fidesquaerens

I was reminded this morning of an old song common in Christian youth groups, "They'll Know We Are Christians." We actually sung it every week at a nice Presbyterian church I attended there on Sunday nights (The Church of the Covenant) that I remember mainly for being truly inclusive of the homeless living in the area; they found a good mix of reaching out to them and not making them feel like a project cor other people to help, I thought. But it wasn't unique to Covenant; in fact, it's kind of a Christian "kumbayah" and was really popular in the Jesus Movement, which Wikipedia describes as "the major Christian element within the hippie counterculture, or, conversely, the major hippie element within some strands of Protestantism" (that earned a chuckle, because it's just so true).

Anyway, the song. If you haven't heard it, YouTube has the Jars of Clay version available. I was actually reminded of the second verse:

We will work with each other, we will work side by side
We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we'll guard each one's dignity and save each one's pride
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.

I couldn't help thinking about this in light of the news story I heard last night. Note, this is to an activism site rather than to a regular news site, so the usual caveats apply. But here's the gist of the situation as relayed by the patient.

Mr. Joao Simoes was in the mental health wing of Trinitas Regional Medical Center, a Catholic hospital. While there he communicated to a psychologist that he had HIV contracted from unprotected sex, and said shrink asked if it was sex with another man. Mr. Simoes confirmed that, and the psychiatrist literally walked out of the room. And no one came back - not that shrink or any other doctor, or even a nurse. It was three days later before Mr. Simoes finally got his medicine for HIV (which the hospital knew he needed). In the time period Dr. Borga - the therapist - also contacted his normal medical doctor and accused him of being gay himself and also asked if he needed a translator because he spoke with an accent. According to Mr. Simoes, she actually told his doctor that "This is what [Mr. Simoes] gets for going against God's will," when the medical doctor informed the psychologist about the medicine.

To be fair, two things need to be emphasized. First, this is all preliminary and it's possible that Dr. Borga didn't act in the way described here. Also, it isn't clear to what extent Trinitas RMC was complicit in all this. I'm fairly confident that Catholic doctrine doesn't forbid treating people who contracted diseases in ways you disapprove of morally. I mean, yeah, Catholics are going to oppose certain medical procedures that they consider sinful or harmful themselves (like with abortion), but that's not an issue here. I did three years in a Catholic parochial school and am currently studying in a Jesuit university, and I've never heard of anything that would require a doctor to act the way Dr. Borga did.

If anything it's directly against the way Jesus healed the sick. I always loved his response to Zacchaeus, the epitome of a corrupt government agent: get on down out of that tree, come as you are because you're having lunch with me today. He went into the homes of Roman centurions just because they asked him to, and he healed people without sorting out whether they deserved it in almost every case. Sometimes Jesus moved beyond that, to figure out what sin in the person's life needed addressing in the longterm, but that always came later. Jesus didn't berate the adulteress and refuse to help her because she'd screwed up too badly. Dr. Borga's actions here, if accurately reported, are despicable and not at all what Christianity should be about.

There's a bigger problem here, though. The article's unclear about how much the hospital was involved beyond just that one doctor. But walk it through - either they let someone like this into a posiiton of authority where she could keep life-sustaining medication away from a patient for three days... or they didn't. In the second case the institution had to be involved beyond just this one person. But even if it's the first case, that's a massive institutional failure. If the woman really said half the things she's accused of, that's a pretty clear indication that she needs some serious time on the shrink's couch herself. I mean, she's berating doctors, questioning their sexuality because they dare to treat a gay man to say nothing of their perceived ethnicity. This is not a woman who needs to be in charge of emotionally vulnerable patients.

I'm trying to avoid beating up on the RCC based on one case where the details are still iffy. The problem is that this fits so well into the pattern we've seen time and time again with the pedophilia scandles. I love my Catholic colleagues at Fordham, and my Catholic family, in whom I sense a real spirit of Christian love. But increasingly - speaking of the church as a whole - I see an institution that cares more about dogma and rights than about people. When people cross the line (as will always happen in a large institution) I see the church covering it up and enabling them. Granted, I don't know if that's what happened in this case but it's hard to imagine that this is the first time Dr. Borga said comments like this. If she did, then why is she in authority? My guess - completely unsubstantiated though it may be - is that it's more or less the same reason that kept pedophile priests shuffling between parishes and ending up in charge of youth choirs (and to be fair, kept Jerry Sandusky in his job for several decades as well).

The song I quoted above requires a bit more than that, even. It requires us to "guard each other's dignity" even when that person doesn't look, act or believe precisely like me. Protestants are hardly blameless on this count (there's precious little room for an evangelical to say she doesn't think homosexuality is a sin or that abortion is murder, without being told she's rewriting the word of God), but lately I've seen the RCC in particular doubling down. I'm thinking particularly of the investigation into the Girl Scouts, who as far as I can tell are only really connected to the RCC because they sometimes meet in the churches. Or the new oath affecting theology professors at Catholic universities, or the Vatican's recent crackdown on several orders of American nuns for not being vocal enough in their criticism of abortion, gay marriage, etc. These moves may actually be reasonable, individually; I don't have the time to look at the pros and cons of each of these news items like I'd like to. But taken as a group they do tend drive home the point that to be a good Catholic you can't have much variation from the official position.

