).
Also on this point, the fact remains that Medicare fraud is an enormous problem that costs the government a significant amount of money. To combat this, a comprehensive database should be set up in order to check the frequency of prescription refills and doctors visits complaining of similar symptoms. For example, certain medications are given in certain amounts. The medication I took for a long time gave me 30 pills per prescription. Now, using this knowledge, it would be quite easy to figure out who is either abusing their medication--or, worse, selling it--by the frequency with which they had their prescription filled and how many pills were dispensed, and the frequency with which these pills should be taken (X times/day). All of the information required is already available, but we currently do not combine it in a way such that we could effectively combat fraud.
Before anyone makes the outlandish claim about the government tracking them, this would apply for people who registered for the program, ie it is voluntary, and the government should take responsibility to protect public money from fraud. No one's access to medical services would be severed until there was justification to do so (evidence of fraud).
On the other side, there is a way to prevent doctors from over-prescribing procedures and medications unnecessarily, and this is quite frequent where the elderly are concerned. While the elderly do need medical services more than any other demographic, it is also true that doctors do wish to see them more than necessary. As an example, my grandmother, who has, as of yet, short-term memory loss, had three physicals and two flu shots in one month, and then her GP asked her to return again two weeks later even though there were no outstanding physical problems.
To correct this issue, my father provided an excellent suggestion: Give general practitioners a yearly spending threshold--not a cap, because I don't think money should be cut off if someone does has a serious problem--and give them an incentive for staying below that threshold. It would be, as I described the idea back to my father--as he is a salesman--the inverse of a sales goal: Instead of a sales goal like he has, where he is rewarded for surpassing it, doctors should be rewarded for staying below the threshold. What this threshold should be would of course be left up to experts who understand the medical profession, but, ideally, not be beholden to it.
I would cut some military spending. I realize that R&D is vital to the military, as it is in civilian science, but it is also true that the military develops things that it doesn't use, such as the Crowd Disperser weapon, which relies on microwaves to make people uncomfortable. I would fund only the most essential projects that the military is most interested in with a guarantee that they would see use on the battlefield.
We would have to remove our soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq entirely as soon as humanly possible. The current cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is $1.08 trillion. This is a little less than half of total healthcare costs in 2009 ($2.5 trillion)1. This analysis is not taking into account the political consequences of premature departure in the region, but is merely interested in the war's monetary cost for the sake of the analysis of the deficit.
I would use the same guiding principle in civilian science: Only the most promising and the most useful studies--such as those pertaining to cancer research, transplants, and AIDS--would be funded.
I would massively cut foreign aid. Keep in mind that the United States gives a lot of money to countries that abuse their power in the region, and/or hate the hand that feeds them. I would cut all foreign aid to the Middle East--especially to Israel, whom we now recognize as an oppressor and is undeserving of the blank check it receives from us.
I would revoke the subsidies given to the oil industry, and invest that money into clean energy. This would, in a decade or two, give the United States significantly more leverage in the Middle East.
Now for the most uncomfortable aspect of this issue. I agree that it would be unreasonable to expect a surplus after cutting spending alone. I further believe that the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes, as they also derive benefits from society. On page 135 of Hot, Flat, & Crowded , Tom Friedman puts the problem in perspective by comparing the American War for Independence with the oil states in the Middle East, advocating a kind of pay-to-play system: Paying one's taxes ensures that he has a say and can be represented in government. This is kind of an offshoot also of Social Contract Theory in the way that representation is established. To demonstrate, Tom Friedman writes, "The motto of the American Revolution was 'No Taxation Without Representation.' The motto of the petrolist authoritarian state is "No taxation, so no representation, either.' Oil-backed regimes can just drill an oil well and sell the oil abroad--also they do not have listen to their people or represent their wishes."2
Alexis de Tocqueville spends a lot of time in Democracy in America talking about the lack of influence the aristocracy has in the government, but by now it should be immediately obvious to anyone who pays attention to current events that what would be considered the aristocracy has gotten involved in politics to an unprecedented degree. This is not to say that rich people have themselves personally been elected to office, but they have more or less bought candidates wholesale. No other explanation is sufficient enough to justify why the current GOP senators are holding tax cuts we should put in place (those for middle-class Americans) hostage in exchange for tax cuts for people who not only do not need them, but will not use them to stimulate the economy (a fact we have known since the 1980s; specifically, Trickle-Down Economics).
Furthermore, the wealthiest Americans are not working for the society at large, but are merely manipulating the system in order to preserve themselves, often at the expense of the rest of the population. It would be naive to say that the wealthiest Americans really think that deregulation will help anyone else but them, because where they sit, no one else even exists. They are protected against the hardships of unemployment and even their own employees, who now possess little or no job security at all. Furthermore, the wealthiest Americans absolutely fail to recognize that the decisions they made during the previous two decades which plunged the nation--and the world--into a maelstrom of economic catastrophe warrant punishment.
Also of significance is the fact that most businesses in the United States pay no income tax. The NYTimes states that "Two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005, according to a report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress."3 And yet businesses are still outsourcing overseas. They do not contribute to the system. Critics say that higher taxes will force businesses to leave the United States, but it really doesn't matter, as they outsource even when they don't pay income taxes. I doubt arguments from nationalism could work on such people, as all they seem to care about is the profit margin. If I am again to use Social Contract Theory as the basis for my system, I would have to say that in order to stay, they should have to pay their share.
But that's just it: They don't care where they go as long as they don't have to pay, and for this society generally should feel the most profound disgust, but like anything else that isn't green and made of paper, that too means nothing.
Of course, none of this helps society. If they have to pay taxes, they will leave, but if they don't pay taxes, they aren't helping. And yet they are still able to gear the system to their own ends.
However, to characterize the aristocracy as a greedy class callous and even destructive toward democracy is unfair, but only slightly; there are a few wealthy Americans who understand that they must do something to help the rest of the nation, and here I give them special mention. But it is also true that they are a very small minority among this class. For every 1 Warren Buffett, there are about 10 Donald Trumps.
The extent to which the aristocracy should have to pay taxes should be determined mostly by the difference in spending cuts in order to reach a reasonable goal that would get us on track to regaining a significant surplus in the next 10-15 years, and by the extent of the damage done to the economy. I make no pretensions that the aristocracy should be severely punished not only for their responsibility for economic catastrophe, but also their willful impotence in fixing it.
All of the measures I have thus far provided restricting in military and science spending would be in place for a projected 10-15 years. Foreign aid programs would be restricted temporarily, but with scrupulous oversight, taking into consideration its effectiveness and the politics of the region, especially in the Middle East, where money intended for aid is returned to us in bullets.
This is not to say that I am comfortable with all of these measures. I deem science to be extremely essential to our society, and to see it be restricted in this way--even temporarily--is very painful. But it is something I would be willing to support if it meant the preservation of our superpower status in the future. We would also, of course, feel extreme pain as the subsidies given to oil are revoked. This is something I would also be willing to do. I would personally be willing to pay more for energy in the short term to gain cheaper energy later, and as well be assured that I would be contributing far less to the destruction of the environment. Furthermore, this short-term pain would lead to greater national independence in the future, as I have often said: We would no longer be so dependent--or at all dependent--on energy that poisons the environment and comes from people who want to kill us. By relinquishing oil for cleaner energy, our leverage on the international stage would be enormous, and no longer would we be drawn into conflagrations that are the indirect result of our consumption habits. Not only would we have almost nothing to do with the Middle East, but I dare say that our roles would be reversed: They would either depend upon us for foreign aid to even survive, or forced to become democratic as the despotic regimes failed to support themselves. If the former occurred, terrorism from the region would cease almost overnight.
As I am willing to give, the aristocracy and its representative party must also be willing to give. If the aristocracy is not able or willing to contribute to society, then I very much doubt that we would be at all successful--or at least to the degree that we desire.
1) http://www.prohealthlab.org/prohealth-lab-newsletter/newsletter-archive/141-us-healthcare-costs-rise-sharply
2) Friedman, Tom Hot, Flat, & Crowded Picador Press New York 2005
3) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/business/13tax.html
My task here is not to laugh at conservatives as they take $1.2 billion in earmarks after campaigning heavily upon the promise to cut or eliminate them entirely, but rather to figure out a way to make serious headway into this enormous problem.
I am guided by two facts: 1) There are things the government needs to spend money on, and 2) We are in a recession. Ideally, I would recommend that we wait until the economy recovers before we attempt to fix this problem (a suggestion advanced by Paul Krugman of the NYTimes), but I will do my best considering the fact that circumstances are less than ideal.
The first thing I would do is order a massive government study of the effectiveness of all programs over the past 20 years. I would use this to decide which programs to cut entirely. Then I would ask which programs could be reduced by 10-25% with minimal impact to society (under this category would be Social Security, Medicare, Disability, and Prescription Drug programs for the elderly).
Also on this point, the fact remains that Medicare fraud is an enormous problem that costs the government a significant amount of money. To combat this, a comprehensive database should be set up in order to check the frequency of prescription refills and doctors visits complaining of similar symptoms. For example, certain medications are given in certain amounts. The medication I took for a long time gave me 30 pills per prescription. Now, using this knowledge, it would be quite easy to figure out who is either abusing their medication--or, worse, selling it--by the frequency with which they had their prescription filled and how many pills were dispensed, and the frequency with which these pills should be taken (X times/day). All of the information required is already available, but we currently do not combine it in a way such that we could effectively combat fraud.
Before anyone makes the outlandish claim about the government tracking them, this would apply for people who registered for the program, ie it is voluntary, and the government should take responsibility to protect public money from fraud. No one's access to medical services would be severed until there was justification to do so (evidence of fraud).
On the other side, there is a way to prevent doctors from over-prescribing procedures and medications unnecessarily, and this is quite frequent where the elderly are concerned. While the elderly do need medical services more than any other demographic, it is also true that doctors do wish to see them more than necessary. As an example, my grandmother, who has, as of yet, short-term memory loss, had three physicals and two flu shots in one month, and then her GP asked her to return again two weeks later even though there were no outstanding physical problems.
To correct this issue, my father provided an excellent suggestion: Give general practitioners a yearly spending threshold--not a cap, because I don't think money should be cut off if someone does has a serious problem--and give them an incentive for staying below that threshold. It would be, as I described the idea back to my father--as he is a salesman--the inverse of a sales goal: Instead of a sales goal like he has, where he is rewarded for surpassing it, doctors should be rewarded for staying below the threshold. What this threshold should be would of course be left up to experts who understand the medical profession, but, ideally, not be beholden to it.
I would cut some military spending. I realize that R&D is vital to the military, as it is in civilian science, but it is also true that the military develops things that it doesn't use, such as the Crowd Disperser weapon, which relies on microwaves to make people uncomfortable. I would fund only the most essential projects that the military is most interested in with a guarantee that they would see use on the battlefield.
We would have to remove our soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq entirely as soon as humanly possible. The current cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is $1.08 trillion. This is a little less than half of total healthcare costs in 2009 ($2.5 trillion)1. This analysis is not taking into account the political consequences of premature departure in the region, but is merely interested in the war's monetary cost for the sake of the analysis of the deficit.
I would use the same guiding principle in civilian science: Only the most promising and the most useful studies--such as those pertaining to cancer research, transplants, and AIDS--would be funded.
I would massively cut foreign aid. Keep in mind that the United States gives a lot of money to countries that abuse their power in the region, and/or hate the hand that feeds them. I would cut all foreign aid to the Middle East--especially to Israel, whom we now recognize as an oppressor and is undeserving of the blank check it receives from us.
I would revoke the subsidies given to the oil industry, and invest that money into clean energy. This would, in a decade or two, give the United States significantly more leverage in the Middle East.
Now for the most uncomfortable aspect of this issue. I agree that it would be unreasonable to expect a surplus after cutting spending alone. I further believe that the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes, as they also derive benefits from society. On page 135 of Hot, Flat, & Crowded , Tom Friedman puts the problem in perspective by comparing the American War for Independence with the oil states in the Middle East, advocating a kind of pay-to-play system: Paying one's taxes ensures that he has a say and can be represented in government. This is kind of an offshoot also of Social Contract Theory in the way that representation is established. To demonstrate, Tom Friedman writes, "The motto of the American Revolution was 'No Taxation Without Representation.' The motto of the petrolist authoritarian state is "No taxation, so no representation, either.' Oil-backed regimes can just drill an oil well and sell the oil abroad--also they do not have listen to their people or represent their wishes."2
Alexis de Tocqueville spends a lot of time in Democracy in America talking about the lack of influence the aristocracy has in the government, but by now it should be immediately obvious to anyone who pays attention to current events that what would be considered the aristocracy has gotten involved in politics to an unprecedented degree. This is not to say that rich people have themselves personally been elected to office, but they have more or less bought candidates wholesale. No other explanation is sufficient enough to justify why the current GOP senators are holding tax cuts we should put in place (those for middle-class Americans) hostage in exchange for tax cuts for people who not only do not need them, but will not use them to stimulate the economy (a fact we have known since the 1980s; specifically, Trickle-Down Economics).
Furthermore, the wealthiest Americans are not working for the society at large, but are merely manipulating the system in order to preserve themselves, often at the expense of the rest of the population. It would be naive to say that the wealthiest Americans really think that deregulation will help anyone else but them, because where they sit, no one else even exists. They are protected against the hardships of unemployment and even their own employees, who now possess little or no job security at all. Furthermore, the wealthiest Americans absolutely fail to recognize that the decisions they made during the previous two decades which plunged the nation--and the world--into a maelstrom of economic catastrophe warrant punishment.
Also of significance is the fact that most businesses in the United States pay no income tax. The NYTimes states that "Two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005, according to a report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress."3 And yet businesses are still outsourcing overseas. They do not contribute to the system. Critics say that higher taxes will force businesses to leave the United States, but it really doesn't matter, as they outsource even when they don't pay income taxes. I doubt arguments from nationalism could work on such people, as all they seem to care about is the profit margin. If I am again to use Social Contract Theory as the basis for my system, I would have to say that in order to stay, they should have to pay their share.
But that's just it: They don't care where they go as long as they don't have to pay, and for this society generally should feel the most profound disgust, but like anything else that isn't green and made of paper, that too means nothing.
Of course, none of this helps society. If they have to pay taxes, they will leave, but if they don't pay taxes, they aren't helping. And yet they are still able to gear the system to their own ends.
However, to characterize the aristocracy as a greedy class callous and even destructive toward democracy is unfair, but only slightly; there are a few wealthy Americans who understand that they must do something to help the rest of the nation, and here I give them special mention. But it is also true that they are a very small minority among this class. For every 1 Warren Buffett, there are about 10 Donald Trumps.
The extent to which the aristocracy should have to pay taxes should be determined mostly by the difference in spending cuts in order to reach a reasonable goal that would get us on track to regaining a significant surplus in the next 10-15 years, and by the extent of the damage done to the economy. I make no pretensions that the aristocracy should be severely punished not only for their responsibility for economic catastrophe, but also their willful impotence in fixing it.
All of the measures I have thus far provided restricting in military and science spending would be in place for a projected 10-15 years. Foreign aid programs would be restricted temporarily, but with scrupulous oversight, taking into consideration its effectiveness and the politics of the region, especially in the Middle East, where money intended for aid is returned to us in bullets.
This is not to say that I am comfortable with all of these measures. I deem science to be extremely essential to our society, and to see it be restricted in this way--even temporarily--is very painful. But it is something I would be willing to support if it meant the preservation of our superpower status in the future. We would also, of course, feel extreme pain as the subsidies given to oil are revoked. This is something I would also be willing to do. I would personally be willing to pay more for energy in the short term to gain cheaper energy later, and as well be assured that I would be contributing far less to the destruction of the environment. Furthermore, this short-term pain would lead to greater national independence in the future, as I have often said: We would no longer be so dependent--or at all dependent--on energy that poisons the environment and comes from people who want to kill us. By relinquishing oil for cleaner energy, our leverage on the international stage would be enormous, and no longer would we be drawn into conflagrations that are the indirect result of our consumption habits. Not only would we have almost nothing to do with the Middle East, but I dare say that our roles would be reversed: They would either depend upon us for foreign aid to even survive, or forced to become democratic as the despotic regimes failed to support themselves. If the former occurred, terrorism from the region would cease almost overnight.
As I am willing to give, the aristocracy and its representative party must also be willing to give. If the aristocracy is not able or willing to contribute to society, then I very much doubt that we would be at all successful--or at least to the degree that we desire.
1) http://www.prohealthlab.org/prohealth-lab-newsletter/newsletter-archive/141-us-healthcare-costs-rise-sharply
2) Friedman, Tom Hot, Flat, & Crowded Picador Press New York 2005
3) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/business/13tax.html
Why I Failed to Appreciate Music Appreciation
This essay has nothing to do with politics or religion, but rather it is something I decided to write in order to settle the matter once and for all.
Music Appreciation is the only class I took in college in which I saw no real value, not because I don't appreciate music, but rather the class went about teaching music in exactly the wrong way.
The class was too much stop-and-go. We would listen to pieces of classical music, being asked to experience some part of it--which is easy for me to do, because I like classical music--and then the teacher would press pause during or right before it was getting really good. More than even the greatest suspense novels or psychological thrillers, music depends upon the build-up.
Let me put this heinous crime in perspective. Imagine that one was listening to Opeth's "Dirge For November", or "Porcelain Heart", or even "To Bid You Farewell", and stopped immediately before the great crescendos in order to do something else for five minutes. That's like riding a roller coaster and having it stall right at the peak, immediately forfeiting all of the anticipation and tenseness that it took to get there.
No, you cannot regain the same involvement you had while you were listening before it was paused, because by the time the teacher was done talking, he had erased any recollection of what it was you were listening to in the first place. And worse--even worse--is that sometimes the teacher would have played a piece of music to demonstrate something, stop it right as we were getting into it, and then and move on to something else.
Not only that, but often we were listening in order to find some obscure instrument that, given the dismal audio system in the room, was drowned amongst the crowded symphony. Our full attention was paid to finding a few notes at the exclusion of everything else that was going on in the piece: We were listening to pieces of music and being told not to appreciate them in the fullest.
