Hey Look!

Be not afraid!

2011-12-13T11:26:00.008-05:00

Standing in the parking lot of the Greensboro bus station
sometime past midnight, "be not afraid" is likely to sound unconvincing coming from the guy sidling up to you. This, however, is the standard angel introduction. I don't suspect angels are going to ask for money, pick my pockets, solicit sex, or... well, use your imagination. Who actually says this? Typically people who should probably be wary of, in an attempt to get you to let your guard down.

When this shows up in the Bible, I think, there's a much different reason to be afraid: your life is about to be turned upside down. Completely rearranged. You will be asked to do things you don't particularly want to do, mostly because you don't think you're capable, but also because, well, it will require you to change.

I can imagine an unmarried teenager being reluctant to bear a child, no matter what the reassurances are. This is what is means to be favored? I'm sure she pondered that in her heart as well. Or you might be asked to cry out against Nineveh, or back to the land you've just run away from, in order to ask the impossible. I think that part of the measure of a genuine call is a reluctance, that recognition that it's what must be done and the insistence that it not be done by me.

There are other ways to resist, though. Just as I am unlikely to be called to cry out against Nineveh - among other things, it's not there any more - I am also unlikely to take the next boat in the opposite direction.

I have a book, and I have an album. What is this book, what is this album? The copyright information on the book is ambiguous, the picture on the cover not what I would expect. It seems unlikely that it's really a first edition in good condition, but what is it? I'm not sure. The album is a bit clearer - the misspelling of Cannonball Adderley's name, the reversal of the song titles for the second side, the "six eye" label. It really seems to be an original, given to be by a man who hates Miles Davis, "take it away, I'll be glad to be rid of it!"

I'm unlikely to hop on the next boat to Tarshish (wherever that may be, exactly), because I'm not really Jonah. I'm much more likely to get a message and then analyze it to death, get hung up on the details, and miss the bigger picture. What's really important about the book? The title and author are clear enough, whatever edition it is, and I don't have any reason to suspect that it's mislabeled. What's important about an album? Well, that's Miles on trumpet, Bill Evans on piano... it sounds really good.

This isn't a sermon, so I don't have a good closer here. But I hope my gentle reader will ask herself - or himself - what God is asking of you, and how you avoid it. That's not the same as actually dealing with it, but it's the necessary first step.

Hi. What have you been up to?

2011-11-26T18:04:00.003-05:00

I wish I could say I've been away occupying Wall Street - or Clinton Square - but mostly I've been teaching (world religions), painting (houses, pictures) and doing other odd jobs as I prepare to move again.

I've also been writing more (which I think is good) but drawing less (which I think is bad). So, fewer blog posts.

October already?

2011-10-06T16:36:00.002-04:00

I hadn't realized quite how long it had been since I posted... and also, haven't drawn anything in about that long. So here's an old cartoon I drew last winter, as we approach winter once again.

(It's funny how, when I'm walking or driving somewhere, I can think of fairly complex topics on which I want to post, but once I'm in front of a computer... oh well.)

Saturday Cartoon

2011-08-20T16:35:00.004-04:00

Just one.

Radio, Radio

2011-08-19T08:32:00.003-04:00

Okay, so I've used this title before, and neither this post nor the last has anything to do with Elvis Costello (whom I've been listening to on YouTube lately).

I may have mentioned that the CD player in my car died about a year ago, just as I was starting my hour-plus commute twice a week; thus, I've been listening to the radio a lot here in CNY. What have I found? A lot of stations that are surprisingly like the one I listened to as a teenager (KGON - note that they're advertising Def Leppard) and the station I listened to in Roanoke when I was painting houses (WROV). Classic rock, and today's best rock! Well, not so much.

But it's not just one station here: I've been driving all over CNY, so I listen to stations from Kingston, Ontario and Watertown (NY), through Syracuse, the Finger Lakes, and into Rochester
(and I'm not going to list the stations, there's seven I listen to regularly and I really don't remember all their call letters). Collectively, they play more Neil Young, Rush, Guess Who, BTO, Red Rider, Neil Young (yes, they play a lot of Neil Young) - that is, Canadian bands - than I'm used to, but that's okay. However, it's somewhat dismaying to hear so much Lynyrd Skynyrd and Allman Brothers: I thought I left the south!

The cartoon is related to this post - credit to Julie for the link.

Plum blossoms, again

2011-08-16T17:01:00.002-04:00

This time with a better picture - varnished and in the frame correctly.

Boris Badenov for President!

2011-08-15T11:17:00.002-04:00

Sad having missed vote-buying in Ames, IA, Boris now wants to enter the race for president.

He will slash your taxes - and your tires!

He will slash government spending - and the government's tires!

Painting for Wednesday

2011-08-10T14:12:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I like the ambiguity of the title, "painter"... and other times, not so much. In any case, this is all the painting I've done this week.

From Ogata Korin (1658-1716)'s Red and White Plum Blossoms. It's not varnished, and therefore not in the frame correctly, but this gives a good sense of the mostly-finished product.

Soon to be hanging in a conference room near you (if you happen to live in Syracuse, NY)!

"Liberty"?

2011-08-09T10:13:00.003-04:00

This actually isn't the post I promised a while back, but related: what do we mean when we talk about "liberty"?

Michele Bachmann: "Whether it’s economic liberty, religious liberty, liberty in our finances, liberty in being able to choose the profession we have." (Link) Religion, yes; but please note that the other three things are all about money. (And what is love of money the root of?)

In the Bill of Rights, the best you can do to support this view is the Ninth Amendment; since I am relatively sure that most of my readers have no idea what it says, here's the complete text: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

So what else is contained in the Bill of Rights? Free speech, freedom of the press; freedom to assemble peaceably, the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, in the first amendment alone. Note that these are positive freedoms, things we can do, rather than negative freedoms. Negative freedoms include not having to quarter soldiers, not being subjected to unreasonable search and seizure, not being compelled to serve as witness against oneself, deprived of due process, or have private property take for public use without just compensation. Positively, we should be allowed a speedy and public trial, by jury if we so choose. Negatively, we shouldn't be subject to cruel or unusual punishment. I have left off the second and tenth amendment - I'll come back to those shortly. It's important to notice that all of these have to do with overreach by government, the sorts of overreach that the colonists were subject to and wanted to prevent in this new country. It doesn't say anything about economics, a field that was just barely getting started at the time this was written; that cuts both ways, in that the founders weren't thinking about it one way or another, at least in concrete ways they were willing to enshrine in the bill of rights. I can also certainly point to instances where these seem to have been violated; the city in which I live still bears the scars of private property taken for public use - the interstate freeway - that wasn't compensated justly, to name one example off the top of my head.

I'm surprised that Michele Bachmann didn't mention the second amendment, but of course it wouldn't have fit with the narrative of either economic freedom or why her ancestors came to this country. Also, the tenth amendment has been getting more press recently, in terms of states' rights. Just one quick note, since I don't think this can be said often enough these days: the secession of the Confederacy wasn't about "rights" in the plural, only about one "right": the "right" of a person to own another as property.

What do we not see in the bill of rights? "Economic liberty... liberty in our finances, liberty in being able to choose the profession we have." Not that I want the government telling me what job I can do (although the government telling me what job I can't do - for instance, I don't think you would want me to do tattoo removal - is a good thing!) But there is there is a lot more to "liberty" than being able to buy cheap stuff at WalMart and pollute the earth with your SUV.

Just cartoons

2011-08-06T17:16:00.002-04:00

As promised...

Trudy in a paper bag

2011-08-05T09:32:00.003-04:00

I don't normally work with chalk - that is, draw with chalk... at least outside of class. Anyway, I should have put this up last night, because this morning it appears that one of the kitties (I'm guessing Trudy) walked all over it last night, and little kitty pawprints do not improve the overall effect.

Tomorrow: cartooons!

Just pictures today

2011-08-02T09:37:00.004-04:00

No real commentary today, except to note that for those of us who are looking for jobs, everything happening in Washington lately is very depressing. What was that Kent Conrad was saying about improving confidence?

Bah.

Link, and reed pens

2011-07-27T17:34:00.006-04:00

I like this story... and I think it goes along with what I've posted recently. Not that everyone who reads Ayn Rand is a murderous psychopath, but it certainly reinforces any tendencies that you might have in that direction in a way that reading, let's say, Paul Krugman, doesn't.

In other news, I've recently purchased a reed pen - how did I live without it! I will now be the eccentric fellow who takes his bottle of ink and sketchpad everywhere!

Two things about Ayn Rand

2011-07-13T15:53:00.003-04:00

I would probably get tired of bashing Ayn Rand if I didn't think that an increasing number of people take her writings seriously; but neither of these things are new.

First, I mentioned before that she set out to create a "political philosophy that was the opposite of Communism as she understood it... in doing so she came up with a dogmatic position unconnected to reality." But there's one piece that wasn't the opposite of the Communism that she fled: she was an atheist. That's not remarkable in itself, but insofar as the Tea Party harbors elements of the Religious Right - and insofar as Rand Paul identifies as a Presbyterian - there's a fundamental problem. That is, she isn't incidentally an atheist: it's an essential part of her position, in the same way that it's an essential part of Richard Dawkins' or Daniel Dennett's approach to the world.

Second, she was a bit of sociopath. Or rather, she admired a brutal killer for his casual disregard for other people, his flouting of societal conventions (like, "Thou shalt not kill."). Hickman was clearly a sociopath, and Ayn Rand saw this as a heroic quality that set him apart from the herd (and speaking of herds, let me just mention that there's a deep tension in Nietzsche's writings in his rejection of herd morality, the positive things he sees that herd morality has contributed to modern humanity, and the ineluctable interconnection of all things - and Ayn Rand criticized him for it).

Two further thoughts on this second point: first, as with her atheism, this isn't very different from her understanding of the Communist regime she fled. Second, it seems to me that her atheism and her admiration of this sociopath aren't disconnected; in contrast, both Dawkins and Dennett promote a humanistic vision that rejects such brutality.

As I said, neither of these points are revelations, I would just like to see some recognition that her views are antithetical to Christian principles.

The Tea Party can go one way or the other, but there's no splitting the difference on this.

Prints, and a painting

2011-07-05T16:15:00.008-04:00

I was going to - and may yet - write a bit about what "liberty" might mean, and what security we might have... and why this guy is an idiot. But today I've just been job searching, reading the news, and working on prints and pictures. So, a bit about what's posted here.

