Zophorian

2011-09-24T11:07:00.002-04:00

(This actually was written before the last post, but I thought I had more to add... Never got around to it, so I guess I didn't.)

Christianity needs to examine and re-evaluate its philosophical underpinnings, or else, in the face of secularization, it threatens to either become a reactionary and wholly fundamentalists religion, or be subverted in to a cultural movement devoid of spirituality. What do I mean by this? It needs to realize that its fundamental truths, those of Jesus as God and the Trinity, are not necessarily tied to metaphysical concepts like essences and a universal nature of any sort. Ethics and morality in a Christian sense need not be tied to an idea of nature, essences or natural law. Ethics and morality are social and civil constructs and contracts. Christianity needs to be a spiritual force in the world that fosters love, charity and tolerance (the messages of Jesus and the influence of the present Holy Spirit) in society, so that those principles, along with responsibility, influence and guide the on-going negotiation of morals and ethics that takes place in an evolving civilization.

2011-09-23T16:29:00.003-04:00

I figure that the use of Christianity today is not primarily aimed at the saving of souls but at the creation of a civilized society. (The far right moral conservatives aside, that is. And I hope they really can be moved to the side.) It is a change in the ends that allows for a greater revision of the means: a change in how we deal with those once thought to be ‘deviant’ that facilitates getting along with them as they are as opposed to changing the way they are to save them from damnation. Does this simply mean that we have revealed the truth of (de-mythologized) Christianity: it was only ever a handmaiden to politics? Or does it mean that we are watering it down? Or that it is growing to a more spiritual and less ‘moral’ ideology?

After all, I am a firm believer that science has never been aimed at Truth (note the capital ‘T’) but at learning how to predict and then manipulate the material world—thus it is the handmaiden to technology. That doesn’t mean that it is false but just that its truth is based in making the world a more habitable and convenient place. In my mind there is no harm in that; actually, it is very noble.

What would all that imply? I hope not that Christianity (and all religion) should be voided of all spirituality. Or that science should be less methodical and rigorous.

Is it simply that science is after material truth and religion after spiritual truth, and both get used by technology and politics, respectively?

2011-04-12T12:00:00.002-04:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/12/granderson.ignorant.vote/index.html

Not a bad idea at all to require people to know something about the government before they are allowed to vote. But really, anyone with a high school diploma should already know all of that. Don't you have to take a civics class in high school in all of the states in the union? The sad thing is that most students pass the class and forget all they 'learned.' Or they just memorized things they didn't really understand... or they just cheated and passed.

What is just as important as knowing about the government is knowing how to understand what you read (or if you don't like reading, what you hear) and use it to think for your self. As a literature teacher and philosophy major I think that literature and philosophy (for those that are ready) are some of the best tools to teach people how to analyze and think-- and that makes a good voter. People will always vote for their own self interest: be it their own selfish interest or what they think is better for everyone else. The point is to be informed and get them to put thought into what they think is best.

Textbooks are good for feeding information to students. In science, grammar, social sciences, etc. you need to feed information to students (especially entry level students, like high schoolers) that is already digested and well packaged. They need to know the foundations that the field is built upon before (and if they ever want to) think and analyze that body of knowledge. But that kind of approach is often all that is given in high school: read this and remember it for the test so you can spit it back out in the right blank.

Actually thinking is more than that, much more. Good literature often has no clear cut answers... Well, aside from the silly questions like, 'what is this character's name,' 'where did this event take place,' and 'what happened after this.' Questions like: 'What is the significance of this character in the book, or in life? 'What is the significance or meaning of this event and the place that it occurs?' or 'Why would something like that happen and what does it mean?' Those questions are deeper questions. Relating the characters, idea and events in a story to history, reality, everyday life... that requires thinking, not just spitting things back out. That requires a deeper understanding of the story which necessitates thinking beyond the text and relating it to other things. When you can do that with fiction then you can do that with fact as well... but with fiction you have a more open field to play in when you are learning to think and relate.

A science teacher can easily say that you are wrong when you think and relate what you read in you science text. And most high school students would be wrong if they try to think deeply, beyond the text, about science. That doesn't mean they are stupid, or that they can't think and relate, just that they don't have the background in the specific field to do so. (Who can blame them? Some of the brightest minds of the last 300 years are the ones that have been putting together that background... and it has taken many years.) Getting shot down by a teacher can quickly lead to you not trying to think beyond the text; it is discouraging.

But relating literature to modern life or your own personal life, or better yet the life of the community you currently live in.... It is hard for a teacher to say with authority that you are wrong and just leave it at that. Literature is a place for minds to play and practice critical reading and relating that reading to other things. When taught right, literature teaches you how to think in ways that can help you deal better in the real world.

If you can read a Hemingway story and relate it to your own life and the historical context that it came out of, then you can listen to the news or read the news paper and make thoughtful decisions and informed opinions out of it. They are opinions and decisions that are based on the facts as given to you in the news and they relate to your life. And if you are really good at it you can read a story by a contemporary writer and pick apart their view of the world-- where do you think it is right, where do you think it is wrong. That same type of thinking will help you to read news and articles and judge if they seem to be accurate or not-- honest attempts to relay facts, or just hot air.

They best way to get better voters is to have people who know how to read, think and relate. This what literature courses in high school should be about: taking well written and thoughtful literature and using it to train young minds to deeply understand what they read and relate it to what they know and experience. It is sad that so many teachers, and most students, think that literature is just about reading good stories.... Or reading things that other people say are good and important stories. It is much more than that...

2010-06-04T07:50:00.000-04:00

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/03/catholic-bishop-stabbed-to-death-in-southern-turkey/?iref=allsearch

I am not surprised that a Catholic Bishop was killed in Turkey. I am also not surprised that there is little to no outrage about it.

If an Imam was stabbed to death in Europe or the USA all hell would break loose: protests, death threats, maybe even reprisal murders. But when a bishop is killed in Turkey? Nothing but a small story on CNN.com that buried in the archives after one day. And nothing will come of this murder either. The West has become too domesticated to do anything about violence like this but express sympathies and find reasons why they are to blame, and not the radicals who actually held the knife.

There is a difference between being civilized and being domesticated. Civilized people don't threaten to kill people over insults nor do they deliberately attack innocent women and children, but they do stand up for what they believe in and fight against those who attack them. Domesticated people just sit back and take what comes, letting themselves be trampled over.

Facts

2010-05-06T01:40:00.001-04:00

There are no meanings, only facts and interpretations...

Nietzsche wrote that, "There are no facts, just interpretations." The 'truth' in that depends on what you take for facts. Of course we can say that something is, that it exists, if we can lay our hands on it. We can say that it is hard or soft, heavy or light.

All of those qualities are somewhat relative, but they are factual. We can make them less relative and more 'objective' by using systems of measurement: 2 pounds, 8 pounds, 1 ton. But the units themselves are arbitrary. Numbers are useful but numbers themselves have no meaning.

Facts are basic statements of how things are in and of themselves. The thing I just picked up off the ground, the dirt path, is hard and roundish. Of course it is a rock. Those are facts and if Nietzsche meant that those things don'tr exist then he was wrong. Facts exist but they are not nearly as significant as most people thing, if we learn to properly distinguish facts from meaning and usefulness.

Facts, as simple statements, don't have meaning or use without interpretation. A rock may be hard and may be heavy but there is no meaning or usefulness in that without a human being to interpret those basic material facts as being meaningful or useful. How things are used and what meaning is attached to things is not present in the thing itself. Material qualities are present in the thing, and those are interpreted to give the object meaning and purpose. Is is consciousness that creates meaning and purpose. And the network of meaning that already exists in the consciousness helps attach meaning and purpose to a new thing: the things material qualities must be integrated into the network that is already in place. Meaning and purpose are not randomly assigned but they are also not inherent.

So... there are facts and out of those facts we interpret meaning and purpose as we take into account those facts and integrate the object into the network of meaning that we already exist in.

No Comment

2010-03-29T04:55:00.000-04:00

2010-03-02T05:43:00.001-05:00

Predictive Text

2010-03-02T05:43:00.000-05:00

The predictive text dictionary on my phone is on crack. I now remember, after 5 minutes, why I never turned it on when I got my newest phone. What becomes whatever. Buts not but. The is Therefore. Inspiring is apparently a website: Inspiring.com. Science. Well... That word is a complete thought all on its own. Not makes nothing. Ain't that a neat trick? Though Ain't isn't a word, it is in there. Maybe it is a proper name, cause it is always capitalized. Andy.... That is what I get when I try to use the most common conjunction. It also seems the present is elusive becuase now is nowhere.

Not amusing anymore... Its was. But now it is just annoying.

Olympics...

2010-03-02T05:41:00.000-05:00

The Olympics... Haven't watched much but am disapointed. I don't care much about the competition between nations. What I do want to see is something exciting and inspiring. These days it all seems so cold and technical. Perfect is usually cold and not exciting. And technical usually means impersonal.

I have seen lots of things well done, and the commentators make sure to point that out. But I haven't see much that is exciting and inspiring. Oh, well...

2009-08-01T01:54:00.000-04:00

So, first I want to acknowledge that I am a bit ignorant to how exactly the health care system works (the deep dark bowls of the system) and the detail of the plans out there to fix it. That is why I am going to express my concerns out loud: I want feedback so people can educate me.

1) I know that competing health care companies can create unnecessary competition and grow costly paper trials and unruly bureaucracies. But, since when has the US government been efficient about anything it does? Wouldn’t it be better to incentivize efficiency (somehow) than to have the government take over?

2) What would happen to health care costs if we limited malpractice awards and streamlined (or even socialized) malpractice insurance? How much of a part does malpractice play in the bloating of the system?

3) What could be gained in terms of knowledge, effectiveness and cost savings if all medical records were computerized and data was analyzed (ANONYMOUSLY) to determine how effective certain drugs, techniques, and practices were? Medicine these days is more science than art, so I figure a scientific approach like this might be very beneficial.

4) It seems to me (and I may be ignorant) that the US plays a larger part in the development of new, cutting edge medical technology and procedures than any other country. Could this have something to do with all the money there is to be made here in the health care industry? I mean really, even if a researcher or doctor is trying to find a cure for the pure love of humanity or knowledge they are almost always funded by people that are looking to make a profit. So if we go to a single payer system (which I believe would take away a significant part of the financial incentive to be the first to find the fix) would that stifle the innovation in the medical industry?

Just thoughts that I would like answers too… or at least debate (and if I don’t have time to respond just feedback) on.

And yes, I am still pretty conservative at heart. But I have a heart too... And eyes to see when there is a problem.

2008-09-20T15:10:00.000-04:00

A Belated, and rough draft, Reflection on 9/11 Seven Years On
We need to go back and reinterpret September 11th. Our initial interpretation that we were victims was justified and heartfelt. However, enough time has passed for us to go back and re-evaluate that interpretation and temper it. We were victims. And we felt like the ultimate victims. Make no mistake, feelings and not just facts have a lot to do with how we must see and deal with the past. What a society by and large felt, like it or not, is often more powerful and important that what the facts were or are. That must be a central factor in how we reinterpret because it was likely a major factor in how we originally interpreted.

We did not ask for the attacks; we did not see them coming. Reinterpreting the past to say that we should have know the attack was coming because of this or that bit of intelligence information is absurd. If enough people had seen that in the facts before hand we would have stopped it. But we did not see it because we did not feel it was possible, at least not enough of us. We cannot go back and change that. We can carry that forward and prevent being blind-sided like that again. (We also need to keep from being paranoid on the account of our new state of feeling.)
Equally, we cannot go back and say that we were asking for it. We may have been doing things that made others feel that they needed to attack us to protect themselves or assert their position, but it was not obvious to us that our actions made them feel that way. Again, we did not feel that our actions were that threatening. In the future we need to pay more attention to what others feel about our actions. That is how we can learn our lesson.

Saying that we should have known or that we were asking for it are over-reactions that are even more extreme than the reaction of feeling like we were the ultimate innocent victims. A useful reinterpretation of 9/11 will take into account the lessons without giving up the fact that we really did feel like victims at the time. That victim feeling then will be tempered by the lessons we have learned and go a long way to keep us from acting in ways that will continue to put us in the position of the victim (of new attacks and allegations) or at least in a position that makes us likely to be continuously attacked (or paranoid that we will be).

Of course this is not just dependent on us and our actions. And by us I am referring to that very generic and hard to pin down idea of ‘the west.’ We need to change the way we act towards the ‘other.’ Then we need to be more in tune with how the ‘other’ feels about our actions. In conjunction with both of those we need to be more vigilant and less naïve about what can and might happen to us. Those should be the actions taken because of the lessons we have learned. Hopefully, those steps will bring us into dialogue with the ‘other.’ That dialogue can only be entered into when the ‘other’ sees us as a side that is secure, strong and needs to be respected. But that respect cannot come from fear; the ‘other’ cannot fear us because then we will only be bullying them and not really having a constructive dialogue.

