A modest proposal as regards education

Turns out having more free time in the summer does not necessarily translate into more blog posting. I don't even intend for this to be much of a post. Am, however, pressing on with my short fiction. Sorry if you were greatly anticipating whenever I said I would have a rough draft up, but yeah. As you can see, that didn't happen. Instead, I am now opting to work on four stories simultaneously. Quadruple the fun, that is, if I get them to a point I like.

To get to the title of this particular post and away from my less interesting plans, I would like to propose that the classic works in all the arts, from creation and criticism, to journalism, be given less attention at all levels, excepting 300- and 400-level undergraduate classes and all graduate programs. but the highest levels of education. In their place, absolutely abysmal works should be presented. I'm thinking Catwoman alongside Kubrick's best and soft-core grocery store porn in between Vonnegut and Updike.

Besides the fact that these sorts of things have their own quirky charm for me, I feel I do have a couple of legitimate reasons for this call. First of all, how are you supposed to judge the highest summits attained when you don't have no idea what it's possible to scrape off the bottom. Freshman year of high school, Shakespeare was really underwhelming. A playwright and poet popular enough to warrant his own section at Barnes and Noble really did nothing for me. I could appreciate that he has a way with words, but that's about it. How could I respect a man when I have no idea what drivel he rose above and continues to do so? Just a little context would be nice.

For people with aspirations in some art or another who have finally realized how great some of these people and their creations are, there is an opposite problem. They/I become overwhelmed. The screw-me-because-I-have-no-chance-of-measuring-up-to-them-in-any-possible-way mindset takes hold. Seeing the lazy/insipid/uninspired attempts of other artists serves to mediate this feeling a bit. Besides, good art typically only reveals competence. Those artists we still study today are the revolutionaries. Holding up their works as the greatest the world has e'er seen will inspire more imitators than true artists. Show the budding writer a lifetime of cliches and the young composer something that has been done a hundred times before, and let them run wild, knowing what not to do.

On the morality of elliptical machines

So, having more time doesn't necessarily translate to increased posting. Huh. Have been writing though. Pounded out a solid framework for a short story that's been going through my mind since classes ended. Hopefully, I'll have revised it to the point I'm happy with it by this weekend and will be putting up an open request for criticism at that point. Something to look forward to if this blog matters that much to you.

On with the post that actually pertains to the title.

I'm not quite sure how this one transpired. A month or two back a friend started going to the gym, and in accordance with my own practices, I suggested running as a superior alternative to weights and machines. She rejected the idea. This is where it gets fuzzy. Since then, I have been called out three or four times for calling elliptical machines 'immoral.' I don't remember and really hope I didn't say that because it's stupid, though it wouldn't surprise me if I said as much hyperbolically. Still, I ought to clarify my position. Even if I didn't call elliptical machines immoral, the conversation did lead my friend to identify my thoughts as such, and my thoughts on the subject need to be better explained. Besides, this discussion provides a good segue into a greater life philosophy of mine. So...

To begin, I don't like elliptical machines. I prefer to run outdoors. The weather has to be pretty extreme to send me to the gym. Why is this? On the material level, it's because I'm used to running and don't like being inside during exercise (it's just an unpleasant environment I'd rather avoid). On a more philosophical level, I see elliptical machines as pure means to the end of health, better body, etc. Yeah, running often does have these same ends, and I certainly have no complaint about them. Running, however, I also do because I like to do it. It's not a chore. I don't have to force myself to do it because it's pleasurable.

I don't see that with elliptical machines so much. Even people who say that they enjoy them, I'm wary of because of the way I've seen people use them. When I have gone to the gym to stretch after finishing my route, those people who aren't listening to their iPods or other MP3 players are watching TV, and I must ask, "How much can you enjoy something when you seek distraction from it?" This may be unavoidable as the machines do face a series of TVs and one can't really ask them to run with their eyes closed but still. I'm not so hot on treadmills for the same reason. At our gym, they are actually in front of the ellipticals and have a better view.

In an attempt to anticipate responses, I'd expect one to ask, "What about multi-tasking? We're busy people and need to do as much as possible at all times." At a point not so distant in the past, I would have been very sympathetic to this, but that's been changing since I began college. I think the concept is 'intentionality,' possibly with Eastern origins and undoubtedly mutated by my own readings and understandings. When we do something, we mean it. We don't waste ourselves on petty things of no consequence or meaning that are neither right nor joyful to us. Neither do we distract ourselves during our pursuit of it. To use a common formulation in a modified sense, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. If we're going to exercise, which does have valuable ends, we're going to do so because we enjoy it. If we're going to do anything, we're going to focus all of our attention on it, turn off the background music and eliminate all distractions. Besides, life's too short to pursue good ends with bad means.

If one truly does enjoy the elliptical machine, I have no quarrels with that. But, like I wrote, I don't see that so much.

Please, if you want to argue about this or whatever, get in touch with me. The example is kind of unspectacular, crass even, but the greater philosophy it leads to is important to me.

Quiet

I'm surprised this post has been so long in coming as it has its origins in a colloquium discussion on the Quakers just after spring break.

As nearly as I can remember, the progression went like this. In the Quaker service my friends attended, there was an extended period of quiet prayer, maybe 20 minutes long, broken only if someone felt the spririt move them to say something. There might have been a specific name for this, but I have since forgotten. To give us all a sense of it, the class as a whole was invited to participate in this. No one quaked or felt compelled by the spirit to say anything during our foray into Quaker prayer. After sometime it was ended, and we were asked to share our experiences and thoughts on it.

I eventually raised my hand and questioned what exactly we meant by quiet and silence. True silence, in that there is nothing to be heard, is an awfully artificial quality. In nature there is always animal life or wind to play upon the ears. And people frequently complain of the constant din of city life. The only way I know of to find it is through a purely human initiated sound-proof chamber.

I left my question at that, and a few people offered their suggestions. The only one I remember involved a person saying that they felt at peace in nature, even if there wasn't complete silence.

I've had some time since that presentation and would now like to offer my own answer to it. What I believe we are truly searching for when we say we are looking for silence, short of a retreat to that sound-proof chamber, is better described as stillness, being aware of and acknowledging all that audible information and accepting it. It doesn't shock us or distract us. It is simply there, alongside us, not to be resisted or understood as an irritation because we cannot control it. In this way, stillness can be found anywhere. Absorption into a forest or on the shores of some lake is not an atypical occurrence as one falls into their respective rhythms. Similarly, one can eventually fall into the pulse of the city as well. A friend of mine once told me a story about his younger brother. Their family had moved from a major city to the outskirts of my small town. That first night, the brother woke his parents and complaining that the crickets were too loud. I find it difficult to imagine that the crickets were truly louder than passing traffic, but their rhythm was different from what he was used to. Thus his personal stillness was broken. Some settings, though, are certainly more conducive to stillness. A piped truck can pass by one's home and disrupt any calm, and if one is in a state of fear because of an unfamiliar location, every sound indicates a possible threat and prevents any possibility for becoming still.

Perfection

All we can ever expect of perfection, not being able to improve something in anyway, in our own lives is a but a fleeting moment, if that. (I think that may be paraphrased from the novel Fight Club, but I digress because I can go on about Fight Club for a long bleeding time.) The most skilled and talented among us may be fortunate enough to experience more than a few such moments. Perfection in anything, moral action, creative works, athletic activites, whatever, is nigh impossible because it depends upon more than that which is within our ability to control. For a painting to be perfect the paint must be just right, and short of making one's own paints, there is very little one can do to guarantee this short of becoming intimately familiar with a specific type and producer. For a violin performance to be perfect, not only must the instrument and performer be at their best but the acoustics of the auditorium must be perfectly suited as well, and those are not odds I like.

We cannot guarantee perfection, no matter our own efforts. What then should our relationship be to it?

I say we continue to strive for it. We acknowledge its veritable impossibility but continue on because we can never attain it without trying. The moment striving ends, the opportunity for perfection is absolutely out of our reach. Because of this ultimate goal, we will fail again and again. We just learn the best we can from these mistakes and try again. Besides, the result is of secondary importance. It's in the process and means where true value lies.

In counter, perfectionists, those who put the most effort into finding perfection, are disdained. In my experience, many of these criticisms are directed against those who are fastidious in their homework habits and small work duties. At these times, such criticisms are warranted. In their pursuit of perfection on such small things, they waste time on items of little consequence, directing their attention away from greater matters like morality and artistic creation.

But what about those who pour their beings into charity organizations and enter politics to aid the downtrodden? Schindler broke down at the end of his movie because he could have saved more by selling his car and cuff links and whatever else he still had. Is it appropriate to direct criticisms of perfectionism against them as well? I say yes but must first define perfection beyond 'not being able to improve something in anyway.' Perfection is not found in a single element but a system. One can spend all of their time perfecting their individual skill with a paint brush or violin, but they must still have experiences outside of their craft as sources. They must still maintain their health to perform at the utmost of their abilities. Perfection, when it is found, is found through many practices, not merely some clearly identifiable, central thing like skill with a paint brush in painting.