The Plum Blossom painting is on a wooden panel, 24 inches square (you may recognize the dimension and material from here, here and here, among other paintings: my favorite!).

You may also recognize the coffee cup - another favorite, working its way through various incarnations (eventually, a linocut!) - but I did this a year or so ago, one of my first successful DIY screenprints.

"Orbits" was an experiment that didn't work out quite as I had intended, but came out adequately well. This is actually printed on nice paper (Johannot), whereas the other things are printed either on cardstock or copy paper.

The first bicycle print is on copy paper, but as I type this prints on the Johannot paper, in turquoise, are drying; I'll post those later in the week. The black was just to get a sense of the block, to see if it was finished (almost, but not quite). But I think it came out fairly well.
Finally, the bicycle print with rider (and you should recognize the rider from my previous post). The rider should stand out a bit better on the turquoise ink than he does on the black, but the idea comes across.

As usual, I think the weak link is the photography, but that's getting better, too. What I really need is a tripod of some sort.

What shall I do?

2011-07-02T12:26:00.005-04:00

I'm once again looking for a job, but it's not entirely clear what I ought to even apply for.
When I was in high school, we were given a large standardized test relating to future employment, determining both strengths and interests. I scored as having strengths in everything they tested (which I believe demonstrates the limitations of such tests - I'm a good test taker, but probably wouldn't have done well in many of the occupations!) - but when it came to interests, the test results indicated that I was only interested in things they couldn't test (I believe it was art and writing, but it may have been music and writing).
In college, I took a psychology class on personality, and read (related to, but not for, the class) Carl Jung's book Psychological Types. This led me to the Myers-Briggs personality types (I have probably mentioned this before, but I am an INFP).
There is a book which relates the Myers-Briggs to careers: Do What You Are, and I have the second edition. So, what does it say?
For the INFP, the first category is "Creative/Arts"; the second is "Education/Counseling"; the third is "Religion." (For each of the sixteen types, there is a different list of categories; e.g., the ESTJ's top three categories are "Sales and Service," "Technical/Physical" and "Managerial") If you know me (and other INFPs), these categories make sense. I don't find them helpful at the moment, though. Moving to careers under the categories isn't helpful either: for Creative/Arts, the first two careers are "Artist" and "Writer," for Education/Counselor, "College professor: humanities/arts," and for Religion, "Minister/priest."
As an unprogrammed Quaker, I'm not particularly interested in becoming a minister (despite having an MDiv); I would certainly like to be a professor in the humanities, but so would lots of other people with similar credentials. And then we're back to the results of my high school aptitude test.
I've also been making prints.

Friday afternoon

2011-07-01T14:08:00.004-04:00

I said I would return to previous themes, and I've been painting (house) this week, which has given me time to ruminate. (There's a relevant Nietzsche quote that belongs there, but I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment, and far enough out from my book to be able to pull it up from memory.)
Last time I wrote, "I neither expect nor really want my students to ponder epistemological questions, but there's something important about flexing those muscles." There are two pieces there that probably need clarification.
First, I do want my students to ponder epistemological questions. However, I usually tell them that the great skeptic Hume liked to drink beer and shoot pool (more or less true) and didn't spend his life paralyzed by questions of causation. Being aware that there are various ways of approaching questions, different ways of gathering and analyzing evidence, is very important; and to a certain extent, understanding the difference between foundationalism (Stanford and IEP) and coherentism (IEP and Stanford) is also useful - but practical matters take precedence, and getting bogged down isn't useful, and even serious philosophers don't wrestle with Descartes' dream argument in their everyday lives.
I say this partly because I received an essay (9 pages long, when the assignment was 3-5 pages - a bad start) that included the following:

Let A=K*E1 with K being the fundamental constant that converts the experience, E, to knowledge.

[If this is your essay and you want me to identify you as the author, let me know. But I'm pointing out your idiocy here, and still wondering if you were stoned when you wrote it.]

For those of you who are unfamiliar with epistemology - a group which includes the author of this quote - the "fundamental constant, K" is basically what philosophers have been arguing about for millennia. To think that it can be captured in a constant and dropped into an essay is merely to demonstrate that you haven't been to class or read the text. So, I really do want my students to think about problems in epistemology, but do so seriously when they do, and not to become paralyzed or go to graduate school to study epistemology further.

The second part is about flexing mental muscles. I may have mentioned that my students at an unnamed Syracuse-area college (which was not Syracuse University) seemed unfamiliar with the idea of thinking. That is, I would point to a sentence in the text, and asked what the author might have meant, and they would repeat the sentence back almost verbatim. I would read their essay drafts, and say, "this needs further clarification," and they would be unable to add anything at all. (This was multiple students, over the course of the semester.) I don't particularly care if they understand the ins and outs of Kant's epistemology or Nietzsche's critique of it - it would be nice, and probably helpful for them, but they're not philosophers - but I wonder how they process the news, or if they can even tell the difference between content and advertisement, information and opinion, or informed opinion and dogma. Epistemology matters; but as I said last time, it's not precisely Kant that I want you to learn.

Two for Tuesday

2011-06-28T13:33:00.005-04:00

Two (rambling) thoughts, which I may expand on later.

First, thinking about the purpose of teaching philosophy to undergraduates. I was readings a dialogue by another philosophy adjunct, and I was reminded of the Karate Kid. Not a great movie, and I haven't seen it since it first came out, but one scene has stayed with me: Mr. Miyagi telling the boy to wax his car. The boy is dismayed, but there is a purpose unrelated to the waxing of cars. Similarly, I neither expect nor really want my students to ponder epistemological questions, but there's something important about flexing those muscles. What does it mean to understand someone else's position? Can we be simultaneously critical and charitable when hearing ideas different from our own? (I will probably elaborate on this at length in a future post.)

Second, prodded both by my friend Terry (who doesn't seem to have posted lately) and by Fareed Zakaria, a bit of Ayn Rand bashing. Ayn Rand was a refugee from Communist Russia, and one of her goals was to develop a political philosophy that was the opposite of Communism as she understood it. Fair enough; but in doing so she came up with a dogmatic (as opposed to properly philosophical* position unconnected to reality - which would be fine if members of Congress weren't quoting her in public. (I should have a link for that, but it eludes me at the moment).

*Something I rarely include in my "go read Nozick instead" is that he eventually renounced libertarianism. That's what I mean by "truly philosophical" = willing to follow your premised to their conclusion, and being willing to revise those conclusions.

Saturday Afternoon

2011-06-25T16:39:00.007-04:00

Yet another post that mostly features pictures rather than text, although there is a bit of text in the story. And a cheery story it is!

More cartoons

2011-06-24T10:24:00.002-04:00

..because you probably don't just want to hear me bash Ayn Rand. (Although if you do, please leave a comment and I will oblige.)

Cartoons!

2011-06-20T08:15:00.005-04:00

So, today is the day that I post some cartoons.

I may have mentioned that I'm not drawing as many these days, mostly because I'm not barraged by the constant stream of nonsense as when I started this blog.

Also, I've been reading Paul Krugman, whom I find edifying but not particularly amusing.

Informal fallacies

2011-06-17T13:48:00.004-04:00

In a recent post on a blog I don’t usually read, a libertarian accused people who invoke Somalia against libertarians of making a false dichotomy. Well, no.

If I were to say, "if you don’t support President Obama, you hate poor people" – that’s a false dichotomy; perhaps you voted for Kucinich and don't think the President has gone nearly far enough. If someone were to say, "if you don’t support this bill that gives the government far-reaching power to encroach on our freedoms, then you hate freedom" – that’s also a false dichotomy. The Patriot Act has never seemed particularly patriotic to me.

On the other hand, if I say, "if you want to see where libertarian philosophy will get you, just look at Somalia," I’m doing something else entirely. It’s called a Slippery Slope. And the funny thing about slippery slopes is that they’re not always fallacies.

If you look at Ronald Reagan’s attack on Medicare, you can see a slippery slope as a fallacy. But big changes rarely happen overnight: there’s usually an incremental process involved. To identify a small change which opens the way for future (implied, bad) change is to point to a slippery slope, but sometimes it’s true. Martin Luther wasn’t really interested in having everyone reading the Bible for themselves, and I think his concerns about what that would lead to have been borne out: a massively fragmented Christendom.

I will continue to refer to Somalia, with two caveats. First, I don’t tend to listen too much to, say, Ron Paul or other contemporary American politicians who identify as libertarian; but I have read some of what they read, including but not limited to Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, and Tara Smith. As an political theory, it’s not so much about the size or proper role of government so much as it is about dismantling the social contract. (If you disagree with this, you should say that I'm committing a Straw Man fallacy, and I will counter that you need to go back and reread Anarchy State and Utopia)

The second caveat is that the Somalis aren't really living out the consequences of libertarian political philosophy: things have fallen apart there for many reasons, and none of them can be blamed on Ayn Rand.

On the other hand, the quality of life in the US depends on a number of factors, some of which do have a direct link to libertarians. Freedom is important, but in what kind of society do you want to live?

The Mercatus Institute’s freedom score was significantly linked to (by state)- lower educational attainment (measured by percent of Bachelor degrees or higher), lower population density, lower per capita GDP, increased infant mortality, increased accident mortality, increased incidence of suicide, increased firearm mortality, decreased industrial R&D, and increased income inequality.

I'm sure there are a host of factors, and these statistics can't be reduced to a larger vision of society and the role of government. And yet.... it’s a slippery slope, do you really want to go down it?

So, these aren't exactly cartoons, either...

2011-06-10T21:21:00.006-04:00

but I have some, somewhere. I promise. And I'll post them at some point.

These do feature Mr. Miro; they're studies for part of a much larger series that I've been thinking about since I spent four months in Vancouver several years ago.

I've been thinking about Sarah Palin, and an episode of the Simpsons (3F04) where the giant advertisements came alive and terrorized the town

"Are you suffering from the heartbreak of...Monster-itis? Then take a tip from Mr. Paul Anka!
To stop those monsters, one-two-three, Here's a fresh new way that's trouble-free.
It's got Paul Anka's guarantee; guarantee void in Tennessee
Just don't look, just don't look..."

I know, it's like a car wreck (involving Paul Revere and gotcha questions by the lame-stream media!), but as the man from the advertising agency said, "if you stop paying attention to the monsters, they'll lose their powers."