Furthermore, there was zero room for interpretation. Never did we listen to a piece in full and were asked to interpret it. There was hardly any writing beyond the notes we took and short answers on tests. In literature, by contrast, I may take a poem apart and investigate each line and word choice, and its style and rhythm, but the goal is always to put it back together again for interpretation. This never happened in Music Appreciation.
The class, when it comes to actually appreciating music, had entirely failed. I didn't care about the instruments in the class because I wasn't given a chance to adequately experience them.
The emphasis was upon memorization of the instruments and their functions, not the music itself. In fact, if it weren't for my affinity for classical music didn't exist before the class, I'm quite sure I wouldn't care for it afterward.
It was a class one would have expected to experience in high school, exploring a creative enterprise without any creative thinking on the part of the students themselves.
I hated Music Appreciation precisely because I appreciate music.
Dirge For November: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ipUGylvmo
Porcelain Heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CES-rze2m1s
To Bid You Farewell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2frjwvDQg5I
Music Appreciation is the only class I took in college in which I saw no real value, not because I don't appreciate music, but rather the class went about teaching music in exactly the wrong way.
The class was too much stop-and-go. We would listen to pieces of classical music, being asked to experience some part of it--which is easy for me to do, because I like classical music--and then the teacher would press pause during or right before it was getting really good. More than even the greatest suspense novels or psychological thrillers, music depends upon the build-up.
Let me put this heinous crime in perspective. Imagine that one was listening to Opeth's "Dirge For November", or "Porcelain Heart", or even "To Bid You Farewell", and stopped immediately before the great crescendos in order to do something else for five minutes. That's like riding a roller coaster and having it stall right at the peak, immediately forfeiting all of the anticipation and tenseness that it took to get there.
No, you cannot regain the same involvement you had while you were listening before it was paused, because by the time the teacher was done talking, he had erased any recollection of what it was you were listening to in the first place. And worse--even worse--is that sometimes the teacher would have played a piece of music to demonstrate something, stop it right as we were getting into it, and then and move on to something else.
Not only that, but often we were listening in order to find some obscure instrument that, given the dismal audio system in the room, was drowned amongst the crowded symphony. Our full attention was paid to finding a few notes at the exclusion of everything else that was going on in the piece: We were listening to pieces of music and being told not to appreciate them in the fullest.
Furthermore, there was zero room for interpretation. Never did we listen to a piece in full and were asked to interpret it. There was hardly any writing beyond the notes we took and short answers on tests. In literature, by contrast, I may take a poem apart and investigate each line and word choice, and its style and rhythm, but the goal is always to put it back together again for interpretation. This never happened in Music Appreciation.
The class, when it comes to actually appreciating music, had entirely failed. I didn't care about the instruments in the class because I wasn't given a chance to adequately experience them.
The emphasis was upon memorization of the instruments and their functions, not the music itself. In fact, if it weren't for my affinity for classical music didn't exist before the class, I'm quite sure I wouldn't care for it afterward.
It was a class one would have expected to experience in high school, exploring a creative enterprise without any creative thinking on the part of the students themselves.
I hated Music Appreciation precisely because I appreciate music.
Dirge For November: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ipUGylvmo
Porcelain Heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CES-rze2m1s
To Bid You Farewell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2frjwvDQg5I
Monday, December 6, 2010
A Bit More On WikiLeaks
Usually when a government or other institution (such as the Catholic Church) is found with its pants down, its recourse is to deny any wrongdoing and go on about its business as if nothing happened.
But we clearly see, in the present case of WikiLeaks, that that is far from what is happening here. An article on Gawker.com details quite thoroughly the steps taken by government organizations to prevent their employees and military personnel not only from reading the cables themselves, but also reading news articles about them1.
This is actually the worst way to handle the situation, as such paranoid behaviors immediately arouse suspicion and preemptively implicate the paranoid parties in wrongdoing. That is to say that even though we do not fully know of the contents of the 250,000 cables (as only about 1400 of them have been put up online or published by various news organizations2), we can tell merely by the behavior of our government, that something is very wrong.
Furthermore, given what has been disclosed thus far, the behavior of our government is an overreaction and, again, its actions alone should arouse suspicion. But not everyone in our government is participating in this guilty conniption. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said, as shown on Meet the Press yesterday (12/5/10), that the leaks are thus far not as bad as everyone else thinks they are.
As I said yesterday, thus far nothing we did not know already, and nothing truly groundbreaking has been contained in these cables. The reaction of our government to the releases, and the contents within the cables themselves are wildly disproportionate, which could only mean that WikiLeaks does have something of tremendous value.
The interesting thing to note in this conflict is that our government not only has no leverage in the argument, but by embracing censorship among its employees and going after Assange in such a public way only makes it more critical for Assange to act again. In fact, it's as if our government is begging him to further humiliate it.
I am willing to bet that further on down the line in this conflict we are going to learn one or two things we didn't know before.
1) http://gawker.com/5705639/us-military-in-iraq-tries-to-intimidate-soldiers-into-not-reading-wikileaks
2) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/world/europe/07assange.html?hp
But we clearly see, in the present case of WikiLeaks, that that is far from what is happening here. An article on Gawker.com details quite thoroughly the steps taken by government organizations to prevent their employees and military personnel not only from reading the cables themselves, but also reading news articles about them1.
This is actually the worst way to handle the situation, as such paranoid behaviors immediately arouse suspicion and preemptively implicate the paranoid parties in wrongdoing. That is to say that even though we do not fully know of the contents of the 250,000 cables (as only about 1400 of them have been put up online or published by various news organizations2), we can tell merely by the behavior of our government, that something is very wrong.
Furthermore, given what has been disclosed thus far, the behavior of our government is an overreaction and, again, its actions alone should arouse suspicion. But not everyone in our government is participating in this guilty conniption. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said, as shown on Meet the Press yesterday (12/5/10), that the leaks are thus far not as bad as everyone else thinks they are.
As I said yesterday, thus far nothing we did not know already, and nothing truly groundbreaking has been contained in these cables. The reaction of our government to the releases, and the contents within the cables themselves are wildly disproportionate, which could only mean that WikiLeaks does have something of tremendous value.
The interesting thing to note in this conflict is that our government not only has no leverage in the argument, but by embracing censorship among its employees and going after Assange in such a public way only makes it more critical for Assange to act again. In fact, it's as if our government is begging him to further humiliate it.
I am willing to bet that further on down the line in this conflict we are going to learn one or two things we didn't know before.
1) http://gawker.com/5705639/us-military-in-iraq-tries-to-intimidate-soldiers-into-not-reading-wikileaks
2) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/world/europe/07assange.html?hp
Sunday, December 5, 2010
WikiLeaks and American Hypocrisy
Over the past several weeks, we have experienced a very troubling political phenomenon. Following the release of several hundred thousand documents by WikiLeaks detailing the secret opinions of diplomats, our mainstream press--on whom we depend to be the first line of defense against encroachments against our liberty by the government--as well as the Tea Party--who like to paint themselves as the guardians of freedom even as they trample it beneath their steel-toed boots--have called for the dissolution of the organization and even the arrest of its head, Julian Assange.
To my knowledge, these documents have not revealed anything truly ground-breaking or severe, nor anything we did not already know, but the attack WikiLeaks faces for performing such a valuable service is terrifying and telling.
The grand hypocrisy, furthermore, is telling. America enjoys lambasting the Great Firewalls of China and Australia, but when push comes to shove, it is weak and gelatinous. The Swedish government, moreover, has pursued a charge of rape because of how uncomfortable WikiLeaks makes it in order to get the website shut down and Mr Assange out of trouble.
A government's primary interest may be to preserve itself, but we expect that. What we do not expect is that a public which prides itself upon its freedoms to fold so easily upon the will of its government. Alexis de Tocqueville observed in his magnum opus, "I know of no country where there is generally less independence of thought and real freedom of debate than in America"1.
What right, then, do we have to call ourselves free and democratic if we tolerate the annihilation of a tremendous service to democracy? We fail to realize that were something to happen; were our government or any other to further pursue this line of fearmongering and thought control, that this kind of service may spark the salvation of a nation from the jaws of totalitarianism2.
Furthermore, I must express my profound disappointment in the Obama administration over this issue. Where Obama has pledged a more transparent government, the reaction of his administration to this issue is backtracking at its most intolerable.
But far more effective than Hillary Clinton's investigation into the leak, or any other government attempt to stifle dissent is the invertebrate nature of many of our corporations that fold at the slightest threat by the lowest common denominator. As Viacom folded when RevolutionMuslim threatened the creators of South Park, so has Amazon--which hosted some of the documents released by WikiLeaks--folded after a mere phone call with Senator Joe Lieberman3.
Our democracy--and democracy itself worldwide--is threatened from all sides over this issue, from so-called democrats and authoritarians alike. The answer is not to be afraid, but to proudly exercise the First Amendment in the face of such adversity.
I do realize that certain information could cost lives, but the scope of such a category of information is actually quite limited. Names of secret agents, miltary unit locations, and nuclear power plant blueprints fall under this category. But also the existence of such a service and the release of other important information, such as regarding Abu Ghraib and other transgressions by a government against its laws and people far outweigh in my view the possibility of lives lost. In such instances, a few lives may be spared, but a whole nation subjugated.
1) Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America p. 297
2) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/04/state-department-to-colum_n_792059.html
I HIGHLY recommend you read this article, and pay special attention to the notification given to Colombia University students.
3) http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/03/the_net_s_soft_underbelly
To my knowledge, these documents have not revealed anything truly ground-breaking or severe, nor anything we did not already know, but the attack WikiLeaks faces for performing such a valuable service is terrifying and telling.
The grand hypocrisy, furthermore, is telling. America enjoys lambasting the Great Firewalls of China and Australia, but when push comes to shove, it is weak and gelatinous. The Swedish government, moreover, has pursued a charge of rape because of how uncomfortable WikiLeaks makes it in order to get the website shut down and Mr Assange out of trouble.
A government's primary interest may be to preserve itself, but we expect that. What we do not expect is that a public which prides itself upon its freedoms to fold so easily upon the will of its government. Alexis de Tocqueville observed in his magnum opus, "I know of no country where there is generally less independence of thought and real freedom of debate than in America"1.
What right, then, do we have to call ourselves free and democratic if we tolerate the annihilation of a tremendous service to democracy? We fail to realize that were something to happen; were our government or any other to further pursue this line of fearmongering and thought control, that this kind of service may spark the salvation of a nation from the jaws of totalitarianism2.
Furthermore, I must express my profound disappointment in the Obama administration over this issue. Where Obama has pledged a more transparent government, the reaction of his administration to this issue is backtracking at its most intolerable.
But far more effective than Hillary Clinton's investigation into the leak, or any other government attempt to stifle dissent is the invertebrate nature of many of our corporations that fold at the slightest threat by the lowest common denominator. As Viacom folded when RevolutionMuslim threatened the creators of South Park, so has Amazon--which hosted some of the documents released by WikiLeaks--folded after a mere phone call with Senator Joe Lieberman3.
Our democracy--and democracy itself worldwide--is threatened from all sides over this issue, from so-called democrats and authoritarians alike. The answer is not to be afraid, but to proudly exercise the First Amendment in the face of such adversity.
I do realize that certain information could cost lives, but the scope of such a category of information is actually quite limited. Names of secret agents, miltary unit locations, and nuclear power plant blueprints fall under this category. But also the existence of such a service and the release of other important information, such as regarding Abu Ghraib and other transgressions by a government against its laws and people far outweigh in my view the possibility of lives lost. In such instances, a few lives may be spared, but a whole nation subjugated.
1) Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America p. 297
2) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/04/state-department-to-colum_n_792059.html
I HIGHLY recommend you read this article, and pay special attention to the notification given to Colombia University students.
3) http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/03/the_net_s_soft_underbelly
Saturday, December 4, 2010
I'm Supposed to Be the Gold Standard?
I read an article on Alter.Net a few weeks ago detailing a phenomenon I have not yet encountered. Apparently, religious people are now asking for some Atheist Seal of Approval for their beliefs:
"Typically, these believers acknowledge that many religions are profoundly troubling. They share atheists' revulsion against religious hatreds and sectarian wars. They share our repugnance with religious fraud, the charlatans who abuse people's trust to swindle them out of money and sex and more. They share our disgust with willful religious ignorance, the flat denials of overwhelming scientific evidence that contradicts people's beliefs. They can totally see why many atheists are so incredulous, even outraged, about the world of religion."1
But none of this gives any real justification for why you should need me to tell you whether your beliefs are good or bad, because it takes no special ability to judge for one's self the consequences of his or her beliefs. The consequences of a given belief are the best criteria upon which to pass judgment upon said belief--such as those of a religious nature--when it cannot be proven true or false.
We can easily see that that corporeal Jesus was far less judgmental and genocidal than the Jesus found in Revelation; we know that the literalist interpretation of the End Times could pave the way to global nuclear holocaust; and we know that to take the laws of ancient Israel literally and seek to apply them today would lead to widespread and wanton violence. It takes no special ability to consider what would happen if those beliefs were held by a majority of people. If in doubt, I would tell you to choose a utilitarian position: Believe that which would bring the greatest tangible aid to the greatest number of people without trying to change them.
Beyond that fact, I have absolutely no interest in telling you what to believe. I do enjoy arguing pro or contra, but beyond my abilities of persuasion, your beliefs are yours alone, and mine, mine alone.
As a secondary point, the American Atheists organization erected a billboard in New Jersey which displays a silhouette of the nativity scene with the caption: "You KNOW it's a myth... This season, celebrate REASON!"2
I actually don't care for this billboard. I don't think there is anything to gain by converting people to atheism. That should not be the goal. Being religious or not being religious is not so important for solving the world's problems as sharing the same values, even if we take different routes to justify them.
Far more important to ask for, and much more difficult to place on a billboard, is respect for science, education, democracy, and human life. The final item is practically a given, and through it, often the other three follow. It is extremely possible not only for the religious to support all four of these ideas (see Evolution Sunday), but also for atheists not to support them.
Beyond all of the implications for society and its future, there is something that's often missed when atheists decry religion. Do we not as well enjoy the fantastic? Sure, stories of burning bushes and global floods, of talking animals, and acts of supernatural heroism may not to us be factual, but are they not beautiful? Does the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars need to be factual in order for us to appreciate them? Sure there are times when we like to see a movie and say "That's totally fake. Look, you can see where they used CGI," but there are also times when we don't particularly care. Pan's Labyrinth is one of my favorite films, and even though I could not say that it is true, I still appreciate it.
But on the other hand, there lies a similar problem when one is preoccupied entirely with a holy text being literally true. This is a problem widespread among fundamentalists, where they are so preoccupied with whether or not the Creation story is literally true that they miss the beauty of it. Whether there really was a Sodom or a Gomorrah is far less important than why God wanted to destroy them--or more important still--that Abraham argued with God, pleading with him to not do it. The ability to even ask "What does The Bible/The Koran say about X?" is thus lost because as with any story, there are good and bad elements, and the goal is to discern which is which, an ability that, if one tries to say that all of it is literally true, is entirely lost.
It's funny. People like to say that atheists are as bad as fundamentalists, and here I've just demonstrated how true it often is. But not all of us, mind you.
1) http://www.alternet.org/story/148984/why_religious_believers_are_so_desperate_for_the_atheist_seal_of_approval/?page=1
2) http://www.examiner.com/essex-county-conservative-in-newark/american-atheists-billboard-provoking-hot-responses-nj-and-ny
"Typically, these believers acknowledge that many religions are profoundly troubling. They share atheists' revulsion against religious hatreds and sectarian wars. They share our repugnance with religious fraud, the charlatans who abuse people's trust to swindle them out of money and sex and more. They share our disgust with willful religious ignorance, the flat denials of overwhelming scientific evidence that contradicts people's beliefs. They can totally see why many atheists are so incredulous, even outraged, about the world of religion."1
But none of this gives any real justification for why you should need me to tell you whether your beliefs are good or bad, because it takes no special ability to judge for one's self the consequences of his or her beliefs. The consequences of a given belief are the best criteria upon which to pass judgment upon said belief--such as those of a religious nature--when it cannot be proven true or false.
We can easily see that that corporeal Jesus was far less judgmental and genocidal than the Jesus found in Revelation; we know that the literalist interpretation of the End Times could pave the way to global nuclear holocaust; and we know that to take the laws of ancient Israel literally and seek to apply them today would lead to widespread and wanton violence. It takes no special ability to consider what would happen if those beliefs were held by a majority of people. If in doubt, I would tell you to choose a utilitarian position: Believe that which would bring the greatest tangible aid to the greatest number of people without trying to change them.
Beyond that fact, I have absolutely no interest in telling you what to believe. I do enjoy arguing pro or contra, but beyond my abilities of persuasion, your beliefs are yours alone, and mine, mine alone.
As a secondary point, the American Atheists organization erected a billboard in New Jersey which displays a silhouette of the nativity scene with the caption: "You KNOW it's a myth... This season, celebrate REASON!"2
I actually don't care for this billboard. I don't think there is anything to gain by converting people to atheism. That should not be the goal. Being religious or not being religious is not so important for solving the world's problems as sharing the same values, even if we take different routes to justify them.
Far more important to ask for, and much more difficult to place on a billboard, is respect for science, education, democracy, and human life. The final item is practically a given, and through it, often the other three follow. It is extremely possible not only for the religious to support all four of these ideas (see Evolution Sunday), but also for atheists not to support them.
Beyond all of the implications for society and its future, there is something that's often missed when atheists decry religion. Do we not as well enjoy the fantastic? Sure, stories of burning bushes and global floods, of talking animals, and acts of supernatural heroism may not to us be factual, but are they not beautiful? Does the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars need to be factual in order for us to appreciate them? Sure there are times when we like to see a movie and say "That's totally fake. Look, you can see where they used CGI," but there are also times when we don't particularly care. Pan's Labyrinth is one of my favorite films, and even though I could not say that it is true, I still appreciate it.