To return to perfection in matters of social justice, at least my earlier examples were quantitative and could be said that one completed some assignment perfectly. Perfection in such matters is still dependent, even more so than artistic and creative endeavors, upon the choices of others, whether its people aiding in the improvement of their own situation or others choosing to act evilly. As such, failures of perfection here are even more common. One can still do everything in their own power and fail miserably. Thus, before they even begin to work towards that goal of perfect justice and goodness, they must come to grips with their inevitable failure lest they breakdown and entirely forsake the project.

Should I follow my head or my heart?

Another piece that wasn't originally written for "Spice of Life." This one was written in response to the above prompt for the Great American Think-Off. It's a trash question, one that can hardly be answered in 500 words or less and enraging to a philosophy minor, but hey, there was a chance at a $500 reward. Unfortunately, that reward was not mine. I still like this essay though. Enjoy.

REO Speedwagon asked that question in Hi Infidelity. Ilsa faced it at the end of Casablanca, and strands of the question can be found in The Odyssey when Odysseus attempts to reconcile his cunning and impulsiveness. Now the Great American Think-Off poses a close variant of it. It is fair to call it an enduring question, albeit a poorly framed one. The heart is a muscle and the mover of the circulatory system. Except for the potent combination of an increased pulse and the release of adrenaline that forces the mind into a ‘flight or fight’ response, the heart really offers no guidance in decision making. It is more appropriate to ask whether we should base our decisions upon reason or instinct, the former being the capacity to use logic and contemplate the distant consequences of a choice and the latter being an impulse to act firmly grounded in the present. Head, the center of thought, is reason, and heart, that organ to which we attribute those ideas not arrived at through logic, is instinct. These paired terms can be used interchangeably for the remainder of this essay.

Things exist for a reason. Reason and instinct are no different. Both are means of survival. Instinct, present in all forms of animal life, provides instantaneous decisions that increase the odds of survival in cases of immediate danger. There is no time for reason when one is pursued by a dangerous animal, so it is instinct that keeps one alive. For humans, whose physical capabilities are less than those of most animals, reason allowed for the creation of tools and other methods to overcome their physical deficiencies, thus increasing survival rates. An unarmed human stands little chance to defeat a buffalo, but working in tandem with others armed with weapons, humans can defeat the animal and enjoy all the benefits it provides.

Likewise, both instinct and reason have times and places where they are more useful. Instinct’s ability to provide one with a rapid response is critical in situations where time is of the essence while reason is necessary when one has adequate time and is attempting to find a solution that works in all situations and not just the present moment. In situations like sports and battle where time to react is measured in increments smaller than a second, decisions based on instinct are the only way to go. However, instinct will provide little help in finding a solution to a scientific problem because it only considers the present moment and cannot consider the full possibilities and limitations of different circumstances. In long-term projects reason dominates.

Clearly, both reason and instinct have their places in life and to give one such heavy preference that the other is completely excluded would be a grave mistake. As depicted in popular media, humans have a strong aversion to being reduced to a computer or animal, the respective epitomes of dominance by reason and instinct. But, as is the case of many dualities, granting greater weight to one is appropriate. Aristotle in his formulation of the Golden Mean, an idea that continues to inform our practice of virtue today, admitted that courage is not found square in the middle of foolhardiness and cowardice but more on the side of foolhardiness.

Thus I give priority to reason. Between it and instinct, reason is the only one that can take advantage of the benefits of each. Should the situation demand it, reason can recognize the instinctive choice, abdicate decision-making to it and take control again when the situation has changed. In contrast, should preference be given to instinct in the decision-making process, reason will not have the opportunity to surface and its advantages will never be known because instinct is instantaneous and offers no time for the reflection required for reasoned choices.

Furthermore, reason can form positive instincts, but instinct can never make reason sharper. For example, many aspects of the martial arts are antithetical to a natural, instinctive response; one steps into an attack rather than flees, attacks are carefully restrained to prevent a powerful counter. One fails in the martial arts not only if they trust completely to their natural instincts but also because they are too slow if they attempt to reason through every move. Through practices constructed and guided by reason, however, poor instincts can be replaced with superior ones. Thus instinct retains its usefulness through the use of reason.

Charter submissions

So, finals are over, and all those friends whom I will not see for the next few months have left, so I am not trying to spend as much time as possible with them anymore. Expect more frequent posts now, as long as the ideas keep coming.

Actually, this post is a bit of a cop out. I have a good idea fermenting and want to give it some more time to mature and not simply be blathering. Thus I offer links to already published work. Enjoy my submissions to the two lastest issues of Charter: Gonzaga University's premier journal of scholarship and opinion, Language and Machines. A bit more thought and time went into these pieces than my typical post, but should you have access to Gonzaga, hopefully you would have already picked up your own issues, which include a number of other fine essays and some wonderful graphic design.

An aphorism

"Change never happens one says, 'This will be,' but when they say, 'That was.'"

Take a person who is trying to stop eating so many cookies or whatever. If they keep saying, "This will be my last cookie," they have failed to create the change. It still exists in the future but not now. The person who says, "That was my last cookie," however, now looks upon their actions from a different vantage point. Their choices and actions are now cast in a different light because the change has been made.

You could make a compelling argument that this is simply a matter of semantics, but I disagree. It's a fundamental change in your structural understanding of a system because, as mentioned only two sentences ago, your choices and actions can be seen in a different way once a change has been asserted by saying, "That was." If one continues to say, "This will be," the structure they are operating within remains.

Of course, this still depends on the individual capacity to make choices. Either way of discussing one's choices is only as good as their ability to make the choices they want to make. I just feel that the second method provides a better structure to act from.

No meat

I gave up eating meat for Lent. For the most part, I succeeded in this, accidentally eating a slice of pizza with Canadian bacon because it was covered by cheese once and picking up a seafood wrap without thinking another time. Now it's Easter. I've already had lamb and am anticipating lasagna later today. What about it all then? What did it mean to give up meat? Could I live this way?

To begin, I have no compunction against killing animals. I've heard that there are some highly liberal colleges which have the freshman class communally raise a pig or something over the year and then kill it for a barbeque at the end of the year. Wouldn't bother me. I've gone hunting, though I never shot anything myself, and seen plenty of animals die. As long as it were killed quickly and with minimum pain, I would have no problem with it. Rather than ethical, my concern with vegetarianism is economic. The world population rises exponentially, and somehow everyone has to be fed. With respect to that, the amount of energy put into raising animals for their flesh cannot be defended. Personally, I believe that within my lifetime, barring a population stagnation or a drop, we will all become vegetarians for this very reason.

One question I was asked several times over the 40 days was if it were hard. I guess the implicit assumption there was that I missed the taste. Really, that wasn't such a big deal. Since I began cooking my own food at college, my meat intake in general has drastically gone down. Meat's expensive and a pain to store with my limited refrigerator space. I immediately have to do something with it, so it wasn't such a great change in the first place. The only times it became really difficult were when I was at a restaurant, there were maybe two or three vegetarian options and everything else looked so bleeding tasty. Good thing then I don't go out to eat very often.

On a related note, I could never go vegan. I could live as a vegetarian, but I like my eggs and cheese too much. Besides, when you need to take pills for vital nutrients, you've gone over the edge.

Night

In posts past I have written on sunrise and the snow. All of those came from my experiences back in Minnesota. None ever originated from Gonzaga, mostly because it's an urban school, in the middle of a residential neighborhood and only a mile or so from downtown. It's really not so bad. Spokane is hardly a metropolis, and the streetlights aren't so plentiful that they completely block out the stars. Still, the campus is such a controlled environment, so any time I'm able to completely remove myself from campus and the city itself, it's a beautiful experience.

This weekend, we had a retreat out at Bozarth, a mansion on the outskirts of Spokane. And I mean outskirts. Just down the hill from where Bozarth stood was a minor marsh, the kind of place where the trees weren''t transplanted, the terraforming is minimal, and there's grass that has never been touched by a lawnmower. The kind of place I could bike to in maybe ten minutes back in Baudette but need a car to reach now.

First of all, the sunset was beautiful. I'm so used to sunsets on the plains where I can watch the sun go all the way down and nothing obstructs the view, but here it fell behind the mountains first. The mountains were covered in trees made golden by the setting sun and cast shadows that seemed to be miles long. The colors caught by the clouds? Rich and warm, colors that would have taken Picasso out of his Blue Period early.

But that wasn't the capstone of it all.