I've also been thinking about unemployment, mine in particular but the national figures in general - as I have been since I first drove out to Vancouver, as a matter of fact - and continue to be horrified by the lack of any coherent response from any politicians that I've seen. Where was the Socialist-in-Chief that we were ~~threatened with~~ promised?

Along those lines, during my recent trips to various bookstores I've noticed an uptick in books on Marx and Marxism... perhaps I'm not the only one that's been thinking about this lately. Or maybe it's just an example of confirmation bias - I see what I want to see. Of course, I also see books by Ayn Rand; my recent thoughts (linking Annie Dillard, Martin Buber, and Immanuel Kant - also Hegel and Marx, Simone de Beauvoir and Elizabeth Spelman) are fairly explicitly anti-Rand (as well as, perhaps predictably, anti-Nozick). I'm still chewing on a straightforward way to present a long and complex line of thinking on the subject, but to summarize: we are human only through our connection to others. (I.e., John Galt can suck it.)

Sketchy

2011-06-08T12:11:00.007-04:00

So, I promise a more substantive analysis of... something or other... at some point in the relatively near future. And I also promise more cartoons. But today I wanted to follow up on a recent post regarding figure drawing, and show you what I've been up to (when I'm not drawing cartoons and reading various non-required matter): actual people (and a couple animals) rather than a still life!

Not finished drawings, of course, but a way of gathering ideas.

Squares!

2011-06-06T08:28:00.004-04:00

I promised squares a while back, fiddled with these and then forgot about them.

Various other things bouncing through my head lately - connecting Annie Dillard to Martin Buber, connecting Martin Buber to Immanuel Kant... there will be more on this at some point, perhaps with illustrations. For today, you just get squares.

Final Exam

2011-05-23T09:44:00.003-04:00

Q: Why are empiricists more likely to be Utilitarian in ethics? How does this carry over to their approach to justice?

A: "Empiricists are more likely to be Utilitarian in ethics because of how they see things. Empiricists debate about where knowledge comes from, reason or senses and since this is the same constant debate that is had it keeps them the same. This carries over to their approach on justice because they debate about the justice system and whether or not it is right and fair."

This is the kind of thing that makes me glad to be done.

NT, right?

2011-05-17T14:16:00.003-04:00

This is a rough-ish sketch, perhaps a study, and not intended as a finished product, but it stands in contrast to the cartoons you have come to know and love, as well as the more abstract nonsense I post here occasionally - to serve as a brief break from politics, economics, philosophy and complaining about students (I promise more of that in the coming days).

A friend (who teaches art at the college level) suggested I attend a figure drawing thing here in town (she was also excited, so I did not take this as a direct criticism of my doodling abilities), and it turns out I can't go: I will be grading final exams (did I mention that I'd be complaining about students again in the coming days?).

However, I have bought a book on figure drawing, and I've been doing exercises in the evenings; however, this is the one drawing I've done that was relatively complete, and of course it isn't a figure drawing at all, but a sketch of my room. My choice reminded me of my friend Paul, who enjoys personality typing, such as the Myers-Briggs Personality test as well as the Enneagram: he might point out the relative lack of people in this drawing, more of an NT thing than NF (at least some of you were expecting a theology joke related to that, sorry).

So, hi Paul! I hope you and yours are doing well - I have a package I need to mail to you.

The Social Contract

2011-05-14T10:08:00.003-04:00

I have a stock response with regard to Ayn Rand: if you haven't read her by the time you're 19, don't bother. (Admittedly, the specific age sometimes changes by a year, plus or minus, depending on my mood - never past twenty, though.) Sometimes I add a second part: if you want to read serious libertarian political philosophy, read Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia.

As it so happens, I was just teaching a bit on Nozick for my intro class. (A bit of background here: this particular intro class has a broader scope than the average one I've taught, so in addition to epistemology and metaphysics, I also deal with ethics and justice - quite a bit to cram into a single course, but I try to make some of the connections between the topics explicit in a way that I don't remember them being explicit when I was an undergraduate.) The "justice" part of my intro class is framed as, "ethics is how we act individually, justice is how we act corporately" (in a direct parallel to, epistemology is how we gain knowledge individually, philosophy of science is how we gain knowledge corporately). (And for anyone out there who misses this: "corporately" does not necessarily refer to business, it here refers to people acting together - this is the kind of thing my students tend to misunderstand.)

We start with Thrasymachus: might makes right. Socrates dissects the argument (I can go over that in the comments if anyone is really interested, and doesn't already know it). We move then onto Hobbes: life in the state of nature, and the social contract. For me, this is an important transition, because, as with most philosophers who don't specialize in political philosophy (and perhaps some who do, I don't really know, or care), there is a direct connection between Thrasymachus' assumptions and those of Hobbes. We then move from Hobbes to Mill - both empiricists - and then on to John Rawls. What I try to make clear in that transition is that Rawls is fundamentally Kantian in his approach, and I go into some detail about what I mean there (again, I can explain that in the comments, or another post, if readers are interested but unfamiliar).

Then we get to Nozick, and the thing to remember in context is that Nozick is also fundamentally Kantian: that is, he shares some basic assumptions with Rawls, but disagrees on point particular point. He calls this the principle of fairness, but it's a variation on the social contract. Let me say that again: Nozick doesn't like the social contract. I think this is absurd, personally, but at least the connection between Nozick and Ayn Rand is there for all to see. (I then move from Nozick to Adam Smith, to Marx and onto Peter Singer and Amartya Sen, an admittedly biased place to end not only the section on justice, but the course.)

So, last week a student came up and asked me the name of Nozick's book (which he should have known, since it was named in our textbook!), since I had repeated my "don't read Ayn Rand" line while talking about Nozick - and it just so happened that he had started reading Atlas Shrugged the night before (no link, and I suppose I should be glad that he was reading anything, since he obviously hadn't read the assignment for class). I asked him how old he was and he replied, "Nineteen," so I shrugged.

But the more I think about it, the more I just want to say, "If you're not happy with the Social Contract, go visit Somalia."

Two Thoughts...

2011-05-12T11:43:00.000-04:00

...before I teach my final class at RIT. And for that matter, perhaps ever: I am tired of teaching part-time, and although I've been offered contracts for the fall at all three of the institutions at which I've been teaching, none of them can offer any assistance over the summer, and none of them can offer me anything other than part-time work. I don't mean to sound bitter (which is always a bad thing to preface a blog post with), but I'm tired of this, and two particular reasons come to mind. (If you're not interested, please just read the cartoons and ignore the text: you're not my students!)

First, there's this thing about supply and demand. There is a consistent demand for philosophy courses, either generated by the college itself (making one or more courses mandatory for the general ed or core curriculum) or else just by students wanting to take courses outside their majors (that they perceive to be easy, but more on that in a second). So, the demand is there. Unfortunately, the supply is also there: too many people such as myself, running around with PhDs, willing to teach at McDonald's wages (no offense to McDonald's). So the administrators squeeze where they have some leverage, and rather than hiring someone such as myself to teach full time - and please remember, there is sufficient demand! - they continue to hire adjuncts.

Second, it seems to me that fewer and fewer students are bothering with the reading, or coming to class, than when I was teaching twelve years ago; perhaps I was simply naive then, but I don't think so. That seems to be true across all three of the schools at which I've been teaching (and I may have previous linked an article that talked about a lack of preparedness among NY high school graduates - empirical evidence that I'm probably not imagining it). But it makes teaching less fun, less rewarding: I enjoy digging into a topic, having a good debate, getting a response from students. I still get this, to a certain extent, but from surprisingly few students, and it seems, fewer each quarter (here at RIT).

So, this may be the last class I ever teach, and I have some pretty mixed feelings about it. Probably more to follow in the next few weeks.

Misrepresentation, but without taxation

2011-04-26T19:06:00.004-04:00

I've seen an odd thing several times recently: people asserting or assuming that socialists want to give unlimited power to the state. (I can come back and find links if anyone cares about the particulars.) That's just a non-sequitur: as a quick perusal of Wikipedia will show (and I will not provide a link), it has nothing to do with the power of the state, only with the relative distribution of wealth and power relations.

(I've railed against Wikipedia in the past, and don't need to include another rant here; however, there are much better sources available, if you care to pursue the topic. I've read Ayn Rand, why don't you go read some

Fredric Jameson?)

It seems that often, when conservatives accuse liberals of wanting something or other, they reveal their own unconscious desires - their shadow, in Jungian terms. (It's become a cliche that guys who spend too much time complaining about/worrying about homosexuals are likely to be gay themselves; mutatis mutandis, concerns about, say, President Obama rounding people up in camps is a projection of people's unconscious desire to round people up.)

In any case, I am not particularly interested in giving omnipotent power to the state (not that I could of course, but I've seen it phrased that way), or signing away my rights in favor of cheap cars and gruel. And I don't even deny that people who work hard, or who are innovative, or perform some vital service, should be rewarded for that; the question is, how much more? Should house painters be eligible for food stamps while investment bankers commute from the Hamptons in helicopters? (That of course doesn't address the question of whether investment bankers produce anything of worth, and it's arguable that they don't.)

The middle is being hollowed out, and I think that's the source of much of the paranoia and extremism that's poking through, e.g. as the Tea Party; but I continue to be shocked at how poor the response is in meeting the actual problems.
There is of course an argument for supporting this: make things worse, make them so bad that the people will finally rise up! I'm not that kind of socialist, though.

Just Cartoons today

2011-04-04T13:10:00.003-04:00

I have been, and will continue to be, busy; but I still have some unposted cartoons, even if I'm not drawing many new ones these days.

Squares!

2011-02-28T10:09:00.005-05:00

These are preliminary sketches that I've been working on.
There are a number of things on my mind - frustration with students in particular - but I'll save those for another time.

So that explains it…

2011-02-09T15:22:00.003-05:00

I just read an article which, taken together with a couple other recent articles, helps me understand what I’ve been seeing in students lately.

The most recent story indicates that New York students are not meeting standards for college preparedness: “just 5 percent in Rochester” meet these standards, to take a non-random example. I look at my students (two different schools, neither of which I need to name here), and say to myself, yes. Most of my students don’t come from Rochester, and of course I have good students in all of my classes. But there does seem to be a lack of preparation for college: do they know what they’re getting into?