But on the other hand, there lies a similar problem when one is preoccupied entirely with a holy text being literally true. This is a problem widespread among fundamentalists, where they are so preoccupied with whether or not the Creation story is literally true that they miss the beauty of it. Whether there really was a Sodom or a Gomorrah is far less important than why God wanted to destroy them--or more important still--that Abraham argued with God, pleading with him to not do it. The ability to even ask "What does The Bible/The Koran say about X?" is thus lost because as with any story, there are good and bad elements, and the goal is to discern which is which, an ability that, if one tries to say that all of it is literally true, is entirely lost.
It's funny. People like to say that atheists are as bad as fundamentalists, and here I've just demonstrated how true it often is. But not all of us, mind you.
1) http://www.alternet.org/story/148984/why_religious_believers_are_so_desperate_for_the_atheist_seal_of_approval/?page=1
2) http://www.examiner.com/essex-county-conservative-in-newark/american-atheists-billboard-provoking-hot-responses-nj-and-ny
Thursday, November 18, 2010
An Atheist Reads Theology...?
In response to my essay on The Book of Job, my father's pastor suggested I read Walter Brueggemann's An Unsettling God: The Heart of the Hebrew Bible. I blazed through its 176 pages in fascination and amazement. While not having been converted, I had been exposed to an extremely important facet of the Judeo-Christian god's personality that has been utterly forgotten by Christianity.
Brueggemann writes, "Israel is clear, moreover, that such angry and insistent protests addressed to YHWH are not acts of unfaith, as they are often thought to be in quietistic Christian piety, but are a vigorous act of freedom and responsibility." (Forgive me, I have since given this book to my father's pastor, and thus I do not have the page numbers). Wow. This actually vindicates what I said about Job and his friends, and helps to understand why God responded to Eliphaz in the end as he did*. Also, it is worth pointing out that that as Abraham and God are venturing to Sodom with the intention of nuking it, Abraham pleads multiple times that if there are but fifty righteous people to be found there, would God spare it [Gen 16:22-32]?
Of course, it is true that this is not the only interesting thing to be found in Bueggemann's book, but to me it is the most pressing because of how profound it is juxtaposed with how most Christians look at God and themselves.
The question to which I am drawn after reading this book is how could such an important thing be forgotten? There is an enormous discrepancy between the woman who told me that Job shouldn't complain, and Brueggemann's work. There are a multitude of possible factors, and I will try to clarify some of the directions I'm considering as I ponder this question.
The first thing I considered was the rise of the Catholic Church, but as immediately obvious this answer is (such a profoundly democratic view jettisoned in favor of absolute conformity and the pursuit of consolidated political power), we must also consider the fact that this idea did not resurface during the Reformation. It could be argued that in the beginning, the denominations that arose immediately out of the Reformation were as totalitarian and stifling as the Catholic Church itself.
The second answer is Christian anti-Semitism, and this makes as much sense as it does for Christians to be anti-Semitic in the first place. But a few steps down from that is indifference: An utter lack of communication between Christians and Jews, which is kind of funny, in a terribly dark and misanthropic way. The problem is--and Brueggemann touches upon this himself in the book--that Jews don't read Christian theology. I wonder if Christians read Jewish theology--oh wait I know they don't or this problem wouldn't exist. Christians tend to take the New Testament for granted, and read the OT in the context of the NT, which really doesn't make much sense from a literary standpoint, as it was written long before Jesus.
The truth is, God is not the evil tyrant fundamentalists and atheists make him out to be, and human beings are not helpless ants in his gaze. It's quite sad to see that most Christians do behave as Job's friends behave, and it's quite interesting that that kind of complacency is boring even to God. If Brueggemann is to be believed, God wants us to challenge him as much as he challenges us.
While Brueggemann failed to convert me (as Dostoevsky did before him), I find this engagement extremely valuable. While my own philosophy was often shafted in the book (due to the author's own disposition, which was to be expected because I am not his immediate audience), he certainly said some things I could get behind, even as an atheist; supporting such things as egalitarianism and environmentalism. After reading this book, I think it is absolutely possible for our two camps to cooperate, in spite of our differences on The Big Question.
Before I end this essay, there is one other thing that Brueggemann pointed out that I find a bit startling: "That is, YHWH did not create the world where there was nothing. rather YHWH so ordered the 'preexistent material substratum,' which was wild, disordered, destructive, and chaotic, to make possible an ordered, reliable place of peacableness and viability." This is a big deal. A lot of Christians, at least in my experience (because I pay so much attention to cases like Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District and the idiocy in the Creationism/Evolution conflict), the religious often simply say that God created matter, when this is not the case. The point I'm trying to make is that neither religion nor science has yet solved the problem of the appearance of matter. In fact, the way the story goes is very much in line with what we know about the formation of planets, and especially the formation of the Earth into a habitable environment.
Above, I stated that Bruegemann had failed to convert me. Based upon my previous essay ("Why I Could Never Be Religious Again"), he should have assuaged some of my points--which he had--and I should be a believer. But there is one major hitch, which was hidden in my deconstruction of Pascal's Wager: The Bible is a book. There is nothing in it or outside of it that leads me to believe that God actually exists, nor do I see any compelling evidence in my daily life or in my studies of politics, philosophy, science, or history that leads me to believe that this god or any other actually exists. But this is absolutely not to say that I do not like these gods. Simply because I do not believe that they exist does not eliminate my respect or appreciation for them. I would say that it is for the same reason that we still turn to Greek mythology. I am simply reading The Bible in the same way, and this may actually bring forth better understanding and appreciation than the other interpretations of The Bible I have encountered.
*God had said to Eliphaz, "My anger is kindled against you, for you have not spoken of me as Job has done".
Brueggemann writes, "Israel is clear, moreover, that such angry and insistent protests addressed to YHWH are not acts of unfaith, as they are often thought to be in quietistic Christian piety, but are a vigorous act of freedom and responsibility." (Forgive me, I have since given this book to my father's pastor, and thus I do not have the page numbers). Wow. This actually vindicates what I said about Job and his friends, and helps to understand why God responded to Eliphaz in the end as he did*. Also, it is worth pointing out that that as Abraham and God are venturing to Sodom with the intention of nuking it, Abraham pleads multiple times that if there are but fifty righteous people to be found there, would God spare it [Gen 16:22-32]?
Of course, it is true that this is not the only interesting thing to be found in Bueggemann's book, but to me it is the most pressing because of how profound it is juxtaposed with how most Christians look at God and themselves.
The question to which I am drawn after reading this book is how could such an important thing be forgotten? There is an enormous discrepancy between the woman who told me that Job shouldn't complain, and Brueggemann's work. There are a multitude of possible factors, and I will try to clarify some of the directions I'm considering as I ponder this question.
The first thing I considered was the rise of the Catholic Church, but as immediately obvious this answer is (such a profoundly democratic view jettisoned in favor of absolute conformity and the pursuit of consolidated political power), we must also consider the fact that this idea did not resurface during the Reformation. It could be argued that in the beginning, the denominations that arose immediately out of the Reformation were as totalitarian and stifling as the Catholic Church itself.
The second answer is Christian anti-Semitism, and this makes as much sense as it does for Christians to be anti-Semitic in the first place. But a few steps down from that is indifference: An utter lack of communication between Christians and Jews, which is kind of funny, in a terribly dark and misanthropic way. The problem is--and Brueggemann touches upon this himself in the book--that Jews don't read Christian theology. I wonder if Christians read Jewish theology--oh wait I know they don't or this problem wouldn't exist. Christians tend to take the New Testament for granted, and read the OT in the context of the NT, which really doesn't make much sense from a literary standpoint, as it was written long before Jesus.
The truth is, God is not the evil tyrant fundamentalists and atheists make him out to be, and human beings are not helpless ants in his gaze. It's quite sad to see that most Christians do behave as Job's friends behave, and it's quite interesting that that kind of complacency is boring even to God. If Brueggemann is to be believed, God wants us to challenge him as much as he challenges us.
While Brueggemann failed to convert me (as Dostoevsky did before him), I find this engagement extremely valuable. While my own philosophy was often shafted in the book (due to the author's own disposition, which was to be expected because I am not his immediate audience), he certainly said some things I could get behind, even as an atheist; supporting such things as egalitarianism and environmentalism. After reading this book, I think it is absolutely possible for our two camps to cooperate, in spite of our differences on The Big Question.
Before I end this essay, there is one other thing that Brueggemann pointed out that I find a bit startling: "That is, YHWH did not create the world where there was nothing. rather YHWH so ordered the 'preexistent material substratum,' which was wild, disordered, destructive, and chaotic, to make possible an ordered, reliable place of peacableness and viability." This is a big deal. A lot of Christians, at least in my experience (because I pay so much attention to cases like Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District and the idiocy in the Creationism/Evolution conflict), the religious often simply say that God created matter, when this is not the case. The point I'm trying to make is that neither religion nor science has yet solved the problem of the appearance of matter. In fact, the way the story goes is very much in line with what we know about the formation of planets, and especially the formation of the Earth into a habitable environment.
Above, I stated that Bruegemann had failed to convert me. Based upon my previous essay ("Why I Could Never Be Religious Again"), he should have assuaged some of my points--which he had--and I should be a believer. But there is one major hitch, which was hidden in my deconstruction of Pascal's Wager: The Bible is a book. There is nothing in it or outside of it that leads me to believe that God actually exists, nor do I see any compelling evidence in my daily life or in my studies of politics, philosophy, science, or history that leads me to believe that this god or any other actually exists. But this is absolutely not to say that I do not like these gods. Simply because I do not believe that they exist does not eliminate my respect or appreciation for them. I would say that it is for the same reason that we still turn to Greek mythology. I am simply reading The Bible in the same way, and this may actually bring forth better understanding and appreciation than the other interpretations of The Bible I have encountered.
*God had said to Eliphaz, "My anger is kindled against you, for you have not spoken of me as Job has done".
Sunday, October 31, 2010
The Fate of the Tea Party: Black Comedy At Its Finest
November 2nd, 2010: The day when America's dreams for the future after W Bush get flushed down the toilet, and all of our current problems are greatly exacerbated by GOP freshmen1.
But there is, of course, something darkly comical about this election cycle since the 2008 presidential election. The fate of the Tea Party, according to Frank Rich this week, will be a fitting and hilarious one2.
Everything will go sour for us as Americans, but it will be exponentially worse for the Tea Party, because of their gross lack of foresight.
Rich says, "What the Tea Party ostensibly wants most — less government spending and smaller federal deficits — is not remotely happening on the country club G.O.P.’s watch. The elites have no serious plans to cut anything except taxes and regulation of their favored industries. The party’s principal 2010 campaign document, its “Pledge to America,” doesn’t vow to cut even earmarks — which barely amount to a rounding error in the federal budget anyway. Boehner has also proposed a return to pre-crash 2008 levels in “nonsecurity” discretionary spending — another mere bagatelle ($105 billion) next to the current $1.3 trillion deficit. And that won’t be happening either, once the actual cuts in departments like Education, Transportation and Interior are specified to their constituencies."
All of those charges by the "Librul Elite" of astroturfing when this mess started were absolutely correct, and we saw it, with Dick Armey's FreedomWorks Tea Party tours, Sarah Palin's $100k booking fees, and the relentless promotion of Fox News all point to one possible conclusion.
But this, I didn't even notice it, even though it was entirely obvious. The "Pledge to America" was so non-specific that even my father, a life-long Republican, was embarrassed. All this time, the Tea Party presented not a single concrete policy.
They thought Obama was going too far, so they decided to elect people--who were, quite honestly, among the most uneducated and terrifying people I have ever seen run for any kind of public office--to change that. I've already covered why this doesn't work, but Sarah Palin's devout followers failed to see the trap right in front of them. And now they've just walked right into it, ruining everything not just for the rest of us, but even worse for themselves, too.
It is worse for them by virtue of the fact that they are responsible. When Mitch McConnell states that his only goal is to ruin Obama regardless of public policy, it should make people think twice before voting for him and people like him (those who want power the most are those who should be kept as far away from it as possible), but for the Tea Party? Obama's a Nazi! Obama's a Communist! Obama's a Muslim! Obama hates white people! Nothing is more important than destroying Obama, even at the expense of America's very future.
The question is, when the conclusion to this narrative is so obvious, will they be able to see it? This is a crucial question because we've already seen how they were able to whitewash Bush's presidency to an amazing degree, and being that our political memory capacity is only about a year and a half long, maybe less, Fox News will be able to manipulate Joe the Plumbers for a long time afterward. Hell, they even had a Marine Corps veteran advocating the dissolution of VA hospitals on the charge that they are socialistic institutions. The schism between reality and perception has become that wide. Forget bending your brain into a pretzel, their worldview has become an MC Escher painting.
I hate to play this card, as I fear it will devalue what I have to say, but I keep coming back to it into my mind. Fox News really is George Orwell's Ministry of Truth. More than even MSNBC (which I will admit is quite liberal*), Fox News is the most ideologically-dependent news organization in the United States. Nearly every single news anchor save one is conservative, and Fox News itself has admitted that it devotes an extremely small block to actual news. Everything else, it says, is opinion.
But my real point here is that Fox News is directly responsible for creating and promoting the Tea Party through Glenn Beck and the other hosts. Fox News gladly gave platform to candidates who, anywhere else, would not have had a chance in hell, and thus propelled them to undeserved stardom. Consider that very few other news organizations have ever had an opportunity to interview Christine O'Donnell, or that Sarah Palin's interview rounds stopped dead after her encounter with Katie Couric. Because everywhere else, these candidates are seen for who they really are. Rand Paul's interview with Rachel Maddow only served to suggest that he was either a racist, or that he was too extreme for his own good with his suggestion that he would not have voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act because of its provision preventing private businesses from discriminating against different people.
I charge that this entire scenario was created and promoted by Fox News for the express purpose of pushing the Republican party back into power undeserved by way of blatant manipulation of its viewers using fear tactics and false promises. I charge that Fox News is under direct subservience of the Republican Party by unstated allegiance, and to this end it has brought on board those who have been fired by more responsible news organizations after making irresponsible remarks for the expressed purpose of causing division and enmity among its viewers and the rest of the American population.
I thus charge that Fox News is directly responsible for the coming disaster because of how it conducts its programming in service of a political cause. This political cause serves obviously not the interests of its viewers, but the interest of the company. But now even its parent company is at odds with it, as Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is News Corps' largest shareholder, making it that much more difficult for Fox News to say just how evil those Muslims are. Our only hope is that these business politics continue to encroach upon Fox News' ideology and make such hypocrisy more and more uncomfortable to themselves.
But there is something else here, something perhaps worse than everything I have just described. Could it not be that Fox News has a vested interest in the success in Christine O'Donnell's victory, but that they present such people simply for the sake of sensationalism? Could it instead be that Fox News is so despicable that they would present or say just about anything to get attention, like Pat Robertson? That in pursuit of the Almighty Dollar, they would have scorched our political landscape by terrifying millions of people, jeopardized America's future, and presented the most terrible bigotry as virtue? To throw all of what it is to be a journalistic enterprise away simply for the sake of money. This, this is the most disgusting thing in the world. I would not dare say that this is a problem unique to Fox News, but I have never seen a more egregious example. Fox News is to politics what the RIAA is to music.
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
2) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/opinion/31rich.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general
* It's funny, because Meet the Press and The McLaughlin Group have some of the best conservative commentators available.
But there is, of course, something darkly comical about this election cycle since the 2008 presidential election. The fate of the Tea Party, according to Frank Rich this week, will be a fitting and hilarious one2.
Everything will go sour for us as Americans, but it will be exponentially worse for the Tea Party, because of their gross lack of foresight.
Rich says, "What the Tea Party ostensibly wants most — less government spending and smaller federal deficits — is not remotely happening on the country club G.O.P.’s watch. The elites have no serious plans to cut anything except taxes and regulation of their favored industries. The party’s principal 2010 campaign document, its “Pledge to America,” doesn’t vow to cut even earmarks — which barely amount to a rounding error in the federal budget anyway. Boehner has also proposed a return to pre-crash 2008 levels in “nonsecurity” discretionary spending — another mere bagatelle ($105 billion) next to the current $1.3 trillion deficit. And that won’t be happening either, once the actual cuts in departments like Education, Transportation and Interior are specified to their constituencies."
All of those charges by the "Librul Elite" of astroturfing when this mess started were absolutely correct, and we saw it, with Dick Armey's FreedomWorks Tea Party tours, Sarah Palin's $100k booking fees, and the relentless promotion of Fox News all point to one possible conclusion.
But this, I didn't even notice it, even though it was entirely obvious. The "Pledge to America" was so non-specific that even my father, a life-long Republican, was embarrassed. All this time, the Tea Party presented not a single concrete policy.
They thought Obama was going too far, so they decided to elect people--who were, quite honestly, among the most uneducated and terrifying people I have ever seen run for any kind of public office--to change that. I've already covered why this doesn't work, but Sarah Palin's devout followers failed to see the trap right in front of them. And now they've just walked right into it, ruining everything not just for the rest of us, but even worse for themselves, too.
It is worse for them by virtue of the fact that they are responsible. When Mitch McConnell states that his only goal is to ruin Obama regardless of public policy, it should make people think twice before voting for him and people like him (those who want power the most are those who should be kept as far away from it as possible), but for the Tea Party? Obama's a Nazi! Obama's a Communist! Obama's a Muslim! Obama hates white people! Nothing is more important than destroying Obama, even at the expense of America's very future.
The question is, when the conclusion to this narrative is so obvious, will they be able to see it? This is a crucial question because we've already seen how they were able to whitewash Bush's presidency to an amazing degree, and being that our political memory capacity is only about a year and a half long, maybe less, Fox News will be able to manipulate Joe the Plumbers for a long time afterward. Hell, they even had a Marine Corps veteran advocating the dissolution of VA hospitals on the charge that they are socialistic institutions. The schism between reality and perception has become that wide. Forget bending your brain into a pretzel, their worldview has become an MC Escher painting.
