Tribute or Faux Pas... or worse?

I'm glad I found this on YouTube. I just stumbled on this part of a movie on AMC today... I don't even know what movie it is. I typed in "Bojangles of Harlem" to find it on YouTube. Looks like it's Fred Astaire in blackface. The comments on the YouTube page are quite interesting. Half seem to think it's just good old fashioned racist blackface... the other half thinks it's some kind of a tribute to the original Bojangles, a.k.a., Bill Robinson. Check it out:

(The movie is Swing Time -- 1936)

"When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville..."

Here's an interesting 7-or-so minutes on one who understood that you have to observe the Devil with tremendous care to know G-d. From PBS.



"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." --F.O.

Back to Race, for a Moment

Bet: I'll get zero comments here.

Topic: professional/work culture, whiteness, blackness, and racism.

The Washington Post reported today that 34.5% of young black men (16-24) are currently unemployed. That's a stunning figure, isn't it? The same article quotes Princeton professor Devah Pager:

Black men were less likely to receive a call back or job offer than equally qualified white men... Black men with a clean record fare no better than white men just released from prison.

So now imagine you're on a hiring committee at your average bank. You've narrowed it to two applications. One is from a guy named Delonta Spriggs (borrowing a name from the article just cited); the other is from Bradley West (a made up name).

Obviously, it would be "racist" to just pick the white-sounding name. And, just as obviously, it happens all the time. Setting the racism aside momentarily, the question is, when money (via "performance," and "productivity") is the bottom line, is betting white a rational gamble?

To answer this, we would have to examine white and black culture -- starting with the admission that such a distinction exists. I've written about this delicate, uncomfortable, difficult distinction before. In the post just linked, I nervously suggest a few starters. Basketball goes to black culture. Golf goes to white culture. Veganism to white culture. Loud music goes to black culture. I tried in that post to achieve a neutral perspective, so that these distinctions appear as value-neutral as possible.

But the question of "professionalism" rears its head in a very interesting way in this discussion. If we were to discover that white culture has--always already embedded within it--a greater emphasis on things like dress shirts, timeliness, and so on... then... ? If things like "turning papers in on time" come more easily to white students because of their background in white culture, which values timeliness, then won't a greater percentage of white employees handle the demands of the professional world with greater adeptness than their black counterparts?

All of this is seriously touchy, obviously. And all of it seems problematic. From what I can tell, the source of much of this difficulty is the fact that (increasingly?) people are identifying first by racial group and second by nationality. In other words, there is a decreasing overlap between white culture and black culture -- those identities seem to tug against each other.

Hmmm.

[Note: Obviously, we're all adults here. Exceptions are so prevalent that they're almost a rule. We all know black people who are more professional than white people and blahblahblah... but gambling, which business is, must function even in the presence of exceptions.]

So... solutions? Comments? Accusations?

"Scientists" Not Immune to the Temptations of Money and Power?

Shocking. Just kidding--totally predictable.

Two Reasons Not-To-Hate Catholicism

I don't love the Catholic church or the Pope, but I don't dislike or distrust them as much as some people. Here's an interesting article. Benedict says, "Beauty ... can become a path toward the transcendent, toward the ultimate Mystery, toward God." And I like that for two reasons: #1) it reminds us that there is a very real distinction between books like Moby-Dick and The House on Mango Street. In other words, some art is intended very distinctly to influence readers in a particularly "spiritual" way. As Uncle Walt says in "Leaves of Grass":

Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? / Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.

I know some people will be uncomfortable with this distinction, but I think it's real. Sure, there are some ambiguous cases where it's not clear whether the art is propaganda or divine-art... but, for me, it's a worthwhile distinction. Flannery O'Connor's motivation is much different from Sinclair Lewis', and with the Pope, I'd like to see more O'Connors up around these parts.

And #2: it reminds us that "God" should be understood as Mystery, as Ultimate Mystery... I like that: U.M. Ummm... Ummmm... Ummmmmm....