The next story is something I read a few weeks back, but was on NPR this morning, regarding student performance. There are two factors here. The first is that teachers seem to be demanding less of their students; this makes sense, given that student evaluation is largely correlated with perceived grade, and there is a large segment of the population (such as myself) who more or less depend on those numbers for continued employment (I’ve never been explicitly turned down for a job based on them, but I worry about it). I suspect the second factor is correlated to the first, because students will complain regardless of what you ask: the second factor being that studying is down by half from a couple of decades ago. (That means the average amount my students are studying really is less than what I was doing at their age: I’m not just being cranky, I have statistics.) And another “correlation-does-not-imply-causation-but…” piece: they aren’t learning as much. Is this because they’re not being challenged, or because they’re not studying, or both? And they’re not measuring general knowledge: they’re looking at critical thinking skills (you know, the reason you not only don’t listen to Glenn Beck, but don’t understand why anyone does). Although a friend of a friend chided me a few months back for lacking “critical thinking” with regard to certain economic policies, this is one of the main things I teach, regardless of the course title. I don’t care if you know what Empiricism is, but I don’t want you to get your information about it from Swami Krishnananda, or a website built by high school students over a decade ago. Which is to say, be able to find out who is putting out the information, then evaluate whether it’s reliable or not. You know, critical thinking. It's a good thing.

What do we have so far? Students are unprepared for college, studying fewer hours and learning less. Where could we possibly go from here? The Chronicle of Higher Education, of course. Students today “give themselves high marks for ambition,” higher than in the past, but also – and they do say these things are linked – report record low emotional health. Well, duh. Perhaps it's the cognitive dissonance catching up, compounded by the realization that they don't really know what to do about it. (That's my job of course, but a surprising number of the students don't seem to recognize it.)

Now you have a snapshot of my classes: they are ambitious, they want to achieve. But they enter college unprepared to actually do the work, don’t do the relatively short reading assignments that I give them, and then are anxious and depressed.

And yet, somehow I still enjoy teaching.

Math and Fairness (and cartoons)

2011-01-25T17:40:00.008-05:00

Imagine if you will, Plato after the execution of Socrates. Rather than accosting people in the marketplace, he and his students gathered in a local park, named after a hero, Academus. This is where we get the term "academic" - and the origins of secondary education as we know it. This is the background I want you to have in mind.

Colleges charge tuition; some more than others. Tuition is usually charged with at least some reference to the classes a student takes; thus a part-time student would pay by the credit-hour, and the full-time student pays a certain amount in order to take a full load of classes, whatever that may be for the institution. Tuition - the money paid - covers a whole lot more than the classes, of course: the buildings, the heat and electricity, maintenance and the people to do the maintenance, including janitors and grounds keepers; the administration and the administrative support, which includes the admissions office, the registrar, the bursar, and student services; of course the library and the books and staff; and other things a college student might enjoy, including athletics and those facilities - which were an integral part of the Academy - and probably more things I haven't thought of yet.
Tuition pays for all of these things; but if we think of there being a tuition for each class - as the part-time student pays - then we see that these costs are distributed among all the classes: for instance, every class in the philosophy department has a certain amount of tuition revenue associated with it, and one might reasonably assume that the support staff and office supplies comes straight out of that part of the budget (I don't really care if this isn't how things are actually divided up: they might be, but I'm speaking conceptually here). And all of the Liberal Arts classes can be understood as paying for that college's staff. And all the courses offered pay into the common features, such as athletics and the library. These are shared resources, thus the money generated from every class contributes.

Of course there's another wrinkle, which is that few students (or their parents) write a check for the full amount. Most have loans, many have some sort of scholarships and grants. So, the figures are squishy: I know that. I haven't seen the actual figures, and in some respect they don't really matter. The point here is, for every class, you could take the tuition associated with the enrollment and come up with a figure of what that particular class generates. If tuition for the semester is $10,000, and a full load is 4 classes, then each student is paying roughly $2,500 per class. (If you're wondering, I was inspired to do the math by this cartoon.) I think this is a legitimate way of looking at costs, because if the student wasn't taking any courses, then she or he would not be a student: there's no particular reason for that person to be on campus.

To explicitly connect Plato's Academy, the purpose of college is the instruction and learning that goes on; you don't need the admissions office or the library, or the copy machines and overhead projectors. You just need a quiet place to discuss issues, and someone who knows what they're talking about. I'm not suggesting that we get rid of all the non-teaching elements, but I do think it's useful to focus in on the instruction, because if you take away the instructor, nothing else makes any sense. So: what percentage of the revenue generated by each class ought to go to the instructor? This is not a rhetorical question.

What Would Nietzsche Do?

2011-01-14T13:59:00.008-05:00

I haven't drawn anything new recently except this series, which I used as part of a class discussion. As usual, the cartoons are unrelated to the text which follows. An explanatory note: I don't have any of the usual notations about the particular passages, or hyperlinks which (sometimes) explain the references, because it was written to be read aloud rather than as a blog post. (Okay, one link - yes, I have this t-shirt)

In 1897, a Congregationalist minister living in Topeka, Kansas, published the novel, In His Steps; Charles Sheldon’s book continues to reverberate in our culture with the question it posed: “What would Jesus do?” While initially seen as a radical, and possibly dangerous, book, it’s been assimilated into the mainstream as a reinforcement of bourgeois ideals. It’s difficult to imagine it as dangerous today.

In contrast, posing the question, “What would Nietzsche do?” seems like a joke. Or a challenge to the blandness that now surrounds “WWJD,” and maybe a mocking the commoditization of that phrase in bracelets and other tchotkes. Or, if you’re somewhat familiar with the self-proclaimed Anti-Christ, asking, What Would Nietzsche Do might actually seem dangerous: after all, he writes about the blond beast, about master morality – and was the inspiration for the murders Leopold and Loeb (although not, as many think, Hitler).

But why would I want to know what either one of them might do if they were in my shoes? Unlike Jesus, I cannot turn water into wine or make the blind to see- although I often do answer straightforward questions with opaque little stories. The comparison between Jesus and Nietzsche on this count is unfair: Jesus asked people to follow him – to take up his yoke - while Nietzsche explicitly rejects the idea of any followers. “You want to multiply yourself… you want disciples? Look for zeroes!” So the question, “What Would Nietzsche Do?”, if taken literally, misses the point of his teachings.

But setting that aside for a moment, taking the question literally: what would Nietzsche do? It depends. During the late morning hours of spring, he liked to sit on the Piazza San Marco in Venice. During the summer he liked to take walks around Swiss lakes. He played the piano, composed a bit, read voraciously, wrote prolifically, and had a fantastically awkward love-life. So, why would we want to do what Nietzsche would do? We are unique individuals in our own interests.

I still think it’s a good question, though, if taken more broadly. In his book, Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche writes of a popular diet at the time, how he tried to follow the diet and how it nearly killed him. Nietzsche is very particular in the telling, though, that the problem wasn’t so much in the diet itself, as it was in the mismatch between his requirements and the prescriptions of this diet: the person who came up with it had found something that worked for him, and shared. What Nietzsche challenges is the very premise, that someone could come up with a way of eating, or a mode of life, that works for everyone. His ironic punctuation to the story is, crede experto, believe one who has tried – even though the story itself suggests we shouldn’t simply take Nietzsche’s word for it.

He doesn’t want followers: his watchword is, “become who you are!” The notion of finding one’s own requirements in life is as old as philosophy itself, even older: an inscription at Delphi read, “Know Thyself.” As with many things, more easily said than done. In another text, Nietzsche talks about this imperative, Know Thyself, and refers to that which is unteachable in us as the “signposts to the problem we are,” our spiritual fate. He is acutely aware of the dangers inherent in self-discovery, and describes it as a pursuit fit only for the strong. Here we see Nietzsche as a seducer, a flatterer who recognizes that most of his readers will automatically think of themselves as strong, or at least strong enough, certainly a person capable of risking such dangers.

Of course, one might think “becoming who you are” is inevitable, and thus requiring no particular effort, not dangerous at all – yet, too many people try to be things they are not, choose inappropriate roles models, fail to recognize their own spiritual fate.

This makes Nietzsche sound like an individualist in the bad sense, the way Ayn Rand is an individualist, caring only for one’s self-development, finding your own path while planting your boot firmly in the face of others who impede you, or have the impertinence to ask for assistance. That’s not true of Nietzsche, though: who I am has been shaped by my environment, my family, my teachers, my friends, even casual acquaintances – and not just the people. Everything, Nietzsche recognizes, is interconnected, bound up with everything else. There are no pieces of our past that we could change and still remain the same, whether the seeming accidents and coincidences, or the missteps and mistakes we have made – all are integral to who we are right now. He writes, “bad or good weather, the loss of a friend, a sickness, slander, the absence of a letter, the spraining of an ankle, a glance into a shop, a counter-argument, the opening of a book, a dream, fraud” - changing any part would result in a different you, and a different world. He asks: “are not all things firmly knotted together in such a way that this moment draws after it all things to come?” We are profoundly interconnected.

Elsewhere he declares, “there is nothing outside the whole!” No place to step back and evaluate, nothing exempt from cause and effect, no way to avoid ourselves. And yet, we drag our feet, we resist the parts of ourselves that we do not like, we want to go back and change our past as if that would somehow help. This is what Nietzsche is thinking about as he asks us to know ourselves, to become who we are. It’s a daunting proposition, inviting despair: in a very real sense there is nothing, after all, to be done. So, What Would Nietzsche Do?

In The Gay Science he writes, “For the New Year: Today everyone allows himself to express his dearest wish and thoughts: so I, too, want to say what I wish from myself today, and what thought first crossed my heart: what thought shall be the reason, warrant, and sweetness of the rest of my life! I want to learn, more and more, how to see what is necessary in things as what is beautiful in them – thus will I be one of those who makes things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love from now on! I do not want to wage war against ugliness, I do not want to accuse, I do not even want to accuse the accusers: let looking away be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I want only to be a Yes-sayer!”

Amor fati: love of fate. Not mere acceptance, certainly not dreary resignation, “Not just to tolerate necessity, still less to conceal it… but to love it.” - embracing the past that constitutes oneself and those parts of oneself that are unteachable. But do not be mistaken about what the unteachable means here; he emphatically rejects giving free reign to one’s desires and prejudices, he does not mean toleration of one’s own bad habits and shortcomings.