I hate to play this card, as I fear it will devalue what I have to say, but I keep coming back to it into my mind. Fox News really is George Orwell's Ministry of Truth. More than even MSNBC (which I will admit is quite liberal*), Fox News is the most ideologically-dependent news organization in the United States. Nearly every single news anchor save one is conservative, and Fox News itself has admitted that it devotes an extremely small block to actual news. Everything else, it says, is opinion.
But my real point here is that Fox News is directly responsible for creating and promoting the Tea Party through Glenn Beck and the other hosts. Fox News gladly gave platform to candidates who, anywhere else, would not have had a chance in hell, and thus propelled them to undeserved stardom. Consider that very few other news organizations have ever had an opportunity to interview Christine O'Donnell, or that Sarah Palin's interview rounds stopped dead after her encounter with Katie Couric. Because everywhere else, these candidates are seen for who they really are. Rand Paul's interview with Rachel Maddow only served to suggest that he was either a racist, or that he was too extreme for his own good with his suggestion that he would not have voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act because of its provision preventing private businesses from discriminating against different people.
I charge that this entire scenario was created and promoted by Fox News for the express purpose of pushing the Republican party back into power undeserved by way of blatant manipulation of its viewers using fear tactics and false promises. I charge that Fox News is under direct subservience of the Republican Party by unstated allegiance, and to this end it has brought on board those who have been fired by more responsible news organizations after making irresponsible remarks for the expressed purpose of causing division and enmity among its viewers and the rest of the American population.
I thus charge that Fox News is directly responsible for the coming disaster because of how it conducts its programming in service of a political cause. This political cause serves obviously not the interests of its viewers, but the interest of the company. But now even its parent company is at odds with it, as Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is News Corps' largest shareholder, making it that much more difficult for Fox News to say just how evil those Muslims are. Our only hope is that these business politics continue to encroach upon Fox News' ideology and make such hypocrisy more and more uncomfortable to themselves.
But there is something else here, something perhaps worse than everything I have just described. Could it not be that Fox News has a vested interest in the success in Christine O'Donnell's victory, but that they present such people simply for the sake of sensationalism? Could it instead be that Fox News is so despicable that they would present or say just about anything to get attention, like Pat Robertson? That in pursuit of the Almighty Dollar, they would have scorched our political landscape by terrifying millions of people, jeopardized America's future, and presented the most terrible bigotry as virtue? To throw all of what it is to be a journalistic enterprise away simply for the sake of money. This, this is the most disgusting thing in the world. I would not dare say that this is a problem unique to Fox News, but I have never seen a more egregious example. Fox News is to politics what the RIAA is to music.
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
2) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/opinion/31rich.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general
* It's funny, because Meet the Press and The McLaughlin Group have some of the best conservative commentators available.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Politics and Comedy
Today, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert faced off in an epic battle between reason and fear at the National Mall in their Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear).
Speculation is already brewing about the sobering turn that the rally took as Jon Stewart made his final remarks. Is he still a comedian, or a political pundit?
From a literary standpoint, most comedies and comedians were preoccupied with politics from the start, from Moliere's Tartuffe, which was a comedy of manners aimed at Christian fanaticism, to Oscar Wilde, who said, "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you."
Or Franz Kafka's The Trial and Metamorphosis, and other absurdist comedies (Nabokov also comes to mind). The Trial, however, is a mixed bag, because while it is very funny, I can't help but think that Kafka, through The Trial, inadvertently influenced the bureaucratic systems of the totalitarian regimes that arose after his death.
Who could also forget Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Or, The Children's Crusade; a hilarious and glaringly anti-war novel centered around the bombing of Dresden?
In fact, I would say that one of the the best ways to get one's message across is to make people laugh, because if they laugh, they've understood the point.
How could I omit South Park, the most obvious example of this idea? South Park uses the often ridiculous to make very, very strong political statements. The trick is to look past the profanity and immature humor and examine the big picture. Twice they've covered the Mohammed cartoon scandals, the state of our elections (Douche & Turd), activism (Whale Whores), and gang violence (Krazy Kripples), and bigotry (Ginger Kids).
To say that comedy and politics are entirely separate is to completely miss the point, and it displays nothing but an ignorance of our long literary history.
But Jon Stewart himself has always combined sober reason with biting satire. The only recourse to much of what he presents on his show is ridicule, often, however, in service of a larger point. The fact that for about ten minutes at the end of the rally he explained how we really are in contrast to the image of ourselves that is presented back to us by the 24/7 news cycle in a sober demonstration using traffic patterns as an example (traffic patterns are also one of my favorite examples) does not diminish his role as a comedian. I would argue that Stewart is the voice America would be wise to listen to right now in stark contrast to Fox News (which was not talking at all about the rally).
Colbert, for his part, did an excellent job in showing us the adversity we have manufactured and accepted. The puppet of him seems like Goliath or the Boogeyman, the fears we have used to divide and separate ourselves from one another, and all it takes is to simply refuse it.
I have done more than my share of trying to do this, but there is still more for me to do, but I still don't like fundamentalists, and I'm still not a fan of the Tea Party.
I would really like to see, at this point, someone try to paint Jon Stewart as a fearmongering anti-American charlatan and/or a bigot.
Speculation is already brewing about the sobering turn that the rally took as Jon Stewart made his final remarks. Is he still a comedian, or a political pundit?
From a literary standpoint, most comedies and comedians were preoccupied with politics from the start, from Moliere's Tartuffe, which was a comedy of manners aimed at Christian fanaticism, to Oscar Wilde, who said, "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you."
Or Franz Kafka's The Trial and Metamorphosis, and other absurdist comedies (Nabokov also comes to mind). The Trial, however, is a mixed bag, because while it is very funny, I can't help but think that Kafka, through The Trial, inadvertently influenced the bureaucratic systems of the totalitarian regimes that arose after his death.
Who could also forget Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Or, The Children's Crusade; a hilarious and glaringly anti-war novel centered around the bombing of Dresden?
In fact, I would say that one of the the best ways to get one's message across is to make people laugh, because if they laugh, they've understood the point.
How could I omit South Park, the most obvious example of this idea? South Park uses the often ridiculous to make very, very strong political statements. The trick is to look past the profanity and immature humor and examine the big picture. Twice they've covered the Mohammed cartoon scandals, the state of our elections (Douche & Turd), activism (Whale Whores), and gang violence (Krazy Kripples), and bigotry (Ginger Kids).
To say that comedy and politics are entirely separate is to completely miss the point, and it displays nothing but an ignorance of our long literary history.
But Jon Stewart himself has always combined sober reason with biting satire. The only recourse to much of what he presents on his show is ridicule, often, however, in service of a larger point. The fact that for about ten minutes at the end of the rally he explained how we really are in contrast to the image of ourselves that is presented back to us by the 24/7 news cycle in a sober demonstration using traffic patterns as an example (traffic patterns are also one of my favorite examples) does not diminish his role as a comedian. I would argue that Stewart is the voice America would be wise to listen to right now in stark contrast to Fox News (which was not talking at all about the rally).
Colbert, for his part, did an excellent job in showing us the adversity we have manufactured and accepted. The puppet of him seems like Goliath or the Boogeyman, the fears we have used to divide and separate ourselves from one another, and all it takes is to simply refuse it.
I have done more than my share of trying to do this, but there is still more for me to do, but I still don't like fundamentalists, and I'm still not a fan of the Tea Party.
I would really like to see, at this point, someone try to paint Jon Stewart as a fearmongering anti-American charlatan and/or a bigot.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
The Book of Job is the Best Book in the Bible
For quite a long time, I hated the Book of Job. "Why would a so-called 'Benevolent' god torment his most devout follower (or anyone, for that matter) for no reason?" But then I was thinking about it over the past few weeks, and last night, I decided to read it in its entirety, and I discovered that it was the most beautiful story in the whole book.
There are two sides to it, the key is in the beginning. Satan walks up to God, and God said, "Hey, check out Job. Isn't he awesome? He always praises me, and I make him rich."
"Well, wait a minute here," replies Satan. "What if he praises you because you make him rich?"
"Oh shit..."
"Let me play with him a while and see if he sins against you."
"Alright, but don't harm him."
So Job is out in his field, and a few of his servants come up to him, and tell him one after the other that his livestock has all died of disease, that his crops failed, and that his house has collapsed and killed his whole family. Job still does not complain, saying "God giveth, and God can taketh away."
"Hey Satan, check out Job! He still worships me, even though you acted against him on my behalf."
"Sure, but if I attack his health, he will curse you to your face."
"Very well, only spare his life."
Satan got to work, and Job was covered in sores, and fell into deep depression. No one in society respected him anymore, and all he had left were his three friends, who remind me of Socrates' sycophants.
This is the meat of the story, as there is a long dialogue between the tormented Job and his friends, who believe that God is punishing him for some unknown transgression. The story says that they stayed with him for a week, but to me it seems longer than that.
Reading Job's monologues as his agony gets worse is an extremely powerful experience. In truth, he sounds like Imago and Ivan Karamazov, and he tries to level with God, and beseeches Him to answer.
"Therefore I will not restrain my
mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of
my spirit;
I will complain in the
bitterness of my soul...[J7:11]
"What are human beings, that
you make so much of
them,
that you set your mind on them
visit them every morning,
test them every moment?
Will you not look away from me
for a while
let me alone while I swallow my spittle?
If I sin, what do I do to you, watcher of humanity?
Why have you made me your target?
Why have I become a burden to you? [J7:17-20]
Here's where it starts getting really good:
"Indeed I know that this is
so;
but how can a mortal be just before God?
If one wished to contend with
him,
one could not answer him once in a thousand...[J9:2-3]
"God will not turn back his anger...
How then could I answer him,
choosing my words with him?
Though I am innocent, I cannot
answer him;
I must appeal mercy to my accuser.
If I summoned him and he
answered me,
I do not believe he would listen to my voice.
For he crushed me with a
tempest,
and multiplied my wounds
without cause...
If it is a contest of strength, he is
the strong one!
If it is a matter of justice, who
can summon him? [J9:13-17, 19-20]"
Job then goes on to describe his existence for a while, and tell his friends that they are of no help to him, as they accuse him of some unknown transgression, and actually offer up the same garbage excuses that Christian fundamentalists like to say when something happens to somebody, "God punishes the wicked (you must have done something bad to deserve this)," "God works in mysterious ways," etc.
But then Job says something else. Job starts talking about how much evil goes unpunished, about how people wholly undeserving of success come into it and are never destroyed.
"Why do the wicked live on,
reach old age, and grow
mighty in power?
Their children are established in
their presence,
and their offspring before their
eyes.
Their houses are safe from fear,
and no rod of God is upon
them... [J217-9]
Job ends his case by saying,
"Oh, that I had one to hear me!
(Here is my signature! let the
Almighty answer me!)
Oh, that I had the indictment
written by my adversary!
Surely I would carry it on my
shoulder;
I would bind it on me like a
crown;
I would give him an account of
all my steps;
like a prince I would approach
him. [J31:35-37]"
God finally appears to Job as a whirlwind, but does not give him an honest reply by telling him his object. This is my only major complaint with the story, and probably will always be. God asks Job if he had ever done what God has done, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?" [J38-4], and if Job had ever killed a Behemoth, or tamed a Leviathan.
But that doesn't mean that God is necessarily angry with Job, because he actually chastises Job's friends; he says to Eliphaz, "My wrath is kindled against you and against your friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has done" [J42:7].
As much as God probably doesn't want to tell Job that his object was to test him, I think he does understand exactly where Job is coming from, as he finally restores Job's fortunes twofold.
I see two things in this story: Job's indignation (which I sympathize with), and God's resentment at the possibility that people can love him simply because they get something out of it (which I also sympathize with).
In fact, the latter case is what moved me to read Job in the first place, because a month ago, I had someone try to convert me simply because of all of the great things she said I would get out of it. I told this person, "I am not compelled to believe in something on the basis of reward or punishment."
I think its sad that people are greedy in their relationship with whatever god they happen to believe in. Wouldn't any kind of Divine Being see through that? What good would it be then, for them or It? It seems in my eyes to cheapen religious belief, if that is all it is for. After that dismal poll recently released by the Pew Research Center, its hard to imagine that for most people, God has any other purpose.
It's quite interesting, because I think The Bible is far more nuanced than most people would believe. Not all of it is so absolutist.
I just thought of something. Is Othello the Book of Job? HMMMMMMMMM.....
Othello: God
Iago: Satan
Desdemona: Job
Except that Othello ends up murdering Desdemona.
There are two sides to it, the key is in the beginning. Satan walks up to God, and God said, "Hey, check out Job. Isn't he awesome? He always praises me, and I make him rich."
"Well, wait a minute here," replies Satan. "What if he praises you because you make him rich?"
"Oh shit..."
"Let me play with him a while and see if he sins against you."
"Alright, but don't harm him."
So Job is out in his field, and a few of his servants come up to him, and tell him one after the other that his livestock has all died of disease, that his crops failed, and that his house has collapsed and killed his whole family. Job still does not complain, saying "God giveth, and God can taketh away."
"Hey Satan, check out Job! He still worships me, even though you acted against him on my behalf."
"Sure, but if I attack his health, he will curse you to your face."
"Very well, only spare his life."
Satan got to work, and Job was covered in sores, and fell into deep depression. No one in society respected him anymore, and all he had left were his three friends, who remind me of Socrates' sycophants.
This is the meat of the story, as there is a long dialogue between the tormented Job and his friends, who believe that God is punishing him for some unknown transgression. The story says that they stayed with him for a week, but to me it seems longer than that.
Reading Job's monologues as his agony gets worse is an extremely powerful experience. In truth, he sounds like Imago and Ivan Karamazov, and he tries to level with God, and beseeches Him to answer.
"Therefore I will not restrain my
mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of
my spirit;
I will complain in the
bitterness of my soul...[J7:11]
"What are human beings, that
you make so much of
them,
that you set your mind on them
visit them every morning,
test them every moment?
Will you not look away from me
for a while
let me alone while I swallow my spittle?
If I sin, what do I do to you, watcher of humanity?
Why have you made me your target?
Why have I become a burden to you? [J7:17-20]
Here's where it starts getting really good:
"Indeed I know that this is
so;
but how can a mortal be just before God?
If one wished to contend with
him,
one could not answer him once in a thousand...[J9:2-3]
"God will not turn back his anger...
How then could I answer him,
choosing my words with him?
Though I am innocent, I cannot
answer him;
I must appeal mercy to my accuser.
If I summoned him and he
answered me,
I do not believe he would listen to my voice.
For he crushed me with a
tempest,
and multiplied my wounds
without cause...
If it is a contest of strength, he is
the strong one!
If it is a matter of justice, who
can summon him? [J9:13-17, 19-20]"
Job then goes on to describe his existence for a while, and tell his friends that they are of no help to him, as they accuse him of some unknown transgression, and actually offer up the same garbage excuses that Christian fundamentalists like to say when something happens to somebody, "God punishes the wicked (you must have done something bad to deserve this)," "God works in mysterious ways," etc.
But then Job says something else. Job starts talking about how much evil goes unpunished, about how people wholly undeserving of success come into it and are never destroyed.
"Why do the wicked live on,
reach old age, and grow
mighty in power?
Their children are established in
their presence,
and their offspring before their
eyes.
Their houses are safe from fear,
and no rod of God is upon
them... [J217-9]
Job ends his case by saying,
"Oh, that I had one to hear me!
(Here is my signature! let the
Almighty answer me!)
Oh, that I had the indictment
written by my adversary!
Surely I would carry it on my
shoulder;
I would bind it on me like a
crown;
I would give him an account of
all my steps;
like a prince I would approach
him. [J31:35-37]"
God finally appears to Job as a whirlwind, but does not give him an honest reply by telling him his object. This is my only major complaint with the story, and probably will always be. God asks Job if he had ever done what God has done, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?" [J38-4], and if Job had ever killed a Behemoth, or tamed a Leviathan.
But that doesn't mean that God is necessarily angry with Job, because he actually chastises Job's friends; he says to Eliphaz, "My wrath is kindled against you and against your friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has done" [J42:7].
As much as God probably doesn't want to tell Job that his object was to test him, I think he does understand exactly where Job is coming from, as he finally restores Job's fortunes twofold.
I see two things in this story: Job's indignation (which I sympathize with), and God's resentment at the possibility that people can love him simply because they get something out of it (which I also sympathize with).
In fact, the latter case is what moved me to read Job in the first place, because a month ago, I had someone try to convert me simply because of all of the great things she said I would get out of it. I told this person, "I am not compelled to believe in something on the basis of reward or punishment."
I think its sad that people are greedy in their relationship with whatever god they happen to believe in. Wouldn't any kind of Divine Being see through that? What good would it be then, for them or It? It seems in my eyes to cheapen religious belief, if that is all it is for. After that dismal poll recently released by the Pew Research Center, its hard to imagine that for most people, God has any other purpose.
It's quite interesting, because I think The Bible is far more nuanced than most people would believe. Not all of it is so absolutist.
I just thought of something. Is Othello the Book of Job? HMMMMMMMMM.....
Othello: God
Iago: Satan
Desdemona: Job
Except that Othello ends up murdering Desdemona.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Bullies, or The Readily Apparent Impact of Religious Bigotry
In late September, four kids killed themselves because of the bullying they endured as a result of their sexual identity1. Seth Walsh, 13; Tyler Clementi, 18; Billy Lucas, 15; and Asher Brown, 13; all committed suicide because of the unfathomable torment they suffered in school. One of these scenarios, however, is more terrifying to me than the others.
I like to describe public school as a rat cage with an electrified floor: The rats have no escape from the shocks, and so they attack each other, desperate and blind with rage and terror. It is also the first time the kids will encounter people different from themselves, and they judge based upon their own egos, inflated by their parents' praise, or overcompensation for its absence.
Bullying begins early, and for the pettiest of reasons, because that's what children are.
But the problem isn't simply racism or sexism, or any kind of outmoded bigotry that the school system and greater community has a readiness to alleviate. The problem in these cases is that homophobia is still to a large extent institutionalized and propagated. Parents take their children to church, and their pastors beat Leviticus 18:22 into their heads.