Around midnight, I took a walk into the marsh, hoping for a little stargazing. I hadn't even reached the path down the hill when I realized that wasn't going to be much of an option. The moon was full and bright enough to cast shadows of its own. Freaking shadows. I've seen it before, but it still amazes me. Do people even know that can happen? Still, I felt the need for a walk, so continued my way down. The hill was steep enough to need switchbacks, and everyonce in a while the trees were open enough that I could get a decent view of the valley and marsh. It didn't so much take my breath away as make me forget to breath for a few moments, which really is funny. I had made the walk earlier in the day and commented to friend that it would have looked so much better had it been later in the spring or summer because it was still all drab and brown from the recent winter. But there is no color in moonlight, and all that remained was a magnificent intensity to the landscape. Details were lost, and the focus turned to other elements. A stream ran through the marsh. In the sunlight you could see all the way to the bottom and all the life and litter that were in it. At night I only had a sense of motion. I couldn't tell if it's depth were measured in inches or yards, but the light captured the little breaks in the surface and the rapid flow of the stream.

It was beautiful.

Further thoughts on volunteering

I'm going to San Antonio for spring break this year. In fact, I leave for the airport in two hours. Stereotypically, this vacation from college is associated with playing hard, blowing off steam and letting loose after an intense week of midterms and grade-making papers. That's not me, though. I'm going to San Antonio as part of Mission: Possible, a university program that places students in some city where they can offer community organizations and projects some help. My group, for example, will be helping out at the Good Samaritan Center, Children's Shelter and a third place that has yet to be determined as far as I know. Not exactly sure what form this help will come in, but those are who we'll be offering our services to.

Why do I do this? I bloody well know that I and my brief presence are not going to affect some great change that ends all poverty and unhappiness in San Antonio. Good grief, I'll be happy if all I manage to do is make someone's life a little more tolerable for a little while. Trips like these almost seem like a placebo, at times, for those of us who realize how materially fortunate we are, feel bad about those who lack our good luck and need to assuage our guilt somehow. On top of all that, it certainly was not cheap to participate. For the price, which I'm not exactly sure of but is several hundred dollars, I could have gone on a decent roadtrip, not that I paid any of it personally. The objects of my letter writing were very generous.

I found my answer earlier tonight, at Mission: Possible's spending-off ceremony. All of the participants gathered in the student chapel where we made bracelets with four beads to symbolize the pillars of this trip (simplicity, spirituality, community and social justice) and received T-shirts which boldly announced our participation. As may be expected, there was a speaker to guide us in reflecting on this trip, and what he said actually meant something to me.

Really, Mission: Possible isn't about our placements and those organizations we volunteer for. If we didn't come, they'd muddle through. No, Mission: Possible is about us, the participants. It looks to make us more aware of ourselves and others and develop our empathy, understanding and desire to offer help where it is needed. Sure, some people in San Antonio may benefit from my time there, but if that's all that comes from my participation in Mission: Possible, it'll have been a failure. I must become a better person as well.

Weather

I know I've spent time on the subject of nature's beauty before when I recently waxed poetic over snow and, to a lesser extent, when I wrote about watching the sunrise this summer, but I think I may have found the underlying principle, the one that ties my appreciation for all of these together. With respect to this post, three important things happened yesterday afternoon and last night. First, during a run I spoke with a friend about technology and what it has been to humanity. The second, I read this article about Disney World and the new American paradigm on NationalGeographic.com. On a sidenote, you should just visit the National Geographic Magazine Web page anyway because it is so well designed and the content is of such high quality.

Thirdly, I took a long walk outside as the snow fell. It was snowing again, but different from the last tiem I wrote about it. There were flakes, but they were very wet and didn't stick to the ground at all, melting almost immediately. Despite the fact that the air was full of snow, there was very little white on the grass, only a thin layer of slush. But I still thought it was beautiful. Really, it was cold, wet and disgusting to walk through, but the greatest painters in history would have been hard pressed to capture the beauty in that moment.

Like I said earlier, I think I now know why I appreciated it so much. No matter humanity's efforts, the weather is completely outside of our control, much less ability to predict judging by the many jokes made about weathermen. Yes, technology has allowed us unprecedented, unimaginable abilities to communicate, store information, create new realities and transform the land, but the weather is beyond us. If it weren't for the weather, humans could very nearly control every single aspect of their daily lives and lead them exactly as they wanted to with no surprises and nothing unexpected. Undoubtedly, humanity has impacted the weather through carbon emissions and everything else that makes environmentalists fear our future, but the weather will never be brought to heel.

And that's what I love about it. The weather is not something I can dominate or even slightly bend to my wishes. It simply is, and I must go with it. The person who can take any weather, no matter the situation, is one to be respected because they are aware of and comfortable with their own humanity and smallness.

Ethical disagreements

Currently, I am taking an Ethics class, something you would already know if you have been keeping up with this blog. Or keep in touch with me on regular basis. Or take the class with me. I guess it's also possible that you would know this if you had seen the class list at some point, but now I'm really digressing. So far our professor has attempted to convince us that an objective moral system does exist as our first few weeks have been spent reading about and disputing subjectivism (belief that morality depends upon the individual and their experiences), relativism (belief that morality is dependent upon culture and only discussed in that context) and egoism (belief that a moral action must spring from genuine altruism, where there is no reward, to be truly moral). Now we are getting into actual ethical theories, our next reading is on natural law.

Still, I have a metaethical concern that I'll probably ask my professor about tomorrow. How do we deal with those who act, as we perceive it, evilly? Ethics are a big deal. They're not some aesthetic judgment. I can't or, at least, shouldn't accept your endorsement of eugenics in the same way that I am willing to accept that you don't like Fight Club and may even think it's the most over-hyped movie ever. To take a concrete example, I fundamentally disagree with the death penalty and killing in general, but we'll need to focus upon capital punishment for this example. How can I still regard myself as a good person if I do not do all that is in my power to stop anymore people from being put to death for their crimes? How can I live in good conscience if I am not making every effort to stop the needle from being put into their arm?

I discussed this with a friend not so long ago. His suggestion is that my awareness of the situation is very likely limited in comparison to those who made the decision, and should I have their knowledge, I may agreement with what they did. In many particular ethical conflicts, I can agree with that, but I understand state-sponsored executions as an absolute evil. The situation will never justify it.

What then? I guess I can retreat to some form of "you have to pick your battles." My time and energy are finite. I am not enough to change the world to conform to all of my beliefs and ideas, and it would hardly be appropriate for me to do so were I given the opportunity since I have so little knowledge of some topics. I have to pick what I feel are the issues and situations that most need my participation and live with my choice.

When are we ourselves?

If my memory serves correctly, I remember Rachel of Animorphs fame was once described by Jake as a person who was always the same. No matter if she were in front of a teacher, her friends, her most dire enemy or her mother, you always got the same Rachel. I understood that as a compliment, and it's not hard to find examples of this celebration of the consistent in American culture. People who are willing to tell their bosses what they just told their co-workers are as heroic as it gets in the business world. People who double-talk and wholly change their personalities depending on they're with are despised.

Yeah, I can agree with this virtue to the extent that those who act differently when their society changes in order to benefit themselves do not deserve respect. But it bothers me too. Different people affect us differently. Some people command our respect due to their achievements and person, and others simply make us feel good because of how their zest for life comes out in their every action. Because of their pessimistic attitude and apathetic personality, others bring us down. Why shouldn't we be affected by them and thus see changes in our personality? What's wrong with that?

I believe many would suggest that my view on changing personality is wrong as well because it does not allow us to truly ourselves if our personalities are so easily altered. It's this sentiment that drives so many characters on television to leave their everyday lives and go on a journey to "find themselves." Humans are social creatures, unable to exist or even learn much about themselves unless they are put in contact with and form relationships with other humans. To go live alone by a pond or on some mountain is foolish as we are cut off from the living mirrors our self-image comes from. To know themselves, people need community and relationships.

Religion

Religion occupies that same ambiguous position as obscenity and culture do in our lexicon. We may not be able to define it, but we know it when we see it. Seeing as how I'm taking a religion class this semester that focuses on the many different denominations of Christianity that have appeared in the United States and how the two have impacted one another, I think it would be worth my (considerable) time and (infintie) space on this blog to try and define it.

In the broadest terms, religion is best defined against science and ethics all though the three are inextricably bound up. The primal religions see every event as a suprenatural one caused by divinities, science can become a religion unto itself and ethics cannot be separated from either. Science describes the world. Ethics inform us as to what we should do. Religion is purpose.

It's not hard to recognize Christianity and Buddhism as religions, but when you start to break them down and try to sift what makes them different from things like your job, it becomes difficult to see exactly what it is that separates them from something as ridiculous as sports. Rituals, community, mythology, rules, transcendence all of those can be found in both the major world religions and sports. Muslims have the Five Daily Prayers. Every team has a chant to get fired up before a game. Jews and Christians have church and synagogues to reinforce community. Even sports as apparently individual as distance running, one still needs teammates to set a strong pace and a coach to train them. Hindus have the Vedas, and Jews have the Torah. Baseball has its own origin stories. Jews have the Ten Commandments and Leviticus. Sports have rules. Religions seek to break out of the common and touch the divine. Sports movies set up the 'big game' as that place where ordinary people become superhumans and legends, outside the pale of the normal. As far as I can tell, it is as apprpriate to call football a religion as Sikhism.