What Would Nietzsche have us do? “Become who you are!” John Lennon sang, “there’s no where that you can be that wasn’t where you’re meant to be: it’s easy.” I think Nietzsche would reply that it’s simple, but it’s not easy. In fact, it’s hard work. But it’s the only work that’s truly worth doing: we must recognizing the paradox that this is something that we all must do, and do as part of an interconnected whole, and yet we each must do this individually. What Would Nietzsche have us Do? Become who you are, find your place in the cosmos, affirm the past, but resolutely go forward.

Not for Children

2010-12-23T09:24:00.003-05:00

Every once in a while I get an idea for a children's book - simple, allegorical story with lots of illustrations. (I have only completed one so far, but I have at least two more sitting at the back of my head for that mythical period "when I have time"). The problem with these, in general, is that they're not really for kids at all; they're fairly adult, not in the sense that American culture often thinks - having graphic violence and/or sexual innuendo - but actual adult themes.*

So, my latest book idea is called "The Selfish Ant."

[Some back-story here: I'm concurrently reading A.S. Byatt's Angels & Insects (thanks, Mom!) and GWF Hegel's Philosophy of Right (for reasons that I'll probably talk about in another post) when I'm not grading essays. Byatt is relevant because there is an extended discussion of ants and their social order, along with "evolution v intelligent design," as part of the narrative; Hegel is relevant because he starts with the assumption that we are essentially social creatures with socially mediated wants and desires - rather than little autonomous creatures with natural wants and desires. This is not - despite the ant analogy - the same as mindless collectivism: it's merely acknowledging that whatever we do as individuals is shaped by the social environment in which we were raised and continue to operate.]

In my story, there's a little ant who doesn't think she is sufficiently appreciated, and despite the fact that she is virtually identical with all of her sisters, thinks of herself as smarter, harder working and all-around just-plain special in all sorts of ways. She comes to believe that the colony couldn't function without her, and eventually "goes Galt." She leaves the colony and doesn't quite realize she can't really function by herself until she starves to death. (I'm undecided at this point if the remaining ants should carry her corpse back to the colony in order to chop her up and feed her to to the larvae or not.) Note here that if the Queen did this, the colony really would collapse ala Ayn Rand; but the Queen not only truly is special, she's also a hereditary monarch - born to her position, rather than achieving it through a combination of genius and hard work. I think a series of pen-and-ink illustrations would be sufficient, but I don't know if there's a market for it beyond a couple friends (which probably excludes both the anarchists and the libertarians).

Speaking of libertarians, a while back I promised a rant: this post may have to suffice.

Oh, and merry Christmas!

*One of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes cartoons plays with this: "what's an adult movie?" "You know, going to work, paying taxes, that sort of thing." One of the many reasons I like Calvin and Hobbes so much.

To be a philosopher

2010-12-09T17:42:00.006-05:00

I've been thinking about Brad DeLong's recent use of Nietzsche to characterize the resistance of some to various economic measures that have a demonstratively positive impact on the economy as a whole (not just the individuals who are the recipients). Some of the pieces work nicely, and others - notably the resistence on tax hikes - do not; I'm still working out how all these things fit together. Along with this, I'm working on a sermon for the UUCR on Nietzsche; I suspect they'd be just as happy, if not happier, if I hadn't gone to seminary. Regardless, in thinking about these things, and trying to anticipate various criticisms, it occurred to me that many people don't understand what I mean when I say that I'm a philosopher. That is particularly true for the people with whom I have had most of my arguments lately. Therefore, it seems useful to state that clearly, even if few people read this, and the people who do read this aren't the people with whom I have been arguing.

When most people think of philosophy, they tend to confuse it with psychology; insofar as they correctly apprehend the subject matter, they seem to think of it as concerning "big questions" and rather fuzzy answers. If they've had a philosophy class, they might even remember what seems to be a pointless philosophical conundrum (or two). But thinking as a philosopher doesn't involve content as much as method. I'm currently reading an introductory text in philosophy which starts with Aristotle's definition of logic as a science - a normative science - and a liberal art (in a similar way that, e.g., arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, grammar and rhetoric are all liberal arts). But I suspect that it won't do to say that I think "logically" even if I can give a very precise definition of that; most people think of themselves as logical (even if I can poke holes in their arguments). So let me tell a story.

When I was an undergraduate, long long ago, I believed various things about the way the world is. This included belief in a material body and a distinct mental self; and the idea that the mental self (I think I would have avoided using the word "soul" even then, but perhaps not) was itself divided into three distinct parts, ala Freud (or, although I wouldn't have identified it like this at the time, Plato). Further, I thought it was unproblematic that we have freedom of will, in the sense that our mental self make decisions and causes the material body to do various things; we are "free" if (this is the way various philosophers phrase it) "in exactly the same circumstances, I could have done otherwise" (for the trivial, such as having oatmeal for breakfast rather than eggs, or for the more serious, such as deciding to go to University of Portland rather than Duke as an undergraduate). In the course of taking various classes in philosophy (and psychology, since they're not completely unrelated), I tried to articulate these positions; finding my own arguments lacking, I tried to find others who had previously defended these positions. What I found surprised me: no one had offered particularly good arguments for either dualism (having two distinct components of the self, physical and mental) or for freedom of will. Even the clumsy arguments for determinism, such as John Hosper's Freudian determinism, were laid out with more rigor than any of the arguments defending the so-called common sense view that we have "free will." And here's the punch line: I changed my mind on these topics.

Etymologically, the philosopher is the "lover of, or pursuer of, the truth," rather than someone who has the truth. I am not dogmatically attached to any of my positions, although, for the things I care about, I am increasingly skeptical that anyone has an argument that would convince me that I am mistaken. My skepticism grows when I ask someone with more knowledge of a particular topic to explain why I might be mistaken, and either I get a condescending "explanation" which ignores my concerns, or I am flatly dismissed. My skepticism also grows when I try to point out how reality seems to match the predictions I have been reading (in a rather Popperian way, whatever reservations you may have about Karl Popper), and again my concerns are dismissed (or deleted). For me, to be a philosopher is to follow the arguments where they lead; if you don't like my conclusions, you're welcome to point out the flaws in my arguments and pose counter argument. If you take me seriously, I will take you seriously; however, taking you seriously includes pointing out flaws in your arguments as well. That includes both structural flaws (since logic is the domain of philosophers) and empirical problems. Pushing back is a sign of respect; dismissing is not.

All of this is to say, I will probably come back to Brad DeLong at some point and talk about his use of Nietzsche in diagnosing the current situation (recognizing that if I wait too long, it will no longer be the current situation).

(I may also post a draft of the sermon in the next couple days.)

UPDATE: I've just had another exchange with one of the people I was thinking about when I wrote this. I posted a link to a blog post about economics, and I got a straw person argument as a comment. I try to be kinder to my friends who aren't academics, but there's just a certain rigor I try to bring to everything I write, and I expect the same from people who would like to join the conversation. The funny thing about this is, the comment was in regard to a portion of the blog post which was poorly thought-out and certainly deserving of criticism; it was also not the main point. There were good arguments to be marshaled; it's not my blog post, fire away! Even if it was one of my arguments, go ahead and fire away - philosophy as a discipline is about building good arguments and finding the flaws in arguments, other people's or your own. If there's a problem, I want to know - can it be addressed, how might I go back and change it, what other factors ought I include? Or was it just poorly thought through? Do I need to scrap it entirely? I'm happy to scrap bad ideas, and I'm happy to let good ideas go through a refining process.

But don't just fling shit at me, and then sulk when I point out, "hey, that's shit!"

Oh oh oh, it's magic...

2010-11-26T16:38:00.001-05:00

One of the things that I've been thinking about on and off for the past few years is the boundaries that might be set for the Religious Society of Friends. I could say a lot more about that - the history and theological trends that led Hicksite Friends to be fairly wide open - but even I sometimes think that there need to be better boundaries. Talking about "the Light" shouldn't give you an automatic free pass.

An important part of integrity is having distinct boundaries. To a certain extent, it seems as though people are somewhat self-selecting, but I'm still occasionally surprised at the people who want to be among Quakers. Let me suggest a modest boundary: pagans.

It's fine to find the Divine in nature; the Bible encourages that. And the Bible also has Feminine images of God. Christianity has folded in various pagan images throughout history - not just the Easter Bunny with it's eggs, and the Christmas tree, but also the Celtic cross. There has been a fairly consistent trend among Quakers to excise those pagan elements, including the names for the days of the week and the months of the year, although personally I think that insisting on "First Day" and such can be idolatrous in it's own right; I don't particularly find my thoughts drawn to worship of the Norse God of Thunder on Thursday, for instance. It's just an oddity of language.

It does bother me that some people think of magic as real, and think that it's possible to believe in magic and be a Quaker. It seems like there are two possible responses to "magic": you can dismiss it, or you can take it seriously. If you dismiss it, I can't imagine why you would tolerate Friends practicing magic any more than you would tolerate Friends who thought the earth was flat; that is, it's not just an idiosyncratic belief, but demonstrably wrongheaded and potentially harmful.

But you don't have to dismiss magic: I don't take it seriously, but I know people who do. But if you take it seriously, and you want to be a Quaker, it must be rejected. Not because it's necessarily Satanic - although I suppose you could make that argument - but because it necessarily usurps God's powers. Can people make traffic lights change, or control the weather, or call (or send) animals (as at least one member of the administrative faculty of a Quaker seminary believes)? I would say no; these people are just being silly. But if you say yes, then you're usurping God's powers.

If this post is muddled - and I'll admit it is, more than I'd like - it's not because I haven't thought enough about the issue, but because I've thought about it too long. This isn't just about attacking one particular person, because I know several members of the Religious Society of Friends who believe in this nonsense; but I also think the people attacking Harry Potter are silly, too. But it seems as though the proper response to pagan magic is rejection, one way or another. That would be a nice first step to reasserting boundaries for Hicksite Friends.

(The title references a song by Pilot, if you were wondering)

Howdy

2010-10-30T12:04:00.003-04:00

I haven't gotten anything quite to the point where I'd be happy to post the stuff I'm thinking about - which is somewhat surprising, given the amount of time I'm in the car - but I wanted to say hi in any case.

Hi!