There is no other rationale for homophobia. It is merely, much like many other instances of institutionalized prejudice in our society, religiously justified. The Mormons believed that Africans and African-Americans were the cursed decendents of Ham, and for women, we followed the advice of the Apostle Paul in I Timothy 2:8-15.
Leviticus 18:22 is the only mention of homosexuality in all of the Bible's 2000 pages, and we act as though it is the only verse that matters, and our children take this to heart. Our children go to school, and like their maladjusted parents, lash out at this difference because they see their parents doing it.
It is bad enough when bullying is perpetrated by children without their parents'--and society's--influence, but in this case, we are responsible as a society for the behavior of our children, not because of the media, but because of what we have expressed ever since Jerry Falwell began to run his mouth in the 80s.
The Christian conservatives may claim that they have "a right to believe that homosexuality is wrong," but when that view is passed on to their children, who lack the self-control of their parents (who also lack a degree of self-control), and harass and discriminate against their peers because of what they have been told to believe, I see a problem. If they believe in Leviticus 18:22 (the only verse in the entire OT they will ever follow), then they should take to heart Jesus' "Judge not lest ye be judged," "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and "Love thy neighbor as thyself," and most important for their role in society, John 18:36: "My Kingdom is not of this Earth."
No one is more disenfranchised as a result of society's errors than our children. They take what they are taught--even if only when it suits them--and apply it to their own lives. Leviticus 18:22 is probably the most easily-exploited verse in the entire Bible, and it is incredibly tragic that children as young as thirteen have taken to using it as a weapon against others, just like their parents.
Tyler Clementi, of the four cases, is in my mind the most terrifying. College was the greatest time of my life. I didn't think anyone could still care who or what one is enough to harass or discriminate against him or her. By the end of high school we were supposed to have grown up at least enough to get along with each other--and if we didn't, there is too much for us to do for us to bother anyone else. This is why I find Tyler Clementi's suicide so tragic, the product of a very sick and determined mind, to record him having sex and put it on the internet in order to destroy him.
Matthew Shepherd's murder did not deliver to us the full impact of what we are teaching our children, would these four suicides in the span of a month manage to sway us?
To me, and hopefully to my readers the consequences of belief--any belief--are readily apparent, and greatly influence what we choose to believe. But many people, such as the religious leaders whom their parents listen to, may be blind to the sea of blood that follows in the wake of their words.
What about the other children who endure this every day, and who are yet still alive? Can we save them from that terrible decision they shouldn't have to make? One of my good friends told me a story of her friend who came out as a homosexual and was pulled out of school by his parents. What will happen to him? Has he any recourse? Our children don't deserve this, and we can no longer afford to propagate this belief in our society.
The object of our education system is in part to make us more tolerant of one another, and we are failing miserably. I, unfortunately, have no solution beyond that of school psychologists and tolerance programs. Unfortunately, overriding the beliefs of the parents is difficult, if not impossible because many of these parents can simply choose to homeschool their kids if they disagree with what their children are being taught, defeating the purpose of education. This means we need to offer psychological counseling to the victim, and find him or her help in order to make their life at school and/or at home more tolerable.
That said, teachers, at least in my own experience, are hugely supportive, but it's not enough to counterbalance the overwhelming oppression that exists wherever those teachers do not, and they certainly do not help to find friends for the oppressed students, as they may be further ridiculed for being a "teacher's pet."
Do any of you have any solutions better or more specific than those I have presented?
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/us/04suicide.html
I like to describe public school as a rat cage with an electrified floor: The rats have no escape from the shocks, and so they attack each other, desperate and blind with rage and terror. It is also the first time the kids will encounter people different from themselves, and they judge based upon their own egos, inflated by their parents' praise, or overcompensation for its absence.
Bullying begins early, and for the pettiest of reasons, because that's what children are.
But the problem isn't simply racism or sexism, or any kind of outmoded bigotry that the school system and greater community has a readiness to alleviate. The problem in these cases is that homophobia is still to a large extent institutionalized and propagated. Parents take their children to church, and their pastors beat Leviticus 18:22 into their heads.
There is no other rationale for homophobia. It is merely, much like many other instances of institutionalized prejudice in our society, religiously justified. The Mormons believed that Africans and African-Americans were the cursed decendents of Ham, and for women, we followed the advice of the Apostle Paul in I Timothy 2:8-15.
Leviticus 18:22 is the only mention of homosexuality in all of the Bible's 2000 pages, and we act as though it is the only verse that matters, and our children take this to heart. Our children go to school, and like their maladjusted parents, lash out at this difference because they see their parents doing it.
It is bad enough when bullying is perpetrated by children without their parents'--and society's--influence, but in this case, we are responsible as a society for the behavior of our children, not because of the media, but because of what we have expressed ever since Jerry Falwell began to run his mouth in the 80s.
The Christian conservatives may claim that they have "a right to believe that homosexuality is wrong," but when that view is passed on to their children, who lack the self-control of their parents (who also lack a degree of self-control), and harass and discriminate against their peers because of what they have been told to believe, I see a problem. If they believe in Leviticus 18:22 (the only verse in the entire OT they will ever follow), then they should take to heart Jesus' "Judge not lest ye be judged," "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and "Love thy neighbor as thyself," and most important for their role in society, John 18:36: "My Kingdom is not of this Earth."
No one is more disenfranchised as a result of society's errors than our children. They take what they are taught--even if only when it suits them--and apply it to their own lives. Leviticus 18:22 is probably the most easily-exploited verse in the entire Bible, and it is incredibly tragic that children as young as thirteen have taken to using it as a weapon against others, just like their parents.
Tyler Clementi, of the four cases, is in my mind the most terrifying. College was the greatest time of my life. I didn't think anyone could still care who or what one is enough to harass or discriminate against him or her. By the end of high school we were supposed to have grown up at least enough to get along with each other--and if we didn't, there is too much for us to do for us to bother anyone else. This is why I find Tyler Clementi's suicide so tragic, the product of a very sick and determined mind, to record him having sex and put it on the internet in order to destroy him.
Matthew Shepherd's murder did not deliver to us the full impact of what we are teaching our children, would these four suicides in the span of a month manage to sway us?
To me, and hopefully to my readers the consequences of belief--any belief--are readily apparent, and greatly influence what we choose to believe. But many people, such as the religious leaders whom their parents listen to, may be blind to the sea of blood that follows in the wake of their words.
What about the other children who endure this every day, and who are yet still alive? Can we save them from that terrible decision they shouldn't have to make? One of my good friends told me a story of her friend who came out as a homosexual and was pulled out of school by his parents. What will happen to him? Has he any recourse? Our children don't deserve this, and we can no longer afford to propagate this belief in our society.
The object of our education system is in part to make us more tolerant of one another, and we are failing miserably. I, unfortunately, have no solution beyond that of school psychologists and tolerance programs. Unfortunately, overriding the beliefs of the parents is difficult, if not impossible because many of these parents can simply choose to homeschool their kids if they disagree with what their children are being taught, defeating the purpose of education. This means we need to offer psychological counseling to the victim, and find him or her help in order to make their life at school and/or at home more tolerable.
That said, teachers, at least in my own experience, are hugely supportive, but it's not enough to counterbalance the overwhelming oppression that exists wherever those teachers do not, and they certainly do not help to find friends for the oppressed students, as they may be further ridiculed for being a "teacher's pet."
Do any of you have any solutions better or more specific than those I have presented?
1) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/us/04suicide.html
Monday, September 13, 2010
List of Freeware PC Games I've Played Over the Past Year
As requested, here is the list of freeware PC games. None of these games have malware/spyware, nor will any of them otherwise screw with your computer.
1) Hero Core - http://www.remar.se/daniel/herocore.php
I finished this game last night in an hour and 23 minutes, but I didn't get everything in it. I would estimate that it should take 2 hours to get 100%. Despite the Atari graphics, this is an incredible Metroidvania game that sort of also plays like a space shooter. There's no blood, and no language. Totally worth downloading. Walkthrough unnecessary.
2) The Journey Down: Over the Edge - http://www.bigbluecup.com
/yabb/index.php?topic=41648.0
This game is rather short, and it must be played full-screen at a 320x200 resolution, because it's much too small to be played in a window. Despite that, the animation is beautiful, and the puzzles are decent, but it's otherwise no different from any other point-and-click game. It's still worth playing, though. Walkthrough required. Takes about 2 hours to complete.
3) The Yahtzee Quadrilogy - http://jayisgames.com/archives/2007/12/the_chzo_mythos.php
You know the stuck-up Australian dude who talks too fast when he reviews games on The Escapist? This is that guy. These are the very best freeware games I've ever played. WARNING: Intense pixellated violence.
The order is:
5 Days a Skeptic
7 Days a Stranger
Trilby's Notes
6 Days a Sacrifice
Each takes about an hour or 2 to complete. Also, a walkthrough is required.
4) The McCarthy Chronicles: Episode 1 - http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1243
This is second only to Yahtzee's work. It's absolutely amazing. There is even voice acting, and its surprisingly good! WARNING: Instense violence. Walkthrough required. This one takes maybe 2-3 hours to complete, if I remember correctly.
5) A Second Face - http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1115
This is a bizarre story of an archaic totalitarian regime. I kind of forget the point of it, but I remember it being really, really good. The voice acting is a little off though, so bear with it. It's also a bit longer than the previous games I've listed, maybe about 4-6 hours. WARNING: Nudity/sex. Walkthrough required.
6) The Marionette - http://themarionette.game-host.org/downloads.php
Unfortunately, I forget a lot about this game, but I remember enjoying it a lot. WARNING: Violence, disturbing themes. It should take about 2 hours to complete. Walkthrough required.
7) Cave Story - http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/
This game was released recently on the Wii, and so I played it on the computer for free. It's a Metroidvania game that can be intensely frustrating under its cutesy exterior. Every time you get hit, your weapon power gets reduced, and this can really SSSUUUCCCCCCKKKKKK. WARNING: Intensely frustrating. Accounting for the number of times you will die, I would estimate completion time at about 10 hours. Walkthrough recommended.
8) Ever Eternal Winter World 1 & 2 - http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=3737.0
I haven't finished either of these yet, so I can't say how long it should take you to finish them. They are much like Cave Story/Hero Core.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are many games I've downloaded but haven't started yet, and a few that I wouldn't really care to pass on. These should get you guys started though :D
1) Hero Core - http://www.remar.se/daniel/herocore.php
I finished this game last night in an hour and 23 minutes, but I didn't get everything in it. I would estimate that it should take 2 hours to get 100%. Despite the Atari graphics, this is an incredible Metroidvania game that sort of also plays like a space shooter. There's no blood, and no language. Totally worth downloading. Walkthrough unnecessary.
2) The Journey Down: Over the Edge - http://www.bigbluecup.com
/yabb/index.php?topic=41648.0
This game is rather short, and it must be played full-screen at a 320x200 resolution, because it's much too small to be played in a window. Despite that, the animation is beautiful, and the puzzles are decent, but it's otherwise no different from any other point-and-click game. It's still worth playing, though. Walkthrough required. Takes about 2 hours to complete.
3) The Yahtzee Quadrilogy - http://jayisgames.com/archives/2007/12/the_chzo_mythos.php
You know the stuck-up Australian dude who talks too fast when he reviews games on The Escapist? This is that guy. These are the very best freeware games I've ever played. WARNING: Intense pixellated violence.
The order is:
5 Days a Skeptic
7 Days a Stranger
Trilby's Notes
6 Days a Sacrifice
Each takes about an hour or 2 to complete. Also, a walkthrough is required.
4) The McCarthy Chronicles: Episode 1 - http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1243
This is second only to Yahtzee's work. It's absolutely amazing. There is even voice acting, and its surprisingly good! WARNING: Instense violence. Walkthrough required. This one takes maybe 2-3 hours to complete, if I remember correctly.
5) A Second Face - http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1115
This is a bizarre story of an archaic totalitarian regime. I kind of forget the point of it, but I remember it being really, really good. The voice acting is a little off though, so bear with it. It's also a bit longer than the previous games I've listed, maybe about 4-6 hours. WARNING: Nudity/sex. Walkthrough required.
6) The Marionette - http://themarionette.game-host.org/downloads.php
Unfortunately, I forget a lot about this game, but I remember enjoying it a lot. WARNING: Violence, disturbing themes. It should take about 2 hours to complete. Walkthrough required.
7) Cave Story - http://www.miraigamer.net/cavestory/
This game was released recently on the Wii, and so I played it on the computer for free. It's a Metroidvania game that can be intensely frustrating under its cutesy exterior. Every time you get hit, your weapon power gets reduced, and this can really SSSUUUCCCCCCKKKKKK. WARNING: Intensely frustrating. Accounting for the number of times you will die, I would estimate completion time at about 10 hours. Walkthrough recommended.
8) Ever Eternal Winter World 1 & 2 - http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?topic=3737.0
I haven't finished either of these yet, so I can't say how long it should take you to finish them. They are much like Cave Story/Hero Core.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are many games I've downloaded but haven't started yet, and a few that I wouldn't really care to pass on. These should get you guys started though :D
Saturday, September 11, 2010
September 11th, the Wound We Don't Want to Heal
It has been 9 years since 3,000 people were horrifically killed when two planes deliberately crashed into the WTC as the result of religious nihilism. Since that time, America behaved just as perhaps to be expected, much like a traumatized psychiatric patient, who makes bad decisions and hurts himself and others in order to protect himself from the pain. This person may engage in heavy drinking, drugs, and self-mutilation. America, just the same, retreated into bigotry and misguided policies, including wire-tapping, the abandonment of habeas corpus, and the preemptive invasion of another country.
For 9 years this pattern of irresponsible behavior continued. Like a drunkard, America proudly defends itself by defecating on everything it should hold dear. "Thish ish 'Merikuh, and we dun like yer kind, sho get outta mah countreh..." In response to WTC, we have only given more ammunition to those who would destroy us, and shown the rest of the world that sometimes we aren't so great.
We have been blinded by the pain and anger we were right to feel on that day, but we failed to understand--as bigots typically do--that what a few people do is not representative of an entire group of over a billion people. That is to say that there is more to Islam than political leaders in the Middle East would have us believe. Tragically, they are doing this to us--and themselves--deliberately.
It works in their favor if we hate them, it works in their favor if we appease the least among us and deny Imam Feisal Rauf his project, and it works in their favor if Terry Jones burns their book. It works because that is what they want. They are exactly like some of us, who emphasize what they perceive as dangerous differences and dreams of domination, who justify discrimination and fear. The more we are given reason to hate Islam, either by ourselves or the Wahhabis, the worse off everyone is. Paradoxically, immediately after Sept 11th, a large portion of the American population drove bigger and more gasoline-demanding vehicles. This, of course, fed right into their hands as we were essentially paying also for the other side of the wars we were waging. Is it American to fund both sides of a war, especially when one side of that war was none other than us?
Nine years later, and the wound is still festering. We are as resistant to tolerance as some of those in the Middle East. Why should we be afraid? Of what must we be afraid? Are we really afraid of some moron who shoves incendiary substances into his underwear, or some ignorant kid who leaves a blatantly suspicious vehicle in the busiest and most vigilant area of NYC, complete with a long paper trail so specific it takes law enforcement just two days to find him? I can only laugh!
But here's where our bigotry really begins to hurt us. In a Pew poll released last month, 18% of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim, and what's more than a little worse is that they believe that because they view both as alien1. Couple that with--if Soledad O'Brian is truly correct--the fact that 71% of Americans now believe that Imam Feisal Rauf's project is a bad idea. It is abundantly clear at this point that Imam Rauf is precisely the kind of person we should empower in order not only for us to present a better America to the Middle East, but also in order for us to learn more about Islam itself and begin to heal the wounds we suffered on 9/11.
I was a bigot once, and it took a full year in college for me to even begin to understand not only myself, but others as well, and it's only now that I've really engaged others in constructive dialogue, and just now understood to the point of deciding to do something I never before thought I could ever do in order to help someone else through the same thing. I cannot imagine how long it could possibly take for an entire nation to forgo its prejudices, even though it has repeatedly gone through the same cycle several times. Some sociologists say that every "new" group of immigrants goes through a phase where the Public (in Heidegger's terms) is immediately intolerant of them.
But Muslims have it perhaps more difficult than most groups, as, in the eyes of the Public, Muslims (or Islam itself) killed 3,000 people on American soil, and all America knows is the despotism and misanthropy of small-minded Middle Eastern leaders. What America likes to forget is that Christianity also is prone to exhibit the same kind of misanthropic and despotic charlatans who feed on the blood of their followers. Have we so soon forgotten Terry Jones?
"Hey! That's not fair! I thought you appreciated Christianity now!" I do, but it's true all the same. Here, I will repeat what I said in "A Mosque? In MY NYC!?" Is Terry Jones representative of all Christianity? No, he is absolutely not. So if we accept that Terry Jones for all intent and purpose has nothing to do with Jesus, what right does the public have to still believe that Osama bin Laden (and by extension the 9/11 hijackers), Hezbollah, Hamas, and Ayatollah Khomeini are representative of all Islam?
The point is, and this is also from that same essay, that Islam and Christianity (The Bible itself is often keen to describe the fate of "wicked prophets." See Micah 3:9-12) exhibit entirely equal amounts of beauty and depravity. If we are able to see beauty in Christianity, what could possibly prevent us from seeing beauty in Islam?
The only way we could ever heal this wound is for Imam Feisal to build his Islamic Cultural Center, though I doubt that anyone outside of his supporters and the Muslims who live in the area would ever visit. So I have just one question for Imam Feisal: How would you try to reach out to those 71% of Americans who do not want to heal September 11th, 2001?
1) http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/19/pew-poll-18-think-obama-is-a-muslim/
For 9 years this pattern of irresponsible behavior continued. Like a drunkard, America proudly defends itself by defecating on everything it should hold dear. "Thish ish 'Merikuh, and we dun like yer kind, sho get outta mah countreh..." In response to WTC, we have only given more ammunition to those who would destroy us, and shown the rest of the world that sometimes we aren't so great.