Like I said, it's tricky. All you can really do is try and separate the good religions from the bad ones. Which then are good and which are bad? I'm copping out here because the right answer is whichever religion is true, but that is a topic for volumes. For me right now, the good ones are those that do not depend on humans, the ones that look beyond. Sports are a human creation. Every tradition, mythology and other aspect I identified earlier is derived from human actions. When sports are taken up as a religion, they proclaim the ultimate superiority of humans, something I do not accept. In contrast, religions like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Judaism are good because they are exterior to humanity. Though they may not exist without our presence on earth, their origins would still be here. Sports, on the other hand, simply would not be.

For those of you who took World Religions with me at MITY (2002?), I own up to it that I owe a lot of this post's inspiration to that class. I remember my roots and give credit where it is due.

Snow

If you've been following this blog since early this summer, you may remember my post of a failed scholarship application to Marquette. In it, I had to make a list. I don't precisely remember what the theme was, something along the lines of the most important things I saw in this world, but there had to be seven items in it. One of them was the cold. I would like to expand upon that entry a little because the word limit on the essay didn't allow for a proper examination into one of the more beautiful aspects of the cold, snow.

It snowed Saturday evening. It was gorgeous. It began early and very lightly. You could hardly see the individual flakes they were so small. As it grew later though, the flakes came together, forming ones large enough to watch on their entire trip through the air, following their erratic paths to earth. Not that their beauty ends there.

Freshly fallen snow is clean and renewing. Walking through a snow fall, when you can see traces of only your steps, I do not know how to explain the feeling. There may be an experience of adventure as you are the first to see this new, fleeting scene or a feeling that but a sense of calm comes upon me.

In the winter too, it is quiet. What little sound is made by those animals too tough to hibernate or migrate south, is abosorbed by the snow creating a fragile silence, one that makes you take softer steps and kills any desire to shout that you might preserve the delicate quiet a little longer.

Culture

Culture is a funny thing. It gets bandied about so often and so carelessly that to actually find a good definition for it is near impossible. This came up last week during Ethics as we were considering a relativist ethical outlook (every society has its own distinct moral code and it cannot be compared to any others, tradition is its own warrant, yadda, yadda, yadda). To even make relativism viable, you have to be able to identify and differentiate between cultures and so my classes troubles began. I do not remember the specifics of the various theories on culture that were offered, but there was trouble in defining it as circular reasoning arose in calling it 'the beliefs and values one has' or culture became so atomized by examples of a person identifying with their gender, race, nationality, interests, ethnicity and whatever other myriad things that the term culture became useless.

So a friend and I went for a run afterwards and discussed culture on the way. In maybe fifteen minutes (the run was over twenty, but we switched over to a wholly new topic after a while) and after considering whether Star Wars fandom and fashion and other such things constituted a culture, we came to a conclusion that goes something like this. Culture is the set of prohibitions and prescriptions, written or not, that we follow or at least attempt to in our actions. Atomization is prevented because culture is bound by a finite number of actions, but belonging to multiple cultures is still possible.

Counter-arguments?

Webster suggests that culture is 'a : the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b : the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time c : the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization d : the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic.'

Wikipedia says "Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate"), generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance."

Yours?

Education

Our formal education begins very early and can continue for a long time. They (a rather nebulous concept that includes parents or other caregivers and the government) get their hooks into us early with pre-school and kindergarten, and the process does not often end until a decade has past and increasingly goes on even longer. Why? To turn us into productive members of society, responsible, socialized adults ready to enter into a skilled profession. What follows are personal reflections on the attainment of this goal.

When I was in my junior year of high school and talk about figuring out what I wanted to do after graduating began to circulate (I always knew I was going to college), I hated the very idea of community colleges and three-year programs. There is far more to education than getting a job and beginning to make money. A person should have a developed appreciation for music alongside their understanding of accounting or geology. Besides, a weak worker is one who understands only their own trade and not the context in which it exists. Intersections between diverse fields are common. Engineering and art? English and history? Yeah, there is an entire world outside every individual field and to better understand that field, you need to understand the world. I knew I wanted to go to a liberal arts school and be forced to take classes that I would never normally take because there is a big world out there, and journalism offers only a solitary perspective on it.

Now I am at that liberal arts college, and my thoughts swing more in the other direction. Some friends were recently discussing their plans for grad school and dismissed their current undergraduate education as the opportunity to study what they enjoy. Four years of learning amounted to nothing more than a stepping stone to their real education for them. A great deal of money is going into this necessary passage, and an opportunity to postpone taking responsibility and become a producer and not merely a consumer is extended.

Freak, I am 19-years-old, a physically mature male and in good health. In most any other nation today or at any other time in history, I could very well have been working a farm, supporting not only myself but a family, likely including my parents, or be in the army or something. My peers are planning on extending the lack of true resonsibility for a few more years. This is unacceptable. Besides, what's stopping them from learnign law now. Are their capacities for understanding and memory going to increase that much more between their sophomore year of college and entrance into graduate school?

Ideally, I guess I want elementary and middle school and high school to more closely resemble the liberal arts education I am now receiving. Teach us to write and read and do arithmetic, yes, but also teach us philosophy and how to think critically. Show us the basics of physics and biology. Expose us to every manner of art and music. Catch them young enough and they will not blow it off as something that does not matter to them or their future. Then let us learn a trade.

Movie trailers

A few days back I saw a trailer for Stomp the Yard on TV. The main draw of the movie seems to be the dancing because the plot of talented rookies in some sport taking on the established veterans has been done time and again in any number of settings. Likely, the hero is the one who jumpstarts the ragtag group of the rookies, falls in love with some girl with connections to the veterans, things fall apart and the veterans see if the hero would like to join them, he declines and brings the rookies together at the last minute to win and get the girl. I haven't looked into the movie anymore than this trailer, so I may be wrong about these predictions. Still, I find it hard to believe I'm that far off. What surprised me about this trailer, however, was that it revealed the ending so blatantly. In the final seconds you can see the hero kissing a girl while confetti falls and his team jumps around behind him with a trophy. I doubt anyone coming to this movie didn't expect a happy ending, but it was rather surprising to me until I began to think about it.

How often do people go into movies completely blind now? Likely, they don't go to a movie unless they've read some reviews or seen some trailers or at least seen a poster which reveals a bit about it. Even more, if the person manages to remain completely in the dark about plot details, once they begin seeing the movie they apply any number of structures they've observed in similar films and can probably make some good guesses about the ending after twenty minutes.

What I find fascinating is that filmakers know this and have changed the ways their movies are presented now. The general structure may remain the same, but the early parts have changed. Take Hitch which my mom and sister watched severl nights back. Even if one did miss the trailers or has since forgotten about them, it's hard not to imagine Will Smith getting together with the gossip columnist after their respective characters are introduced. However, they first appear together in a bar but with different people. At one point, they even cross paths but just miss each other. The audience was expecting their first meeting at this point, perhaps in an amusing instance of slapstick, but it doesn't. Of course it eventually happens, in the same bar ten movie minutes later actually, but audience expectations are played with. I find it interesting that filmakers are still able to practice some originality within these established structures and the associated expectations.

A final question on this subject. If some movie remains popular in future, and people can reasonably come into it without any expectations except that it is a good example of some genre, will they be missing some of these little tricks?

Habit and schedule

To obtain virtue, Socrates thought that the cultivation of good habits was necessary. In The Art of Being, Erich Fromm writes about the need for concentration in habitual activities.

Before I can progress in this post, there is a fundamental question that must be asked. What are habits? The definition my philosophy professor of this past semester gave is a good one. Habits are those things we do again and again that have a cumulative effect and lead towards a single goal.

My problem lies in distinguishing between the daily practice of habits and scheduling. This, of course, requries further distinctions to be made between kinds of habits. You simply can't schedule habits of a moral, ethical nature, the ones that Socrates was speaking of. You cannot say, "I am going to spend this morning being honest and practice altruism in the afternoon." These should be taken into account and practiced in all of our interactions, every day. Ultimately, we should strive to develop virtues like justice and patience to the point that we no longer think of their practice but simply live them.

Lying in contrast to these habits of moral development are those of skill development, habits that are better aligned with Fromm's treatment of habits. Learning a new language or how to paint or whatever, those require our full attention and concentration. To some extent, we can integrate these into our daily lives in the same way as moral habits by trying to translate some phrases into our chosen language or practice motions that mimic those of a paintbrush. Still, these are the types of things that time must be devoted to specifically if one wants to make true progress in them. So, in order to acquire these skills, we schedule time to work on them.

Is it possible to overschedule in this regard? Of course. At the heart of this lies my dispute with any form of overscheduling, be it on vacation or in anyother aspect of one's life, or too much control over one's choices. To the extent that we remain committed to our schedules, we remove chaos from our lives, necessary for discovery and growth. If we remain in complete control of every aspect of our lives, we can never mature beyond ourselves. We are our limit. It's the same problem that news and blogs consumers run into these days. People immerse themselves in those that reinforce their own beliefs rather than challenging themselves with intelligent works of differing politics. Their beliefs are thusly never tested, and good ideas, often the result of synthesis, may never be found.