Taking down the Taliban in Afghanistan, and even to a certain extent Sadam Hussein in Iraq, had the potential (and still does) of putting us in a position to have dialogue with the people. That dialogue can only happen though when they see us as a strong and secure power that can defend itself from their attempts to destroy us, and not as a strong power that is looking to crush them. When they feel we cannot be defeated then we need to build mutual respect which requires us to show them that we want to work with them and not destroy them. In actuality, this respect must be built from the beginning in that we show them our strength and determination in ways that always stress the fact that we do not want to destroy them but secure an environment for a dialogue based on respect. It is only when both sides are convinced that the other side wants to ultimately work with them and not eliminate them that a dialogue can be fruitful.

With this in mind I think it is clear that we are not at a point where that dialogue can take place. Mistakes have been made and laying blame for them or denying them will not bring the necessary environment any closer. In fact, blaming only makes us look weak and may show the ‘other’ that we are weak enough for them to have a chance at beating us. Blame gets us very little when what is really needed is an internal dialogue to sort out our own differences and divisions.

Once our own problems are resolved enough to put forward a unified (though not monolithic or brainwashed) front then the real issue that concerns me comes it to play. That issue is the subtle or sometimes not so subtle absolutism that can only be satisfied by one side winning out over the other and not by a true compromise. This absolutisms leads not to a true compromise and co-existence, but to a tolerance that only persists as long as the ‘other’ does not get in its way—which is a very short time in this global age when absolutism tends to be so ambitious. In a manner of speaking: we are in an age of monotheism where tolerance of other gods means that the singleness or supremacy of our god is threatened. This is a far cry from the sometimes bloody tolerance, yet sometimes productive cooperation of the polytheistic ages of the ancient past.

It is only when the absolutism is left behind by both sides that the dialogue can commence with an aim at compromise and coexistence instead of tolerance that can quickly end in obliteration. That is what we must leave behind ourselves and then look out for in the ‘other’ when we sit down to negotiate: that absolutism. That is the last and, I believe because of the times, the most difficult obstacle to be overcome. It is only when the absolutism is left behind that a dialogue entered into with mutual respect can reach a meaningful conclusion.

I often fear that this absolutism cannot be left behind. If that is the case we are in for trouble. Because the world is so interconnected and ‘global,’ is it not realistic to think that we can just go back to our own corners and ignore each other. And because both sides are so ambitious, tolerance will likely not last very long. The best we could hope for, I believe, is for a peaceful sublation of one side into the other. This would likely take place as slow and subtle cultural imperialism that replaces the meaning of one sides ‘god’ with the meaning of the other without changing the names. For example: not eliminating a religion or culture but making the impact of it on the everyday lives of the people less by shifting their daily focus and concerns to economic prosperity and consumer satisfaction(almost to the point of obsession or fetishism). This is peaceful but at the same time effaces a culture in a way that does damage to true cultural diversity and individualism. But this is really a whole different topic.

September 11th brought to the forefront issues that I believe did not have to be placed at center stage. Tolerance and intolerance, security and defense, religion and secularism, have all become obsessions for too many people and from there have passed over into fetishes. They are issues too complex and difficult for even the best of us to tackle head on and so we have dogged doing that yet we still push them. We cannot deal effectively with them on the macro level (often for very good reasons) but we cannot let the spotlight move off them. We are stuck in a conundrum and I believe the only way out is to step back. And from that distance (meaning both out of the heat of the moment and back in time to the origins) we need to reinterpret and come back to the present with lessons learned and expectations recalibrated.

2007-11-01T14:42:00.000-04:00

The following is an essay I started working almost a year ago. I had a certain audience in mind but that audience never materialized. The essay also never took the shape and depth that it needed to survive in a general audience. But since I like it I am going to float it out here.

Monotheism Vs. Polytheism

The West’s Fear and Suppression of Difference

Notes on Nietzsche and an Approach to the Future

“For an individual to posit his own ideal and to derive from it his own law, joys, and rights—that may well have been considered hitherto as the most outrageous human aberration and as idolatry itself.”

Nietzsche is right that society has, as a rule, been afraid of strong individuals. People who do their own thing are outcast and shunned, if not outright persecuted. Human beings are though of as being all similar because they are human beings, and as a result they should all be subject to the same norms. Those that deviate are seen as being either more than human or, as is more often the case, less-than human.

Nietzsche goes on to say, “The few who dared as much always felt the need to apologize to themselves, usually by saying: ‘It wasn't I! Not I! But a god through me!’” This holds in line with the tradition of Old Testament Prophets who criticized Jewish leadership and society. It also fits well with Joseph Campbell’s mono-myth: the hero must leave the society and have a privileged experience—most often an encounter with the divine—to justify his new behavior and values. This personal experience is often degraded by the very other-worldly or divine nature of his otherness: it must either be accepted by all as binding for them or rejected as too strange or difficult. ( In the later case, it is often decided that the hero had mistaken the devil for a god or sold his soul to the devil.)

At heart of these keen observations by Nietzsche is that society shuns difference. The person who embraces their own values is either cast out, eliminated or embraced as a prophet. The latter leads leveling of difference through herdish acceptance and following. The first two cases, casting out or eliminating, are simply attributed the fact that people don’t like change. But the foundation of those objections is the heart of the third and the heart of mob mentality in general: that one norm or one god must rule over a society. This is the desire for consistency and normalcy. If the hero is right then he must be right for all of us and we all must abide by his new rules. This is the root of society’s, at least western society’s, desire for monotheism.

As the west became more and more integrated monotheism became a necessity. Nietzsche says that at one point, “There was only one norm, man; and every people thought that it possessed this one ultimate norm.” The conflicting norms from people to people, from society to society—whether it was from city state to city state or kingdom to kingdom—were tolerable because each group would simply tolerate their neighbors. They would have as little contact with them as possible and the contact that they did have would be overcast with a belief that they themselves were superior. They often did not feel the need to force the clearing of the clouds from over their neighbors; it was enough to deal with them politely when it served mutual interests and leave the weather alone. And sometimes one might find things in their neighbor’s culture that was desirable or intriguing but these things were only amusements and not pressing issues or imperatives for change. There was tolerance in most cases as Nietzsche observes when he writes, “above and outside, in some distant overworld, one was permitted to behold a plurality of norms; one god was not considered a denial of another god, nor blasphemy against him.” But this was before the west became, or was forced to be, highly integrated and connected.

In this golden age, “the freedom that one conceded to a god [the patron of their society or city] in his relation to other gods [of other cities or societies]—one eventually also granted to oneself in relation to laws, customs, and neighbors.” People were free to give allegiance to the gods in the pantheon as it fit their own temperament and personality, their own nature. That is as long as they did not overtly offend the patron god of their society or the expectation of their fellow citizens.

However, with integration came monotheism; or maybe it was the other way around… With monotheism, with close integration, no overworld is permitted. If one is to challenge the norms they must do so in the name of a god that is not only relevant to their own society but to the composite of many societies that is the western world. They cannot challenge the message of one local god and appeal to one people; they must challenge the one god and appeal to many peoples. The hero must act and speak in the name of the one god and to all the (western) world. This proves difficult.

Christianity, of course, is Nietzsche’s target here. He wants to challenge the universality and rigidness of the Christian god and the norm of human nature that that god has imposed on us. So one is justified in asking how this is relevant in a world that strives to be secular. The key lies in the fact that secular humanism is a descendent of Christian monotheism. Whether it is god given or deduces by ‘pure reason’, the humanistic worldview forces us into a mold; it subverts our individuality in favor of a universal be it human rights, international law, human nature, etc. (Nietzsche attacks this as well in the “Twilight of the Idols” chapter entitled “Expeditions of an Untimely Man”. Section 5 of this attacks moral universalism and section 7 scientific objectivism.)

It is an interdependent combination of (1) a society’s desire to be superior, (2) the integration of non-western societies into the West, (3) as well as the advent and rule of the One God that have obscured and hidden difference. And Nietzsche says that it is only in a polytheistic world that we are allowed, “the strength to create for ourselves our own new eyes—and ever again new eyes that are even more are own.” It is only when we are allowed to create our own god or receive our own person message from God that we can forge a world view that is true to our own temperament and individuality without calling upon ourselves the wrath or condemnation of our society.

Nietzsche is critical of monotheism an universal moral imperatives—which can become universal laws. In a sense, these two things are one and the same since secular universals put reason and objectivity in the place of God and in doing so deny our individuality. And as a result they deny difference.

However, I am not ready to abandon the Christian that I was raised in (which is more and more becoming secular) To do that would be radically destabilizing. Because difference is in a sense a ground, but one that is really an abyss, it is only tradition, or power, that create stability. Vattimo’s Weak Though, or weak ontology, gives an environment in which one can embrace monotheism or even secularism without effacing or denying difference. It is in an embracing and thinking through—in the Heideggerian tradition—of both difference (Derrida’s gift to the future) and weak ontology (Vattimo’s gift) that we can find a future that can provide both stability (because it is tied to a tradition) and reverence to the individual that is needed for the western world to survive. This is due to the fact that it recognizes the reality of difference, rejects irrationalism, and keeps tied to the tradition (in a flexible and constructive way) all at once.

Monotheism, and the subsequent secularism, does indeed pose a threat to difference and as result to individuality. But a tempered monotheism can be made to safeguard both difference and individuality if it is grounded in a system of weak thought. If Christianity is approached and rethought through Vattimo’s system it can provide a stability that would be lacking in a system of pure difference that rejects our tradition. It is in this spirit that I believe both Derrida and Vattimo need to be read and studied. It is in that method that we can make use of their gifts to the future of the west.

2007-10-06T15:19:00.000-04:00

Many modern artists, I am thinking of artists of the last 100 years, have tried to make are into philosophy. Art has been made to point out ideas, to challenge our assumptions. Not to just suggest what we ought to think, or how, but to mold us into to that ought.

Some modern philosophers have tried to make philosophy into art. Derrida made ‘poly-louges’ (on art no less). Heidegger spoke about painting in a way that was mythic and even poetic. He speaks of poetry and even in poetry. The German, like a great German before him, tries to identify art with truth. And if philosophy is still a search for truth—but is Sophia still identifiable with truth, or even wisdom?—then isn’t art one with both. A trinity of truth, philosophy and art.

I am much more sympathetic with the second… well I am of that camp: that in the best cases art, truth and philosophy are one. I shy away from the first trend. Not that art shouldn’t challenge, the best always does I think. Shouldn’t mold? : (If it is truth and philosophy it should. ) –You can take that right out of my mouth.—But for art to be just that leaves it barren and unapproachable—or maybe just not worth approaching. (When it takes more reading in a museum than staring, or just gazing, to approach a work—and I stare a lot, but I also read slow—than what is it? Art or an essay? ) To shape the emotions as much as the heart art needs to be beautiful… or dreadful. Maybe ugly but in a artistic way, not in a way that makes it look like a construction. Though art is always a construct—that tries to propagate itself into being natural.

So I guess that art needs emotion, not beauty, and not only message, and not just agenda. Though agenda and be differed to the audience; emotion must be.

Art is triune… No, they are triune in their best: art, truth and philosophy. And giving birth to them, or at least to art, is emotion—Mary, Sophia-tokos.

--I have been reading, in small doses, at random times, and not very far along: Derrida’s restitutions, Pamuk’s my name is red, Adorno and Horkhiemer’s dialectic of the enlightenment. --

2007-09-25T02:34:00.000-04:00

More on Columbia and Ahmadinejad

I can think of only two reasons that Bollinger would give a speech of introduction like that:

The first is that he wanted the attention that he is now getting; he wanted to look like a big man who would stand up to a world leader, to his face. I have never met Bollinger but I have spent time at an ivy league university, and I know how big some of the egos there are—HUGE.

The second reason would be that he was bullied into it by some group. Which group? It could be the board of trustees of the university. Or it could be the media. In either case, and in any other case, it is a shame that he was so blinded by these groups that he didn’t realize what kind of image his remarks would send out the rest of the world.

The United States now looks like the closed minded, insulting and mean nation that 'they' have been accusing us of being. And this time it is not because of our nation’s president it is because of Columbia University, one of our most well respected universities. We are losing the propaganda war because we can’t open our eyes and see the rest of the world; we get too caught-up in our own polemic and political feuds. Even our intellectuals…

2007-09-24T21:42:00.000-04:00

Tonight I am embarrassed to be a Graduate of Columbia University. I have a "yearning to express... revulsion" at how rude Bollinger was to an invited guest and how immature his actions were. They reflect poorly on the university and American in general. This is exactly what Ahmadinejad wanted from his trip to New York: sound bites and examples of how rude, unaccepting, judgmental and close minded Americans are. The president of an Ivy League university fell so low as to give him exactly what he wanted. Ahmadinejad will come out of this looking very good in the Middle East and Americas look like fools, at best, and the hateful war mongering devils that the Fundamentalists already think we are at, at worst.