As I read the Bible, that's not God's way. Even in the New Testament, great heroes of Peter and Paul express positions, they debate, they come at things from different perspectives. They don't always agree. And as for the Man himself, when the Pharisees asked them for the greatest commandment, He gave them not one but two and then (this was the brilliant part) tacked on the claim that "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." I can just see him saying in modern jargon, "You want an executive summary, a few bullet points you can meet and know you're in the club? Tough cookies. What we're talking about here simply doesn't work that way."

It breaks my heart that so few Christians today seem to get that. Or at least the ones in power don't. This isn't a uniquely Catholic problem, though I've picked on the RCC a fair bit here; it's a Christian problem, and even more than that a human problem. What happened at that hospital was disgusting in so many ways, and I hate that Mr. Simoes had to go through that. But I also hate that religion so often seems to let the Dr. Borgas of the world, so long as they snipe at the right kind of people. I just wish I could do more than apologize. When I call myself a Christian, this isn't what I mean.

(Originally posted at LJ; please comment there.)

I had the distinct pleasure today of seeing the Hobbit trailer on an IMAX screen. Also the significantly less distinct pleasure of seeing Dark Shadows on that same screen - not a bad movie per se, but really a much better $1-theater movie than an IMAX undertaking.

Anyway. The Hobbit. I was truly impressed by it, and not really worried by anything that I saw. It's hard to tell much of anything from a trailer, of course. And do keep in mind I haven't seen the original trilogy in at least three years. It's possible that I am starved for all things Middle-earth, preferably accompanied by Howard Shore's music. But I am also even more of a Hobbit fan than a Lord of the Rings one, so I think I had some pretty high expectations. The trailer could have confirmed my worst fears; it didn't.

Before we go any further I should probably throw in a cut for spoilers, because we're ( totally going there )

As I said, you can only tell so much from a trilogy, but this is all really promising.

(Originally posted at LJ; please comment there.)

The other day at FB, Dan Fincke posted a quote that has stuck with me. Specifically:

"Dear liberal, enlightened Christian: I'm not lumping you in with fundies – you are. Get a new name and new holy book to selectively cite." (Matt Dillahaunty)

This is actually a topic I've thought about a lot myself, and I hinted at it in my post on gender last night. While I definitely consider myself a Christian, I get the sense a lot of times that I don't practice Christianity the way a lot of people do around here. "Here" to my mind is the United States, particularly the various places I've lived as an adult (rural NC, in a mid-sized NC city, in Cleveland, OH, and now in NYC). I guess we should also include the various the various online outlets where I discuss religion, most notably Sojourners, Christianity Today, and Fred Clarke's blog over at Patheos. (I also read Aish.com and for years Brad Hirschfield was a big influence as well, but as those are Jewish groups and I'm talking about Christianity here, I suppose that's not all that relevant.)

Anyway, the Christianity of my experience really can be broken down into two groups. First, there are the fundamentalists. Certainty and even simplicity here is the key; the whole movement started with revivals urging people to get back to basics, IIRC. I'm not a big fan of fundamentalism, so much so that I have a hard time giving a sympathetic description of them. I know that I associate them with the "God said it, that settles it" approach to theology. More distinctive are the social and ethical positions like the idea that women and men should fulfill different roles in society, that all extramarital sex (and by extension, homosexuality, contraception, and sex education) is deeply immoral, and that life begins at conception. There are also distinctive political positions, like the idea that America should be distinctly Christian and that Israel must be supported.

As I said, I'm sure someone could give a more sympathetic description here. I don't mean to beat up on fundamentalists. But if you follow this blog or know me at all, it should probably be fairly obvious why I'm not one.

When people don't just identify Christian as fundamentalist (which doesn't happen often enough), they may have in mind what Matt calls "liberal enlightened Christians." Sojourners is a great example of one such group. Politically, the focus is more on environmental issues, social justice, and immigration reform. And the approach tends to differ as well. Liberal Christians are usually more focused on relationships and grassroots work than passing big laws. Those interested in LGBT activism are probably the big exception. Some of them hold similar views to fundamental Christians (like with abortion – many are very anti-abortion, but prefer to work to avoid pregnancy through contraception and to make adoption a feasibly option, rather than focusing on making abortion illegal.

I'm mostly on board with their social/political project. The theology, on the other hand, always rubs me the wrong way. Matt's quote is right on that much; many liberal Christians will keep their Bible interpretations vague, along the lines of "God is love so how can God be against two adults loving each other?" Now, as it happens I believe the Bible doesn't condemn what we moderns consider homosexuality. It does teach against specific temple practices that are more akin to sexual slavery than anything, But this isn't something good theology should just brush over by ignoring passages fundies point to to explain why homosexuality is an abomination. Similarly for other issues, like global warming and immigration reform; the connection to the Bible is often tenuous and general at best.