This all leads to a rather simple principle with regards to habits: flexibility. Rather than saying, "I will read this work in a foreign language from 3:30 to 4:00 today," you try instead to read a chapter sometime today while still being prepared to take advantage of alternative opportunities.

I write beyond this blog...

On the off-chance that someone reads this blog who doesn't personally know me, I am pleased to inform them that I do write and am published outside of this blog. Mostly, that is through various Gonzaga publications; the student newspaper and the jounals of opinion and art. If you lack access to hard copies of these, the following are links to pieces I have written.

My Charter submissions:
Cultural enlightenment 101: Education through travel
Happy Crossings
Archetypes of a political persuasion
The Smart One

The Gonzaga Bulletin submissions:
Actually I'm just going to provide a link to the website, The Gonzaga Bulletin. I wrote a fair number of editorials that can be found in the archives. My pieces are the ones preceded by the title 'Editorial:' rather than 'Letter to the editor:' Most of them deal with what the opinion pages should seek to be and are of a more general nature that is hopefully of interest to more people.

Reflection submission:
Unfortunately, these are not up yet. You'll just have to wait to see the brilliant fiction I write.

What is journalism all about?

I want to be a journalist. I'm not sure in what capacity (reporter most likely considering my recent experiences as Opinion editor) or in what medium (not TV) or, much less, publication (it is my hope that more time in the field will lend some guidance on these paths), but it's what I want to do.

Why?

There are practical considerations. It's a field one can actually get a job in and make a living on, and it's something I think I could enjoy doing. Not that these matter so much. I find it hard to believe I could not find these needs filled in any number of other occupations. In all truth, it probably wouldn't bother me to be a janitor or secretary if these were the only preconditions I looked to in a job.

No, my desire to professionally enter into journalism is based on what it's all about. Thomas Griffith called journalism "history on the run" in his essay The Pursuit of Journalism. I don't know who he is, except that he was an editor of Time and Nieman Fellow in 1943. In that same essay he referenced Matthew Arnold's quote, "Journalism is literature in a hurry." I respect Arnold as a poet, "Dover Beach" hangs in my dorm room. But I take a different view from both of these men.

Journalism, in its best form, is information, and information is a tool. With newspapers and magazines and the like, people are given what is necessary to make better decisions. They can choose to support or fight specific courses of action because of what they learned from the news. Money obscures the energies that go into production. In its way, journalism can disrupt that veil. That is what I want to do in my career. Whoo.

Volunteering and charity

They're a big deal, volunteering and charity. The amount of time you unselfishly donate to others is a quantitative element that others often use to judge if you as 'good.' Besides that, material benefits have accrued alongside the less tangible identification of one as a good person. Charity work is really pushed at the high school level and participation in it opens up all manner of scholarships and gives your college applications a bit of a boost. Or not because it has become the standard. You want to win a Citizen of the Year award? I understand that coaching Little Leauge and the like does a fair bit towards endearing oneself to whatever committee makes those selections. For some businesses, philanthropy or the appearance of such has become a major component of their operations, Product (RED) being the current pre-eminent example.

This post isn't about the larger issue so much as its appearance in my life as of late though that would make for a decent post.

By accident of birth, I have never been in need of anything in my life. The essentials and necessities have all been taken care of for me. Life certainly isn't fair, but I can bloody well try to make it a little more so in some way. That's why I volunteer and try to do good.

At Gonzaga, I have given time to a local elementary school this past semester and, last fall, an organization which I prefer to call a homeless service center to a shelter because its sleeping program is minor and it mostly provides some necessities and opportunities to the homeless who take advantage of it. In the first case, I took care of some minor things like putting together papers for the students and helping them with their writing to the small extent you can when they're in first grade. In the latter case, I sat behind a counter and handed hygienic items out to those who asked for them. In either placement, my job could have done by most anyone. They were not what I am looking for.

No, I think the best example of what I'm looking for is a project I took part in towards the end of the semester. Operating under the name 'A Warm Welcome' the intent of the project was to provide student-made scarves to incoming Karen Burmese refugees. In ideal practical terms, for the amount of energy we devoted to making these scarves, we could have held jobs and devoted our earnings to the refugee placement service, World Relief, and done them far more good. In more practical terms, it's very hard to get college students to part with their money in this manner while they are more than willing to give of their time. Furthermore, though the quality of the scarves was largely of inferior quality to those which could be purchased commercially, these scarves were the first crocheting project for many students so they gained a new skill, and I hope that they demonstrated a greater sense of welcome to the refugees than simple purchases could.

That it was what I am looking for. Actions with both tangibly good results and strong meanings behind them as well. Time to start looking harder.

Looking for truth

Besides the plays assigned through Literature III and the notable exception of Fight Club, my fiction reading habits have as of late been reprehensible. For myself, the last work of fiction I can remember reading, at least for the first time since I did power through most of my old Animorphs over the June, July and August, was Dr. Zhivago back in the early summer. Since then, it's been nothing but news articles and essays covering economics, religion, sociology, psychology, politics and what not. On my desk, ready to be read now, are In Defense of Elitism, Crossing the Postmodern Divide and The Condition of Postmodernity, and they aren't metaphors.

In no small part, I'm sure this change in reading habits is affected by the collision of my tendency towards stinginess with my money and fear of trying something without a reccomendation. These works of philosophy are freely available at the university library, and if they aren't directly spoken of during some class, they do touch on topics we do discuss. In contrast, I often leave the local independent bookstore empty-handed because I'm afraid of wasting my money on some poor work of fiction that I have heard nothing of.

I do believe, however, that there is a large issue at play here, and that is this search for truth I speak of in the title. Philosophical works and those of the social sciences have pretensions of explaining and making intelligible the many aspects of the world we live in through logic or empirical evidence or whatever while fiction is largely understood as amusement. Saying that fiction cannot contain great truths or whatever is hugely wrong of course, and the legs of the social sciences are hardly the strongest. They find it very hard to explain everything or their various adherents even find it difficult to agree on most things.

The important questions come last here. Am I right or perhaps just arrogant? Is this right to pursue truth in such a way?

Screw social justice

Actually, that title is just for impact. In a certain, very specific sense, I do agree with it, but in the sense that I'm sure first came to the minds of most people, I'm totally against it. Good grief. I go to a university where taking a class with a social justice requirement is necessary for graduation and am active in a number of groups who hold the concept of social justice near and dear. Most importantly perhaps, my friends are very much for this concept as well, and that statement could be one of the best possible if I desired to alienate them.

Offering my definition of social justice would no doubt help clarify my position. It is the ideal of making a more just world be it through economics or diginty or whatever. Aiding in the development of clean drinking water and reliable sources of food in the Third World is social justice. So is taking a hammer to concept that other ethnicities and races and sexes are inferior and don't deserve the same rights and potential as others. Short of believing that it's up to these people to raise themselves up, wholly on their own, I can see no way of arguing with this position.

My problem is with how I see this ideal pursued. Social justice is achieved by turning other countries and societies into the United States. A simple search on Google for ecological footprint ought to demonstrate the impossibility of that situation, (Maybe I should be a little less cavalier in that statement as Malthus was proved wrong.) but the greater problem, for me, lies in a different direction. Do other societies really want to be like the United States? Materially, we're doing very well for ourselves. We have indoor heating, cooling, plumbing, a veritable multitude of entertainment options, all manner of food choices, amazing transportation abilities, need I go on? Largely, our needs and wants are met and exceeded, but we aren't happy. Stress and obesity are epidemics of a sort that are hammering all members of American society. Blame it on marketers trying to cultivate a mindset that believes it will be satisfied once they make that next purchase or whatever. The problem remains. By and large, we are not content or happy people. Social justice will fail if it can make the American lifestyle attainable to every person on the planet (barring the current economic impossibility) but still leave them unhappy.

I do not dispute the necessity of improving the situations of people whose basic needs are not met. Yesterday a friend questioned why another friend would go outside in the sub-twenty weather in a T-shirt to meditate. He said it was to attempt and transcend the cold. She said his transcendence would be better served by putting on a jacket or coat or something. This whole debate and my own thoughts are worth a post in itself, but I'll let it stand here to say transcendence is fine for we who have the option to put on our jackets or go inside. Let's not force it on those who don't have options. That's what social justice should be seeking to accomplish, the meeting of needs and the creation of societies where all people are allowed to match their potential and are judged according to their merit.

The next step is breeding contentment with what we have, something we Westerners would do well to learn ourselves. I don't remember thinking of this until I saw City of God. Those people lived in a Brazilian slum. Their lives were led amongst squalor, but they were not miserable people. Frustrated and angry? Yeah but not whiny. My mom is fond of quoting some study that found the happiest group of people in the United States are old black women. Not my first I guess and I suspect not that of most people. Why is that? Because happiness is not dependent on possession. So much of our entertainment seems to me to be nothing more than a distraction. Hear some clever lines and see some flashy explosions or exotic landscapes and forget about whatever is really bothering us, more likely than not, that unscratchable itch being wanting more; power, prestige, money, stuff, whatever. That needs to be killed.