Q. Should we allow Muslims to build a mosque near Ground Zero?

2010-09-10T15:01:00.002-04:00

I'm back in the classroom this semester, after taking this past year off (which is its own long story, not relevant today). So, as part of the introduction to the course, I asked the students to write their names, their hometowns, and their majors on an index card, along with any question they might want me to answer. One of the students posed the question in the title, but I didn't get around to answering it during class.

A. Yes. I think there are two main reasons for this. The first is that religious freedom is basic to this country. While only two of the original colonies had religious tolerance as part of their founding principles, even those colonies with an established religion set that aside with the founding of the republic. I'm most familiar with Virginia's history here, but I think it's particularly relevant: Patrick Henry, an Episcopalian, wanted to have Christianity as the established religion in the state of Virginia; the people who opposed the establishment of a non-denominational "Christianity" were not atheists or members of some non-Christian religion, but Baptists and Presbyterians (and members of other, smaller denominations). They were committed Christians, but they worried that the dominant denomination - the Episcopalians - would control the narrative of what it means to be truly "Christian." Thus, they thought it best to leave it as a private matter, rather than a public one.

My second reason is related to the first: who gets to control the narrative of Islam? That is, just as the Baptists and Presbyterians had different ideas about what it means to be Christian than the Episcopalians (and each other), so there is diversity within the Muslim world.

Following 9/11, people criticized the leaders of the Muslim community in the US for not condemning the attacks. The sad thing about that is that those leaders did condemn the attacks, but no one was listening. The vast majority of Muslims in the US and around the world condemn terrorism, but the radical anti-Western minority seems to control the narrative of what Islam is in this country. I believe having a community center, on par with a YMCA, near Ground Zero, would help correct that.

Ignorance of History

2010-08-21T15:34:00.009-04:00

Earlier this week, Julie and I were eating dinner at a family restaurant in Central Square, and overheard a conversation from the guys in the booth behind us regarding the Founders of the United States. They remembered that the Declaration of Independence states that we have been "endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights." They also assumed that the Constitution says something about God (it doesn't), and the the Founders were all Christian - "One Nation, Under God." (And just to be absolutely explicit about that last reference, the Pledge of Allegiance was written at the end of the 19th century -without "under God," which was added in the 1950s).

The particularly irritating thing for me is people's appropriation (or misappropriation) of Thomas Jefferson; he gets edited out of textbooks in Texas, but "patriots" wear t-shirts with his quote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." (You know, "patriots" such as the fellow who committed the worst terrorist attack on US soil prior to 9/11.) Many other quotes are also falsely attributed to him. But to cite him as an instance of a Christian is particularly grating.

Among his many other pursuits, Thomas Jefferson edited the Gospels into what has come to be known as the "Jefferson Bible." He's not the first to try to harmonize the competing and sometimes conflicting stories told in the Gospels; but he may be the first to edit out all the miracles. I won't go into all of the particular edits (and we could have a fruitful conversation regarding whether the various miracles attributed to Jesus are necessary to believe in order to be a Christian, but not today); but one stands out, and is significant.

"There laid they Jesus,

And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed."

Why is that so significant? Because it's the last line of the Jefferson Bible. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead and buried; the end. It almost makes me want to carry the Jefferson Bible around with me, just to take out when I overhear conversations where Jefferson is mentioned as a Good Christian Founding Father.

Pre-rant musings

2010-07-27T09:06:00.005-04:00

I've relocated several hundred miles north, and I'm not really settled.

However, I've been thinking about my ethics classes and how I approach certain subjects. [Caveat: this is a blog post, not an ethics class, so the presentation here has been modified.]

Are you conservative or liberal? Two issues: crime and welfare.

For the purposes of this post, we have to make some background assumptions. With regard to crime, we assume that some people are innocent and some people are guilty (i.e., you can neither start with the premise that all people are guilty, nor with the premise that one's circumstances exonerate one's responsibility). With regard to welfare, we assume that some people are deserving and some people aren't (i.e., some people are poor for reasons beyond their control and therefore deserve some help from the state, where private charity is insufficient; and being lazy is not a "reason beyond their control"). Further, for both, we have to assume that the system (for prosecution and for distribution, respectively) is always flawed; the best system will still find some innocent people guilty, some guilty people innocent, some deserving poor will be excluded, and some undeserving people will receive assistance. If you don't think these are acceptable premises, then we cannot move forward here.

With regard to crime: is it more important to maximize the number of guilty people punished (knowing that some innocent people will be unjustly punished) or to minimize the number of unjustly punished innocents (knowing that some guilty people will escape their due punishment)? That is, given a flawed system in which perfect justice is elusive, do you emphasize the guilty or the innocent? (When I was growing up, there was a popular phrase, "kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out" which seems to embody the conservative ethos here.)

The situation with welfare is a mirror image: is it more important to maximize the number of deserving poor receiving welfare (knowing that some undeserving people will exploit the system), or to minimize the number of people fraudulently receiving assistance from the state (knowing that some deserving poor - i.e., children in poverty - will get left out)? Again, given a necessarily flawed system, do you emphasize the deserving poor or the welfare cheats?

There are other issues that don't really fit into this schema, and there are additional complexities that this papers over, but I like this as a quick-and-dirty classification, and captures two very distinct ways of looking at the world.

Final in the Alphabet series: Fin.

2010-07-13T15:16:00.003-04:00

I've still been thinking about hard-line economic positions, but I've also been drawing cartoons about them. Which is to say, there will not be a rant about libertarians to accompany this picture, but there may be an illustrated rant at some point in the future.

Just to keep you up to date, I've primarily been thinking about moving - from Roanoke, up to New York. For those of you who haven't been following along, that's Central New York, not The City. Very different. I still don't have a firm date for departure, but it will within the next two weeks. Unfortunately, my next job doesn't start until September 7th.

I now plan on returning to my usual mix of cartoons and paintings. Since my plans often don't work out as expected, who knows what's next. Perhaps sculpture!

Y indeed: the penultimate post (in this series)

2010-06-28T20:41:00.004-04:00

When I'm painting houses I think a lot. That's not really a hazard of the profession, but it is a hazard for the philosopher stuck painting houses. Lately I've been thinking about the problem with hard-line economic positions.

Let me start with Marxism. I sometimes identify as a Marxist - sometimes to irritate others, but I really do find Marx's critique of capitalism right on target. He peers into the machinery which makes it all tick, and finds it wanting. He could not have been expected to imagine, for instance, the reduction of the university to yet another capitalist machine in which underpaid, overspecialized and imminently replaceable drones (the adjuncts who teach the majority - yes, majority - of introductory level classes in the US) who asked to work harder for less money (e.g., online teaching), and churn out a sub-par product that people keep consuming anyway (because we've been raised to think that a college diploma is the ticket to a better job and therefore lifestyle than our parents, even if that's not true anymore - the actually goal of education lost amid short-sighted economic interest). And yet, look how well his analysis works for the current state of higher education. It's not just for textile mills anymore!

But Marx was naïve about human nature. The workers may grumble about their state of affairs, but are happy enough with a 40 hour work week, some sort of a pension plan, maybe health insurance... hm, we may be due for another revolution. In any case, the workers have not risen up to overthrow Rich Uncle Pennybags, establishing a state which eventually whithers away. The so-called communist states have merely re-established the same sort of societal structures that they were suppose to replace: (I really hate to quote the Who here, but), "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." But that's not because Marx failed to properly critique capitalism, it's because he had an overly optimistic view of human nature. (Kant demonstrates that you can have a view of human nature as containing the seeds of "radical evil" without resorting to theology, i.e., original sin, but that's a topic for another post.)

So, let me be clear in conclusion: I reject a hard-line Marxism which says that a workers paradise is just around the world-historical corner. But I do think he has something important to say about the failures of our current economic system, and, let's face it, the benefits of thinking collectively at least some of the time, as opposed to being relentlessly individualistic.

Twenty fourth in a series, soon to be complete

2010-06-24T18:36:00.003-04:00

It has occurred to me that, not only have I slowed down on this series, but I'm thinking more about a larger project lately. And I'm also thinking about moving. So, I need to wrap this up.

I feel as though I ought to add some edifying thought, but I'm not really thinking of anything right at the moment. Perhaps later.

Twenty third in a series

2010-06-05T14:55:00.003-04:00

John Lennon sang, "the Walrus was Paul," but that may only have been because when he wrote, "I am the Walrus," he was thinking of Lewis Carroll's poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter." Except he hadn't read the poem in a while, and forgot that the Walrus is a pretty bad fellow.

I remember reading somewhere that the poem is an allegory about Kantian and Utilitarian ethics - perhaps here - but it seems unlikely that was what John was thinking about.

Twenty second in a series

2010-06-05T14:54:00.003-04:00

Reminded of a Simpsons quote:

"Marge, I've got to get out of this rut and back into the groove!"

Twenty first in a series

2010-06-05T14:51:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the delay - it's been a busy month, with a surprising amount of travel.

I keep wanting these to be cartoons, and I try to resist the urge; in this one, for instance, I was thinking I might add the Tyrannosaurus Wrench in the background, yelling, "THAT'S LATIN FOR 'BEAR'!"

But I didn't.

Unscheduled interuption

2010-05-09T16:23:00.003-04:00

In addition to the various other things I've been trying out lately - when I find the time between work and applying for jobs in Central New York - I've also been working on collages.

These aren't part of a larger series, at least not yet, although both of them suggest a story that I haven't been told.

Yet.

Twentieth

2010-05-07T21:33:00.002-04:00

Hm, this started out as an exercise to get me to draw/paint every day... and that seems to be failing.

The reasons for it failing are good, though: I'm back to painting (houses) more or less full time, is more lucrative than my art (for the time being, at least) - and I've gotten a firm job offer up in Rochester (which is not Syracuse, but is a lot closer than Roanoke). Which is to say, I've been busy doing things that are productive, although not as restorative as doodling.

Hey Nineteen

2010-04-24T15:30:00.002-04:00

I've had the idea for this addition to the series since March 24th (yes, it was dated) and just haven't gotten around to drawing it.

What's new with you?

10010 or, Inappropriate reading materials?

2010-03-18T18:04:00.003-04:00

Car repair: I took Hauerwas' A Cross-Shattered Church. Intended to be hopeful, the final bill was several hundred dollars.

DMV: Kafka's The Castle. Supposed to be ironic, but they sent me away because my papers weren't in order.

Bah.

XVII

2010-03-16T17:23:00.002-04:00

Update: B'Yo! pointed out that "Q" could also be for Quaker, or for quacker (quack quack quack).