I'm not a conservative in the sense used in the sense American political pundits mean – a Republican or a Tea Partier or whatever. But I am enough of a traditionalist that I don't just want to throw out the history and writings and culture of a certain religious tradition. I think living with those things and making sense of them is a good thing (and I know everyone here won't agree with me on that point). It's like Aristotle's aporiai, the puzzles between intuitions and experiences that seem to contradict each other. Religion, done right, forces people to confront the mystery. Both fundamentalism and liberal Christianity fail here because just ignore those factoids that lead us to the puzzle rather than exalting in it.

In light of that I find myself wondering, should I call myself a Christian? Why would I want to, when I reject so strongly most of the associations people have when they hear the word "Christian"? Because I'm definitely not a fundamentalist, but neither am ever going to match what people expect from a liberal Christian. Because, you know, I'm not that either.

But back to Matt's basic point. He suggests that liberal Christians (or those who reject fundamentalism even if they don't embrace liberal Christianity) have only ourselves to blame for being lumped in with fundamentalism, because we insist on calling ourselves names. That's not really fair, though, because it lets fundamentlaism define Christianity. Say I was Irish-American and was frustrated by the way my millennia-old culture got boiled down to leprechauns and Guinness – would you say I was wrong to insist that "Irish" meant more than that? Just because something is the most obvious association a lot of people have, that doesn't mean it's the right one.

I had a similar reaction after Anne Rice "quit" Christianity two years ago. She famously said:

"In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen."

At the time, I found myself agreeing with everything she said, right up until that last sentence. I'd add one more thing, though: I refuse to let the fundamentalist define Christianity as being any of those things. Christianity is not anti-feminist at heart; anti-feminists twist it and use it to support it. And on down the list. Explaining why would take a post – probably multiple posts – on each point. But here's the thing: if you say Christianity is these things, then you're giving away the game before that conversation has ever happened.

That's reason #1 why I won't ever stop calling myself a Christian. Because, contrary to what you hear in the news, the bishops protesting birth control mandates and the Baptists saying we should round up all the gays and put them behind electric fences aren't all Christianity has to offer.

And while we're at it: simply because I say the world wasn't created in seven days or that the Leviticus verse calling "a man lying with a man" an abomination doesn't mean what fundamentalists say it means doesn't make mean I'm reading selectively. I'm not ignoring those passages; I'm simply using a different hermeneutic. Simply because my reading of the Bible is more consistent with liberalism and secularism than the fundamentalist's reading, that doesn't mean my position is watered down or inauthentic. The "real" Christianity isn't necessarily the one that contrasts best with secular humanism, as nice as that might be.

Reason #2 why I insist on calling myself a Christian is related to what I said a few days ago on my post looking at why atheists should want smart theists. I think it's in everyone's best interests to have an intellectually sophisticated faith. And not just intellectually sophisticated; nuanced full stop. Claiming, as Anne Rice did, that Christianity is (say) anti-science offers people a stark choice: your God or your microscopes.

That's a false choice, but even if it wasn't, I'm not sure we'll like the results of forcing it onto people. It's simple psychology: people are reluctant to give up something they have and they like, even for something you tell them is better, because that other thing simply doesn't seem "real" yet.

If you want to get them to "evolve already" (as I heard lots of non-religious people say in response to Obama's statements that his views on gay marriage were evolving), you get them to ask the question: can I be for LGBT equality and still hold on to my other beliefs that I'm committed to? You don't ask them to change all those beliefs at once, because it's too scary for them, and even more important, sincere moral change is a process of evolution. You can't change all your beliefs at once, or quickly, if you want the person to have thought through and really accepted those beliefs.

If Christianity = fundamentalism then the conversation stops there. But if Christianity can be something more nuanced, then you have a much better chance to get your average pew-sitter to do some (if I can be excused the religious phrase) serious soul-searching that leads to real character growth.

So with all respect to Mr. Dillahaunty, he's wrong here. Fundamentalists don't get to unilaterally decide what it means to be a Christian, nor do any other group. It's an open question that's been going on since at least the days of Peter and Paul – and I highly suspect it will continue on until Christ returns or the sun burns out, whichever ultimate ending you prefer.

That's not a bad thing, btw.

(Originally written at LJ; please comment there.)

This is pretty awesome, actually:

Teaching Old Chips New Tricks: The Red One Means Stop

Basically, some researchers found that if you inserted visual cues (like making every seventh Pringles chip red) people were more aware of how much they ate while snacking. And they on average ate less - a lot less.

All of which makes a lot of sense, now that they've figured it out...

(Originally posted at LJ; please comment there.)

I had two experiences. First, I went shopping and finished off my teaching wardrobe - several pairs of black linenslacks, white blouses, and a light-weight blazer jacket. All from women's stores, but the style is always a bit tom-boyish. As am I; my voice has always been low-pitched and I've always favored short hair, jeans + tees, and no make-up.

Item the second: While on the train, I read a really interesting article from the New York Magazine about transgendered children: "S/he." It's well worth the read but longish, so here's the gist. Many transgendered people realize their cis-gender (the one assigned at birth by their parents and society; usually the biological gender). This being New York, you had some reasonably progressive parents trying to make sense of this and support the kids. It's a nice glimpse into transphobia even at that level (one parent's response I found particularly interesting was from a dad who didn't want to suggest to the child there was anything wrong with being a girl, and so he was at first hesitant to get on board with his cis-female son's identifying as male.)