Forgive Them Gaia, They Know Not What They Do (to themselves)

One of my favorite friends suggested this video to her friends on Facebook:

My response, in the spirit of "Devil's advocate," was probably really annoying. I said to her,

It may be my mood, but: the one good reason to die may be knowing that you deserve death, that the universe is justified in killing you off. Where is the poet of lamentations and regret? Where is the poet who will admit to breaking the law not with pride but with sorrow?

(Of course, I suppose we need just laws in order to be able to produce that poet...)

She responded:

Casey - the universe and the law - I don't see how you're connecting them. And if the universe is indeed justified in killing us off, doesn't that make the time we have here all the more worth living? Isn't that a machine against which we can rage without compromise?

And I re-responded:

I mean, yes -- of course. But the machine wins in the end, right? I'm off on one of my religious/mystical tangents lately, and coming at this from that angle... where all of the mystics tell us to give-in, to accept our portion, to say, "Not my will, but thy will be done."

Most of the stuff I've been reading lately is Christian/Gnostic in nature, and it points out that the purpose of the Law (the O.T.) was to show us that we deserve punishment. The poet you linked to--indeed most 'def' poets I have heard--speak in the spirit of raging against, rather than from a position of penitence.

I don't mean it as a judgment so much as a neutral observation. The yogis and gurus say much of the same, right?: recognize that *you are that* and then it will begin to change. If I can see that I have been unjust to others, injustice itself is weakened. I suppose I'm looking for more Simone Weil, and less Simone de Beauvoir. (Nice, huh?)

What do you think? I say all of this half tongue-in-cheek, of course, and wholly in the spirit of dialog. I really do think she's right about what she says, especially regarding the screwed up legal stuff.

I'm thinking that up-in-your-face rhetoric demanding "rights" usually fails, except for the one proclaiming her rights ...no, wait: especially for the one proclaiming her rights. That is, I'm sure it feels good to have a space to holler about how downtrodden you are, especially when you really are downtrodden, but I don't see that it provides any lasting peace to the proclaimers themselves. My thoughts turn to one of those Yoga Sutras of Patanjali again:

Accepting pain as help for purification, study of spiritual books, and surrender to the Supreme Being constitute Yoga in practice.

And the commentary from Satchindananda: "We will actually be happy to receive pain if we keep in mind its purifying effects. Such acceptance makes the mind steady and strong because, although it is easy to give pain to others, it is hard to accept without returning it."

Nothing Stops Going like Ram Bomjon

I hope that by now most of you are at least aware of a story I've been following for years (since 2005 or so for me). Ram Bomjon, a.k.a. "Buddha Boy," is in the midst of his 6-years of meditation en route to becoming (possibly) a Buddha. His followers say he often goes weeks without moving, even to eat or drink. Skeptics are skeptical.

In any case, Bomjon emerges every so often to speak to his growing crowd of followers. Most recently, he spoke to 400,000 people (!!!) in the remote jungle of Ratanpuri, Nepal. Wikipedia says, "He made two speeches in which he urged people to recognize the compassion in their hearts, and their connection to one another through the all-encompassing soul." And I don't know how I missed it, but here's the text of his longest recorded speech, from 2007:

Murder, violence, greed, anger and temptation have made the human world a desperate place. A terrible storm has descended upon the human world, and this is carrying the world towards destruction. There is only one way to save the world and that is through dharma. When one doesn't walk the righteous path of spiritual practice, this desperate world will surely be destroyed. Therefore, follow the path of spirituality and spread this message to your fellows. Never put obstacles, anger and disbelief in the way of my meditation's mission. I am only showing you the way; you must seek it on your own. What I will be, what I will do, the coming days will reveal. Human salvation, the salvation of all living beings, and peace in the world are my goal and my path. "Namo Buddha sangaya, Namo Buddha sangaya, namo sangaya." I am contemplating on the release of this chaotic world from the ocean of emotion, on our detachment from anger and temptation, without straying from the path for even a moment, I am renouncing my own attachment to my life and my home forever. I am working to save all living beings. But in this undisciplined world, my life's practice is reduced to mere entertainment.