Or I could have had Q stand for "Quelle," and left the picture blank (or perhaps just muddy). I'm still self-amused by my singing "tryin' hard to recreate what had yet to be created" in class in response to this book.

Who knew that "Q" would be such a popular letter? Well, not in Denmark: according to Wikipedia, they "abolished the letter in 1872, although it's still part of the alphabet." If it's still part of the alphabet, then it sounds as if they didn't really abolish it - unless you're talking about some sort of Hegelian Aufhebung, which would surprise me since it happened after Kierkegaard.

What were we talking about again?

Sixteenth in a series

2010-03-10T21:10:00.001-05:00

Sorry for the delay: 15

2010-03-06T22:59:00.002-05:00

My owl looks a little worse for wear, but part of executing this series has been deliberately working quickly - if I fussed over every picture, I'd never get going.

14

2010-03-04T22:09:00.001-05:00

Thirteenth in a series

2010-03-02T20:50:00.001-05:00

Twelfth in a series

2010-03-01T20:12:00.004-05:00

Part of the idea with the series is just to make sure I do something every day, but sometimes I just go too fast and things get wonky.

Eleventh in a series

2010-02-27T19:23:00.001-05:00

Tenth in a series

2010-02-26T17:33:00.001-05:00

Ninth in a series

2010-02-25T18:35:00.001-05:00

Eighth in a series

2010-02-24T19:05:00.001-05:00

Series to resume shortly

2010-02-24T17:11:00.002-05:00

But I thought you might like a good old fashion cartoon, plus the last installment of the ever-popular "Duck" series.

Seventh in a series

2010-02-23T21:55:00.002-05:00

Sixth in a series

2010-02-22T18:39:00.000-05:00

Fifth in a series

2010-02-20T11:53:00.001-05:00

Fourth in a series

2010-02-19T18:13:00.000-05:00

Third in a series

2010-02-18T19:17:00.001-05:00

Second in a series

2010-02-17T18:22:00.000-05:00

First in a series

2010-02-16T17:58:00.001-05:00

Fish & Owl

2010-02-05T13:24:00.005-05:00

I haven't yet figured out a decent picture of my paintings which incorporates silver (or gold) paint - it's a great effect in person that doesn't come through.

I've been focusing on getting my Etsy shop working the way I'd like; there are still a few bugs I need to work out. More dogs coming soon, and I'm also working on a friendlier owl.

(This one puts the "owl" in "scowl"!)

Hey Look! I have a shop!

2010-01-30T14:24:00.003-05:00

Okay, I didn't use Matt's idea: the shop is just called Miro Roi cards & art. I only have a couple things up at the moment, but I'm working on getting more together.

My biggest problem - for the blog and now for the store - seems to be getting decent pictures of my work.

Here's a couple new paintings: Tommy pauses before entering his apartment building, and a diagram of my understanding of how petitionary prayer works.

Shop Name Contest!

2010-01-28T22:53:00.005-05:00

Well, not really a contest, but I'd like some feedback.

The email I use for this blog is "MiroRoi(at)gmail.com" (long story, not important), and I was thinking of using it for my shop name. It's unique, and it links back to my primary cartoon character. I keep hesitating, though; any thoughts about the name, or suggestions for an alternative?

In any case, before I start selling paintings, I'm going to put some cards out there to get a sense of selling things online. These are some of the designs I've got so far: hand painted, blank inside, various sizes. (I'm working on an owl too. Julie likes owls.) Feedback on the cards would also be helpful.

It also occurred to me that I could sell the panels I've been painting on: 24"x24" 1/4 luaun, backed with a cradle made of 1"x2" select pine to prevent warping, all primed. The only things like that on Etsy are pretty small, and I've really enjoyed having a larger surface to work on.

I still have to put The Hand away when I go to bed, though.

If Mechthild is my Monday name...

2010-01-26T18:49:00.005-05:00

...then this must be Susana.

This is the same painting in progression - monochromatic underpainting, again about halfway through, and then the final version. Mostly acrylic, but I just can't keep my hands off whatever is near, so it has this and that in it as well.

In other news, I've attempted to put some panels for painting for sale on craigslist. The ones I've finished are 24" square, with a 2" cradle on the back to keep them from warping; primed front and back, with the edges finished. The ad hasn't shown up yet, so I may have done something wrong.

At some point, I'm going to put some of my paintings for sale on Etsy.com - some of the work there is pretty good. I'll keep you posted, but in the meantime if you see anything on here you like, let me know - it could be yours!

As far as the other kind of painting is going, the only news is that my boss has been cited for Nonpoint Source Water Pollution, a class three misdemeanor, and his accountant burned down last week.

No actual work, though.

Duck Duck Goose

2010-01-19T10:04:00.002-05:00

A Second Cup

2010-01-15T10:59:00.002-05:00

I started reading Gordon Kaufman's An Essay on Theological Method again yesterday; an interesting contrast with Rudolph Bultmann's Jesus and the Word.

Also an interesting contrast with David Jensen's In the Company of Others, which my local book group has been reading on my recommendation.

Well, I recommended that we read it; I'm not sure who has actually done the reading. Are all book groups like this? Not that they haven't been reading: several of the people wanted to talk about another book which they had read (but I had not), Pema Chödrön's Taking the Leap.

I have since read the first chapter, and I'm not terribly impressed. I'd much rather re-read Joko Beck's Everyday Zen.

None of which has to do with the picture here, except that coffee was consumed during the reading of all these various books.

Two paintings

2010-01-12T18:00:00.003-05:00

Um, not a whole lot to say today.

Both of these are mixed media pictures based on photos: the cormorant picture from a photo taken by Greg Rogers, a friend living in Florida; the old men sitting on a stone wall... from a book I found in the college library, written in French, with many black and white photos.

Hand

2010-01-04T21:07:00.002-05:00

Since I'm not painting (houses), I'm painting (my hand).

As with the Cup, as well as the picture below ("Ohne Titel"), this was painted on a 2' x 2' birch panel, the hand in acrylic and the background in acrylic and semi-gloss latex.

I'll take a better picture later, but this gives you a sense of what I've been working on.

Painting for a New Year...

2010-01-02T14:33:00.006-05:00

...even though I finished it at the end of last year. I continue to be amused that the most difficult part seems to be getting a halfway decent picture of what I've painted. I've tried to resist any digital "fixing" beyond adjusting the color, and for this one I haven't even done that. I like the overexposed/supersaturated look that direct sunlight seems to give with my camera, but while you a get a good sense of the color (maybe too good--the blue in the upper left hand corner tends to blend pretty well into the black background), you lose some of the details (the brushwork on the dove, for instance).

Jennifer still likes the cup better, so I've also added a new picture of that.

Last post of the year, perhaps

2009-12-30T13:06:00.002-05:00

Link, just to be pedantic.

Softly, as in a morning sunrise

2009-12-17T10:26:00.004-05:00

Ever wonder what to do with the ubiquitous cardboard inserts that Amazon shipments have inside their boxes?

(The title of the portrait of Mr. Miro comes from a song on this album.)

Pop

2009-12-12T22:06:00.004-05:00

I haven't been painting houses this week; mostly I've been looking for a job in Syracuse.

Also, I've been painting various pictures, and it occurred to me that although I have assumed that I could do something largish because of my (ahem) artistic experience combined with my practical experience painting houses. I've never tried it before, though.

You may recognize the cup from a picture I posted earlier this week; that one was done with acrylics on a 9 1/2" x 12 1/2" piece of paper, whereas this (mostly) latex on a 2' x 2' birch panel. That seems true enough to Pop principles - simple and familiar image, taken out of context and enlarged, using commercial media. Not really that large compared to a lot of Pop art, but it's much larger than anything else I've painted in a long time.

Now, if I could just focus my obsessiveness on something more productive...

01/02/10 Update: here's the "better picture," and I decided to leave both up so you can get a sense of the picture:

Another in the series, such as it is.

2009-12-12T12:01:00.003-05:00

More pictures

2009-12-11T10:56:00.004-05:00

In addition to painting (that is, when I'm not house painting), I'm also working to get better photographs of my pictures. (Also, looking for jobs in Syracuse, NY, writing an introduction to informal fallacies, playing with Hank, etc.)

Anyhow, I didn't paint all of these today, but the photos came out better than those I'd taken before. Which is not to say that they couldn't be better, but the lighting is good and they weren't taken with a cell phone camera. More to follow!

And another

2009-12-10T16:23:00.001-05:00

At some point I intend to post some more cartoons, but this is what I've been working on today.

Finally!

2009-12-09T20:13:00.005-05:00

I haven't finished any cartoons in a long, long time - I've been jotting down ideas and sometimes sketching them out, but haven't gotten to the point of inking them. But I have been painting.

Friday painting - not this Friday but last

2009-10-18T19:04:00.005-04:00

After posting pictures of last weekend's paintings, I realized that I could also post pictures of what I paint during the week as well. This is the sign for Towers Mall (no big surprise), and Dante and I painted both the white support structure, and the gray around the letters.

The last picture is of Dante, who normally isn't a raccoon.

When I was a kid, I would occasionally hear about someone who had immigrated to the United States, usually as a refugee, who had been a doctor in his or her home country, who is now working as a janitor here. I always thought that would be horrible, and couldn't understand how people could do that. I'm not quite in the same position, but I have a glimpse. Sometimes I wallow in self-pity, but for the most part I just deal with it, happy to have a job, particularly since it doesn't seem as though I can find a job that pays better than painting houses.

Sunday painting

2009-10-11T16:27:00.002-04:00

I did this very quickly, but I like it.

Saturday Painting

2009-10-10T17:05:00.003-04:00

I still can't get the color quite right, but at least these were taken with an actual camera, rather than a cell phone.

The picture on the right was done first, with the idea that it would be the foundation for a more elaborate painting. However, I liked the way it came out, so I did a second version using the same image. The one on the right is watercolor pencils, the one on the left watercolor pencils along with acrylics and watercolors (for those of you following along at home).

Voice in the wilderness

2009-10-02T17:18:00.003-04:00

Well, not so much the wilderness as the rapidly developing shores of Smith Mountain Lake--and I'm not there, but was there earlier today painting a dock. Some people have too much money, but for the time being I'm happy to take just a little bit of it in order to make them happy. Correction: sate their need to keep up with the Joneses. Their anxiety is reduced, temporarily, but spending money doesn't make them happy. It almost makes me want to take Paul's advice and go get a PsyD so I could tell them that to their faces while taking even more of their money.