But there's more to it than that. Say your kid tells you at the tender age of five that "she" wants to be treated as a he - that he really believes he is a boy, despite being anatomically female. That may be more-or-less feasible at five (setting aside transphobia the kid may have to deal with), but what about at thirteen? Because while Marcia may answer to Mark and dress and act and play as a boy, but there's still estrogen flowing through his body - meaning that puberty will come quickly, and with it the breasts and the menstruation. It would be traumatic. The problem is, doctors suggest the transgendered not start taking artificial hormones until they're at least sixteen. That's years of being trapped in a body that feels less and less like yours, with all that carries with it regarding social interaction and expectations. And we thought gay bullying was bad. I mean, it is, but this? :-S

So to address the situation, some parents have turned to what's called puberty-blockers - drugs that keep a body from going through puberty, until the child is old enough to start hormone treatment and go through puberty as their chosen gender. (The kid can also go through puberty as his or her cis-gender, simply by stopping the puberty blockers.) But it's a tough call. Several of the parents refer to it as "playing God" or think it marks transgenderism off as a disease (which most LGBT allies, myself included, wholeheartedly deny).

Reading all this, I felt an immense sympathy for anyone going through this. Even with supportive parents, it strikes me as an enormously tough needle for a seven-year-old to thread. And given that most parents probably aren't supportive - either through their own beliefs or simply being a bit mystified by it all - I can only imagine what that's like. By the experience of transgender children as it's explained here resonated deep within me. I'm not transgender, but I'm enough of a tomboy that I never felt drawn to many of the traditional teenage things - dating, dances, and the like. I liked being one of the boys and was most comfortable where gender simply didn't matter. More to the point, I'm all too familiar with the no man's land between different groups. With religion/atheism in particular but other issues as well, where it sometimes felt like I could never be my whole self with anyone - like I always had to fashion my identity. This isn't a criticism of the people I grew up around, or the people at my church who I always seem to be too liberal or too traditionalist to truly fit in with (depending on the group), or my secular humanist friends who try to make sense of why an intelligent person would continue to claim a religious label. But sometimes it feels like, on an issue of great importance to me, I can't fully "be myself" - either because I don't know who I am or because I'm not brave enough to put myself out there, but in either case it's a true mind-warp at times.

None of this makes me transgendered. But I think it makes me particularly sympathetic to people who have a hard time getting who they really are "seen" by others. And maybe in my case the blindness of other folks is all in my head. But whatever the reason, my heart just breaks for these kids having to navigate this world and maybe feeling like even their own parents don't really see them for who they really are. That's hard.

(Originally posted on LJ; please comment there.)

I had every intention of blogging about deep thoughts this morning before heading over to campus. A conversation with Dan Fincke over at FB has me thinking about how some atheists characterize religion, plus some reviews of Sam Harris's Free Will have me thinking about the purpose of incarceration - is it to punish or rehabilitate or protect the rest of us, and does that goal make sense in light of the latest neuroscience, etc. Deep thoughts all around; I do want to write about them in more depth.

But I'm feeling thoroughly curmudgeonly this morning. Mostly it's medical (a yeast infection means I feel too sore to move) but also the heat and weird sleep schedule - all of which means I'm in no frame of mind to deal with difficult, complicated topics with grace. :-S

I can, however, post some videos. I'm sorry to report that Doc Watson at eighty-nine has sailed west. Even at that age, it seems too soon; his music was a staple of my childhood. And following my tradition, whenever a musician dies, it's time for some music in memoriam:

First, Doc Watson by himself playing Gershwin's "Summertime":

( Read more... )

And also a truly first-class jam session with Doc Watson, Ricky Scaggs, and Earl Scruggs:

( Read more... )

I'm actually more of a Platonist than an Aristotelian on most topics, but the questions they asked tended to focus on ethics and other issues where I think Aristotle is on to something. Other than that (and the seeming assumption that philosophy jumped from Aristotle to Kant), this quiz actually was pretty accurate.

Which philosopher are you? Your Result: Aristotle Truth does not exist in some transcendent realm. We get to truth by applying reason to the physical world. The world follows logic and commonsense. Science if done properly is not to far from philosophy. --This quiz was made by S. A-Lerer.
Plato (strict rationalists)
Early Wittgenstein / Positivists
Immanuel Kant
Sartre/Camus (late existentialists)
Nietzsche
W.v.O. Quine / Late Wittgenstein
Which philosopher are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Recently I read an article about Miley Cyrus and how she wasn't acting like she was twelve anymore. Miley says some really interesting things about what it means to find yourself when you're a child-star, and also talks about sex and the double-standard women face in Hollywood. Now, say I posted a link to that article here with a comment along the lines of how nice it would be if she turned out to be a Christian.

