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
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