What I really wanted to write today was that I gave another sermon at Eldorado a couple weeks ago, but probably won't post it. It wasn't one of my best, and I'm not sure that even my best sermons are necessarily worth posting (although I'm willing to post because I don't think anyone would plagiarize me). The thing that struck me, though, was that they missed the point of the sermon, which was about being obedient to God--maybe not the best topic for Unitarian Universalists. But the story I used was 1 Samuel 15, and they were too distracted by God's ordering Saul to commit genocide against the Amalekites.

Maybe I should have used Genesis 22 instead.

Labor Day Weekend

2009-09-04T17:14:00.004-04:00

I don't really have anything to say at the moment, but thought you might like some cartoons.
(Yes, they were taken with a cell phone camera.)

August 16th Sermon at Eldorado: The Wisdom of This World

2009-08-21T20:04:00.003-04:00

This morning I want to start with a story from the news that happened last month; you probably heard it at the time, but I’ll go over some of the basic facts.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard professors and director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, was returning home from a trip to China. His front door was jammed; he went around back, opened the back door and tried to open the front door from inside, and then returned outside and tried again to force the front door open. A lady who lived nearby phoned police, reporting a possible break-in (I hesitate to call her a neighbor, because even when I haven’t sat down to have a cup of coffee with my neighbors, I do recognize them by sight). While what happened next is disputed, the officer’s report states, “I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence” –which is to say, the officer admits that he had positively identified Gates, and knew that Gates was in his own home. Nevertheless, the officer arrested Gates for disorderly conduct.

There are a lot more details that complicate matters, but I don’t really want to dwell on the particulars. I realize that this oversimplifies and distorts things, but there’s a dynamic at work here that I find significant.

What I’ve heard throughout is that Gates should not have raised his voice to the officer, that he should not have had a bad attitude. Colin Powell said that Gates “should have reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal... it's the better course of action to try and take it easy and don't let your anger make the current situation worse." Consultant Al Vivian writes that Gates’ “attitude definitely heightened the situation” and that “it may be unwise to raise your voice at a law-enforcement officer.” Others say, “it would have all been over quickly had Gates not gotten upset..." or "Gates should have been happy the officer came there in the first place to try to protect him and his property ..." But all of this is just to blame the victim: the fact is that a man was arrested in his own home for no real reason. That just shouldn’t happen, especially not in America.
Blaming the victim happens in lots of different circumstances, and although I’ll come back to it, I really only want to use this story to illustrate a broader phenomena and ask the question, why do people blame the victim?
Before answering that—and I do have an answer—I’d like to take up another instance of blaming the victim, one pointed out by Fred Clark in an article online. The man in question was blameless and upright, who feared God and shunned evil.
The Book of Proverbs says,
7 The LORD holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. (Proverbs 2:7-8)

This blameless and upright man had seven sons and three daughters, seven thousand sheep and three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred she-asses, and a very large household. That man was wealthier than anyone in the East. This seems to confirm Proverbs says over and over: fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and those with wisdom will prosper.

But one day, this man’s oxen and she-asses are carried off by bandits, and the boys tending them were killed. A fire came down from heaven and burned up the sheep and the shepherds. A different set of bandits took all the camels and killed the boys who were tending them. His children were all killed when the house of the eldest son was blown down. All in one afternoon.

Then he is struck with an inflammation which covered him with oozing sores from sole of this foot to the crown of his head.

I assume you know who this is, that symbol of suffering in the Bible, Job. I’ve talked about Job before in this pulpit. Last time I preached on Job, I stressed the ways in which the three friends who come to Job—Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar—really are friends, despite their second-guessing.

Today, I want to focus on that second-guessing, the dialogue which makes up the bulk of this book, in which these friends continue to press him: surely you’ve done something, or forgotten something that you should have done. This is an extreme version of blaming the victim, but as I’ve said, it’s a fairly common phenomenon. Why do people do this? Why would we turn to our friends and look to their faults, real or imagined? In the case of Job, we are clearly told that he is blameless and upright; in the case of Henry Louis Gates, we know he lost his temper—but why do people focus on that, exactly?

The emotion behind blaming the victim is fear: we want to think that this sort of thing could not happen to us. Whether we’re talking about a crime, a disease, a loss, or being arrested in our own home, we want to think we’re immune—it couldn’t happen to us.

We want to see a clear pattern of cause and effect in the world, where good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. We all know that the world doesn’t really work that way, but in various ways we still try to distance ourselves from the possibility of unjust suffering, and one of the most common ways to do that is to blame the person who suffers. This is the “common wisdom”: people get what’s coming to them, one way or another.

In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” I really like that idea: that what people often take as common sense or accepted wisdom doesn’t really serve us in the end. As people of faith, we need to follow our conscience and do the things that don’t necessarily make sense to others.

I was recently reading about early Spanish exploration of the Americas, and every time they went in with lots of soldiers and guns there were problems; the only times when the Spanish and the Native Americans had good, constructive interactions, at least early on, was when there were very small groups of unarmed explorers. It went against the common wisdom, but it worked.

“The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” Paul continues, “For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness.’” Paul here quotes the Scriptures he knew, the Hebrew Bible we call the Old Testament. I’m tempted to agree with this quote, because we see people who think they’re clever getting caught. Bernie Madoff conned people into investing millions of dollars in his fraudulent scheme, and he was caught and sent to jail. You could even generalize that and say that every criminal who gets caught thinks he’s smarter than the cops, but trips up along the way. But of course Paul isn’t talking about the police, he’s talking about God: “He catches the wise in their craftiness.” But who is Paul quoting—which part of the Hebrew Bible does this come from? As it so happens, the person who speaks this is Eliphaz the Temanite, accusing Job, and here, it’s Eliphaz who is repeating the common wisdom.

How can we tell the wisdom of God from the common wisdom? Even Proverbs, the book of the Bible which speaks most directly and at length on the nature of wisdom, tells us that it’s difficult to tell them apart sometimes.

In Proverbs, Wisdom is personified, crying aloud in the streets, raising her voice in the public squares, in the busy streets and entrance gates, trying to draw people to her—but too many are unable to recognize her for what she is. We know that she has laid out the feast, prepared the wine, laid the table; and yet the youth cross the street in the dusk of the evening to talk to that other woman, Folly, who is also present throughout the city—now in the street, now in the square—and sways him with her eloquence and her smooth talk… Folly is difficult to discern from Wisdom for the person who isn’t already wise. However, Proverbs gives us a couple ways to distinguish between the two.

First, Folly may start in public but ends by withdrawing, out of plain view, bringing people into secret and furtive relations. There seems to be a link, then, between things that need to be hidden and foolishness: Wisdom can withstand the light of day.

Second, Folly offers things that are tempting, but ultimately corrupting, ending in death: “stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten furtively is tasty”—but, “many are those who she has struck dead, and numerous are her victims, her house is a highway to Sheol, leading down to Death’s inner chambers.” In contrast, Wisdom offers true nourishment. Paul seems to be equating “the wisdom of the world” to Folly, and what appears to be foolish to true wisdom, the wisdom of God.

This finally brings us back to Professor Gates. He spoke what he knew to be the truth, regardless of the consequences, regardless of what common wisdom would counsel. Is this true wisdom? I think so. In talking back to the police, he took a situation which could have stayed private, behind closed doors, and moved it out into the public light. Wisdom doesn’t flinch, and takes us places where the common wisdom might not like to go. Since when is getting arrested bad? Martin Luther King wrote one of his most powerful pieces from the Birmingham County jail. Many Quakers, Unitarians and Universalists have also been either jailed or threatened with jail because they acted according to their non-conformist beliefs. Because of people being willing to stand up for what they believe in, the country has changed. But the changes of the past are not enough.

The other characteristic of wisdom—nourishment rather than corruption and death—also seems to be found with Gates. This incident has provided a chance for a renewed conversation—beneficial even for the police officer.

In conclusion: question the common wisdom. Speak truth to power. Follow your conscience wherever it leads

Another Cartoon based on a movie

2009-08-03T19:06:00.004-04:00

Brian's comment about Alec Guinness reminded me how much I like his work; however, it seems he was never in a Hitchcock movie.

I also like Graham Greene, and Guiness was in several movies based on his novels, including this one.

For the Hitchcock Fan

2009-08-01T11:34:00.003-04:00

Link.

Painting in Virginia

2009-07-24T14:01:00.005-04:00

"He'll think about paint and he'll think about glue, what a jolly boring thing to do"

Almost Finished

2009-07-15T20:19:00.008-04:00

These are cell phone snapshots of a work in progress; I haven't been drawing many straighforward cartoons lately.

When I haven't been painting, I've been filing charges for academic dishonesty against some of the students of my last class. I keep reminding myself that this was a really good class, prior to the grading of the final exam, and that some of my best students at this particular school have been nursing students. I am still pretty irritated, not least by the fact that I've gotten my final paycheck, I don't know when--or where--I'll be teaching again, and I can't be finished with this last semester. I just want to be done.

Maybe tomorrow.

The painting--"Jungle Miro"--is already finished, but I still haven't come up with a way to get a decent photo of my non-cartoon work. Perhaps a cell phone camera isn't really the right way to go.

Thinking about stuff

2009-07-10T18:57:00.003-04:00

'Cause you know, stuff's important.

Among other things, wondering why people object to a potential tax hike with regard to health care reform, since--this seems to be the thing that everyone forgets--the health insurance premiums will either go down or disappear entirely.

There could be a net gain, if we do it right.

If you're going to whine about something, whine about high health insurance premiums that pay for bureaucrats to deny coverage to people who might get sick, and to deny claims for their customers who do get sick.

Just some cartoons

2009-06-18T17:02:00.003-04:00

Thinking about ethics, and upcoming weddings...

Has it really been that long?

2009-05-29T11:46:00.001-04:00

I've been spending more time with the watercolors and less time doing straight cartooning, but honestly I've just been busy and preoccupied and completely forgot to even throw my loyal fans a stray, non-topical cartoon without any commentary. Sorry.

Anticipation

2009-05-05T11:47:00.001-04:00

I may post last Sunday's sermon at some point, but right now I'm more concerned with the end of the semester and graduation preparation... time to grade and clean!