Something like that happened recently on a friend's FB page, only there my friend posted a link and a third party commented saying he hoped Miley was an atheist. That comment really got me thinking, because if I had said something similar coming at it from a Christian perspective, I'd expect some raised eyebrows around here. At a minimum. Such a comment would imply one of two things: either I thought Miley's comments couldn't be good unless they came from a Christian, or else I wanted all good things to be associated with Christianity. Either way, I can see how you guys might get a bit offended, or at least be confused why I should be concerned. A claim like that, if I heard someone else make it, would strike me as oddly provincial. And also selfish; whatever's good, I'd want to make it available to the most people possible. And since people tend to listen to their own groups more than they do "outsiders," that means I'd want wise people and thought-provoking comments coming from all corners of society – not just mine.

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(Originally posted at LJ; please comment there.)

Around here, charmingly dreary can apparently change to cats-and-dogs downpour in the space of a ten minute walk.

My jacket is apparently only water-resistant, not water-proof as I originally thought.

Jeans, once soaked, don't dry. An hour on the intercampus bus and these are still soaked.

There cames a point when it's not worth stepping back from the curb to avoid getting soaked.

Also, apparently there's nothing quite so hilarious to my perverse sense of humor as seeing a baboushka on a walker trying to ford an intersection with six inches and more of water. I should be ashamed, but mainly I was tickled. It's been a long morning.

If you can't tell, apparently we're putting the mon(soon) back in Monday around here today. I'm sure someone somewhere needs all this moisture more than we do. Help yourself!

Over at FB a friend posted a link:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/05/15/kansas/

We all remember conscience clauses for a while ago; basically there's a new law in Kansas that sets up something similar for doctors and pharmacists. They can refuse to write or fill a prescription that "they 'reasonably believe' might result in the termination of a pregnancy."

Last night I got a call from my doctor, saying to call immediately - at home if necessary. Now, I'm fine. A biopsy of a cyst I had removed showed an infection, and the doc was out of the office the next day. He just needed me to start a special antibiotic. But for the hour it took me to get in touch with him, I was convinced it was something serious. Think cancer. And I knew I had dinky student insurance, so if it was something serious I wasn't sure if I would have to pay for it myself. I'm still shaken up from the whole experience emotionally, even though I'm fine physically and much better than I was yesterday. The thing is, I get how scary it is to not have control over your medical care. To have to trust in someone else's help to get the treatment you feel like you need - I don't know that it matters whether we're talking about your back or your uterus.

So I feel really bad that I'm not more empathetic here. I should be. I think I'm just worn out with all the talk over contraception coverage and access lately; it all seems unreal and remote, somehow. So what really got me was the "reasonable belief" thing. If we read that literally, it seems like it could actually help the situation, because - going by the dictionary definition of reason - you'd need a fact for why such-and-such a drug is likely to actually terminate a pregnancy. Now, maybe we can split hairs over whether a pregnancy just means having a conceived fetus inside you or whether it also requires that fetus is part of you (i.e. it's implanted). And maybe you can say that some emergency contraception prevents implantation (so a conceived fetus is essentially killed, or at least denied what it needs to live).

But there are many other pills that don't work that way. As you guys have explained to me on this very blog, there's some BC you can take after sex that prevents fertilization. That keeps the pregnancy from ever happening in the first place, even if you want to say pregnant means "there's a fertilized egg inside me."

But is that what the lawmakers mean? From past conversations I know this isn't how many people will read "reasonable." (I'm speaking generally, about students and fellow adults I've seen use the word time and time again - not necessarily the Kansas lawmakers.) The word reasonable literally means having evidence, having facts; but I suspect for a lot of people this will be read as "having followers." So if a certain % thinks the morning-after pill terminates a pregnancy, then that pill can be denied to women who want it. Facts be damned.

Which is a scary state of affairs, indeed.

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

The power was off this morning in my apartment (I'm thinking blown fuse, which only my super can change - will call in an hour or two). The lack of white noise from my fan woke me up, and as I didn't have a functioning alarm clock, I chose to go ahead and get up. And then because I needed a Latin reference and no power means no internet, I decided to come on over to campus.

Anyway, the upshot was that I was out for the day by around 5 AM. This is a first for me, the being out at that hour (I've certainly been working at 5 AM, from both ends of the day), and I'm privileged enough and enough of a romantic that I found the city really beautiful at that hour. "City" here is the Bronx, so it's hardly what you think of when it comes to NYC, but there was a surreal quality to it all. Some people were already out on their way to work, but for the It was also raining and all foggy, and the people who were already out were on their way to work. Nurses, and waitresses, and cleaning ladies mostly judging by the uniforms. There's a beauty to that exhaustion, at least from the outside.

Hence the poem above. It's by Carl Sandburg and has long been one of my favorites. I was reminded of it this morning because it captured the mood better than anything I've been able to manage.

I also can't quite help imagining Denethor on a morning like this. He'd slip a worn cloak low over his face and sneak down into the Third Circle market, watching as the various people set up shop for the day (the boy driving the cart full of water cisterns taller than him; the girl with a basket of flowers slung over her arm; the old matron who sells strong tea by the mugful for a copper groat to people trying to get their day started, and who'd be gone by midday; and, perhaps, a reveller from the night before passed out behind a garbage heap) - I'm sure he'd like letting his cares away for an hour or two on a morning like this when the fog hung thick around. My muse even came up with an old line his mother once told him: that great cities, like armies and trysting lovers, never truly slept.