Before I end this post, something needs to be clarified. I do not believe that all discontent is bad. After all, it is what drives progress, and no person should be content with settling for less than their best or not fulfiling their potential. We simply must identify those areas where discontent is wasted.

Reflections of a former Opinion editor

This semester I took on the role of Opinion editor for my university newspaper, and now it is finished. The last issue of the semester was published today, and there really is nothing left for me to take care of except to e-mail those who continue to submit and tell them that they will have to await for publication in the spring, a semester will definitely not be working as an editor for. As is my modus operandi, my choices and all their consequences warrant some reflection.

Like so many axioms, "Hindsight is 20/20" is wrong. Looking back now, I have no bleeding idea why I applied for the position of Opinion editor. There certainly is no dearth of good reasons for me to have applied for the position: It is required for my Journalism major and also appeared to be a good way to form relationships with new people with similar interests. Arrogance may have played a part as I decided to take on editing before the reporting and writing classes as they seemed less difficult to me. I also looked towards the Opinion pages specfically because I felt they had been so abused in previous semesters and could be so much better.

Whatever the cas, I ended up with the position. At various points, I may have said it was all right. Those were the times I had plenty of opinions on a variety of subjects and was even able to hold a few just in case a drought of pieces in the next week required a back-up plan. Most of the time though, I would have called it a learning experience in that I learned I never wanted to be an editor again. There was simply too much stress. I demand a certain level of quality in those things I participate in and have an influence over, and the constant running around and speaking with people to arrange for (hopefully) intelligent and thought-provoking opinion pieces and then desparately waiting for their pieces to come in was plenty of stress. Add on the frustration I feel towards myself when I have to constantly pester my friends for a letter whenever they say something that sound mildly contentious and even more frustration with the general student body for generally not caring to respond to any number of potential topics, preferring instead to focus on abortion and the Take Back the Night group, and mine was a world of hurt and dread come Wednesday and page layout. The last two issues proved especially difficult as a number of meetings were forced and egos had to be assuaged as people got personal in their letters and fought for their (perceived) rights to appear on the Opinion pages and not be edited.

Any of the individual elements I would have been fine with. Copy editing, though boring and something I need a great deal more practice in, is fine. Page layout is fun. Both together with kind of assigning stories to people who you have no leverage over or incentives to offer makes it very rough.

You've made it this far. Congratulations. Now let me explain my future plans. I care very much about journalism as a whole and The Bulletin specifically and want to see them reach the highest levels of quality that they can. In the forseeable future, my contribution towards that goal will be through writing and reporting. In the vaguest of manners, I can see myself taking on the position again, maybe even Chief Editor. Unfortunately, that would more than likely involve dropping one of my minors. We'll wait and see.

For now, my semester as Opinion editor remains a learning experience, like so much of my life and as it should be.

Literature classes

Some time ago I found an article on Slate that challenged the English departments of to justify their existence when what they did seemed so detached from reality (apparently "The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Transrelational Gender Modes" is not that far off from the truth). Maybe the article provided its own answer or concluded that English departments really didn't deserve to exist. I don't remember, but the challenge has stayed with me, most pressingly when I'm trying to figure out why I care about female Edens in "A Midsummer's Night Dream" or Milton's brilliance in the use of 'or' in Paradise Lost.

Well, this wil likely be my last semester of Literature, barring space in my schedule opening up and hearing that Victorian Literature is all sorts of fun. Better late than never to find an answer to that question, "What is the use of directed readings of literature, poetry, drama and whatever else those writers can come up with and professors throw at you?" Because they're not psychology or chemistry or whatever else that can be demonstrated empirically. Those are averages and generalities. No one has 2.5 children, and attitudes toward life don't fit neatly into whatever stage of life we've reached. Literature reinforces these lessons we should have bleeding learned from our interactions with people. They're unique, complex and can't be reduced to the latest study or finding.

The problem at I arrive at here, is what makes Virginia Woolf and Homer and Oscar Wilde so important then that we have to spend so much time poring over their words? There are millions of writers. Why not them? Because some people have spent more time considering themselves or are simply more interesting.

Why then do we need professors? Hopefully, to guide us towards what the author intended. Rather than finding ourselves in their works, we find the writer. The professors know the writers, studied their other works and lives. They are best equipped to know the writer.

Here's the article, on the off chance you care. At this point, I'm about positive I've written about it before. Maybe I'll look it up sometime and look at how views have changed or realize just how redundant this post has been.

Insanity and chaos theory

It's a popular saying, "Insanity is trying the exact same thing over and over again and still expect different results." Actually, I'm not sure if it's popular. I've used it if that indicates anything.

If Edna St. Vincent Milay had heard this, she could combine it with, "Life is not one damn thing after another, life is the same damn thing over and over," and come to the conclusion that to live is to be insane.

But I'm digressing. My point is, chaos theory throws this all out the window and proceeds to run over it with a Hummer. Tiny, insignificant changes can impact the outcome in ways we cannot possibly imagine, so it's very possible that the results will change no matter how similar repeated actions appear.

I know it's a departure from my current thread on goodness, but it's just something I thought of.

More thoughts on altruism and community

So, after further thought, altruism is less a good than a basic tenet of human survival. I'm fairly certain I've written on this before, but I'm going ahead with this next bit anyway. If communities are to survive, the members need to have reasonable expectations of how they will treat one another. Altruism is the answer to this. Treat others kindly and they will do the same in return. In some small way, we can control others in that way.

The point of this, besides reducing altruism in my eyes, is to point out the pre-eminence of the community. If the Golden Rule is what communities are built on, they have to be one of the most important elements of civilization. Why? Because humans cannot exist on their own. Even before all of the tending one needs as an infant, a man and a woman need to have sex to produce them. As trained adults, I guess humans can survive wholly on their own, given the right location. Still, they're merely surviving at that point. Animals survive, humans can be more. Now I just need to figure out what humans should be reaching for.

Altruism

So, what must I do? I must be altruistic. As far as both Jesus and Confucius, major teachers of Western and Eastern morality, are concerned, and they are both heavyweights, this is a pretty good answer. I treat others as I wish to be treated. It's progress, but I now need to figure out what that it.

The problem with altruism lies on two levels. First, the separation between what I want and what I need, and the fact that what I need is sometimes painful. The second, and deals more with my interactions with others, am I wise enough to know what they need? Do I know all the necessary details? Just how much should I force necessities on another person? At some point, they need to fill their own needs.

A small answer and more questions. Progress of a sort, I guess.

Also, this is not that exciting of an answer but this journey must include equal parts meditation and participation in daily life. Buddha didn't sit underneath his bo tree until he left his palace and saw the old man, the sick person and monk. Jesus' ministry was preceded by a 40 day visit to the desert. These guys did pretty well for themselves, so if I could emulate them, that would be pretty rocking.

Geez, I really am comparing my journey to some of the biggest names.

A journey

Lately I've been feeling restless, as though something's out of sync in my life. Looking back on my journal, there is nothing much to worry about on the physical and material planes. I'm keeping up with my homework, eating well in spite of my parents' and grandparents' worries, getting exercise and spending plenty of time with my friends. Judged solely on these and the lack of anything really terrible in my life (though editing the Opinion pages is rather stressful) I ought to be happy, and I have no doubt many people would gladly switch positions with me.

Still, I realize this and my restlessness remains. Perhaps you could blame it on my recent reading material: Viktor Frankl's account of time in a concentration camp and on his theory of logotherapy in Man's Search for Meaning and an attack upon my lifestyle in Hooked!: Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume. One demands that we find answers if we are to survive, the other provides answers and philosophy so distant from what I am familiar with, and I'm left with a yearning to find my answers.

I have questions, a lot of them, and not so many answers. Sure, you could ask me what the purpose of art is or how can we best understand it. I could probably give a decent response, but it probably came from someone else. I need my own answers and philosophies, ones that I have critically analyzed and considered.

So here I start out with only the vaguest of ideas what I'm doing. I have some basic questions like "What is right?" and "How do I do right?" I'm not even sure what the best way to go about answering these is. Solitary meditation? Participation in and observation of daily life? I'll try both I guess. The only other thing that occurs to me is the need to cultivate good productive habits and eliminate distractions.

So I'll use this space to record my thoughts and progress. Hopefully I'll find my answers. Barring that, I hope it will help you find and sharpen your own. Later.

Developing an idea

I don't remember if I have ever discussed this particular belief on 'Spice of Life' before, but, for simplicity's sake, I consider myself an anti-consumerist. Eventually I'll work up the energy and time to describe the associated beliefs in earnest, but, for now, it may just be simpler for you to read Consuming Religion and No Logo, both of which have been huge inspirations to me.