2007-09-11T14:40:00.001-04:00

State of Emergency

I am currently teaching a Modern World History class with a book that was published in 2001, in the spring of 2001. Needless to say I am going to have to find a lot of supplemental material and not just because things have happened in the last 6 years. (Yeah, isn’t that a pain in the ass for history teachers: things just keep happening even if you don’t get new books.) The way modern history is written needs to change in light of the past 6 years.

I was wrong in thinking that the September 11^th attacks would not change the world on a large scale. Well, I was both right and wrong. The attacks didn’t change the world for most of us in the immediate sense; we did not lose loved ones or money directly. What 9/11 changed was the way we saw the world—it changed our perspective. The change in perspective is what has really changed the world. The attacks brought to the fore a situation that was already there but that most people didn’t know about or pay attention to. We had already been pissing off the world for quite a long time and people were mad, mad, mad. But we didn’t pay attention to that on a daily basis, if at all.

Walter Benjamin wrote in his theses on history that, “the tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule.” What does this mean? It means that if we pay attention to the story, the sentiments even, of the oppressed people in the world—and there are always some—we realize that there is always an emergency on hand. Someone is always on the path to revolt, to extinction, etc.

Before September 11^th, 2001 we thought that there was no emergency. Well, maybe AIDS or poverty in Africa, but these were ‘issues’ not ‘threats.’ We didn’t see the story of the oppressed in the Muslim world. (Even if you don’t believe that they are actually oppressed, not by us, the reality is that they feel they are. And that is reason enough to pay attention. Regardless if people in the West thought or think it is a fiction, it is something they are willing to act on.) This ‘state of emergency’ is what 9/11 brought into the foreground. We now see that these people feel threatened and oppressed. And we see that they are willing to react violently.

September 11^th didn’t change the world, it changed our perspective. It is this change in perspective that has changed the world—and ought to change it more. It should also change the way we tell the story of modern history. We need to see the world and the history that got us here differently than we have. Only then can we find a way forward.

2007-09-07T16:03:00.000-04:00

The Struggle of the Century?

In the decade or two before the turn of the 20^th century the downtrodden, and those who were discontent and had high hopes for the future, gravitated towards communism and Marxism. Marxism was the ideology of liberation and a hope for a more perfect future. Violence was used in its name as a means to a better end—this was controversial but widespread. It threatened the western capitalistic way of life. It consumed the thoughts of politicians, artists, intellectuals and military men on both sides of the issue for almost an entire century.

In the two decades before the turn of the 21^st century the downtrodden, and those who were discontent and had high hopes for the future, gravitated towards fundamentalist Islam (or even fundamentalist Christianity in the US). Fundamentalism was the ideology of order, meaning and hope for a more perfect future. Violence was used in its name as a means to a better end—this was controversial but widespread. It threatened the western capitalistic way of life. It consumed the thoughts of politicians, artists, intellectuals and military men on both sides of the issue for almost an entire century.

Wait… We have not gotten that far yet into this century. Fundamentalism is consuming the thoughts of many. It is using violence. It does have hopes of ‘liberating’ its believers. It took hold in the last decades of the 20^th century. Its first showing was in the Islamic revolution in Iran, then in Afghanistan as the faithful resisted the Soviet invasion. President Bush is right, this will be a long battle. It is a fight against an ideology not a nation, which makes it different from so many wars in the past. But how much of that struggle needs to be violent? I am not sure.

How much of it deals with poverty? I think, less than we want to believe.

How much are we willing to sacrifice to win? And what are the odds that we could lose?

How did we come out of last century’s struggle? Can we, should we do it again?

These are this century’s questions and struggles, like the struggle against Marxism. Or so I am starting to believe.

2007-09-05T13:01:00.000-04:00

In November of 2001 Salman Rushdie wrote an article called, “Not About Islam?” (It can be found in the collection “Step Across This Line.”) It makes a great point about the War on Terror and Terrorism in general. The argument can be summarized as follows:

The problem we have with terrorism is about Islam and we must not deny that. The problem we have is with Islamists who connect the Muslim faith with radical politics. It is these Islamists that are the terrorists, not the regular Muslims who do not get into radical politics. The solution is that the radical politics must be taken out of all forms of the Muslim faith through a process of secularization—this will eliminate terrorism.

This is a very insightful argument in comparison to what a lot of others are saying. But, it is very one sided.

The problem is that the Islamists will likely reject Rushdie’s definition of the Muslim faith and Islamists. These fundamentalists reject the idea that Islamists are people that connect radical politics to the Muslim faith. For them this distinction between politics and religion is not natural or even real. This distinction is part of the problem that they are fighting against in the first place. The Muslim faith is about politics, and may other things, that the western world has divorced from religion.

Let’s say the following:

Islamist = I

Islam or the Muslim religion = M

Radical Politics = RP

Religion = R

Politics = P

Faith = F

Koran = K

Terrorist = T

For Rushdie the following is true:

I = M + RP

I = T

RP ≠ R (or a true religion must exclude radical politics)

P ≠ R (or a true religion must exclude politics)

So: I – RP = M and M – I = No T

For the Islamist:

M = F + K + P

Or even: M = F + K + RP

R = P (or a true religion must include politics)

R = RP (or a true religion must include radical politics, when the world has gone astray)

So: M – P < i =" M">

The idea that politics can be taken from the Muslim faith is ridiculous because that is part of what makes it what it is.

Rushdie’s equation for solving the problem of terrorism does not work for the Islamist because if you take out the politics from Islam then you no longer have Islam ( M – P < style=""> In fact, I would go so far as to say that Rushdie’s solution, “the world of Islam must take on board the secular-humanist principles on which the modern is based,” is exactly what got us into trouble in the first place. It is our secularized society and its values that threaten them so prescribing secularism is just insulting them even more. They are rebelling against the Western world because of secularism so the solution can’t be secularization, unless they change at their very core.

I can understand why Rushdie and many others would find his solution ( I - RP =M and M – I = No T) comforting and piratical. For one, it is an answer that offers hope for peace. (Whereas the previous paragraph puts the problem forth in a way that can make it seem hopeless.) Second, he believes that secularism is a universal good that all of humanity ought to strive for; most people in the west share that view. Further more, he is an atheist who thinks all religions are nothing more than stories. This whole second reason, when presented to many non-westerners, is the epitome of modern cultural imperialism, even imperialism in general.

Rushdie clarifies things in terms of pointing out that it is a problem with Islam though many try to deny it. He also does a good job of pointing out that it is just a certain kind of Islam. But in the end he offers a solution that is as a slap in the face to those that have already told us that they don’t want what we are trying to give them.

2007-08-27T20:38:00.000-04:00

In Essence

“Consequently, our project would be doomed from the start. Certainly this is true—if we understand by ‘essence of poetry’ whatever is drawn together into a universal concept, one that would be valid for every kind of poetry. But a universal like that, equally valid for every particular instance, always proves to be something neutral or indifferent. An ‘essence’ of that kind always misses what is truly essential."

Here Heidegger speaks out against one of the more traditional and popular ideas about what ‘essence’ means. Usually, it means the part or quality of something that makes it what it is and is evident in every instance of that thing. Heidegger is denying that outright. For him the essence of poetry is something that may exist only in some instances (and there is evidence in both Being and Time and Origin of the Work of Art to suggest that he feels this way about essences in general—and this is the line I am taking). For Heidegger, poetry must be something potent and powerful. As a result it cannot be something mundane that is in everything that people claim is poetry. Poetry, for Heidegger, is not about beauty, form or tradition. Poetry must have something to say, it must have significance. It makes no sense for him to have an essence that is neutral or indifferent.

The idea that the essence of anything must be present in all instances is one we should move away from. A person can fall into a category but not have the essence of what it means to be in that category. Example: A person can be a baseball player, and even a good one, and not poses the essence of a ballplayer—say for instance if they don’t really love the game anymore and simply are in it for the money. It is only those who have the essence that make us want to pay attention to that category in the first place. Others may act like or imitate those who have the essence, and as a result be placed in the same category, but that does not mean they have the essence.

I don’t pretend to have any real examples, the ballplayer one is just an off-hand idea. But I think this is a good approach to taken when we try to think about essences or what makes something what it is. The key is not to look for what is common to all in the category but to look at what defines the best in the category. Not what makes every piece of poetry a poem but what does (or should) makes us want to care about poetry at all to begin with. It is the question of why should we (or do we) care at all… And the answer may even be something that people in that category, when it is about people, may reject.

In light of this:

What is the essence of America? What is the essence of being American? What is the essence of Islam? What is the essence of religion? What is the essence of terrorism?

2007-01-26T02:15:00.000-05:00

On Religion and Difference: A quick note, just some thoughts

Religion is an increasingly influential force in the world, especially for those that claim to be non-religious. Those that are not members or believers are having the effects of religion forced upon them. I am not opposed to this in moderation, just as I am not opposed to science imposing on religion in moderation. Influence is good, coercion is bad.

It is important to know about religion these days. It is especially important for those who believe or are members to know their religion well. Then they must also learn about other religions.

Differences in (and within) religions is good; difference creates variety and individuality. I would go so far as to say that difference, especially in religion, is absolutely necessary. Knowing about difference is essential as well. We should not ignore differences, gloss them over or sweep the under the rug. Understanding needs to come with difference, often tolerance should follow. Understanding need not be reciprocal. However, tolerance needs to be reciprocal. One sided tolerance in any significant amount is naïve and a recipe for disaster.

2007-01-18T13:44:00.000-05:00

My Idea of Wisdom

“Wisdom is slow, round-about and indirect.” Blog 6/1/06

A few weeks ago my friend AJ mentioned that comment of mine in an e-mail and wanted to know what I meant by it. That got me thinking and thinking brought me to deepening and clarifying...

Wisdom is not knowledge it is more general, more abstract. Wisdom is more a way of thinking and observing than a way of knowing, with an emphasis on observing.

Here I have to call in a Heideggerian concept to elaborate— that of earth and world. But it is one that I have hijacked and distorted.

World is reality. It is what we think and live in with all of the rules of logic, societal norms and structures, knowledge and most importantly meanings.

Earth is the bare materials. Material objects have no meaning or logic behind them. Science is part of the world and it is an interpretation of the earth that imposes meaning and logic on it. Earth does have basic qualities like shape, hardness, distance, but they are without meaning. Granted, survival is based in the earth, however we cannot, as humans, seem to separate survival from meaning. So for practical reasons I say that survival already takes place in a world, not solely in the earth. Maybe plants would be the best example of a think with no world, but I am not even sure of that. I think that for things with a consciousness earth is never truly alone.

Getting back to wisdom, first by contrasting it with knowledge. Knowledge looks only at the world. The earth fits in to knowledge only as it has already been interpreted by the world—reshaped and given meaning. Knowledge is confined and restricted to the world.

Wisdom is being aware of the world but being able to step out of it to a great extent and get back to the earth so as to see it with new eyes. It has its origins in the world but is not confined to the interpretations that the world has imposed on earth.

Wisdom is practical when it can tie its observations of the earth (and even its ‘outsider’ observations of the world) back into the world, usually stretching and challenging the world as it is.

Wisdom then is inherently slow and seemingly indirect because it works somewhat outside of structures, norms and logic—though anyone’s wisdom will have structures, norms and a logic of its own. It takes time to go outside of the world and observe. Then even more time to bring that observation back into the world in a constructive way. But it is for this very reason that wisdom has a greater potential to be creative and challenging.

Thanks AJ for prompting me!

2006-12-11T13:40:00.000-05:00

I wrote this about a year ago. I had sent it off to a couple of college lit & crit magazines and have not heard back… So I guess it is going no where, but I feel strongly about the idea expressed. I have no answers and that is why I want to share it. It is a problem that needs to be thought.

The African Crisis

Africa has become part of pop culture. Three names alone have worked to make it a topic that is hard to get away from: Bono, Bob Geldof and Nelson Mandela. Live Aid and Live 8 are land marks in pop culture history—this is the bulk Bob Geldof’s contribution. Nelson Mandela has become a world wide hero for his fight against apartheid, his political accomplishments and his work with AIDS. Through his work, words and story we in America have learned a lot about Africa. The newest voice is that of Bono who is not only making Africa a hip issue but it pointing out how it is a moral issue and not simply charity. These are just three of the many personalities, voices and events that have secured Africa a place in our cultural consciousness.

Almost two years ago now, I was able to go to Africa myself. I spent 20 days there and went to Lusaka and Livingston in Zambia. Though 20 days is far from enough time to fully take in a country—or a city, or even a neighborhood—it left a deep impression on me. The nature was breathtaking. Victoria Falls in Livingston puts Niagara Falls to shame. They say that spaces and sizes of things in America are a shock to Europeans when they come to visit and the vastness of the country dwarfs Europe. The same is true for an American when they go to see Victoria Falls, the size and majesty dwarfs Niagara. The wildlife preserve we drove through was better than any animal planet show, or week of shows. The cities were interesting; not European, nor American but had an element of both as well as an Africa element I had never experienced before. And last but not least, probably second to the nature, the people were incredible. They had a spirit full of energy, hope and joy that made them shine. Granted I did not see the extreme poverty of Africa first hand but I did see people who were very bad off and they still had this spirit. It is tempting to say that it is a childlike joy, but if you look at them closely you will know better. The joy is not childish it is a joy that comes with a certain kind of wisdom.