I'd like to think I'd turn that into a proper vignette, but I don't know how long the mood will last and I'm really too sleep-deprived to attempt it just now. I hope the mental image is a good start to the day for some of you, at least.

(Originally posted at LJ; please post there.)

My last exam is graded (well, except for the one student who has to make up the exam next week), and while I still have some research due for my advisor, I can breathe a bit at last. So I want to go back to a point I just mentioned at the end of my last post. Namely: if you vote against gay marriage, does that mean you're just a homophobe? The story-line is pretty standard: Gay marriage won't destroy straight marriage since straight men aren't going to suddenly leave their wives or anything; the only impact it has is letting homosexuals marry; so if you're against gay marriage you must be homophobic. Is it really that simple?

I don't think so. Now, I'm actually in favor of the state having one status (civil unions, marriage, whatever – I'm not picky about the label) open to both homosexuals and heterosexuals. As a Christian, I actually think Christian churches should open up the marriage sacrament to gay couples as well, but that's a totally different topic. But I also get why some people think of marriage is for straight couples only. And it has next to nothing to do with homosexuality, let alone homophobia.

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I was going to leave well-enough alone over the North Carolina amendment. It was really hard to think of "my" state doing this, and like many people I felt a bit of shock and almost mourning over the law's passage. For a day or two I'd see talk of organizing boycotts against NC and graphics painting Tarheels as uneducated and rednecks. But then President Obama made his announcement and the focus shifted away from NC (sort of), so as I said, I was just going to back away from this topic.

I still see wisps of NC-bashing every now and then, though. Case in point is Leonard Pitts's latest column, where he referred to NC's amendment as "one state's atavistic backwardness" and "the stubborn intransigence of those who desperately need to wake up and smell the 21^st century." So maybe it's best to write another post on the topic. Because, really, I'm not sure NC did too badly here.

To be clear: I'm not defending the constitutional amendment. I think it's a badly-written amendment and a bad policy position, and also that it's needlessly hateful toward homosexuals since gay marriage was already illegal in the state. But I also think that, first, the bill didn't pass as solidly as it seems like at first glance, and second, that people might have a first-flush opposition to gay marriage in NC without that meaning they hate gays. I'll explain why in a minute. This wasn't NC's finest hour, but I don't think it's nearly as bad as some people seem to be implying it is. So let me take some of the various charges I've seen floating around one by one and try to explain why.

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Tonight North Carolina voted to make it not only illegal but also unconstitutional for two adults to build a legally-recognized family unit, simply because those adults are the same gender. It's a bit odd - I haven't lived in NC since 2006, but I still feel like a Tarheel at heart, and NC news tends to hit me harder than NY news does. For me, this amendment isn't academic, it isn't general - it is a slap in the face to all affected, no matter the remove.

I have my own history with a good friend from my undergrad days who happened to be gay. And I remember the way he was impacted by homophobia he experienced. It breaks my heart to think of the gay, lesbian, whatever kid who's sitting in his college dorm room hearing that his state doesn't think whatever love he might find should be protected by law. The one consolation I have is that this kid, if he's been following the news all along, might have seen that many people in his state didn't feel this way. But I know how news media works. All those clergymen who signed the petition saying they opposed the amendment are dwarfed by ( that shameful Billy Graham ad )

This amendment process is offensive and insensitive to a minority group. It's also harmful to families with heterosexual parents but that aren't bound by parents. As has been pointed out many times, it makes it harder to deal with domestic violence, child welfare and any other range of things that affect stable but unmarried couples. But things like this are really and truly discouraging because they point to how little value we place on rational argument in this society. The bottom line is, in an amendment ratification process like this the best argument doesn't become law. Direct democracy like this doesn't give any weight to how well-considered your reasoning is. Are you voting because you have thought things through and one way or the other decided on a position, or are you voting out of fear or on a whim? The votes add up the same.

Also, it should not need to be said, but in case it does: not everything is up for a vote. I can't speak to legal rights - I heard somewhere that some Supreme Court marriage is a right, but I don't recall the details - but philosophically, the ability to form a family unit and receive legal protection of the same is a right. Sometimes the state has a good reason to keep two people from marrying, like with incest or pedophilia where consent is iffy, but there's just not a reason here. (As a side note, it actually amused me to no end that if we're looking for a biblical definition of marriage, polygamy probably comes closer to the mark than the one man, one woman formula. But that's neither here nor there.)

I know I've quoted this passage here before, but on nights like this, I have to go back to Dr. King. He wrote in the Birmingham letter:

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Laws like this are a kind of segregation. And they make me sick.

One other thing: I know a lot of people will say that this is an instance of religion needing to stay out of politics. One thing I have seen over these last few weeks, though, is that religious people have been among the most active in challenging stereotypes and unchallenged beliefs some people have. The backward pastors encouraging parents to beat their limp-wristed children get all the attention, of course, but then you also have pastors like this guy:

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I'm not convinced that this had much to do with religion, and to the extent it did, I'd suspect it was more religion used as a crutch for hatred and us-vs-them mentality.