Among the attached ideas is a distaste for those brand names which seek to transcend the material and sell you an identity, a personality brought forth by your (typically and most commonly) clothes though cars and many other products suffer from this as well. My problem with brand names has been longstanding but has undergone some development as of late. Their products neither can nor should create an identity for us. We should create our own.

It's a simple dispute but bothers me because it eliminates an agency on the part of the consumer. What if they buy a certain product not because of its particular image but because it's quality and within their product? Do the intentions of the consumer matter not?

About a week ago, I think I came up with a solution for this. It works by analogy. A woman may enjoy wearing a low cut shirt and mini-skirt and feel pretty doing so, but the unwavering stare of a creepy guy can do a lot to disrupt their mood. He looks at her like a piece of meat, and it matters as do the intentions of marketers and producers. The nature of a marketer's intention is nowhere near as personal as an uncalled for stare, but the same idea is there.

What about that? Any obvious counter-points or kudos for my brilliance?

Changes

I've heard friends complain that other friends change after they've been in a serious relationship for a while. I'm not sure why. Perhaps they believe that their friend is changing to better suit their partner. They've been in the relationship so long that they will undertake anything to perpuate its existence because they don't know what they would do without the other. Again, I don't know. These are mere possibilities.

My perspective is a bit different. If that person is better than you, can make you better, you change, no questions ask. Why hold onto an inferior identity and character when one can improve?

Of course, this is all dependent upon the other person being a good one. Should they not be so good, you change them or get out of there.

Reflections on student newspapers making a bad thing worse

This is what happens when Chris' staff editorial gets shot down during the staff meeting. It gets posted here. Sure the audience is infinitesimally smaller, but, at least, his name is more apparent. Enjoy.

So it happened again. A newspaper dropped the ball. Shoddy editing led to the printing of factual errors. It was not the first time something of the sort has ever happened, and no one but a fool would believe it to be the last time. Mistakes happen to all manner of news organizations, at every conceivable level. It’s not hard to think of cases where national publications were forced to fire reporters and editors and publishing fabrications, and, just last week, our own Gonzaga Bulletin corrected errors in a front page story, and ran a letter to the editor identifying errors in another article. Still, this particular case is of interest because The Daily Illini simply gave up.

In a staff editorial berating the athletic department for not treating students fairly in regard to ticket distribution for a basketball game three egregious errors were made. The next day a correction and apology were run, both very appropriate, and that, short of being a poignant memory of what happens when fact checking is neglected, should have been the end of it. However, another editorial appeared the day after and, claiming those mistakes as merely the most recent in a long series, declared that the appearance of staff editorials on its Opinion page would be ended for “a couple of weeks.”

The editorial board of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s student newspaper, an award-winning production that began in 1874 and distributes over 20 thousand copies a day, failed to meet one of the most basic journalistic standards: getting its facts straight. Rather than resolve to confront the issue the next day with editors operating under the reminder of their recent failure, it preferred to remove itself from the public eye under the cover of re-evaluating the system under which the editorials are chosen, written and edited.

Cocaine addled celebrities run and hide. They have no obligations beyond providing entertainment, though stories of their recoveries or devastating descents back into drug use can still prove amusing for those who read People or Us Weekly. Newspapers, however, have a duty to the public and cannot back down from it.

In the editorial board’s last submission to its opinion pages for the foreseeable future, it called the newspaper editorial “a sacred institution” for offering “insight on issues, events and problems relevant to the community.” Now The Daily Illini has forsaken this status, not through its factual errors but through its refusal to meet the problem the next day.
Avoiding blunders like these are simple to those with the mildest understanding of journalism: make sure the editors do their job. I can sympathize with their failure in this instance. People get tired, focus on the wrong things or, more commonly, assume that the person who checked the story before them knew what they were doing and took care of the big problems.

Mistakes are excusable and remedied by apologies and notes under the heading “Correction.” Giving up is not.

Conflict

Conflict and its appearance in friendship made an interesting appearance in my daily life today. A friend came passed through the room, and I commented upon her bright red arm. I pointed out that there was ice in the freezer, and it would likely speed in the recovery of her sunburn. A second friend said you ought (okay, ought wasn't used, but i like the sound of it) never place ice on a sunburn. Memory gets a little imprecise here, but I believe I granted the point that ice should not straight up be placed on bare skin but maintained that putting some paper towels in between would still do fine. The friend countered that ice was a bad idea, you should only use aloe or cold water to heal a sunburn. We might have reiterated both of these points for a few rounds, but I eventually changed tacs. I had never used ice to heal my numerous sunburns but frequently utilized a cold gel pack. Perhaps we could compromise on that but no. I suggested using a cold gel pack, and she said it was only good for bruises. Finally I said that was what I put on all my sunburns, and the conversation just dropped into an awkward silence at that point and died. The friend with a sunburn had long since left.

I find it funny because, looking back, it seems as though that disagreement could have held much greater consequences than the yelling matches I get into with another friend on whether or not the ends justify the means or the means justify the ends (my position). Do practical disagreements carry more weight than theoretical? It appears so, at least in this case. You could bring up our current war on terror and how its between two opposing ideologies, but I sincerely doubt that the current situation would persist if there weren't certain economic problems behind them. Something to think on.

Movement

One of the more intersting things about picking up a Dance minor on a whim, besides the kudos from those shocked you would do something like that, especially when you have never seen a ballet and the only thing you have bordering on experience in dancing is Dance Dance Revolution, is the variety of classes you take. Well, in terms that all of the Dance related classes (Tai Chi, Sacred Dance and Ballet) I'm taking this semester involve movement, they aren't that different. It's in the theory that such stark and interesting divisions arise. In Tai Chi we're suppposed to feel our chi, feel it rise up from the earth and circulate through a spot three fingers below the navel. That's on Tuesday and Thursday mornings while Sacred Dance is held about ten hours later, and we're supposed to feel God's presence as if God were looking over your shoulder, asking "Can I step in?"

Why do I have to feel these semi-cosmic (or straight up cosmic with regards to God) forces? Can I categorize my motions such that I only feel them in the appropriate settings? What if I start feeling my chi in Sacred Dance and God in Tai Chi? What then? Or maybe I should merely focus on developing an awareness of one in all my activities. Freak. It's irritating when your instructors are working at cross-purposes like this.

Monday and Wednesday Ballet mornings are almost a relief when you only have to concentrate on your form and not worry about feeling these forces beyond yourself. Of course, Ballet is much more quantifiable than the other two, so someone can say, "You suck. I mean really suck. You make a vacuum look like a leaf blower. That's how much you suck,' and you can't really contest them.

Postmodern music (because it obscures the nerdy origins)

I believe I was looking for Dance Dance Revolution tracks at the time. You know, so I could enjoy such songs as Afronova and Burning Heat outside of the intensity of emotion that particular rhythm game leads to the creation of. In the course of this mildly illegal action I came upon OverClocked ReMix a site that promotes and hosts free remixes of video game soundtracks. Most of them are classics, pulled from such gems as Chrono Trigger and Sonic the Hedgehog and the Donkey Kong Country franchise, though more recent games like Zelda 64 and the later members of the Final Fantasy series are represented. The site lacked what I was looking for, but the design was excellent and it looked interesting. So, I bookmarked it.

That was maybe a month ago. A week ago I returned to the site looking for some new music having gone on a free music collecting binge. I didn't think so much of it at the time, but, once the downloads finished (a day later because there was over a gig of music) it hit me, just how nerdy I was. I was downloading video game soundtracks. Not only that, fan takes on them. People who found the original scores and replaced the symphony with guitars or rapped over the top. This had to be some sort of turning point. I can't remember a time I had a problem with the label of nerd. I liked to read. I liked Star Wars to an inane degree. I had glasses. I deserved the title. But this music was something different. If the general populace learned of this, I would be thrown into the lowest levels of nerdery. Kids with pocket protectors could dump my books and give me pink belly with impunity because I was even lower than them.

Still, I have a problem with throwing things out, so the music remained on my computer. A short while later I was reading The Selfish Gene (funny story there. i had been reading a friend's LiveJournal earlier that day and, when my mom asked what it was about, i told her 'a meme.' turns out she knew what those were because she had read Dawkin's most famous work (in that it's the only work i know he has written) and had what might be a first run edition because she had to read it in college. upon her finding of it (it was fifth printing i believe) i was in a goofy good mood. yeah, funny.) and couldn't concentrate on it while playing songs with lyrics. I was tired of John Williams and other film scores, so I, not without some trepidation, put the OverClocked ReMix on and was floored. Sure, there was a slight nostalgia factor, especially in the case of Secret of Mana remixes, a game which actually had me crying at the end (that was a long bleeding time ago), but I hadn't played most of the source games and came to the remixes fresh. They were actually pretty good. Very professional and clean sounding. The remixers had put a lot of effort and care into these bits of sound, and it came through, clear as the water around the Florida Keys.

So that is my story. The discovery of some great art in an unusual place, art not to be dismissed because of its humble, easily dismissable origins.