Despite the spirit of the people, the incredible nature and the uniqueness of Zambia (and I love the new and unique) I felt a deep sadness while I was there. It was not sympathy or charity; I was not simply feeling sorry for the people living in poverty. Some of the people that I saw we would consider extremely poor—thought in comparison to others in Africa they are only mildly impoverished— yet, just one of them would have more joy and happiness than I could find in a packed subway car in New York. But I still felt a sadness that I could not shake. I think the root of this sadness lies in the changes that the world is forcing Africa to make.

We have made Africa mostly monotheistic; we have imported our God and morals. We have made them aware of the rest of the world—and how they are ‘behind’ in so many ways. We are trying to make them more efficient; we are dragging them along as the world economy grows by leaps and bounds. We are making them more strategic and forward thinking. We are organizing and systematizing them and their lives. We are making them more serious.

Does any one remember the Little Prince and the business man he meets on the Fourth planet? This business man ‘owns’ the stars though they are reigned over by a king; he spends all of his time counting the stars, which is very serious business; he writes down the number and puts it in his drawer; he uses the stars to buy new stars. This is a very strange sort of ownership. He does nothing with them but count them and use them to buy other stars that he really does not need to buy because they belong to no one and all he has to do is be the first one to claim them and they are his. All of this is very serious business for the man of the Fourth planet. Needless to say it all makes very little sense to the Little Prince. He wonders why counting them accurately is so important and why anyone would spend all of their time doing just that. He wonders what good it is to own them when you cannot do anything with them. He wonders why all of this is so serious.

How does that fit in with Africa? It makes me think of questioning what is important in and about Africa. The Little Prince would say, what is serious about Africa. For anyone who has a heart and a conscience it is important to save the lives of people that are starving, that is serious by any standards. It is just as important to deal with disease; the prevention and spread of things like malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. That is serious. But as we do this we need to take seriously the people and culture of Africa and why we are trying to help them.

It is true that we are trying to help them (or ideally—help them to help themselves) because they are human beings and human life is valuable and worth saving. This is a simple and obvious truth. But what about Africans? There are other people around the world starving who are not the focus of media and pop culture. Why are we so concerned with Africans specifically? Are we helping them now so that it does not cost us more to do so later? Are we doing it because we do not want Africa to become a breeding ground for terrorists? Are we doing it to make ourselves feel better? Are we helping them to secure ourselves a cheep labor source of labor?

Of all the practical and pragmatic reasons to take the problems of Africans seriously I think the most important, the most serious, is this: because they are Africans. They are human beings of course but more than that they are Africans. To be a human being is a minimal thing. We are all humans which is a point of similarity but we are also part of different cultures and it is the culture that we are part of that shapes us more than the fact that we are human beings. Africans are human beings like Americans and Europeans (which should go without saying) but what often goes unsaid is that Africans are Africans and this means they have a vibrant and beautiful culture. These cultures are different from ours and as a result the people in them are different from us though we are all part of the human family. There are so many cultures on that continent and being African means being part of one of those cultures. They have a perspective on life and death that is different from ours, one that embraces both more fully and fears them much less. They have a respect for nature and a connection with it that is like a sixth sense. They have a wisdom that is different from western knowledge and this wisdom gives them a sense of joy and hope in the face of things that frighten and worry us. To us they are human beings with a difference, they are Africans. To them we are human beings with a difference, we are westerners.

Of course it will be cheaper to help them now than to help them ten years from now, but it is important to help them, whether it be now or then, because they are Africans. These human beings that we are trying to help are Africans and we should keep that in mind as we try to help them. To let them die when we could help would be a tragedy. It would be a lesser tragedy, but still a tragedy, to save the lives of millions of Africans only to make them into generic human beings that differ only in geographical location from other people. They would also differ in skin color from many of us in America and Europe, but that is only skin deep—which is part of the problem. To make African governments, businesses and cultures act and look like American or European government, businesses, and cultures would be doing them an injustice. Of course the people in those governments, businesses and cultures would look African as far as their color and features but if they act like Americans and Europeans how they look is a superficial thing. They would be African only on the surface. If we train them to act and think like Americans and Europeans then it does not matter much what they look like or where they are, in a very real way, they are no longer Africans. If they lose their culture and take on ours they are not Africans anymore.

It is true that illness, starvation and other things that have plagued Africans through out their long and fabulous history are horrible. Arguably those things are more horrible now than ever before. I do not want to trivialize these sorts of struggles and tragedies, they are serious. Nor do I want to pretend that a turn away from the modern world and return to nature would result in a better life for them. The point that I want to make, the thing that is the root of my sadness about Africa, is that the price of westernizing and modernizing in order to over come poverty, illness, etc. may be a significant one. Gaining physical and economic health is a great thing, but the cost to the spirit and culture must not be ignored. Africans need to keep their cultures intact and that means that they will be different from us in the way that they act and think, these are the deep differences that make the people of Africa Africans and not the type of generic and abstract human being that philosophers and anthropologist talk about.

Over one hundred years ago Frederick Nietzsche lamented the loss of the spirit in Europe. For him it was the result of the long domination of monotheism and the extreme rigor of Enlightenment thinking and living. I take the listlessness and depression of millions of Americans today as a sign that the problem has not gotten any better and likely has gotten worse. The spirit of the Africans has not been stifled by systemization, calculation and the drive for efficiency and profit. The African spirit is not yet a victim of atrophy like the American spirit. The African sees the world differently than we do and with that difference comes a hope and joy in the simple things, this is a joy that we have lost. Their spirit is sensitive to things that our is not. Their culture has ways of keeping that sensitivity intact even in the face of poverty and illness. We may or may not be able to learn from them and overcome our spiritual atrophy. Regardless of the value their culture may have for us, as we westernize them we need to take care that we do not damage their culture. We need to make sure we do not deny them what we have already denied ourselves.

It is good that Africa has become part of pop culture and people are concerned with the physical and economic health of the people and countries of that enchanting continent. But as we, who are spiritually frustrated, try to help Africa with these problems we need to keep in mind the heath of Africa’s spirit and culture. It would be no less excusable to destroy their unique cultures and identity as Africans than it would be to stand by and watch millions of them die of disease and hunger when we could help. We cannot destroy them as Africans as we ‘save’ their lives as human beings.

2006-11-09T03:49:00.000-05:00

Resigned to the Media

I am not going to make any direct comments about the elections or the resignation of the Defense Secretary. If anyone else wants to open that can of worms here I will contribute enthusiastically as time allows, but I am not going to cut it open myself—I seem to have lost my can opener anyway.

I will however make a comment on the coverage of the resignation, which is really a culmination of how they have covered and treated Rumsfeld throughout these last 4 years. CNN international, the only English language new station I can get here without cable, keeps focusing on one Rumsfeld comment with which they continually make fun of him. I am sure that most of you are familiar with this one: ‘there are known knowns, there are known unknowns and there are unknown unknowns.”

What this fixation displays is the unwillingness (or inability) of the media to consider and think about things that are truly different or difficult. The idea that there are “unknown unknowns” should not be new or difficult to understand for anyone who has read much philosophy or theory, especially post-modern theory and philosophy. I find it hard to believe that this idea could be so difficult for educated people to understand, especially those like the media that ought to have been trained in rhetoric and language. But apparently they do find it hard to understand, to think, that concept.

To question what “unknown unknowns” has to do with being Secretary of Defense, or how relevant it is for the Secretary to talk about “unknown unknowns,” is open for debate. I think that it was appropriate, but that is just my opinion. The media didn’t even raise that question, they simply made fun of him for saying something that they are not patient (or intelligent) enough to understand. Forget educating the public, telling them what Rumsfeld meant and asking if what he meant was relevant or positive. The media simply wanted to dismiss the issue and criticize the Secretary for talking above their heads. They don’t want to explain differences or new ideas—this is what I mean by education. They want to spoon feed the public information that they can easily understand. If things are not readily understandable they dismiss it. This is a very immature approach and shows how immature the media is and how they contribute to immaturity and lack of understanding that the general public has.

2006-09-16T02:31:00.000-04:00

Pope Benedict and Islam

The Pope has stirred up controversy. On a trip last week to Germany he gave a talk at his former university. One section of this talk had caused quite a stir in the Muslim world. I was curious so I went to the Vatican web site and found a copy of the speech. (Speech)

The talk is not about Islam, but about reason and faith—mostly about the relationship between scientific reason and theological reason. Of course very few people will get into that topic, which I think he handles very well. The only thing that anyone is paying attention to is the little part about Islam. This has the potential to be controversial so it is stripped from its context and paraded about to sell the news and shape opinions in a very crude way. I admit what he says is very provocative, but it is not a condemnation of Islam. Benedict poses a question to Islam, a question that Catholicism has dealt with in the past and that Islam should be dealing with now—and to be fair I think many Muslims are dealing with it.

Benedict refers to a dialogue that Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus had with “and educated Persian”. Benedict quotes and frames saying:
“the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: ‘There is no compulsion in religion’. According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the ‘Book’ and the ‘infidels’, he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: ‘Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached’. The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. ‘God’, he says, ‘is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...’. The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.”

What is the question that Benedict is posing? He is asking: “When your holy scripture contradicts itself, how do you resolve that contradiction?” Jews and Christians have had to wrestle with this question. The outcome has not always been one that we can be proud of. However, on the whole, and in more recent history, it seems we have come out on the right side in may of those matches. I think the is especially true where violence is concerned.

As I have written before Islam, because of its holy scripture and tradition, has the potential to be either a religion of war or a religion of peace. Judaism and Christianity have that same potential. The Pope’s provocative statement shows that he understands this dual potential in the Muslim faith. It is far from a condemnation of Islam as a religion of irrationality and violence. The way I see it, Benedict is forcing the question of violence and implying that the choice is there to be made based on Muslim scripture-- the choice is not determined by scripture alone. I may be wrong in this but that is how I read this very timely passage from his speech.

If that is an accurate interpretation of Benedict’s intention, then his speech should only be offensive to three types of people.

First are those that do not bother to look in to the matter themselves. These people merely react to the media’s sensational and crudely provocative interpretation of the speech. They react uncritically and unthinkingly to a message that has been packaged and even manipulated by the media. I don’t think much more needs to be said about that.

Second are those that are afraid of examining their faith and making the hard decision that Benedict places before them. These are people who live an unexamined faith. They blow in the wind created by the religious leader who is shouting the loudest at the time. They are lead like sheep but can stampede like buffalo.

Third are the ones who believe in a violent interpretation of the Muslim scriptures and thus in Islam as a religion of violence. But not just that, they also are not comfortable with their belief. It is a case of wanting to believe something but being uncomfortable with what others think about them. They want to deny that their belief is the result of interpretation and insist it is the only way to believe in Islam. These Muslims are not comfortable thinking that a choice needs to be made and they may be on a controversial and unpopular side because of that choice. They want to believe in violent Islam but not be labeled and violent Islamists. They also want to be free of any blame or responsibility for those beliefs.

I cannot have respect for any of these people. Maybe I can feel pity for them, especially the second kind, but I cannot respect them.

I can however respect those who take seriously the Pope’s question and side with him; those who take up his challenge, explore their religion and come to a peaceful interpretation of God and therefore Islam. This I have much respect and admiration for.

I also have respect for those who believe in Islam as a religion of violence and are honest about it, making no apologies. If they have taken seriously the type of question posed by Benedict and chosen to believe in intolerance and violence I have respect as long as they are honest about it. I however no admiration for them, I look at them with respect and fear. My respect is for their conviction and the strength of their belief. My fear is of what they believe and what actions that may lead them to or justify. (Yes, this is controversial, but I cannot help but respect them though I disagree with and fear them.)

This short passage from the Pope’s speech should be in the news. It should not be in the news because it is an insult to Islam or because it will stir up controversy and maybe even violence. It should be in the news because it is a call from the ‘West’ to the Muslim world. The call is for them to wrestle with a great question and to find an answer. Once that is done an invitation can be extended, an invitation to a meaningful dialogue and hopefully co-existence and mutual respect.

2006-08-16T08:00:00.000-04:00

“The Hands That Built America”

I think of the hands of my grand parents… I never knew my great grandparents who are the ones that came over from Europe. They planted fields and built houses. They worked hard to be American, to realize the American dream.

My great-grandparents came to America and made sure that their kids became American. They resisted teaching them their native tongue. They taught them to fit in and work hard. They wanted them to be American, which meant to prosper and be part of the society that ruled the world—at least as much of the world that they cared about. (Mind you all of my ancestors are from Western Europe.)

My grandparents didn’t met my parents learn the language their parents spoke—if they themselves knew it at all. They wanted them to get an education, a practical education. They wanted them to be American and be the American dream even more than they were.