Enough of that, though. And enough of these high-brow words. Tonight, I just wanted anyone hurt by this amendment (in any way) to know how sorry I am. It's not right, it's not just, and you don't deserve that pain.

(Originally posted at LJ; please comment there.)

I'm on the bus back from Baltimore to NYC.

It was a good weekend in the Charm City. The conference didn't go quite as well as I would have liked, mostly because it was a little outside my expertise and also because it was only a single day - felt like just once I was getting into the swing of things the event was over. I think I was spoiled a bit by my last conference being spread over three days. At a minimum I got exposed to some interesting ideas that I hadn't been exposed to before. It focused on the intersection of race and gender, and asked whether there were distinctly different concepts of being male or female (or black/white/whatever shade of brown/etc.) mattered).

For the interested, I started out with a basic line of thought that has really bothered me in the healthcare debate: the idea that being forced to buy insurance was an infringement on your liberty. Now, we can disagree over whether forcing everyone to buy a service from a private company is the best way of organizing health care. And we can ask whether we need to tie it in to having a job or not; and whether choices like smoking, exercise level, fat intake, etc. should impact premiums. All of these are legitimate debates. But just because you don't like having to buy health insurance doesn't mean you're the only one impacted by not buying health insurance. Specifically, when you can't pay for care (one way or another) you force a ahrd choice on me: either pay for your care or allow you ot suffer. That second option makes me go against a relationship we have (as neighbors, fellow citizens, fellow humans, whatever). And relationships matter, particularly to women. They seem significant, and forcing me to violate my relationships seems immoral somehow. That issue just hasn't entered into the debate.

I started by talking about someone named Carol Gilligan. She basically said that men typically think in terms of mrules and women tend to think in terms of relationships. The problem is, if you want to move beyond talking about what people actually do to what they should do, you run into a problem. Either you have to say men are better than women or women are better than men - a problem for obvious reasons! - or you have to say there's some way we can explain how they're equal, even though they aim after different traits. One approach stems from gender essentialism, and it's basically the idea that character traits (say, being nurturing) make you a good woman but a bad man. There's some pretty obvious sexism there and it also makes women into a separate group from men, rather than two halves of the same whole. Which is, you know, not particularly cool.

The third way that I wanted to look at (surprise, surprise) came from Anselm. He said that good humans love well. We recognize the things we ought to love and then love it. But it's a two-way street; particularly with God but also with other things, our love helps us know something's worth. It directs our attention, it inspires awe and hope and other things that help motivate us to really think about something. There's a single activity that good humans ought to do, but you need both the rule approach we associate with love and the caring/relational approach we associate with women. As the old line goes, God took Eve not from the head of Adam to rule over him, nor from his feet so she might be trampled by him, but God took Eve from Adam's side to stand beside him. Or something like that. The basic idea is you have an ethics for humans but it respects all the human psyche, male and female and everything in between. Which, frankly, traditional ethics hasn't done such a great job of!

Anyway. Enough deep thought, and enough focusing on this paper. Back to God-talk and the ontological argument for me. For now, I'm happy to watch the world pass by.

Speaking of, this meme from FB completely cracked me up:

( Read more... )

( the latest Ph.D. comic )

(Originally posted at LJ; please comment there.)

Apropos to this morning's post, here are some songs poking fun at racism. Offered up in the hopes that laughing at something makes it that much easier to deal with.

First, "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" from Avenue Q, suggested by

aliana1.

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Which brings me to my first "100 things" quote.

Gary: Now there was a fine upstanding black man!
Princeton: Who?
Gary: Jesus Christ.
Kate: But, Gary, Jesus was white.
Gary: No, Jesus was black.
Kate: No, Jesus was white.
Gary: No I'm pretty sure that Jesus was black --
Princeton: Guys, guys... Jesus was Jewish!

As if that solves the question! (Remember the airlift of Jewish Ethiopians back in the '80s?) It's kind of like trying to sort out whether the pharaohs were white or black because they were Egyptian: it just bumps the issue to a different question. The fact that anyone would think that cleared up the issue totally cracked me up...

Also, what post on tongue-in-cheek racial humor would be complete without Randy Newman?

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(Originally posted to LJ; please comment there.)

Over the last several months I've been meeting regularly once a week with this woman - as far as I can tell, a very nice person, though I don't know her well - and we often make small talk to pass the time. Lately we've been talking about the Trayvon Martin case, because she happens to be Jewish and with a name like Zimmerman she was afraid (a) that the killer was Jewish, and (b) that there would be an anti-Semitic backlash because of it. What really has fascinated me is this comment she made, that George Zimmerman is hispanic and so he can't be racist toward a black teenager.