Leadership

It and variants on it came up a lot on college scholarship applications. What do you think makes a good leader? What is the ideal leader? How do you consider yourself a good leader? A poor one? In many respects, high school tried to prepare me for these. There were leadership conferences and seminars and a whole pile of ways you could act in a position of authority. There was student government, class officers and club positions.

Mostly I wrote trash for those particular essays. They were insipid and mostly regurgitated whatever it was that I had heard in those training sessions. It showed. I don't think I ended up with any scholarships with 'leadership' in the title.

However, I think I have a handle on what leadership is all about now. Leaders are simply the ones who make a decision and go through with it, even the most petty things. There have been times when I was with the cross-country team or friends or whatever, and we'd be trying to decide on something. What movie to watch, where to go to eat, what to do next, whatever. People would be willing to throw out all sorts of suggestions, but it would take forever to get anyone to act on them. I guess people are afraid of stepping on the toes of others. They don't want to seem as though they're imposing their preferences and whatnot on others when they can't see any quantitative difference. That's when the leaders appear. They would say, "Let's do this," and we would follow them. They realize that no decision is going to please everyone the same amount and do the best with what they know and are willing to live with whatever consequences, small as they may be in the above mentioned cases. That's all leadership is, the willingness to make a decision and see it carried out. Good leaders are the ones that make the right decision and are ready to make changes as the need arises.

Woodie

I've had two days to think about this and even spent a decent part of work today trying to figure it out. I have nothing, so I'm just streaming here. See what happens.

Woodie was a good dog. The closest she ever came to mean was barking when somebody she didn't know came to the house. As soon as they came inside, though, she'd just rush up and sniff them. She was even decent to other dogs, especially smaller ones, or maybe just afraid. They would sniff each other briefly and then the other dog would chase Woodie in a few circles. I thought it was funny at least. She listened to me too. Not like Molly, but she was going deaf by the time I was taking her on walks when my dad wasn't around to.

Anyway, she was put down on Wednesday. When I came back to Baudette from college she was doing all right. But then she had surgery to remove a tumor or something, and it all went downhill from there. It must have been a malignant tumor because she showed signs of lymphoma, nasty bumps all over and didn't spend anytime in her usual places. Even that wasn't so bad, but the last weekend she got worse still. My parents went on a camping trip, and I had to take care of her, walks and feeding and such. Actually, that was basically it, but she wouldn't get up or eat or anything. She did a little of that when my dad came back and took care of her, but it still wasn't much. Was she in pain? I don't know. I guess my parents were giving her aspirin, and she wasn't whimpering or anything. Still, she wasn't going to last much longer.

It wasn't so bad as when Molly was put down. I knew it was coming this time.

Possession

It seems to me that we humans are so very eager to slap the adjective 'my' on to those things we are involved with. 'Our,' in the sense that it is within the possession of a limited group, is often substituted as it makes the sayer appear less greedy. This struck me most strongly at work today where my partner and I were loading picnic tables on to a trailer. Always when we lowered the ramp, I would unhook the right side and he would take the left, and it seemed to me that were he to work on the right side, I would tell him to stop doing my work, though we did the exact same thing only on opposite sides. I believe he felt the same way because the two of us would do an awkward sort of dance around one another to get at our respective sides if it ended up that we were ready to lower or raise the ramp but on the wrong side.

What's with that? is the first question that comes to mind, and the second question that quickly follows for me Is this right? My example is petty. It really matters nothing, but it's ramifications are much more clear when land claims and other such things are considered. This perspective that influences so very much, from the minute in impact and importance to the international, is strongly influenced by the American culture I have lived my entire life within, and I want to know if it is right. Unfortunately, this observation will have to be the sum of tonight's post. I lack the drive to write any more on the matter now and have other things on my mind. Perhaps I'll give this question the analysis it deserves in a later post.

Thinking about teachers and education and such

I was thinking earlier. You see, that's why I'm making a post. I thought some thoughts and found them to be of some value, something others might enjoy. Thus, I write now.

Anyway, Nietzsche wrote something along the lines of "Teachers are a necessary evil." That's wrong actually. He wrote in German and it was probably closer to "Lehrer sind ein notwendiges Übel (courtesy of FreeTranslation.com seeing as how my German vocabulary isn't extensive enough to come up with that line on my own, and I lack Nietzsche in German (not that I'd know where to look for it))." This is important though because I read an article through Arts & Letters Daily about folk science and how we as humans generally screw up science because of our limited perspective. At some point, the writer brought up heliocentricty and the earth as a globe as things we don't realize on our own. I know that. Those facts were ground into me in most every science book and I ever read and more than a few history books as well. The problem is I've never proven these for myself. I've been told that these are so, but I've never done the calculations, the figuring that proves them. How do I know for certain that these are true, and I'm not being mislead? I guess I don't. I could be living in some boring rip-off of The Truman Show, and everyone wants to know what ludicrous notion I'll swallow next.

I guess that's what labs like dissection and those that allow you to calculate acceleration due to gravity are for. They give us the opportunity to see that these are real. The problem with those, though, is that the students know what is supposed to happen, what results the teacher wants to see, and we, at least my friends and I in high school, fudged like mad. We accepted the established results even though our own results differed.

To quote another notable dead white man, Newton said (more likely wrote but whatever), "If I've seen farther than others its because I've stood on the shoulders of giants." The only way we can make significant progress is by building on the previous works of others. If everyone had to start off from the beginning, observing nature and working out gravity and whatever else, we as humans would not be at the level we are today. Then again, if one of these giants people are scrambling up today made some fundamental mistake, a whole lot of time would be lost in the development of a different approach to that particular field.

My history professor last semester backs Newton up against Nietzsche. He said something that I remember as, "You don't just give some chemistry set to a kid and say, 'Have fun!'" If I remember right, this is taken more than a bit out of context. He was drawing a comparison on whether ethics and morality should be taught to children when he delivered that line. Still works. Teachers are very necessary, both to overall progress and to safety.

Then again, I am more than likely reading Nietzsche a bit shallowly here and could be blasted off this planet by someone with a better background than I in his writings.

What was this post about? The fun one can have in comparing quotes, I guess. I should do this again sometime.

Mona Lisa

In my last post I made an example of La Joconde. Turns out my reflections on our history is worth a post. I took French for four years in high school, and, as I imagine most classes do, we went to France the summer after I graduated. It was one of those true whirlwind trips. No more than a night in any place and plenty of time on the bus. Not enough time to really visit any one place, which, very much unfortunately, was the case with the Louvre as well. If I remember correctly, we had two hours there. Most of that time I spent amongst the Greek, maybe Roman, sculptures, but, come on, it's the Lourvre. There are a few things you have to see, so I wandered a little bit. Managed to walk past the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Couldn't find David. The Mona Lisa was different. I find it easily enough, but couldn't get within twenty yards of it because of the mass of humanity surrounding it. Not that I actually wanted to see the picture. I was more interested in the security and all the preventive measures against light and environmental damage. Still, the crowd kept me from even seeing that much.

The people so eager to see this piece fascinated me though. What is the big deal about seeing it? The picture itself is not much bigger than a sheet of paper. You could probably get a better view of the picture from out in the hallway where ceiling to floor length banners of the painting were hung, yet people were still desperate to get in on it themselves. They held digital cameras above their heads to try for a shot, no doubt vastly inferior to those they could find in some gift shop or even online.

Curious behavior.

Ideal of art

Here's a problem that has been running through my mind since I started my first college literature course. Should art aspire towards ambiguity or certainty? Is Paradise Lost, where such basic questions as whether Eve was a positive or negative character were debated over in Literature I, or To Kill a Mockingbird, "Walk a mile in their shoes before judging them?" sounds pretty clear to me, to be lauded? Not that certainty is all that certain anymore, not when you can make Fight Club into an adult Calvin and Hobbes, but there are times when the creator's intent is bleeding clear as in 1984.

Why is Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? Well besides the intriguing mathematical principles da Vinci used, all I ever hear about is the smile, enigmatic and different to every person who views it. Ambiguity wins here.

But then again, when did ambiguity ever lead to something besides a great thesis or theory? The world's greatest and longest standing religions? All have nice numbered lists with elements that are nigh impossible to take in any other direction at the center of their faith. The Ten Commandments? The Five Pillars of Faith? The Four Noble Truths? The Eightfold Path? The Golden Rule? Not much wiggle room in those.

It's kind of cheating though to bring these in. They have their artistic and literary elements, but, centrally, they're not about those. Wait a minute though. This just occured to me. What is art but one's perception of reality, and what is religion if not what reality is and how we should exist within it? How does this relate? I'm not sure, but it sounds pretty cool to me.

How about this then? You want to change the world? Give it something distinct and clear. Want to be remembered? Give people the ability to choose the perception they find in your own. Neither can be placed higher than the other (unless, I guess, if you're going to argue against the existence of an ultimate truth that a religion can lay claim to). Art can introduce nuance to religion, but you can't very well live by it while you can live by a religion. They both have their places and must be recognized for what they are.