We have been blinded by the pain and anger we were right to feel on that day, but we failed to understand--as bigots typically do--that what a few people do is not representative of an entire group of over a billion people. That is to say that there is more to Islam than political leaders in the Middle East would have us believe. Tragically, they are doing this to us--and themselves--deliberately.
It works in their favor if we hate them, it works in their favor if we appease the least among us and deny Imam Feisal Rauf his project, and it works in their favor if Terry Jones burns their book. It works because that is what they want. They are exactly like some of us, who emphasize what they perceive as dangerous differences and dreams of domination, who justify discrimination and fear. The more we are given reason to hate Islam, either by ourselves or the Wahhabis, the worse off everyone is. Paradoxically, immediately after Sept 11th, a large portion of the American population drove bigger and more gasoline-demanding vehicles. This, of course, fed right into their hands as we were essentially paying also for the other side of the wars we were waging. Is it American to fund both sides of a war, especially when one side of that war was none other than us?
Nine years later, and the wound is still festering. We are as resistant to tolerance as some of those in the Middle East. Why should we be afraid? Of what must we be afraid? Are we really afraid of some moron who shoves incendiary substances into his underwear, or some ignorant kid who leaves a blatantly suspicious vehicle in the busiest and most vigilant area of NYC, complete with a long paper trail so specific it takes law enforcement just two days to find him? I can only laugh!
But here's where our bigotry really begins to hurt us. In a Pew poll released last month, 18% of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim, and what's more than a little worse is that they believe that because they view both as alien1. Couple that with--if Soledad O'Brian is truly correct--the fact that 71% of Americans now believe that Imam Feisal Rauf's project is a bad idea. It is abundantly clear at this point that Imam Rauf is precisely the kind of person we should empower in order not only for us to present a better America to the Middle East, but also in order for us to learn more about Islam itself and begin to heal the wounds we suffered on 9/11.
I was a bigot once, and it took a full year in college for me to even begin to understand not only myself, but others as well, and it's only now that I've really engaged others in constructive dialogue, and just now understood to the point of deciding to do something I never before thought I could ever do in order to help someone else through the same thing. I cannot imagine how long it could possibly take for an entire nation to forgo its prejudices, even though it has repeatedly gone through the same cycle several times. Some sociologists say that every "new" group of immigrants goes through a phase where the Public (in Heidegger's terms) is immediately intolerant of them.
But Muslims have it perhaps more difficult than most groups, as, in the eyes of the Public, Muslims (or Islam itself) killed 3,000 people on American soil, and all America knows is the despotism and misanthropy of small-minded Middle Eastern leaders. What America likes to forget is that Christianity also is prone to exhibit the same kind of misanthropic and despotic charlatans who feed on the blood of their followers. Have we so soon forgotten Terry Jones?
"Hey! That's not fair! I thought you appreciated Christianity now!" I do, but it's true all the same. Here, I will repeat what I said in "A Mosque? In MY NYC!?" Is Terry Jones representative of all Christianity? No, he is absolutely not. So if we accept that Terry Jones for all intent and purpose has nothing to do with Jesus, what right does the public have to still believe that Osama bin Laden (and by extension the 9/11 hijackers), Hezbollah, Hamas, and Ayatollah Khomeini are representative of all Islam?
The point is, and this is also from that same essay, that Islam and Christianity (The Bible itself is often keen to describe the fate of "wicked prophets." See Micah 3:9-12) exhibit entirely equal amounts of beauty and depravity. If we are able to see beauty in Christianity, what could possibly prevent us from seeing beauty in Islam?
The only way we could ever heal this wound is for Imam Feisal to build his Islamic Cultural Center, though I doubt that anyone outside of his supporters and the Muslims who live in the area would ever visit. So I have just one question for Imam Feisal: How would you try to reach out to those 71% of Americans who do not want to heal September 11th, 2001?
1) http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/19/pew-poll-18-think-obama-is-a-muslim/
Friday, August 20, 2010
I Could Never Be Religious Again
I've been kind of thinking about this recently, especially as I continue to think about religion generally, and the hypothetical conversation I might have with the Jehovah's Witnesses who occasionally come to our house (with whom I kind of enjoy speaking), and I have concluded that no, there is absolutely no way I could ever be religious again. This is not another attack on religion; all of these are personal and are not intended to discourage others' beliefs.
1) I simply do not have the capacity for blind obedience to an enigmatic authority. I'm one of those annoying belligerent people who ask "why?" all the time. Remember Imago from the song I examined a month or two ago? I'm basically him and Ivan Karamazov.
-------------------------------------------
Imago:
I can never submit to all the things you've said God
If you want me dead, I'm right here God
But fear is a funny thing God
In that it gives you the strength to resist just about anything God
And friend turns to enemy
So easily
When you defend your legacy with guilt
And talk of blasphemy
God
You know
You created a golden cage for you sheep
A stage too wide and deep for us to even see the play
But hey
You know what they say about catching the bird
But you can't make it sing?
You lose the bird the second it loses its wings
Just like I reckon you will lose your herd
To choirs of "I am, I am, I am"
And mountains and mountains of money and things! -- Pain of Salvation, Diffidentia
----------------------------------------------
2) The reward - I can see no reward, at least one that 1) doesn't exist here on Earth or 2) would not be considered a vice and therefore an unsuitable reward for supposedly good works. Imagine that Allah really did give his true faithful 72 virgins--after a life of chastity! Doesn't really make sense, as we could simply have that on Earth. Why would a being who encourages chastity and platonic love reward those with their opposite? Do we really all need to be good until Judgment Day, and then immediately afterward we can all be hedonists without consequence? What kind of system is this?
What about other things that I enjoy (aside from sex and heavy metal), like literature and philosophy, and even politics? In a static utopia, it would be absolutely impossible for politics to exist, but what about literature? I'm quite sure that in either of the two monotheistic metaphysical systems, Jesus/Allah would have eliminated any and all philosophers and writers who did not honor them. That means no Socrates, Plato, Camus, Aristotle, Sartre, Russell (definitely not Russell), or Heidegger. Geez, what fun is that?
I'm not even sure the popular idea of Heaven is how it's even described in the Bible, it is merely an amalgamation of what we project as our greatest desires (seeing family members again, lots of sex, and lots of lesbians). But on the family members part, no one can even decide if we even look the same as we did on Earth, and if that's the case, then how are we supposed to find each other in the first place? It also doesn't help that our deepest desires run entirely contrary not only to God's Will, but the entire Christian dynamic, and as I said before about Allah, it makes absolutely no sense for our reward to be what we want during our time on Earth.
There is one major problem with the Judgment Day cut-off, too: Shouldn't we always be good? Dostoevsky, speaking as Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov, feared that without God, anything goes. But even with God, anything goes, albeit after Judgment Day. The goal should be to get us all to want to be good, even after Judgment Day. And are there other ways to be "good" outside of the religious system? Am *I* (me/the author) good?
3) It is the characteristic of the Judeo-Christian God and of what little I've heard about Allah that one must--in order to qualify for the "reward", you must first believe in them (either one). So I'm basically screwed every which way, even through both ears and my nose, because while someone could cry "Pascal's Wager!", what if one believes (as I do) that all religious systems rely on the same arguments and claims to their existence and are therefore of absolutely equal chance of being true across the board, making it impossible to choose?
I tried this thought experiment on my dad and it worked: Imagine that you have no prior knowledge, except that you could read. Imagine placed in front of you were a Bible, a Koran, and the Hindu Vedas (I could include more but this is headache enough). How could you choose between them?
In my own opinion, it's simply a blind crapshoot. I could pick one, and then get screwed by Zeus. Or Ra, or Damballah, or Quetzalcoatl. Pascal's Wager was no help to me!
4) This is an extension of 1: The nature of the revealed God. As you read especially the Bible, it becomes apparent that there are some people God just doesn't like. And this list of people God doesn't like eventually becomes rather long. And it becomes evident that God maybe likes only a few thousand people, perhaps even less as we narrow down how many people are actually good, let alone who believes in the 'correct' religion. This is a problem because there are now over 7 billion people on this planet, and we've become rather interconnected, which makes it much more difficult to justify prejudice. It becomes more and more impossible for God to sustain his prejudices, especially when the world becomes more rationalistic and respectful towards others. If at least some of us can learn to become tolerant, why can't God?
There is one reason why God can be intolerant after a millennia: The simplest answer is that he can afford to be because he is alone. But in my view, this answer is not true, as I will show. However, I think this answer is also quite intriguing.
God is off in some non-space observing the Earth--or, at least that's how people normally envision him. Despite how the world has changed in the last 500 years, God still believes that we are dependent upon him, yet he is not dependent on us. Therefore, as some Christians like to imply, God has no morality, and everything he does has absolute justification in his own mind regardless of the consequences to us; our "temporary" suffering is irrelevant in view of his "Master Plan." This means that God can still hate entire groups of people, and annihilate them without batting an eye, as we are mere ants under his magnifying glass.
I find this to be terrifying, and this God is one I don't believe anyone should worship even if it did exist. Such a God should be hated by us in turn, even if we are destroyed (we would probably be destroyed anyway, so we might as well go down with a fight). This further proves what I said on Facebook about the essential difference between believing in (a) (G)od(s) and worshipping said (G)od(s), as some gods are not to be obeyed for the good of humankind.
What gives me the right to place humanity above God? We are humanity! We have rational faculties, we are capable of similar (albeit significantly lesser) acts, we can love and hate! Aren't our ideas of gods and goddesses reflective of our own experiences--interpreted and mythologized (see Fandango by Pain of Salvation)?
God is therefore not alone. We created God (could be any (G)od(s)) to create us. We devised stories and legends detailing our origin and purpose involving entities far powerful than even we (for we are indeed powerful beings).
As long as we believe in God, God will exist, at least within us. As long as we exist, God will exist. And therefore God needs us as much, if not more than he needs us. And in truth, because God exists within our minds, we can change God.
You read that correctly. Did Christianity not change God from a tyrannical warlord who flooded the entire planet save a single family, commanded a man to murder his firstborn, and grant the death penalty for a multitude of bizarre offenses into a more forgiving (albeit equally sexist) entity? Did not Islam further transform God, and Mormonism even further than that (whether or not one respects Mormonism)? And what about--here comes another headache--all of the schisms within those monolithic traditions; each split off and defined God differently still. And what about the very first monotheistic religion, upon which Judaism and Christianity were based--Zoroastrianism?
Then who is to say that it would be impossible to further purge God of personality traits unbecoming of an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent being?
Just for fun, I'm going to lay out a few criteria I think any god or god-like being should meet in order for me to be inclined to follow him/her/it. I'm starting from scratch.
1) The god must be sexless, and therefore would be inclined to treat both sexes fairly in all regards. Even Socrates in the Republic agreed that the difference of anatomy between the sexes did not determine a difference of treatment generally. If Socrates can do it, so can God.
2) The god must not have been responsible for the creation of our world. This is pretty big for me, because as beautiful as our world is (or once was), there are particularly nasty things in it that I don't think quite fit the "benevolent" quality. I'm talking about things like earthquakes, Brazillian Wandering Spiders, and ebola, as well as certain parasites found in the Amazon river.
3) The god must understand rational discourse and the value of skepticism. It must appreciate the possibility of someone not believing in it, and respond not by murder but by presenting evidence, which would be as easy as a five-minute conversation. And the Christian god had to get all angry over it! How much violence could have been avoided if he just talked to some people? He must have had horrible PR...
4) The god must not favor any human faction over another; it must have equal respect for the well-being of all humans UNIVERSALLY. It must not advocate the annihilation of any group of people ever.
5) The god must be willing to offer advice to those who seek it.
6) The god must not care about the private lives of humans insofar as they are not hurting one another. The god must not say absolutely anything about sex. Unless it says that it's good for you. Hey! You know what? Let's turn Kurt Vonnegut into a god. That would be fun. Second thought, he probably wouldn't like that.
7) The god itself must not desire absolute totalitarian control, or feed upon those who worship it; it must not be avaricious and arrogant. This is the fatal flaw of all human-devised gods.
What's interesting is that the god I've devised doesn't seem to be much interested in being worshiped, especially taking into consideration the final clause. It is also hard to imagine any such being interfering with human affairs in the first place, unless it was avaricious or simply desired something in return. However, it would be strange to see a god in need of anything, unless that he was simply bored (like the aliens in the final Ayreon album).
Why else would any immeasurably powerful being care for us in the first place, if not out of the existential boredom that comes naturally with immortality? And wouldn't that being eventually get bored of us?
I've come back around to the reward again... If we were truly to get what we expressly desire--eternal life, albeit in an ethereal realm--would we not get bored? Our parents and grandparents would tell the same damned jokes and stories they told back on Earth, and finding new material would be impossible in a static world. In fact, even the most desirable reward would eventually become the most unbearable torment.
Heaven is Hell, and our temporality is the real blessing in disguise.
1) I simply do not have the capacity for blind obedience to an enigmatic authority. I'm one of those annoying belligerent people who ask "why?" all the time. Remember Imago from the song I examined a month or two ago? I'm basically him and Ivan Karamazov.
-------------------------------------------
Imago:
I can never submit to all the things you've said God
If you want me dead, I'm right here God
But fear is a funny thing God
In that it gives you the strength to resist just about anything God
And friend turns to enemy
So easily
When you defend your legacy with guilt
And talk of blasphemy
God
You know
You created a golden cage for you sheep
A stage too wide and deep for us to even see the play
But hey
You know what they say about catching the bird
But you can't make it sing?
You lose the bird the second it loses its wings
Just like I reckon you will lose your herd
To choirs of "I am, I am, I am"
And mountains and mountains of money and things! -- Pain of Salvation, Diffidentia
----------------------------------------------
2) The reward - I can see no reward, at least one that 1) doesn't exist here on Earth or 2) would not be considered a vice and therefore an unsuitable reward for supposedly good works. Imagine that Allah really did give his true faithful 72 virgins--after a life of chastity! Doesn't really make sense, as we could simply have that on Earth. Why would a being who encourages chastity and platonic love reward those with their opposite? Do we really all need to be good until Judgment Day, and then immediately afterward we can all be hedonists without consequence? What kind of system is this?
What about other things that I enjoy (aside from sex and heavy metal), like literature and philosophy, and even politics? In a static utopia, it would be absolutely impossible for politics to exist, but what about literature? I'm quite sure that in either of the two monotheistic metaphysical systems, Jesus/Allah would have eliminated any and all philosophers and writers who did not honor them. That means no Socrates, Plato, Camus, Aristotle, Sartre, Russell (definitely not Russell), or Heidegger. Geez, what fun is that?
I'm not even sure the popular idea of Heaven is how it's even described in the Bible, it is merely an amalgamation of what we project as our greatest desires (seeing family members again, lots of sex, and lots of lesbians). But on the family members part, no one can even decide if we even look the same as we did on Earth, and if that's the case, then how are we supposed to find each other in the first place? It also doesn't help that our deepest desires run entirely contrary not only to God's Will, but the entire Christian dynamic, and as I said before about Allah, it makes absolutely no sense for our reward to be what we want during our time on Earth.
There is one major problem with the Judgment Day cut-off, too: Shouldn't we always be good? Dostoevsky, speaking as Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov, feared that without God, anything goes. But even with God, anything goes, albeit after Judgment Day. The goal should be to get us all to want to be good, even after Judgment Day. And are there other ways to be "good" outside of the religious system? Am *I* (me/the author) good?
3) It is the characteristic of the Judeo-Christian God and of what little I've heard about Allah that one must--in order to qualify for the "reward", you must first believe in them (either one). So I'm basically screwed every which way, even through both ears and my nose, because while someone could cry "Pascal's Wager!", what if one believes (as I do) that all religious systems rely on the same arguments and claims to their existence and are therefore of absolutely equal chance of being true across the board, making it impossible to choose?
I tried this thought experiment on my dad and it worked: Imagine that you have no prior knowledge, except that you could read. Imagine placed in front of you were a Bible, a Koran, and the Hindu Vedas (I could include more but this is headache enough). How could you choose between them?
In my own opinion, it's simply a blind crapshoot. I could pick one, and then get screwed by Zeus. Or Ra, or Damballah, or Quetzalcoatl. Pascal's Wager was no help to me!
4) This is an extension of 1: The nature of the revealed God. As you read especially the Bible, it becomes apparent that there are some people God just doesn't like. And this list of people God doesn't like eventually becomes rather long. And it becomes evident that God maybe likes only a few thousand people, perhaps even less as we narrow down how many people are actually good, let alone who believes in the 'correct' religion. This is a problem because there are now over 7 billion people on this planet, and we've become rather interconnected, which makes it much more difficult to justify prejudice. It becomes more and more impossible for God to sustain his prejudices, especially when the world becomes more rationalistic and respectful towards others. If at least some of us can learn to become tolerant, why can't God?
There is one reason why God can be intolerant after a millennia: The simplest answer is that he can afford to be because he is alone. But in my view, this answer is not true, as I will show. However, I think this answer is also quite intriguing.
God is off in some non-space observing the Earth--or, at least that's how people normally envision him. Despite how the world has changed in the last 500 years, God still believes that we are dependent upon him, yet he is not dependent on us. Therefore, as some Christians like to imply, God has no morality, and everything he does has absolute justification in his own mind regardless of the consequences to us; our "temporary" suffering is irrelevant in view of his "Master Plan." This means that God can still hate entire groups of people, and annihilate them without batting an eye, as we are mere ants under his magnifying glass.
I find this to be terrifying, and this God is one I don't believe anyone should worship even if it did exist. Such a God should be hated by us in turn, even if we are destroyed (we would probably be destroyed anyway, so we might as well go down with a fight). This further proves what I said on Facebook about the essential difference between believing in (a) (G)od(s) and worshipping said (G)od(s), as some gods are not to be obeyed for the good of humankind.