I found this interesting on several levels. First there's this idea that "hispanic" necessarily means non-white. Check out this picture of George Zimmerman:

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If I saw a man of this skin tone walking down a Florida street, I would naturally assume he was caucasian. I'm German-American on my mum's side, Scotch-American on my dad's, and my face isn't far from that hue especially if I've been out in the sun. But more generally, of course, hispanic as non-European is a fairly recent thing. I remember learning in American history about the caste system that cropped up in Latin history, ranging from Spanish-born peninsulares, to the mestizos (Spanish/Native American) and mulattoes (Spanish/African), and of course the pure Native American, African, and other non-European group. The point being, what an American calls Hispanic would probably have some degree of European, Native American and African blood - not unlike their brethren on the other side of the Rio Grande, where the European stock was more likely to be from northern European, but European nonetheless.

The whole concept of "white" or caucasian is also troubling in and of itself. Once upon a time (and not so long ago!) Irish-Americans were seen as not as "white" as their English brethren. So were Italians, Greeks, and other people from southern rather than north-western Europe. And Jews; as late as the 60s, you couldn't get country club membership if you were Jewish. So this idea that white = European-descended (as if there was even a definite idea of what "European" meant!) doesn't jive with history. No, I think when people talk about someone being white, they have in mind a standard I read in an editorial a few weeks ago, I believe (though I could be wrong) by Leonard Pitts. He basically said that white meant being given the benefit of the doubt. If you're trying to jump-start a Corvette late at night, white means the cops are likely to assume you're the owner and having mechanical problems, rather than trying to steal it. And in a confrontation with a dead + unarmed teenager, white means the cops will be more likely to trust you that you really were under attack. In that sense, George Zimmerman definitely is "white," even if he's also Hispanic.

I also find it fascinating (and a bit disturbing) to see people arguing that ethnic minorities can't be racist. Of course Afro-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and all the rest can be racist. What if it had been Geraldo Rivera rather than Ann Coulter who had said in defense of Herman Cain, "Our blacks are better than their blacks" - would that have made it any less racist? Or if it was an Afro-American beat cop who, after being exposed to so many crimes committed by "urban youths" naturally assumed a young black man hotwiring a car was stealing it rather than trying to repair his own ride.

I was reminded all of this on reading Toure's latest editorial on racism. The piece is well-done and balanced IMO; the comments are frustratingly myopic, and almost amusing in their assumption that a discussion of racism must be a discussion of white racism. He does mention one white woman he met, and then he later gives the example of how Barack Obama's, Oprah Winfrey's, etc. popularity doesn't mean we're not racist - but the basic points apply to all kinds of racism, and there's nothing in the piece that wouldn't condemn black hatred of whites as much as it would white hatred of blacks.

I wish I had something substantive to add to the conversation. I don't. The best I can do is take it all in with awareness, and try to avoid these same thought patterns in myself.

(Originally posted to LJ; please comment there.)

There's a meme going around where you post your ten most-read stories at ArchiveOfOurOwn.org. Here are my results.

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Two take-away messages? I need to write more Harry Potter fic,and a good number of AO3 readers check out older fic. I had stories backdated to 2005 and 2006 (when they were originally posted) that had received lots of hits, even though I didn't join AO3 until much later.

#1. If there's anyway to avoid it, do not ever have a cyst excision. Keep your skin healthy, and catch them early. I'll spare you all the medical gore, but the preferred medical procedure these days is to make a very small excision and squeeze the cyst out as much as you can. It reduces risk of infection and scarring. They give you lidocaine for the actual incision, but there's not much that can be done about what they call "pressure." I've felt pain due to pressure; squeezing a sizeable mass through a small opening in tenderized skin is something else entirely. I started alphebatizing numers to keep my mind off it and got all the way to fifty-seven.

Was going to blog deep thoughts about the role of government this afternoon (

roh_wyn,

celandineb, you both got me thinking - thanks!) Or work on drafting my Euthyphro lecture. But the pain and general discomfort have me feeling a little loopy, so I think I'll just relax and watch dunk-dunk.

Anyone else who had this cyst excision done, do you have any practical advice? I'm doing the gauze pads and the pharmacy should deliver antibiotics tomorrow morning (standing around for a half-hour was not in the cards earlier). But it's really very tender and makes life awkward. What helps?

**************************

#2. The woman from career services at my university sent out a call for resumes, for a specific full-time receptionist job at an insurance corporation in the area. It wasn't really a mass email; at least, it looked to be addressed to me specifically. This amuses me to no end, and worries me. Am I so behind in my program that they think I need to be looking for entry-level work outside of academia?

*************************

#3. Over at FB, Neil Gaiman posted about this guy who asked Neil Gaiman to write him a poem, which said guy would have tattooed. Gaiman agreed, and the poem was illustrated by David Mack (of Kabuki fame). For folks with a FB account, the pictures are available here, and the poem itself is in the comments.

Personally, I doubt I'd ever want a tattoo that large. Really any tattoo - maybe a classy, small and exotic one, something in Mandarin or Arabic that was meaningful to me, but even that just isn't my style. Still, the idea of tattoo inevitably called

just_ann_now's Besorg character to mind. Lines like

I will write in words of fire.
I will write them on your skin.
I will write about desire,
Write beginnings, write of sin.

are very inspiring to put it mildly.

(Originally written at LJ; please comment there.)

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They'll know we are Christians by our love

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