My ancestors assimilated. In fact, they more than assimilated: they purged themselves of their cultures. This is not uncommon, especially in the mid 1900s. The name and an aura is all that connected me to my European roots as I grew-up. And that is only a stones throw of generations back.

These people that gave up so much to have their children and grandchildren be American—and worked so hard, and were hands that built America—might well be proud of the course that America is taking today. America is leading the world: by force of conviction, economics and military. They are trying to make the rest of the world more like America. Who that gave up so much to become American can really fault that? These days I don’t think that people give up as much—at least Europeans. A lot of the world is more American than ever before and diversity is in vogue so you can keep a bit of your language and culture and still fit in—you are even encouraged to keep your language as long as you speak American as well.

But what about BRAND AMERICA in the rest of the world? Brand America is dead in all but Europe, and even that is shaky. This Middle East Crisis may have put the nail in the coffin. I can understand what Bush wants! If you don’t disarm Hezbollah you are not going to get peace between Israel and Lebanon. (Unless of course you get rid of Israel all together, which is tempting but not at all practical.) You need a plan that considers the disarmament of Hezbollah to get a cease fire that is anything but a reprieve. But how does that look to the rest of the world? It looks like the US is the Jew’s bitch. (Which it is true but that is a different topic that needs to show the fact that even Gore or Kerry would have been just as much of the Jew’s bitch because Democrats are more funded and supported by Jews that Republicans ever were.)

The US needs to give up a lot of things to save its international public image—and Israel, the Jewish constituency and Jewish money are just the beginning. (Fuck Jews with dual citizenship that vote in both Israel and America. Until everyone can have dual citizenship and vote in both places give no privilege! I may be wrong on this but as far as I know Jews can have both US and Israel passports and voting rights, but many others who take US citizenship have to give up their other passports and voting rights. That is bullshit.)

I am not going to go any further into this… I am just going to end with the event that prompted this rant:

I was at a club tonight. They were playing good music and I was having a good time. They played some Depech Mode. So I asked they DJ, who is kind of a friend of mine, to play VERTIGO by U2 to follow. He loves U2 so I figured it was a given. But they were trying to wind down the night: it was 4 am after all. So the DJ knowing that I loved the song, and he loves it too, played “The Hands That Built America” instead. All right! But it was a downer for a lot of people that understood the lyrics. They still love America here but it is a tenuous love.

I saw U2 in New York on the Vertigo tour. And I could just see Bono singing those lines. They are painful now for me: “of all of the promises, is this one we can keep? Of all of the dreams, is this one still out of reach? Halleluiah” And then the tenor voice. I think it is Bono’s voice altered to sound like a tenor—not like other U2 songs where they have Pavarotti actually singing. This was done not long after his dad died and his dad sang tenor. I can feel the pain in it. And I think of the minor controversy about the movie Gangs Of New York—that it was an unflattering (and even untrue) depiction of US history. Unflattering? I don’t know. But unsettling? Yeah, for those that think the US was born and immaculate birth and has a sparking past—as most of us Americans were taught in history class.

BRAND AMERICA is in trouble. But it is more than a change from Republican to Democrat that will fix it. It is a change is mentality of the society. A change that may be more than we can stomach. A change that would question and reshape the foundations of what and how we think. A change that may make us no longer American, or at least not an America that our immigrant ancestors would recognize.

--
Originally Posted by Zophorian to Zophorian at 8/15/2006 08:56:00 PM

2006-07-29T17:32:00.000-04:00

Fiction:

“Each spring I can hear it: the moans and cried of death. The resistance to new life overshadows the blooming, cleansing rain and sunshine that most people are fixated with. In each new flower, leave, and new born animal is the remnants of what died in the fall and winter. These things, living things that are alive no more, become mixed up, fragmented and part of the new growth, new births. But all I can see is the passed. As they come back to life in a new form they lament—I can hear them. Some lament the loss of death, the return to restless and relentless living world fro the rest and repose of death. (This I don’t understand but I have never been dead.) Other lament the loss of life, the life they once had, what they once were. Unwhole now they are and feel scattered and long for when they felt singular and unified, whole. Their voices will be drown out as the new growth takes on a voice of its own. For now I can hear them. As the summer wears on this will all fall silent and be forgotten. It will all live only in the present. But spring is always difficult and depressing.”

This is from a year ago. I can’t find the rest of this character—my head is full of short fragments like this that don’t fit. And of course I can’t find a plot. Well, I found one but it involves a philosophy PhD student, a theology teacher, a business man and a writer trying to forget that he wants to write and drowning himself in the world of the suits. The plot deals with breakdowns and (a possibly hallucinated) meeting of the four to start a revolution. Not really something that will make publishers jump.

But I am still trying to write… I am going to dive back into my Italy journal, the only journal I ever kept with any regularity. Maybe that will give me some ideas. And hey, Italy is always a popular topic.

2006-07-14T16:05:00.000-04:00

The Middle East: Land of Terror, Tempers and Bloodshed

Go Israeli Defense Force! (This is really some defense, isn’t it?) I am excited about the developments in the Middle East. Israel should wipe out both Hezbollah and Hamas, totally and completely. Get them in Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Iran… Everywhere.

Once that is done then the UN should step in. The UN should take away half of Israel’s land and most of their military weaponry. Yeah, that is right carve up the land and give half of it back to the Palestinians. Cut it up arbitrarily anyway you want because no matter what you do someone is going to be pissed off enough to take up arms and fight it. And take away Israel’s military advantage, i.e. the weapons sold to them by the US. Then consider giving Iran (and maybe Palestine) a couple of nukes just for good measure, to ensure a balance of terror in the region.

When a Palestinian state is in existence, and armed to be equal with the new Israel, all of the Palestinians all over the region should go back. They should be forced to go back whether they want to or not. They need to be out of their neighboring countries and have no political influence there.

And what about Jerusalem? That is a good question. You can’t give it to either the Palestinians or the Israel’s with out pissing the other off beyond all reason. Giving it to the UN would be a fuck up, the UN is pretty much a fuck up to begin with (as we can see from the current state of the Middle East, which has its modern roots in the UN’s creation of Israel) so this is beyond its ability. So… Why not give Jerusalem to the Italians? Give it to the home country of the Catholic Church. Or better yet, give it to the Vatican! Can you just imagine the Swiss Guard patrolling the gates of Jerusalem in their Michelangelo designed uniforms… I am sure that would strike fear in the hearts of the IDF and Palestinian militants.

OK, so this is not really what I think about the Middle East. But today it is on the news like mad and I feel like being a smart ass… Have a chuckle.

2006-07-07T15:51:00.000-04:00

Islam as a Religion of Violence

Nic Robertson had another good piece on CNN international today. Like yesterdays it was about Muslims, specifically Muslim Extremists in London. They show us a different side of Islam that people normally don’t want us to see. These are Muslims that are unapologetic about the London bombings, the 9/11 attacks and the Madrid train bombing. In fact, he had footage of Muslims living and born in London cheering when their leader listed the attacks and how many people died. This is not Islam as a religion of peace, this Islam (to paraphrase one of the interviewees) ‘is a religion of peace in peaceful times, but a religion of war in times of war, when the believers are under attack or oppressed.’ There are passages in the Koran that support this, one of them was quoted by that same interviewee: when the land and believers are under attack you must do what ever necessary to strike terror into the hearts of the aggressor. (Again a paraphrase.)

(Of course, most Muslims do not follow this interpretation of Islam. They are not prone to violence and their religion is not one of violence but one of peace. Islam does not have to be a violent religion. But the point here is that it does not have to be a peaceful one either. Islam and the other major world religions are open to interpretations as religions of violence or religions of peace.)

This interpretation of Islam creates a religion of violence; it is a religion of intolerance. It is also a religion under attack. In the world today we have taken away the authority of religion to call people to arms. We have given that power solely to the government. This is an attack on Fundamentalist Islam. We have liberated women and are pushing for equal everything for them. We have made tolerance a higher value than God—we value tolerance so highly that it must be an attribute of God if that God is worthy of belief. This is an attack on Fundamentalist Islam.

If someone came along and questioned science and scientific truth the same way that we are questioning their religion we would think them crazy. But the fact is that science is our religion in the west, it much more a religion than our churches, denominations and creeds. Our religions are almost always half heartedly believed in. Science is thought to be the way the world is and the quest for scientific knowledge is seen as uncovering and understanding reality. Religion is left to fill the extra space and answer the non-scientific, non-material questions. They see their religion as we see science, and they have a right to that. And that is a right we have stepped on. What is scary is the violence. They can easily justify it, we cannot.

These men, I have a lot of respect for them. I do not wish to run into, or have a run in with them anytime soon. It is a shame that we cannot peacefully coexist—which would entail having our own spaces that are insulated from one another. But with globalization, economics and technology that is just not an option. They, or their parents, have come to the west for economic reasons and they are mixed among us. And we have gone to them as businessmen, cultural tourists, teachers, volunteers, and soldiers. For both sides to pull back and ‘go back where they came from’ (what ever that means these days) would not only be socially and logistically impossible, but it would be a disaster on each side. They have become interwoven into our society and economy, whether they like it or not. We have interwoven ourselves into their society and economy, whether they like it or not. (And yes, I do think that the ‘aggression’ originated on our side and that we are mostly to blame with our democratic, secular and capitalistic imperialism. But that aggression was well meaning, though culturally insensitive, and not directly or overtly violent. Never the less, it has been oppressive.)

We need to let them have their beliefs. We need to let them have their interpretation of Islam that is violent and stop denying that Islam can be a violent religion—after all Christianity can be as well and in the past has been. We cannot ignore this but we cannot let them harm us and we cannot allow them asylum in our western democratic and humanistic society. What does that mean practically and politically? How do we do that in real terms and actions? I don’t know. And, if there is anyone listening, that is the discussion I would like to open up.

2006-07-06T04:03:00.000-04:00

7/7 is on people's minds.

If you get a chance today check out CNN international. Nic Robertson has a piece about Muslim in London, fortunately not your average Muslim. But he is very open and makes some great points about religion. It is very interesting. I will try to post on it tomorrow. If there is anyone out there reading this, I would like to get a discussion going on it.

Let me know if you catch it.

2006-07-04T17:57:00.000-04:00

GO ITALY!!!

2006-07-03T15:22:00.000-04:00

Subway Observations

I have been taking the subway here on a regular basis. I never really did before, but now I have places to go in my weekly routine that are actually on the subway line—yeah, there is just one line here.

I noticed that the stations are clean and always cool. (much cleaner and prettier than the NYC stations.) I am not sure how that cool part will work in the winter but in the summer it is very refreshing. The sun and dry heat here are a killer and getting below ground into the cool damp feels nice. I am not sure if they are air conditioned (the cars are) but I am assuming that they are. The marble walls and the fact that the tunnels are dug out of stone may help as well.

One thing that I hadn’t noticed before (on the rare occasions that I went into the underground) was that each track has a clock over it at the end of the station. This beats the NYC subway in which you can lose track of time easily. (Then again most people in the subway there are in such a hurry and wouldn’t even notice the clocks anyway.) Not only do all the tracks here have a clock but also a timer. But what got me about the timer is that it doesn’t count down to the expected arrival of the next train. This is what they have for the trams at airports in the US. These start counting up from when the train leaves, so it tells you how long it has been since a train has been there. The time between trains ranges from 4 to 6 minutes—at least in my experience these last two weeks. I get a kick out of the fact that they don’t pretend to know when the next train is going to come with any sort of accuracy. Things here are pretty irregular so I can fully understand why they are not going to make guesses. Even so they are courteous enough to let you know how long you have been waiting if you just missed the train. (But they do keep on a pretty regular schedule, better than NYC’s red lines.)

2006-06-29T03:43:00.000-04:00

Turkey and The EU

The Armenian Catholicos (the head of the Armenian church, like their Pope) went to Turkey last week. Yeah, he went to Turkey. I am not thinking that it was a very smart move but there are still Armenian Christians and Armenian churches there so he went. He was greeted by protesting crowds, some of the people throwing eggs at him. Not only did the meet him this way but people like this turned up every where he went. He was constantly having to be rushed in and out of cars and buildings, driven past crowds waving signs and throwing things.

For a country that wants to become part of the EU Turkey has a lot of problems, this is just one of them. They are hypocritical and intolerant. After being enraged and holding protests over the Mohammed cartoons, because it was an insult to religion and religiously intolerant, they pull something like this. Sorry but stalking, verbally abusing and throwing things at the leader of a religion is not very tolerant either.

Actually, I have come to learn that this is not the only time something like this has happened in Turkey. Several Christian leaders—the Greek Primate, the local Armenian Bishop—have had the same reception in Turkey. They seem to have a habit of being asses to non-Muslim religious leaders.

I hope, but doubt, that the EU leaders who are so keen on letting Turkey into the EU will take a good look at this. This is just a small incident but it should remind everyone of the issues with Cyprus, the Armenian Genocide, the Kurds and general human rights in Turkey. I see nothing but problems coming from Turkey entering the EU.