What gives me the right to place humanity above God? We are humanity! We have rational faculties, we are capable of similar (albeit significantly lesser) acts, we can love and hate! Aren't our ideas of gods and goddesses reflective of our own experiences--interpreted and mythologized (see Fandango by Pain of Salvation)?
God is therefore not alone. We created God (could be any (G)od(s)) to create us. We devised stories and legends detailing our origin and purpose involving entities far powerful than even we (for we are indeed powerful beings).
As long as we believe in God, God will exist, at least within us. As long as we exist, God will exist. And therefore God needs us as much, if not more than he needs us. And in truth, because God exists within our minds, we can change God.
You read that correctly. Did Christianity not change God from a tyrannical warlord who flooded the entire planet save a single family, commanded a man to murder his firstborn, and grant the death penalty for a multitude of bizarre offenses into a more forgiving (albeit equally sexist) entity? Did not Islam further transform God, and Mormonism even further than that (whether or not one respects Mormonism)? And what about--here comes another headache--all of the schisms within those monolithic traditions; each split off and defined God differently still. And what about the very first monotheistic religion, upon which Judaism and Christianity were based--Zoroastrianism?
Then who is to say that it would be impossible to further purge God of personality traits unbecoming of an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent being?
Just for fun, I'm going to lay out a few criteria I think any god or god-like being should meet in order for me to be inclined to follow him/her/it. I'm starting from scratch.
1) The god must be sexless, and therefore would be inclined to treat both sexes fairly in all regards. Even Socrates in the Republic agreed that the difference of anatomy between the sexes did not determine a difference of treatment generally. If Socrates can do it, so can God.
2) The god must not have been responsible for the creation of our world. This is pretty big for me, because as beautiful as our world is (or once was), there are particularly nasty things in it that I don't think quite fit the "benevolent" quality. I'm talking about things like earthquakes, Brazillian Wandering Spiders, and ebola, as well as certain parasites found in the Amazon river.
3) The god must understand rational discourse and the value of skepticism. It must appreciate the possibility of someone not believing in it, and respond not by murder but by presenting evidence, which would be as easy as a five-minute conversation. And the Christian god had to get all angry over it! How much violence could have been avoided if he just talked to some people? He must have had horrible PR...
4) The god must not favor any human faction over another; it must have equal respect for the well-being of all humans UNIVERSALLY. It must not advocate the annihilation of any group of people ever.
5) The god must be willing to offer advice to those who seek it.
6) The god must not care about the private lives of humans insofar as they are not hurting one another. The god must not say absolutely anything about sex. Unless it says that it's good for you. Hey! You know what? Let's turn Kurt Vonnegut into a god. That would be fun. Second thought, he probably wouldn't like that.
7) The god itself must not desire absolute totalitarian control, or feed upon those who worship it; it must not be avaricious and arrogant. This is the fatal flaw of all human-devised gods.
What's interesting is that the god I've devised doesn't seem to be much interested in being worshiped, especially taking into consideration the final clause. It is also hard to imagine any such being interfering with human affairs in the first place, unless it was avaricious or simply desired something in return. However, it would be strange to see a god in need of anything, unless that he was simply bored (like the aliens in the final Ayreon album).
Why else would any immeasurably powerful being care for us in the first place, if not out of the existential boredom that comes naturally with immortality? And wouldn't that being eventually get bored of us?
I've come back around to the reward again... If we were truly to get what we expressly desire--eternal life, albeit in an ethereal realm--would we not get bored? Our parents and grandparents would tell the same damned jokes and stories they told back on Earth, and finding new material would be impossible in a static world. In fact, even the most desirable reward would eventually become the most unbearable torment.
Heaven is Hell, and our temporality is the real blessing in disguise.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
A Mosque!? In My NYC?
I don't see what the big deal is about the Islamic Cultural Center that is to be built next to...Burlington Coat Factory. We didn't make Ground Zero a national landmark (which we should have), and so it's fair game, despite the ridiculous and xenophobic protests by most Americans.
According to Bloomberg News, "[Sarah] Palin, in a July 22 Facebook entry, described the proposed mosque as 'a stab in the heart' of the attack victims’ families. She also said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, suggested that U.S. policies in the Middle East helped create attitudes that led to 'the crime that happened.'"1 Well, the truth is that Rauf is correct on that point. Our policies in the Middle East fueled the fires of fundamentalism, with the installation of the Shah of Iran (who was, ironically, much better than his replacement), and in Afghanistan, where we baited the USSR into their own Vietnam, only to create a power vacuum when they finally left. That power vacuum was filled by the mujaheddin who fought against Soviet Union and formed the Taliban. And let's not forget about oil, which I've covered multiple times and should now be considered self-evident. On her second claim regarding Rauf, I don't immediately trust her judgment, which is why I did not address it. Palin has proven herself on occasions sufficient enough in number to be hopelessly ignorant of absolutely everything she talks about, and so I am willing to give Rauf the benefit of the doubt until what she says is confirmed by someone far more informed.
But we expect this from Sarah Palin, so it comes as no surprise that Anyone Who Speaks the Truth is Inherently Anti-American. But there's also something about this issue that has nothing to do with American foreign policy, and it's written quite explicitly in our Constitution: The First Amendment clearly states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." This should settle the issue quite satisfactorily, but it is the underlying cause of this xenophobia that has me so enraged.
When I was intolerant of religions and the religious, was it OK for me to say that Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and the Catholic Church were representative of all of Christianity? Absolutely not. Therefore, what makes it OK for we as a nation to say that Osama bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeini, RevolutionMuslim, and Hezbollah are representative of all of Islam?
In the words of Rudy Gulianni during his presidential campaign, "9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11! 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11!" ad infinitum. But this is no excuse! It's been 9 years since 9/11, and we've merely allowed this wound to fester and gangrene our politics.
And on CNN during the RevolutionMuslim fiasco, conservative commentator David Frum, whom I otherwise respect, was hard-pressed to admit that Christianity could be responsible for the same egregious offenses as contemporary Islam. Must I again recount at least a few of the atrocities and injustices committed by and in the name of Christendom?
1) The subjugation and genocide against the Native Americans prior to the founding of the United States
2) The countless wars of medieval Europe between Catholics and Protestants.
3) The Spanish Inquisition
4) The Catholic genocide against the Gnostic sect
5) The excommunication of Galileo Galilee (noted for the same kind of anti-intellectualism)
6) Christianity is guilty also of the same subjugation of women, however, psychological harm is more often employed in lieu of physical abuse.
6a) In relationships, however, Christian fundamentalism is positively related to higher instances of domestic violence2.
7) Homophobia is also something these two religions have in common.
8) Theocratic governance is something both religions aspire to, and both have more or less achieved it at different points in history.
The two religions are, for all intent and purpose, entirely equal in their capacity for violence, and therefore it follows that if we can see beauty in one despite the violence, we could--and should--seek out beauty in the other.
I just don't understand Islam in the same way as I understand Christianity, and I think my situation is reflective of America generally, and we've seen that we cannot hope that any mass of people would stand up for the greater good, even when it is written right into our founding document (which they probably have not read anyway). I have ordered an English translation of the Koran. Unfortunately, as I said before, I don't know any Muslims, so getting a good history of it, understanding the references to Christian and Jewish theology (I know plenty of Jews, but I don't think many of them are religious), as well as differentiating between metaphor and literal text may prove somewhat difficult. However, I have the Internet, a functioning brain, and there's a mosque in the next town over.
You know, it's funny. In an ironic turn, leave it to the kid who doesn't believe in any (G)od(s) at all to stand up for those that do.
1) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-03/ground-zero-mosque-plans-move-forward-after-new-york-landmarks-panel-vote.html
2) http://courses.ttu.edu/jkoch/Research/Koch%20Ramirez%20Religion%20and%20Partner%20Violence%20Final%20Feb%2009.pdf
According to Bloomberg News, "[Sarah] Palin, in a July 22 Facebook entry, described the proposed mosque as 'a stab in the heart' of the attack victims’ families. She also said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, suggested that U.S. policies in the Middle East helped create attitudes that led to 'the crime that happened.'"1 Well, the truth is that Rauf is correct on that point. Our policies in the Middle East fueled the fires of fundamentalism, with the installation of the Shah of Iran (who was, ironically, much better than his replacement), and in Afghanistan, where we baited the USSR into their own Vietnam, only to create a power vacuum when they finally left. That power vacuum was filled by the mujaheddin who fought against Soviet Union and formed the Taliban. And let's not forget about oil, which I've covered multiple times and should now be considered self-evident. On her second claim regarding Rauf, I don't immediately trust her judgment, which is why I did not address it. Palin has proven herself on occasions sufficient enough in number to be hopelessly ignorant of absolutely everything she talks about, and so I am willing to give Rauf the benefit of the doubt until what she says is confirmed by someone far more informed.
But we expect this from Sarah Palin, so it comes as no surprise that Anyone Who Speaks the Truth is Inherently Anti-American. But there's also something about this issue that has nothing to do with American foreign policy, and it's written quite explicitly in our Constitution: The First Amendment clearly states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." This should settle the issue quite satisfactorily, but it is the underlying cause of this xenophobia that has me so enraged.
When I was intolerant of religions and the religious, was it OK for me to say that Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and the Catholic Church were representative of all of Christianity? Absolutely not. Therefore, what makes it OK for we as a nation to say that Osama bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeini, RevolutionMuslim, and Hezbollah are representative of all of Islam?
In the words of Rudy Gulianni during his presidential campaign, "9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11! 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11!" ad infinitum. But this is no excuse! It's been 9 years since 9/11, and we've merely allowed this wound to fester and gangrene our politics.
And on CNN during the RevolutionMuslim fiasco, conservative commentator David Frum, whom I otherwise respect, was hard-pressed to admit that Christianity could be responsible for the same egregious offenses as contemporary Islam. Must I again recount at least a few of the atrocities and injustices committed by and in the name of Christendom?
1) The subjugation and genocide against the Native Americans prior to the founding of the United States
2) The countless wars of medieval Europe between Catholics and Protestants.
3) The Spanish Inquisition
4) The Catholic genocide against the Gnostic sect
5) The excommunication of Galileo Galilee (noted for the same kind of anti-intellectualism)
6) Christianity is guilty also of the same subjugation of women, however, psychological harm is more often employed in lieu of physical abuse.
6a) In relationships, however, Christian fundamentalism is positively related to higher instances of domestic violence2.
7) Homophobia is also something these two religions have in common.
8) Theocratic governance is something both religions aspire to, and both have more or less achieved it at different points in history.
The two religions are, for all intent and purpose, entirely equal in their capacity for violence, and therefore it follows that if we can see beauty in one despite the violence, we could--and should--seek out beauty in the other.
I just don't understand Islam in the same way as I understand Christianity, and I think my situation is reflective of America generally, and we've seen that we cannot hope that any mass of people would stand up for the greater good, even when it is written right into our founding document (which they probably have not read anyway). I have ordered an English translation of the Koran. Unfortunately, as I said before, I don't know any Muslims, so getting a good history of it, understanding the references to Christian and Jewish theology (I know plenty of Jews, but I don't think many of them are religious), as well as differentiating between metaphor and literal text may prove somewhat difficult. However, I have the Internet, a functioning brain, and there's a mosque in the next town over.
You know, it's funny. In an ironic turn, leave it to the kid who doesn't believe in any (G)od(s) at all to stand up for those that do.
1) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-03/ground-zero-mosque-plans-move-forward-after-new-york-landmarks-panel-vote.html
2) http://courses.ttu.edu/jkoch/Research/Koch%20Ramirez%20Religion%20and%20Partner%20Violence%20Final%20Feb%2009.pdf
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Xenogears - Full Review
I actually finished Xenogears over a month ago, and it took a while to digest it. As I said in my previous review of the first 20 hours (of about 60), the game is extremely linear--there are almost NO SIDEQUESTS. And the game only gets even more linear in a bizarre and unprecedented narrative shift, where the actual plot is told to the player in an incredible bombardament of text. The popular internet connotation "TL;DR" [Too long; Didn't Read] is surprisingly accurate. The shift in delivery is a major turn-off when it first hits the player, but ultimately I have come to believe that it was necessary in order to cram all of the things that Xenogears wants to say into the game.
I do not want to spoil the game for those of you who may want to play it, and this may be what some consider blasphemous, but Xenogears is even better than Final Fantasy 9 (my favorite Final Fantasy). The plot, characters, and themes are that strong, and they greatly resonate with who I am as a person and what I believe. The game was almost not going to be published in the United States because of what it dealt with.
I spent $30 on this PS1 game, and I think it is worth far more than that. I was actually sad when I had finished it, because I had enjoyed it so much.
I realize this review is incredibly short, but there isn't much else to say about it if I'm not going to mention the plot. If I did, your jaw may hit the floor, but still the plot would be spoiled. I'm actually of the opinion that Xenogears is at once the most ambitious and the most beautiful game Square-Enix/Squaresoft has ever produced. Surely, though the graphics have not aged well unless you use texture smoothing, the depth of the plot, the meaning of the plot, and the character development is something I cannot at present describe.
The only major drawbacks to the game are if the enormous walls of text would bore you (it shouldn't if you care about the plot and characters), and the intensely frustrating Babel Tower--the jumping mechanics in the game are extremely flawed. Also, navigating the final dungeon (which seems much more labyrinthine than it actually is) the first time is frustrating. Learning characters' deathblows is also a chore, as I have yet to figure out exactly how characters learn new deathblows. Of course, you only need to know Fei's, Citan's, and Elyham's deathblows. And their Gear deathblows are learned automatically as you progress in the game. Lastly, spend the time to level F, C, & E to 80, though grinding is tedious and boring, because you will need the cash. I ended up with 3-4 million Gold, and I still needed more for Gear parts.
Xenogears receives an A+: If you can wade through the frustrating segments, you will be rewarded handsomely.
I do not want to spoil the game for those of you who may want to play it, and this may be what some consider blasphemous, but Xenogears is even better than Final Fantasy 9 (my favorite Final Fantasy). The plot, characters, and themes are that strong, and they greatly resonate with who I am as a person and what I believe. The game was almost not going to be published in the United States because of what it dealt with.
I spent $30 on this PS1 game, and I think it is worth far more than that. I was actually sad when I had finished it, because I had enjoyed it so much.
I realize this review is incredibly short, but there isn't much else to say about it if I'm not going to mention the plot. If I did, your jaw may hit the floor, but still the plot would be spoiled. I'm actually of the opinion that Xenogears is at once the most ambitious and the most beautiful game Square-Enix/Squaresoft has ever produced. Surely, though the graphics have not aged well unless you use texture smoothing, the depth of the plot, the meaning of the plot, and the character development is something I cannot at present describe.
The only major drawbacks to the game are if the enormous walls of text would bore you (it shouldn't if you care about the plot and characters), and the intensely frustrating Babel Tower--the jumping mechanics in the game are extremely flawed. Also, navigating the final dungeon (which seems much more labyrinthine than it actually is) the first time is frustrating. Learning characters' deathblows is also a chore, as I have yet to figure out exactly how characters learn new deathblows. Of course, you only need to know Fei's, Citan's, and Elyham's deathblows. And their Gear deathblows are learned automatically as you progress in the game. Lastly, spend the time to level F, C, & E to 80, though grinding is tedious and boring, because you will need the cash. I ended up with 3-4 million Gold, and I still needed more for Gear parts.
Xenogears receives an A+: If you can wade through the frustrating segments, you will be rewarded handsomely.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Response to Henry Giroux's "The Disappearing Intellectual in the Age of Economic Darwinism"
Last night, I read an article on truth-out.org that defended higher education better than I ever could. Instead of providing the URL at the end of the essay, I feel it necessary to provide it now.
http://www.truth-out.org/the-disappearing-intellectual-age-economic-darwinism61287
The article first and foremost made me feel better about learning what I wanted to learn, and ultimately defended the entire point of that $100,000 piece of paper even against the reality that English majors don't easily get jobs.
But more than that, Mr Giroux looks at the whole picture, and sure, while one can see the enormous impact on one kid's personal growth, there is a much wider problem as the institutions which form the backbone of our age are consistently attacked by smaller people, and as those institutions start to give way to what is useful, rather than what is good for both society and the individual: The ability to make informed decisions across all aspects of one's life: From one's own worldview to on the job.
There are people who can go to college, be considered fairly well-educated, but not know how to think critically. I know two people who went to prestigious universities, have excellent jobs, and sit around watching Fox News all day. How is this possible? Because they didn't care about making good decisions, they cared about getting a job.
This in itself isn't bad, BUT getting a job should be second to exploring ideas, especially if our democracy is to be preserved. Let's look, for a moment, at our political landscape, not just in the present, but all the way back to the Scopes Monkey Trial. Mr Giroux lays the picture out very well, but in my mind this is not simply a contemporary problem, it is both all-encompassing and life-long.
From the Salem Witch Trials to the Confederacy to William Jennings Bryan to Joseph McCarthy to Ronald Reagan to George W Bush (and Harriet Miers), to Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann, and no other example provides such a clear picture of American intellectual bankruptcy as Supreme Court nomination hearings because the nominee is so terrified of offending a constituency that prides itself on its Philistinism that he or she cannot give a straight answer. In fact, GOP Senators, in response to Elena Kagan, have actually attacked Thurgood Marshall, though, as usual, without justification1.
But that isn't to say that we don't have intellectuals. Conservatives have come up with all kinds of ideas, such as Rand Paul, who wants to forgo a section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits private enterprise from discriminating against people. He's gone so far, in fact, as to say that he wouldn't have voted for the bill had he been there because of that provision. Mr Paul, with all due respect, businesses even still try to discriminate against people. Whether you think it's bad business practice or not, look at how job candidates are treated. It must not be very bad business if they think they can get away with it.
The kinds of "intellectuals" America has currently (or, has always had) are nothing more than demagogues and charlatans (only difference between the two is that the former seeks political power). Only in America could there be a Creationist Museum, to which thousands upon thousands visit because they believe in it, but a select, brave few who visit to see how bad it is2.