The Turks in Eastern Turkey—Istanbul is different—are intolerant Muslims. There is nothing wrong with being Muslim, it is just different from being Christian. If there is tolerance Christians and Muslims can get along quite well. Being intolerant is not even a disaster. I am sure there are a lot of intolerant people in Europe. They are, or have to be, tolerant of differences among Europeans, their intolerance is for non-Europeans. To be different, to be Muslim, and intolerant in Europe is a disaster waiting to happen. The EU leaders that want to admit a Muslim country because the want to show that the EU is not a Christian Club should put aside their idealism and be practical. Turkey is not ready for the EU and the EU is not ready for Turkey.

2006-06-23T17:46:00.000-04:00

Fairy Tales, Folk Tales and the American Dream

This may not seem like a very novel idea to anyone else but it is a big one to me. I have been chewing over the reality that so may people in the world want to be American, to live in America or at least be like Americans. I have also been reading fairy tales and folk tales to my daughter. The two have informed one another and a third thing is born: a way for me to, at least provisionally, understand and conceptualize the craze for things American.

Collections of fairy tales and folk tales are filled with stories of how the peasants or outcast rises to power and/or wealth. The poor boy finds gold with the help of some magical being. The peasant daughter marries the prince. The princess marries a peasant that really deserves to be king because he is such a noble person. These are stories of the lowly rising up into the noble class, or at least becoming so rich they might as well be nobility.

I have no data on how often this actually happened but I am going to assume that it was not often—this seems like the likely scenario. This makes it curious as to why so may stories take this as their theme. (Heck, even Plato kind of addresses this issue in The Republic with his myth of the medals.)

That is what I was pondering in relationship to bed time reading. And then BAM! The other thing popped into my head and I had an idea that brought some clarity. (Well, maybe not clarity, but at least an interesting perspective.)

These fair tales and folk tales are the ancestors of the American Dream. Or maybe they are the prototypes. You see, I figure that a lot more people have realized the American Dream that ever married up from the peasantry to the royal family or went from starving poor to rich with the help of a magical being. So in a sense the American Dream is these tales made real. (Yeah, that is my big idea. Are you disappointed yet?)

If you buy that then it follows that everyone wants to be American or like an American because they want to make those tales real. They want to rise to the top levels of society, as they always have, but now it is possible because of America.

Well, it is more possible. Well, it is sometimes possible. It has happened after all. And it still does happen. In fact now it is happening in places all over the world, because more and more places are becoming like America! Americanization is making fairy tales come to life all over the world. The more other places become like America the more often the tales will come true. Some day we can all live a fairy tale like that!

Whoa, I think I got a bit carried away. But then again I think a lot of people all over the world are getting carried away like that. I think Americanization, the craze for all things American, is based on that very sentiment.

This worries me and it is not just because of the loss of cultures and difference that is taking place as people all over the world forsake tradition and the local for what is American. It worries me more that this American Dream is at heart a fairy tale. Granted, it is more true than ever before, but it is still a wishful tale. This is especially true when it gets drawn out so far as to think that everyone, or at least most people, will be able to live this tale. The natural and human resources are not in existence to make that dream a reality for most people; and I doubt they ever will be even with leaps forward in science and technology.

I am not forecasting doom and gloom. I just think that a lot of people are setting themselves up for huge disappointments. Those disappointments will breed resentment. Resentment can easily breed acute anger that leads to violence. Wait maybe I am forecasting doom and gloom. Ugh… If a lot of people have that sort of anger against American (and the West in general) their will be problems. Terrorism will become more common and we will be fighting against more than just fundamentalist Muslims. Groups will all sorts of different ideologies and worldviews will take their lead and act our of their resentment.

Maybe I should stop reading folk tales and fairy tales…

2006-06-15T14:44:00.000-04:00

A WORK IN PROGRESS [UNTITLED, REALLY]

I TRADED VEBLEN for Vattimo. Now my mind is racing so fast that I cannot find a way to organize all of my thoughts in order write them. Or even enough of them to make sense.

NIETZSCHE, AT THE hands of Vattimo, puts words to things that I have been stumbling with. Not that I always agree with the words that are chosen (though this could have something to do with the translation, though I do like, and have met the translator for this current book) because of the way that it colors the concept. Example: He uses the word revenge to talk about something I stumbled with in my post on conspiracies. We have a feeling of revenge that we cannot find out the order of the world definitively. We have a feeling of revenge that we cannot find out who or what is responsible or ‘to blame’ for things that happen. It seems that sometimes this revenge is against the world for not conforming or showing itself. Other times it is subconscious revenge against ourselves for wanting what cannot be: clarity and knowledge of responsibility. Though I don’t really like that word, I cannot find a better one—yet. The point here is that it is that revenge that causes us to create and believe in conspiracies.

I HAVE BEEN trying to catch some of the world cup here. It has been hard because a lot of the games are on in the evening when I have quiet to read or have plans to go out. I have also been busy trying to sort out some tutoring work for the summer and going to the doctor. (My son lost his toe nail to a crescent wrench and subsequent infection.) Soccer is a beautiful game—though I have never doubted this since I first got to watching Euro soccer in ’96. I have been more able to appreciate the beauty now. I think it may help that I can’t really understand the commentators and have come to a point where I don’t care. And I have come to appreciate a game that ends 0-0, or 0-1 more than a game like the Spain game that was 4-0 (or at least that was the score when I fell asleep). I think my father-in-law has helped me to appreciate the game in this way.

I AM IN THE downstairs room of a Lebanese restaurant and I thought I was alone. Here I can sit in peace and smoke hookah. I don’t feel self-conscious about breaking out the laptop and typing away down here, which is the big bonus. Now I realize I am not alone. There seems to be a couple in the booth two down from me. The light is not on, so I didn’t notice before. I can tell now because of the giggles and rustle of clothes. I’ll have to wait and see if it is a teenage couple, or a married man and his girlfriend. Neither would be unusual. Places like this are good for rendezvous of prohibited fondling.

I READ A NEW YORKER article on the James Joyce Estate (WWW.Newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060619fa_fact ) —Thanks AllThings for passing it along. It seems that Stephen James Joyce, the grandson, is pissing people off. Some of the things he is doing are a bit out there—he is trying to prohibit public readings of Ulysses on Bloomsday!! But other things are brilliant. He wants to stifle the academic literature and analysis of Joyce because he thinks that it intimidates the average reader and keeps more people from picking up Joyce and reading it to enjoy it. I agree with him totally! I think the same is done to philosophy and a lot of other literature. A lot of great works, literature and philosophy, are hard to fully understand but that should not keep people from reading them. News articles, instruction manuals, text books and pop-literature are meant to be fully understood, other things don’t have to be. A lot of great works are indeterminate and need the reader to fill in gaps in their own way to makes full sense of them. (In fact, sometimes it is best not to make full sense of them and just take them as they are—the same way we should take life sometimes.) We are taught that we need to fully understand something for us to have read it correctly. The academics think that solving works is the way to do them justice. We are taught that writing needs to be clear and concise to be good. All of this is crap. For utilitarian writing (manuals, news articles and the like) this is true but philosophy and literature are not that type of writing. They need to call us to think and create and plain writing does not do that very well. Indeterminate writing and complex writing call us to involve ourselves in what we are reading and to create something to take out of it. That something is relevant to our life, it is alive and useful. To become more individual, more able to solve the problems that face us and to be more active in the world when we read we need to read in this way. This type of writing and reading is more reflective of the world the way we live in it, not the way that it is categorized and analyzed in the universities and on TV news. Go Stephen Joyce!

NIETZSCHE AND THE Eternal Reoccurrence. Not so much a cosmology as a total reworking of time and metaphysics. The end of linear and causal time. Reality and apparent become myths. The Unburdening of modern man from the future given to us (imposed on us) by our ‘fore-fathers.’ The present as a totality that encompasses the past and future that are created in this moment. Prometheus unbound and Sisyphus happy? It is a shame that Nietzsche didn’t write about those two.

LOOKS LIKE I’LL be tutoring some kids from Iran this summer. This should prove to be interesting. I’ll have had students from two of the three members of the ‘Axis of Evil.’ I guess the third does not exist anymore, huh? So I missed the Triple Crown. But, can I substitute a whole host of people from the former ‘Evil Empire’ and still get credit? Partial credit?

COLLEGE AGED, and not a bad looking couple either.

2006-06-12T16:13:00.000-04:00

On Poetry (or something of the sort)

“… to understand contemporary poetry it is best not to refer to the memory of past poems, but rather to the physiognomy of the contemporary world.” Alfredo Giuliani From the introduction to I Novissimi—a collection of Italian.

First off, what is physiognomy? Well it is the art of judging a person’s character by the way they look, mostly their face. Or it can refer to a landscape. In both cases it is an external or skin deep reading of things. So the call here is to look at how the world appears. In many ways I think this is very appropriate. Most deeply because we really only know ‘facts’ about the physical world on this level, the outer skin. We can look at the physical world and interact with it in a basic way without knowing anything about meaning or substance, and this is the most ‘factual’ way of interacting with the world.

When we start talking about meaning, significance, truth and the things below the surface we are talking about what we interpret and posit, attribute and extrapolate, not what is actually there. The fact that a rock is hard and heavy is all that is ‘factual’ about the rock, everything else tells more about ourselves than it does about the rock.
So when we look at the world and act in it most of the days of our lives we are dealing just as much with the tradition and values (and worldview) that have been handed down to us as we are the actual physical world— I would say it is even a 80-20 split, respectively.

Part of poetry (and any good literature, art and metaphysics) is trying to strip away as much of that 80% as possible—without going insane—and look at the physical world. Then the poet rethinks the tradition, values and worldview as they write poetry that aims to changing the world by first changing the way we look at it and think about it.

(Yes, this is very post-modern. Yes, I have read and continue to read a lot of Nietzsche and Heidegger (Vattimo and Derrida). Yes, I may indeed be going far beyond what Giuliani means. But I have been meditating on that quote for a while now and have been without the book that it came from so it has taken on a life of its own. Should I even attribute it to him anymore? Maybe I should attribute it to Nietzscheidegger.)

This is a view of poetry that places it above science, politics, and philosophy. It makes poetry the queen of the arts, and art the highest of all human activities. It does however leave room for politics, science and philosophy to be poetry in a broader sense—when they are world shaping. Einstein and Newton did that in the areas of science. The founding fathers of America did that for politics. (And in lesser and less positive way so did Hitler and Mussolini.) Nietzsche did for philosophy. So did Marx and Hegel. So did Christ, Mohammed and Abraham—and I am not questioning the divine origins of their messages in saying that.

To write great poetry is to try to remake the world.

Any poet today needs to write not just out of the tradition—write in relation to those that have influenced his style—but out of the world that he finds himself in. In fact, poetry that is going to be read these days needs to be relevant in some way: it needs to be interpretable so that it says something to the contemporary audience. The classics are read to show people how great poems were made in the past, and if they are truly great they can still speak to us. But more and more, the reason for really reading and meditating and feeling the classics is to be able to write poetry. Poetry is not dead, it is the classic poetry that is dying more and more as it becomes more and more distant from the present—which is happening at a faster rate now than ever because of the way that the world changes so quickly due to technology….

This is pretty radical. I think maybe I have said too much, or gone to far. Abort! Abort…

“is it not better abort than be barren” (Beckett from Cascando)

I have been barren for the last week. I have written nothing, though I have been trying. Maybe that has to do with what I have been reading—Veblen is not as exciting as I had hoped. Maybe this will get the ink flowing again.

2006-06-04T05:11:00.000-04:00

Terterian Documentary—Art and the Audience

“Often I am asked: what is your music about? Once I answered: It’s about you, what fulfils you, what you know about this world. If the artist posses this receiver [to hear the sounds of the universe and vibrations of the earth], than the listener also has to posses something, but what? Perhaps knowledge, life experience. Music awakens in the consciousness, in the soul of a listener, if he is ready for that, what the listener knows, or feels.”

If this is the case for the composer, and I think it is, then I also think it is the case for all types of artists. I have always struggled with what art is (which is almost the same question as ‘what does the artist do?’ and ‘what is good art?’) and what is the role of the audience. I hate the idea that the audience is passive and simply receives the message of the artist. For me art needs to be at least a bit ambiguous and indeterminate; the audience needs to add something, to clarify to make it relevant to them. Art is about a dialogue between the audience and the work of art, the artist simply set up the meeting. Not that what the artist does is simple or insignificant but the artist cannot have control of the situation or of how their art is taken. If you have a clear message you want to make write an essay, don’t create art.

Art, as opposed to entertainment, is something that the artist does not have control over (in its reception and interpretation, not in its creation). Art takes an active audience, and audience that has something in them to offer. Entertainment is something that the audience takes on passively. The entertainer gives the audience something that they can take as it is, without the audience having to bring anything to the table to contribute—aside from their money that is.

But what is it that the audience brings? Life experience and knowledge are good. They bring their life to it and interpret the work of art from out of their place and time, their experience. The problem with this these days is that people have such little life experience and knowledge. What do people in the US talk about: sports, prime time TV, blockbuster movies, pop music, their jobs (which are usually empty and boring in terms of content and meaning). Maybe they talk about books they read in college, if they bothered to read any of them. Maybe they talk about their life experiences out at the bars and at parties—usually remembering the good old days of high school and college. But is this the type of knowledge and life experience that can add anything to a work of art? Are those the types of things that can make a work of art come alive and challenge our worldview? I would answer no in both cases.

The audience needs to bring something to art, it is not art and they are not an audience if that does not happen—(according to me! Lol). The problem is that we often have very little to bring to the art that we encounter and as a result we cannot enter into a dialogue with it. We cannot meaningfully interpret it. (Not only that but we are taught about art in a way that discourages us from dialoging with the work of art—that is a serious job that should be left to scholars. Everything in the US is left to the experts.) So what are we left with? We are left with entertainment. When it comes to art, we have neither the tools, the baggage (nor the confidence) to be an audience. Instead we turn to entertainment all of the time, not just often, and we become more and more passive. We pack into stadiums and movie theaters. We turn on the TV. We sit back and let entertainment flow over us.

2006-06-01T14:14:00.000-04:00

A Crisis of (Too Much) Religion In The US?

A friend of mine blogged about an article the other day: www.Cubezoo.blogspot.com.
The article is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/36640/

I got a chance to read it and… Well… Here is goes:

I am very annoyed at the fact that people continuously assume they know what “separation of church and state” means. This is not clearly a statement against religion in politics it is an unclear idea and was written to be so. There was not uniform agreement on what the role of religion should be in society and government. It was agreed upon that the new government should not have an official church the way that England had an official church, and that the elected officials should not have to answer to or be ordered around by a religious leader like kings were sometimes subservient to popes. This was the minimal exclusion that should take place, the line that church must not cross according to most people who were involved in creating the Constitution, etc. Other thought that the separation should be greater, that religious ideals and morality had no place inspiring or justifying legislation. They felt that everything that happened in government ought to be justified and inspired by only the secular. This however was not the view of the vast majority (at least not that I have heard), but then again neither did the either side. The founders were split on this idea and the compromise was a ambiguous “separation of church and state.” The wording can be interpreted either way and that is why it was adopted. To say that Evangelicals (or fundamentalist) cannot pass laws, offer classes in public schools or make judicial rulings that are inspired by and further their religious beliefs because of the “separation of church and state” is true only if you interpret that clause in a very strict and wide ranging way. The hard core secularists interpret it that way and so it makes perfect sense to them. The Evangelicals interpret it the other way—that if they are a majority or in the very least are elected that they are free to do as they wish as long as they don’t establish and official church or a supreme religious leader like the Ayatollah. Both are possible interpretations…

This brings me to the issue of interpretation which I think is really at the heart of this whole issue. Interpretation is the forerunner of understanding and knowledge. Anything that is understood and considered knowledge (or fact) has already been interpreted. Sensory input is meaningless without interpretation. Language is meaningless without interpretation. Some things are open to more interpretation (and more varied and wide ranging interpretations) than others, but nothing is limited to one possible interpretation. “The ways are multitudes.” (Where that quote I recall from high school came from I cannot recall.)

The tricky thing about interpretation is that it is circular and as a result anything one believes or believes they know is circular. What you interpret the world (or the phrase “separation of church and state”) to mean (how you understand it and what knowledge and facts come out of it) both determines and is influenced by what you think the world is (or what you want it to be). You interpret the separation clause in a secularist way and that makes you a secularist, but you also made that interpretation (and believe in it so securely) because you already were a secularist to some extent. The same goes for the Evangelicals. The same goes for whatever side you take on the evolution debate. The same goes for just about everything. (What are the exceptions? I don’t know but I don’t want to heavy handedly rule anything out.)

This issue of interpretation and circularity goes even deeper, it penetrate and permeates, it is the only foundation. A person believes in secularism and democracy not because they are true or right or some ideal… They have posited them (or retained them from their heritage) as true, right or as and ideal because they believe in them and are attracted to the world that they make possible. The same is true of the Christian Nationalists. These people are not wrong or perverted, they believe in something different. They are not irrational or insane, they hold different standards for sanity and have a different form of reason. It all comes down to the circularity of interpretation which really is a kind of faith in all cases. Some believe in secularism and other Christian Nationalism.

What scars me about both sides is that they hide or block them selves off from this circularity this faith—the secularists more so than the Christian Nationalists actually. The Christian Nationalists think that God has spoken to them clearly and definitively. This is a faith without doubt, which as far as I am concerned is not faith at all but stubborn self-righteousness. (Faith needs doubt and religion needs doubt and self searching that takes place within a safe space, the space of a sect or church.) The secularists on the other hand seem to ignore the fact that their worldview is based on a faith in science, the material world and abstraction. It is based on faith no less than the Christian Nationalist thought it appears not to be because their faith is at the same time more fashionable (because it is in line with the reason and logic that have been dominant since the start of the Enlightenment) and because it has faith in ways of looking at and abstracting from the material world (as opposed to faith in a non-material God and his revelations). It seems easier to swallow but it is no less based on faith than the other. (In fact its ideas of universal relevance and applicability, morality, equality and progress are derived from that same non-material God and his revelations. This in a sense is a matter of faith itself, faith in the western tradition.)

As for the Electoral College bit: The same sorts of arguments were made by the conservatives when the Democrats had a hold on the Congress during the Regan Era and when Clinton was president. Both republicans and democrats wrote editorials lambasting and calling for the end of the Electoral College that were to run after the Bush-Gore election—depending of course on who won. If the democrats won the republicans were going to bash it. If the republicans won the democrats were going to bash it. Both also had people writing pieces to defend it. We will never get rid of the Electoral College because it is a convenient tool to both win election when you might otherwise not and to use as a scapegoat when they lose. The thing is there in the first place because the founding fathers didn’t really trust the uneducated masses to elect an executive. I am not sure that we are any better educated today…

In the end what the article is advocating is an Enlightenment-Technological-Democratic fundamentalism. I say fundamentalism because it holds its values (freedom, equality, democracy—all of which I like) to be absolute and universal when in fact they are not. They are elements of faith and hope, just like God, the Trinity and Salvation. This sort of fundamentalism is violent towards difference, individuality and tradition… But this gets on to another subject….

2006-05-30T16:16:00.000-04:00

Terterian & the East (& the West)

We went out the other night to a restaurant, not for a meal but to sit on pillow on the floor of their cozy back tea room to sip and chat. That was not to be because the restaurant was holding a cultural event that night. The topic was Avantgarde composer Avet Terterian, an Armenian composer from the second half of last century who won accolades in the USSR and was popular throughout Europe.

Along with performances of some of his earlier compositions arranged for piano and vocal and a piece (on DVD) from his opera there was a documentary on him that was done by Moscow TV in 1988. The music (especially the pieces featured in the documentary and the selection from the opera) were very interesting—His granddaughter gave me a free CD of his first and second symphonies (probably because I looked like and interesting person, or just odd and out of place) and I bought another with his second through fourth on it. Anyone interested in Arvo Part or Martynov will appreciate his symphonies (or what I have listened to so far) and his opera. He also has interesting instrumentation: his first symphony is written for brass, wind, percussion, piano organ and bass guitar; his second has a male vocal that sounds distinctly Armenian (at least to me); his third symphony makes use of the duduk and zurna, two traditional Armenian instruments.

Some of his compositions sound very conventional for classical music, some sound very ethnic and his first sounds almost new age (like new age meets Strauss’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra). He is sometimes very progressive, others he is traditional and sometimes he is very ethnic. It is in response to a question about the ethnic in music that he gives this wonderful reflection: (It was in Russian but they had a sheet with the translation on it. I am not sure who did the translation, so I can’t give credit or critique.)

“We all know how different European man is from Eastern man. It is time and space. But maybe more important is the level of submergence, self-submergence:
For a Westerner, the East is always lazy: I am imagining how a European sees an Easterner: sitting for a long time, thinking, playing with “thinking beads”. What is her just sitting there? He has nothing to do? Well, it just so happens to be a form of self-submergence, self-learning, another form. We are not talking now about what’s better and what’s worse. It’s just another form. And we are not even talking about the Easterner carrying in himself another memory, genetic, tribal memory.”

In another place: “East has always been and is of interest to the Western thinkers and artists. They tried to figure it out, but often ended up using only its external indication, intonations (orientalism).”

This is something that I find alluded to in both Jung and Heidegger—thought I may be crazy for seeing it in the latter. (I think part of why my thinking on Heidegger is so different is because I see it this way, I approached it after reading and meditating a lot on the Tao, the I Ching, and following what I read from Thich Nhat Hanh.) Anyway…

This inability to sit quietly and know oneself is a wide spread occurrence in the West (I extend Europe to include America and then call it the West). It is not only that people don’t have time to sit and do this (which sometimes is the case even with those of us that do, and with people in the East as well) but they don’t value it. They see nothing to be gained from it… Or worse yet they, deep down, fear it because they think something may indeed come out of it.

I think one of the things that can be gained from it is actually something that will turn into a loss in the eyes of the West: a realization of self that least to more non-conformity and individuality. I don’t think I have to explain why this is detrimental to the West in political and economic ways. Despite the fact that the West speaks so loudly and claims so adamantly to be the ideal of non-conformity and individuality both are a threat to it.

And I’ll leave it there… Waiting to hear what you think…

2006-05-25T02:40:00.000-04:00

Bipartisan Agreement

So up on Capital Hill they found something new to bitch about, and it is actually something that both parties can agree on. The problem is that it is something that I think most people couldn’t give a rats ass about.

Some congressman got caught with $90,000 in his freezer. That looks bad. What on earth would posses you to put ninety thousand dollars cash in your freezer unless it was dirty money that you were trying to hide? (If there is a more reasonable explanation am open to it, but I doubt there is.) After finding that (and having requested documents from this congressman over a year ago and getting no response) they got a search warrant from a judge and searched his congressional office. It sounds like the system is working on this one: evidence of wrong doing, requests for cooperation and even a warrant issued by a judge.

But congress is having a fit because they claim it is violation of the constitutional separation of powers. WHAT? I know that the FBI happens to be run by the White House but the White House and the FBI are charged with enforcing the law. Corruption and bribery, even by a congressman, are violations of the law. If the FBI can’t enforce those laws when they are violated (or investigate when it appears they are violated) by a congressman than who can? Or are they, the congress, above the law because of the separation of powers clause in the constitution? Not to mention that a judge looked at the evidence and signed the warrant to search the office—that sounds like checks and balances to me. If they would have searched the office before finding the money (or without having taped conversations) then it might sound like a fishing expedition, but with evidence already in hand…

Lou Dobbs wrote yesterday that the president and congress were turning their backs on the average American. He cited recent tax policy, the war in Iraq, the immigration issue and the rising price of gas. I am not sure that the immigration bill will be bad for the average American, but that is an other issue to debate someplace else. Gas is an issue that the public has turned their back on for longer than anyone else, so that congress is doing little or nothing is no surprise. Iraq, Iran, (does any one think of North Korea anymore?) and other foreign policy issues are a mess and the real issues and any real solutions to those problems are being ignored by both the people and the politicians and will be at least until after the mid-term election this fall—and even beyond that, perpetually, if they can get away with it.

This however, this covering of their own buts and uniting together to protect their own privilege in the name of the constitution is a turning of the back. In fact, it is more than that: it shows how much of their own world they are in; how detached they are from what the public is concerned with. Whether they agree with the public on things like immigration, Iraq, etc. or not at least every politician needs to be talking about these sorts of issues with their constituents and with other politicians. If voters disagree or are unconvinced, that is what elections are for. But this fiasco about constitutional powers? This is a joke. The people directly involved should be the only ones commenting or spending even a minute to time on it.

It is a real shame that when you finally get a wide majority of congress to focus on the same issue and have general agreement on it, it happens to be an issue that is not only irrelevant to the public but further alienates the public and the politicians.

I don’t even think this story has hit CNN international and I hope it won’t. Not only is it not worth the air time but it is an embarrassment, or should be.

2006-05-23T12:53:00.000-04:00

Leaving New York…

Well, I left. I am gone. And I am back.

After three days of final packing and cleaning all was out of the apartment in New York. (I never would have made it on my plane Saturday if not for lots of help from my dad.) With the wife and kids gone it was a sprint to the finish, which was much further away than I thought. We had to take apart some more furniture, pack some more dished, thin the heard—after the movers originally told us that not everything was going to fit in the 20 Ft. freight container. Luckily we didn’t throw out much because in the end we got everything worth taking (and then some) in to that container and it should set to sea soon. In about 6 weeks we will have all that stuff that we own and need but don’t currently have with us. And we will have stuff that we don’t really need; the next headache will be what to do with all of that when it gets here. Well, hopeful that will be the next headache. Six weeks of little repairs, reading some books, writing a bit, hitting my old haunts and hanging with the kids in the dry Armenian sun sound like paradise.