Perhaps the only actual intellectual still respected in the United States is Roger Ebert, who just conducted a study of his own, asking just one question: Would you rather play a great video game or read Huckleberry Finn? Before I go into it, Roger Ebert is so respected by nearly the entire population that when he said "Videogames are not art," everyone--especially the gaming community--went berserk, in mostly a good way. In fact, I'm upset that he recently retracted this statement because of the enormous debate he had sparked, whether one agrees with him or not.
On to this survey: 63% of those polled would pick a great video game over Huck Finn3. What does this have to do with our dysfunctional democracy? We aren't willing to do the work. Playing a game is easy, and we don't have to think much. Sure, I like to play video games, but I know that even the great ones have absolutely nothing to offer that would surpass a thousand years of literary history. Video games will not make us better people, and they will probably not teach us anything*. Not only do Americans not want to do the work, they vilify those who do. In the words of Insane Clown Posse, "Fuckin' magnets! How do they work? And I don't wanna talk to no scientist, cuz those fuckers are lyin' and gettin' me pissed." First of all, that is a real lyric to a real song called Miracles. Second of all, you might be wondering how a horrible indie hip-hop duo can be representative of 300 million people.
Here is a list of polls done on belief in evolution in the United States over the past two decades from Religioustolerance.org, from a variety of sources4. In 2007, 49% believe in evolution, either naturalistic or theistic, whereas 48% believe in creationism/ID. That is about half of the population of the most powerful nation on Earth.
And then there are statistics on biblical literacy. Now this is where it gets really interesting. I just did a Google search for "biblical literacy among evangelicals", and the first page is rife with worrying statistics. Dr Nienhuis, a New Testament scholar and professor, for example, states that "the vast majority of [his] students--around 95 percent of them--are Christians, and half of them typically report that they currently attend nondenominational evangelical churches. Yet the class as a whole consistently averages a score of just over 50 percent, a failing grade"5.
In my own experience, my cursory knowledge of the Bible is more than enough to upend the fundamentalists I encounter, and I am an atheist. It is less essential for me to understand the Bible because I have not accepted it as my worldview. If you believe in something, you better damned well know just what it is you're believing in, no matter what philosophy or religious system you subscribe to. Last year, some fundamentalists got it into their heads to use Psalm 109:8-9 to incite political violence.
Psalm 109:8-9 reads as follows in my New Revised Standard Version:
8 May his days be few,
May another seize his position
9 May his children be orphans,
And his wife a widow
The rest of it gets a little worse, but the point is clear. The interesting part is that these people failed entirely to read verses 1-7, which, I will reproduce for you here, because you will see just how screwed up these people are.
1 Do not be silent, O God of my
praise
2 For wicked and deceitful mouths
are opened against me,
speaking against me with lying
tongues
[Here's the kicker]
3 They beset me with words of
hate,
and attack me without cause.
4 In return for my love they
accuse me,
even while I make prayer for
them.
5 So they reward me evil for good
and hatred for my love.
6 They say, "Appoint a wicked
man against him;
let an accuser stand on his
right
7 When he is tried, let him be
found guilty;
let his prayers be counted as
sin[..."]
Do you see it? In an ironic turn, Psalm 109 may well be the prayers of their very target, if we're going to play that game. No, I'm not a fan of The Bible, but don't mess with an English major.
All of this leads back to the importance of education, if not for itself, then for the integrity of our democracy. Americans can't even understand their own worldviews, much less figure out how to fix a tanking economy.
There is one thing I have thus far neglected to address: Why? Why are Americans so hopelessly ignorant not only about themselves but about everyone else? For that, I turn to PZ Myers, author of the blog Pharyngula. Myers, in his presentation in Oslo on Creationism in America, proceeded to place the blame, specifically for the pervasiveness of Creationism/ID on the volume and amount of charlatanry, and scientists' poor PR coupled against the rise of theocratic organizations6. Religious belief had existed far before Charles Darwin wrote about his famous voyage, but by now I'd expect everyone (such as the rest of the developing world), to forgo creationism. In fact, the announcer at Myers' lecture was even surprised that creationism could be a serious threat.
I would argue that it may be that we think we can afford to. We've always been City on the Hill, or to take one of my friend's favorite analogies, Fiddler's Green, from Land of the Dead. Consider how we consider ourselves, and consider the life cycle of city states that we have survived. We think we're invincible, that we can afford to wage two large-scale military campaigns simultaneously and survive (Sun Tzu disagrees, and Hitler demonstrated this fact to us in his hubris), that our fortune will always be there. We saw this attitude right before the economic meltdown. Sure, people now realize what's really going on, but their solutions will only serve to make things worse. In Giroux's essay, the people who have realized this the most cannot figure out which programs to cut: They want to balance the budget, but cut taxes. Giroux cites JM Bernstein who said, in an article in the NYTimes,
"When it comes to the Tea Party's concrete policy proposals, things get fuzzier and more contradictory: keep the government out of health care, but leave Medicare alone; balance the budget, but don't raise taxes; let individuals take care of themselves, but leave Social Security alone; and, of course, the paradoxical demand not to support Wall Street, to let the hard-working producers of wealth get on with it without regulation and government stimulus, but also to make sure the banks can lend to small businesses and responsible homeowners in a stable but growing economy."
Even worse, which Giroux himself also mentioned, and I have also read about a few weeks ago, is that some Americans have entertained the notion that libraries are a waste of money. I kid you not7. I think Roger Ebert may have just had a heart attack.
How do we fix this problem? Pffft! I'm not even sure we can. The American population has been effectively insulated against any and all encroaches upon their worldview by "intellectuals" or "experts." I spoke to one man in a doctor's office(!) who tried to disparage higher education as "Leftist" after I heard him comparing Obama to Hitler. This sentiment was repeated by another man I encountered at a revolutionary war exhibition in my dad's church for it's 300th anniversary. Unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity to come to the defense of what I hold so dear.
And then there's something unexplainable by anything but avarice. There are smart people--scientists--who will throw their credentials into a bonfire and join the Institute for Creation Research or the Discovery Institute (not associated with the Discovery Channel). Jeffry P Tomkins is listed, for example, on the ICR website, and has headed a project that "involve the development of integrated genomic frameworks and the discovery and characterization of genes and genomic regions associated with environmental adaptation"8. Umm...what? "Associated environmental adaptation" is evolution. Hello? Unfortunately, I cannot find anywhere, a full history of his career, nor any justification for his joining the ICR.
This brings up an important point, however, that, like I said before, we think we can afford it, that truth, in a larger social context, can take a backseat to whatever makes us feel good. "I believe it because I want to believe it." But immediately we see what's wrong with this notion, because much like whether injustice pays better than justice in The Republic, things like science and critical thought that we neglect or disregard because they are difficult or don't produce short-term gain or happiness, will eventually destroy us. If we are unjust, eventually people will turn on us and we will be punished. If we are stupid and uncaring, we will fall behind on the international stage and our economy will falter. Without science, we will fall to disease, our computers will cease to work, and our military will weaken. The disgusting thing--the greatest injustice--is that laypeople will lambaste science and scientists, yet depend on them to improve and even save their lives. While you're off in church being taught that God created the Earth in 6 days 6,000-10,000 years ago and that dinosaur bones are the work of Satan, there are people who are trying to save your kid who has been bitten by a rabid dog. And then when they do, you don't thank them. You thank your God, who did it by magic.
1) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/28/AR2010062805129.html
2) http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/excellent_analysis_of_the_crea.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28Pharyngula%29
3) http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/07/video_games_13823_huck_finn_80.html
4) http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm
5) http://www.modernreformation.org/default.php?page=articledisplay&var1=ArtRead&var2=1110&var3=main
6) http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/31859717
7) http://www.theatlanticwire.com/features/view/feature/Fox-News-Reporter-vs-Libraries-1537
8) http://www.musc.edu/mbes/faculty/tomkins.html
*One exception: Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers taught me about Voodoo. It turned out (because I looked it up) that everything GK said about Voodoo is actually true.
http://www.truth-out.org/the-disappearing-intellectual-age-economic-darwinism61287
The article first and foremost made me feel better about learning what I wanted to learn, and ultimately defended the entire point of that $100,000 piece of paper even against the reality that English majors don't easily get jobs.
But more than that, Mr Giroux looks at the whole picture, and sure, while one can see the enormous impact on one kid's personal growth, there is a much wider problem as the institutions which form the backbone of our age are consistently attacked by smaller people, and as those institutions start to give way to what is useful, rather than what is good for both society and the individual: The ability to make informed decisions across all aspects of one's life: From one's own worldview to on the job.
There are people who can go to college, be considered fairly well-educated, but not know how to think critically. I know two people who went to prestigious universities, have excellent jobs, and sit around watching Fox News all day. How is this possible? Because they didn't care about making good decisions, they cared about getting a job.
This in itself isn't bad, BUT getting a job should be second to exploring ideas, especially if our democracy is to be preserved. Let's look, for a moment, at our political landscape, not just in the present, but all the way back to the Scopes Monkey Trial. Mr Giroux lays the picture out very well, but in my mind this is not simply a contemporary problem, it is both all-encompassing and life-long.
From the Salem Witch Trials to the Confederacy to William Jennings Bryan to Joseph McCarthy to Ronald Reagan to George W Bush (and Harriet Miers), to Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann, and no other example provides such a clear picture of American intellectual bankruptcy as Supreme Court nomination hearings because the nominee is so terrified of offending a constituency that prides itself on its Philistinism that he or she cannot give a straight answer. In fact, GOP Senators, in response to Elena Kagan, have actually attacked Thurgood Marshall, though, as usual, without justification1.
But that isn't to say that we don't have intellectuals. Conservatives have come up with all kinds of ideas, such as Rand Paul, who wants to forgo a section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits private enterprise from discriminating against people. He's gone so far, in fact, as to say that he wouldn't have voted for the bill had he been there because of that provision. Mr Paul, with all due respect, businesses even still try to discriminate against people. Whether you think it's bad business practice or not, look at how job candidates are treated. It must not be very bad business if they think they can get away with it.
The kinds of "intellectuals" America has currently (or, has always had) are nothing more than demagogues and charlatans (only difference between the two is that the former seeks political power). Only in America could there be a Creationist Museum, to which thousands upon thousands visit because they believe in it, but a select, brave few who visit to see how bad it is2.
Perhaps the only actual intellectual still respected in the United States is Roger Ebert, who just conducted a study of his own, asking just one question: Would you rather play a great video game or read Huckleberry Finn? Before I go into it, Roger Ebert is so respected by nearly the entire population that when he said "Videogames are not art," everyone--especially the gaming community--went berserk, in mostly a good way. In fact, I'm upset that he recently retracted this statement because of the enormous debate he had sparked, whether one agrees with him or not.
On to this survey: 63% of those polled would pick a great video game over Huck Finn3. What does this have to do with our dysfunctional democracy? We aren't willing to do the work. Playing a game is easy, and we don't have to think much. Sure, I like to play video games, but I know that even the great ones have absolutely nothing to offer that would surpass a thousand years of literary history. Video games will not make us better people, and they will probably not teach us anything*. Not only do Americans not want to do the work, they vilify those who do. In the words of Insane Clown Posse, "Fuckin' magnets! How do they work? And I don't wanna talk to no scientist, cuz those fuckers are lyin' and gettin' me pissed." First of all, that is a real lyric to a real song called Miracles. Second of all, you might be wondering how a horrible indie hip-hop duo can be representative of 300 million people.
Here is a list of polls done on belief in evolution in the United States over the past two decades from Religioustolerance.org, from a variety of sources4. In 2007, 49% believe in evolution, either naturalistic or theistic, whereas 48% believe in creationism/ID. That is about half of the population of the most powerful nation on Earth.
And then there are statistics on biblical literacy. Now this is where it gets really interesting. I just did a Google search for "biblical literacy among evangelicals", and the first page is rife with worrying statistics. Dr Nienhuis, a New Testament scholar and professor, for example, states that "the vast majority of [his] students--around 95 percent of them--are Christians, and half of them typically report that they currently attend nondenominational evangelical churches. Yet the class as a whole consistently averages a score of just over 50 percent, a failing grade"5.
In my own experience, my cursory knowledge of the Bible is more than enough to upend the fundamentalists I encounter, and I am an atheist. It is less essential for me to understand the Bible because I have not accepted it as my worldview. If you believe in something, you better damned well know just what it is you're believing in, no matter what philosophy or religious system you subscribe to. Last year, some fundamentalists got it into their heads to use Psalm 109:8-9 to incite political violence.
Psalm 109:8-9 reads as follows in my New Revised Standard Version:
8 May his days be few,
May another seize his position
9 May his children be orphans,
And his wife a widow
The rest of it gets a little worse, but the point is clear. The interesting part is that these people failed entirely to read verses 1-7, which, I will reproduce for you here, because you will see just how screwed up these people are.
1 Do not be silent, O God of my
praise
2 For wicked and deceitful mouths
are opened against me,
speaking against me with lying
tongues
[Here's the kicker]
3 They beset me with words of
hate,
and attack me without cause.
4 In return for my love they
accuse me,
even while I make prayer for
them.
5 So they reward me evil for good
and hatred for my love.
6 They say, "Appoint a wicked
man against him;
let an accuser stand on his
right
7 When he is tried, let him be
found guilty;
let his prayers be counted as
sin[..."]
Do you see it? In an ironic turn, Psalm 109 may well be the prayers of their very target, if we're going to play that game. No, I'm not a fan of The Bible, but don't mess with an English major.
All of this leads back to the importance of education, if not for itself, then for the integrity of our democracy. Americans can't even understand their own worldviews, much less figure out how to fix a tanking economy.
There is one thing I have thus far neglected to address: Why? Why are Americans so hopelessly ignorant not only about themselves but about everyone else? For that, I turn to PZ Myers, author of the blog Pharyngula. Myers, in his presentation in Oslo on Creationism in America, proceeded to place the blame, specifically for the pervasiveness of Creationism/ID on the volume and amount of charlatanry, and scientists' poor PR coupled against the rise of theocratic organizations6. Religious belief had existed far before Charles Darwin wrote about his famous voyage, but by now I'd expect everyone (such as the rest of the developing world), to forgo creationism. In fact, the announcer at Myers' lecture was even surprised that creationism could be a serious threat.
I would argue that it may be that we think we can afford to. We've always been City on the Hill, or to take one of my friend's favorite analogies, Fiddler's Green, from Land of the Dead. Consider how we consider ourselves, and consider the life cycle of city states that we have survived. We think we're invincible, that we can afford to wage two large-scale military campaigns simultaneously and survive (Sun Tzu disagrees, and Hitler demonstrated this fact to us in his hubris), that our fortune will always be there. We saw this attitude right before the economic meltdown. Sure, people now realize what's really going on, but their solutions will only serve to make things worse. In Giroux's essay, the people who have realized this the most cannot figure out which programs to cut: They want to balance the budget, but cut taxes. Giroux cites JM Bernstein who said, in an article in the NYTimes,
"When it comes to the Tea Party's concrete policy proposals, things get fuzzier and more contradictory: keep the government out of health care, but leave Medicare alone; balance the budget, but don't raise taxes; let individuals take care of themselves, but leave Social Security alone; and, of course, the paradoxical demand not to support Wall Street, to let the hard-working producers of wealth get on with it without regulation and government stimulus, but also to make sure the banks can lend to small businesses and responsible homeowners in a stable but growing economy."
Even worse, which Giroux himself also mentioned, and I have also read about a few weeks ago, is that some Americans have entertained the notion that libraries are a waste of money. I kid you not7. I think Roger Ebert may have just had a heart attack.
How do we fix this problem? Pffft! I'm not even sure we can. The American population has been effectively insulated against any and all encroaches upon their worldview by "intellectuals" or "experts." I spoke to one man in a doctor's office(!) who tried to disparage higher education as "Leftist" after I heard him comparing Obama to Hitler. This sentiment was repeated by another man I encountered at a revolutionary war exhibition in my dad's church for it's 300th anniversary. Unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity to come to the defense of what I hold so dear.
And then there's something unexplainable by anything but avarice. There are smart people--scientists--who will throw their credentials into a bonfire and join the Institute for Creation Research or the Discovery Institute (not associated with the Discovery Channel). Jeffry P Tomkins is listed, for example, on the ICR website, and has headed a project that "involve the development of integrated genomic frameworks and the discovery and characterization of genes and genomic regions associated with environmental adaptation"8. Umm...what? "Associated environmental adaptation" is evolution. Hello? Unfortunately, I cannot find anywhere, a full history of his career, nor any justification for his joining the ICR.
This brings up an important point, however, that, like I said before, we think we can afford it, that truth, in a larger social context, can take a backseat to whatever makes us feel good. "I believe it because I want to believe it." But immediately we see what's wrong with this notion, because much like whether injustice pays better than justice in The Republic, things like science and critical thought that we neglect or disregard because they are difficult or don't produce short-term gain or happiness, will eventually destroy us. If we are unjust, eventually people will turn on us and we will be punished. If we are stupid and uncaring, we will fall behind on the international stage and our economy will falter. Without science, we will fall to disease, our computers will cease to work, and our military will weaken. The disgusting thing--the greatest injustice--is that laypeople will lambaste science and scientists, yet depend on them to improve and even save their lives. While you're off in church being taught that God created the Earth in 6 days 6,000-10,000 years ago and that dinosaur bones are the work of Satan, there are people who are trying to save your kid who has been bitten by a rabid dog. And then when they do, you don't thank them. You thank your God, who did it by magic.
1) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/28/AR2010062805129.html
2) http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/excellent_analysis_of_the_crea.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28Pharyngula%29
3) http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/07/video_games_13823_huck_finn_80.html
4) http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm
5) http://www.modernreformation.org/default.php?page=articledisplay&var1=ArtRead&var2=1110&var3=main
6) http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/31859717
7) http://www.theatlanticwire.com/features/view/feature/Fox-News-Reporter-vs-Libraries-1537
8) http://www.musc.edu/mbes/faculty/tomkins.html
*One exception: Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers taught me about Voodoo. It turned out (because I looked it up) that everything GK said about Voodoo is actually true.
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