So I am outta New York and back in Yerevan… Yeah, I am back and people know it. Just went for my first walk today, went with the kids to a kids café. People recognized me on the street and the waitress and the café remembered me. I am recognizable here, I stick out like the real Al Gore on SNL (it is good to see him there but you have to think “What the @#$!?”). People seem me, remember me and get a kick out of seeing me around—thought they must be scratching their heads wondering why on earth I moved back from New York. But the kids? The kids are on a whole different level: they are celebrities. The waitress today remembered the kids’ names. People that we don’t even know, know who the kids are. Any place else that would be creepy but here it is charming. They love them here.

The apartment here may be smaller than what we had in New York—only in terms of number of rooms I think, not in pure size—but it feels more like home. Even with the questionable elevator, parquet floor that Tony keeps pulling up in places (task one and headache one maybe getting that replaced) and the power outage for an hour today it feels better to be here than in New York because we own the place. I have already spent about a hour today trying to fix a running toilet. Yeah, it is good to be settled back in at ‘home.’ Home is the place you own… At least for now.

And that is all I have… for now.

2006-05-03T00:41:00.000-04:00

It's a... World

The Disney song “It’s a Small World” is one of those that you easily get stuck in your head. And it won’t leave. And after a while I hate it, and the saying too.

I am not the best traveled person in the world, nor have I lived in a lot of other countries. But I have been far enough, spent enough time in planes and been away from friends and family enough to think that it is not at all a small world. It is huge and prancing across it is tiring. As far as I am concerned the world… is… a world.

When I moved to Yerevan in the winter of 2001 I spent a lot of time in a certain Jazz club there. It was next to a man made pond in a park in the middle of the city; it was called Paplavok, which means float.

Every night they had live music, mostly jazz. Each night had its own group but the personnel was fairly regular; the same musicians would play two or three nights a week with different groups. I was impressed with the music. For a place with only 1.5 million people they had a lot of pretty good jazz—some was even great. One musician caught my attention right away, he played a with different bands tow night a week at Paplavok. He was an African American from New York; shaved head and glasses. He stuck out in Yerevan, maybe even more than I did. He played saxophone and he was good.

I got to talk to him a few times after shows. And then all of the sudden he was gone, but the music went on as it always does in Yerevan.

I have been living in New York now for almost three years but have never gotten out much to see live music—or to enjoy much of any of the new York night life. My buddy Andy from college and I went out Friday night to catch some life Jazz—a bleated birthday celebration for both of us and a special treat for me since I am leaving the city in less than a month.

Andy and I started the night at the Blue Note. The music was great, better than what I became accustomed to in Yerevan—though maybe a bit over rehearsed and orchestrated. Next we hit Small’s and I felt right at home. The group was a collection of musicians that all played well individually but seemed to be competing with each other a bit—their solos were a bit loud and not always that tight. It was good musicians that apparently play with different groups in different nights and as a result are not as tight and in tune with each other as the group we saw earlier in the night. But I have a soft spot for jazz like that, it reminds me of Kerouac’s accounts of the crazy jazz he saw while bumming around in the Village and San Fran.

A few songs into their set I was distracted. Some guy walked in carrying a saxaiphone and… and the back of his head and his glasses—it was the sax player from Paplavok. Or maybe it wasn’t. I couldn’t quite tell. All I saw was the back of his shaved head, his glasses and his saw case. In New York it didn’t look odd. If we weren’t in a jazz club, listening to that kids of jazz I may not have even thought it was him. And before I could see more than his glasses and shaved head he disappeared into the back room.

I waited for the shaven, spectacled sax player to emerge from the back room. I waited and doubted it was him. Then… He walked out and there was no doubt! It was him!

I walked over and said, “You used to play at Paplavok in Yerevan. I saw you there all the time.” He was stunned. Of course no one in New York had ever placed him like that; no one here had ever seen him there. He wasn’t planning on playing that night, just coming by to see some friends play. But he did. It was great to see him play again, really fitting. I bought him a beer and we chatted. We realized we had friends in common. I am moving back to Yerevan this month. He misses the people he met there and the people he played with. He may go back. It made my whole night. And what a fitting time to run into him: my last (and first) time seeing jazz in NYC before I move back.

Maybe it is a small world!!!

And now I am going to have that song stuck in my head for days…

I should have just said, "What a... World!"

2006-05-02T11:59:00.000-04:00

[Moving] The first Box

Last week I ordered some boxes so we can start packing. They arrived yesterday and I wasted no time getting started. The first box is packed. Actually the first 6 boxes are packed and one of the book shelves is disassembled and wrapped for the trip. I have four—packed full and heavy—boxes of books here. My wife has one box, plus another small one that doesn’t really even count as a real moving box—it is more like a shoe box. Then I have a box full of notebooks, notes, etc. And these are just the books that I have here that are going across the planet with us. I have books there already and more back home. And I have a (small) box of books that I think I am going to just get rid of and not take with. And a (small) box of books that are coming from B&N.com.

All of these books got me thinking—imagine that me thinking about books. (It is a distraction from thinking about actually moving. I am not so detached that I am not thinking about the significance of the move for all of us.)

I brushed off some books that I really want to re-read. (But when will I ever get time for that?) A lot of those were my Jung books, who I think is more brilliant (and worlds ahead of Freud) the older (and hopefully wiser) I get.

I brushed off some novels that I bought that I never got a chance to read. Go figure: Columbia kept me so busy that I never got to do any pleasure reading. Not only that but I am on a different track now and am not sure when I will get back to reading them. The ones that stuck out the most were the Mario Vargas Llosa books I bought back when I was hot off reading “The Green House”. He is a great writer, but I am looking at different things now.

I also brushed off some books I bought while doing ‘research’ for my thesis. Things like Heidegger’s lectures and collections of Derrida essays. These I would still love to read someday but they are so time consuming of you want to read them well… and they are also so esoteric that I am not sure it would do anything but isolate me from people. That is of course unless I head back to do my PhD, but that may never happen—not sure my heart would be in it.

I also looked at some books that I would want to be my major influences if and when I write my own novel. I like characters and books that are about characters. I have little love for plot these days—this is hopefully a phase. Plot seems to get in the way of a character for me. That being said, Kazantzakis’s “Zorba the Greek, Kerouac’s “On The Road”, Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From The Underground”, and anything from Beckett are on the list. Those are my kids of novels these days.

I just finished a book called “The Middle Mind: Why American’s Don’t Think For Themsevels” by White. It was pretty good. I am working on Egger’s “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” and am enjoying it. (It was a good gift and it is still giving.) I have to get back and finish “A Brief History of Economics”. And I have what I hope is a years worth of books on order from B&N—I hope both that they last that long since I getting books that I want where I am going is a bit tough, and that I actually can find that much time to read in the next year. The list includes things like: Globalization and Its Discontents, Dialogue with Nietzsche: Essays, 1961-2000 (by my man Vattimo), Everything Is Illuminated, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time (by Bono’s economist Sach) Higher Learning in America & The Theory of the Leisure Class (both by Veblen), The Zoroastrian Faith: Tradition and Modern Research. Odd company especially considering I have some Beckett stuff to go with them.

Well enough about books… unless you want to share what you are reading.

2006-04-30T09:39:00.000-04:00

"On The Future of Energy" a link

With gas prices going up a lot is being said about energy and the future of oil—which our future is tied up with. A lot needs to be said but much of what is out there misses the heart-- and complexity-- of the issue. Here is an essay by a friend that is right on.

http://cubezoo.blogspot.com/2006/04/energy-on-future-of-energy.html

2006-04-28T12:05:00.000-04:00

(Me Pontificating) On Art and Its Importance

I wrote this a while ago… But am going to post it now because I want feedback.

Plato, in the Republic, saw art as dangerous, specifically poetry. For him art was an imperfect representation of an object and objects were the imperfect representations of the forms. The forms were the true reality and the true essence of things. Art was twice removed from essences, from reality. Not only that but art was very persuasive and powerful which meant that it could powerfully affect people with its inaccurate representations. In this system, art is a stirring interpretation of inaccurate representations of reality and essences.

For Nietzsche, Heidegger and Vattimo there is no reality or essence to represent—either accurately or inaccurately. The things themselves are incomprehensible on their own and representation always means interpretation of some sort. If this is the case then art as interpretation of things that makes essences and makes reality is actually essential to society and not subversive. Essences and reality come about only via interpretation and so instead of art being banished or controlled it should be encouraged and exalted.

At the same time the interpretive aspect of art needs to be emphasized, which will show how the essences and reality given by art is weak and unfounded. People need to be skeptical of art, but not skeptical of it and in favor of science or another ‘more accurate’ system of representation and knowledge. They need to be skeptical of art because it is the best we have but is still only so good.

The strength of art should be found in its connection to tradition, a tradition that it interprets as it takes it up in to the present and future. The resonance with the past, with the material reality and with people are sources of its strength, but these people must have skepticism and perspective. A loose sense of continuity and stability is what should give strength to the world and essences that are given to us by art. However, we must be guarded so this does not turn into stagnation, stubbornness and conservative traditionalism.

2006-04-26T00:15:00.000-04:00

Conspiracies & Comfort

Conspiracies are all the rage today.

The Da Vinci Code
Bush’s Win in 2000
The War in Iraq
Even 9-11 is the subject of conspiracy theories.

That the Catholic Church is conspiring to keep the ‘truth’ from us and repress women—that is comforting.

That a conspiracy, and not the will of the American people, put Bush and Cheney into office—that is comforting.

That Bush and company conspired to go to war in Iraq by ignoring information and fabricating facts—that is comforting.

That the bad guys in our midst were behind or aided the 9-11 terror plot—that is comforting.

It is comforting that we can point to the old conservative white men that lead the Catholic Church and blame them for the failings that we see in Christian spirituality and the Christian world view. More so, that we can blame them for the continued inequality between men and women. It is comforting to have someone to blame and not have to admit that maybe the followers of Christ at large are responsible for the loss of his true message of peace and salvation—that is of course if you still believe that his message could have changed the world for the better. It is comforting that old celibate men, and not a large part of the world’s population are behind the continued existence of sexism.

It is comforting to think that a group of people, like Bush Sr., Jeb Bush and other republican cronies, put W. and Mr. Halliburton in to the Oval Office. For so many it is comforting to think that Bush does not really represent what the people of the US think. It is comforting for them to believe that the general population could not be that ‘stupid,’ ‘gullible’ and ‘conservative.’ It is comfortable for those that hate Bush to think that we have not gotten the leader we want or deserve.

It is comforting to think that Bush’s family grudge against Hussein, the administrations connections to oil money and the love of war got us into this mess in Iraq. It is nice to think that this war which is ‘illegal,’ ‘ill-founded’ and ‘un-winnable’ was forced on us by cunning and deceit. It is comfortable to ignore and deny the possibility that maybe our intelligence community really is political and bias. It is impossible to think that our intelligence community may not only be incompetent but that it may be nearly impossible for them (or any one else) to know something that others are trying hard to keep us from finding out. I mean: it may not be possible for us to get the kind of information and intelligence on places like Iraq that we want even with all of our technology and our huge budgets. It is also comforting to think that the media was duped into the war because of the skilled lies and deception of the administration. It would be too much to entertain the idea that even the scared American media (that is supposed to keep the government honest and doing the people’s bidding) was quick to go to war and unwilling to ask hard questions because of the environment we found ourselves in after the 9-11 attacks. The people and the media had to have been duped and would never have been in a state of mind that lead them to do something as crazy as go to war with out hard facts and long deliberation—all of this we must think to remain comfortable with our selves and our system.

It is comfortable to think that those Islamists couldn’t have struck us with such a hard blow without someone in our government allowing it to happen or at least someone being grossly incompetent. It is comforting to insist on the impossibility of them fooling us so easily and badly on their own, we after all are the educated, intelligent, technological and wealthy Americans. It is comfortable to deny or play down the idea that there is a trans-national, multi-organizational movement out there that hates us, our way of life and our sacred values of secularism and gender equality (among other things). It is horrifying to think that there may just be a clash of cultures in the near future and that we may not be so vastly superior to our enemy that we can stop all of their major attacks. Dare I say it: we may lose that clash of cultures. Can we even consider that possibility? It is more comfortable to not even allow those thoughts.

It is comforting to fall back on conspiracies instead of opening our eyes and seeing things that poke holes in our perception of ourselves and the world around us. To think that our Western values are not universal and inherent, that people can honestly think them evil and bad. To think that we cannot know the things we want to know because of our technology, that people can hide things from us and fool us. To think that people out there, in large numbers, people that are not insane, can hate us enough to kill us. To think that we can elect and reelect leaders like Bush simply because the majority (or close to the majority) actually like him, or that the opponents are even less attractive. To think that the Catholic Church may have it right or at least honestly, with out any malice against women or anyone else, think they have it right. These are all scary things to think and accept as possibilities. They are however things that we must consider, even if we don’t come to believe them or find enough facts to support them fully. They are possibilities that should be seriously contemplated and not things that we can brush under the rug by cooking up conspiracy theories that make them unreal or the work of a small group of evil people.