The practice and devotion of many Buddhas is directed at the world's betterment and happiness. It is essential, but very difficult, to understand that practice and devotion. But though it is easy to lead this ignorant existence, human beings don't understand that one day we must leave this uncertain world and go with the Lord of Death. Our long attachments with friends and family will dissolve into nothingness. We have to leave behind the wealth and property we have accumulated. What's the use of my happiness, when those who have loved me from the beginning, my mother, father, brothers, relatives are all unhappy? Therefore, to rescue all sentient beings, I have to be Buddha-mind, and emerge from my underground cave to do vajra meditation. To do this I have to realize the right path and knowledge, so do not disturb my practice. My practice detaches me from my body, my soul and this existence. In this situation there will be 72 goddess Kalis. Different gods will be present, along with the sounds of thunder and of "tangur", and all the celestial gods and goddesses will be doing puja (worship). So until I have sent a message, do not come here, and please explain this to others. Spread spiritual knowledge and spiritual messages throughout the world. Spread the message of world peace to all. Seek a righteous path and wisdom will be yours.

I know most of my seven readers are skeptics, but I enjoy this story. It's nice to think that we may not live in a miracle-less, post-prophet age after all.

"No Why"

This is pathetic. I feel bad for these students -- and keep in mind, these students are the "in crowd."

On Pedagogy and Temptation

It's difficult sometimes to overcome the impulse to teach, when what is required is only to teach. Uhhhm, do I need to explain that?

Yesterday, I took a class-full of students outside because their assigned reading was Thoreau's Walden, and it was 74 and sunny. I tossed out one of those general starting questions, "So, what do you think?" And one student pointed out the section where Thoreau talks about clothing. She read aloud:

...if my jacket and trousers, my hat and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do... I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit?

I said, "Well that's Biblical, right?"--and then I did my best to paraphrase Matthew 6:31: "Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' " But my Southern Baptist students weren't so familiar with that verse. Usually, when I say, "That's Biblical, right," they can finish the verse for me. It always makes them comfortable when something reinforces what they know of the Bible. But now they were looking at me with disapproving eyebrows, probably reflecting on their own history of "church clothes."

I said, "Look, think of Thoreau as America's first hippie. That's what he was. He had long hair. He never got old. He grumbled about the government." They laughed and nodded. Then I said, "So, could this kind of dirty-hippie attitude be compatible with Christianity?"

"No." "No." "No," they agreed.

And it's at that moment that I really wanted to teach -- to shove it down their faces that "YES it could be compatible. In FACT, you hypocrites, you snakes, if Christianity is anything it's not worrying about the clothes you wear or how slim your iPod is!"

But I only teach, and thumb to another part of the text, and say aloud, "Hmmm. Okay. Anything else worth examining closely?"

Oops!

In that post below I really wasn't picking on Obama. He's not at fault. I fear any American president would be doing the same thing in kowtowing to China.

But I did stumble upon one fun article that I strongly recommend for Obama's economic-apologists: check it out. It features the following chart, which the Obama economic team produced ten months ago:

So... either, you have to admit that Obama's efforts have made things worse than they would've been without a recovery plan, or you have to seriously distrust the ability of his economic advisors to know their heads from their tails.

China and Tibet: a few closing words

I'm almost ready to stop banging you on the head with Tibet and Buddhism, but because the monks asked me very directly over Saturday brunch to speak to other Americans about it, one more post:

Last night I stayed up to listen to President Obama speak to Chinese students on the first day of his four-day trip to China. The New York Times headline this morning reads, "Obama Pushes Rights With Chinese Students." But then the Times fails to mention that Obama failed to mention Tibet, and only half-heartedly alluded to the problem in almost metaphysical abstractions. I think he might have said something like, "In America, we believe that values like free press, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion are universal values," which is simply too weak when the problem is imposing modern cultural order on a group of traditional nomadic farmers and monks by persecuting (i.e., beating, jailing, executing... executing as recently as last week) those in Tibet who would maintain their religious values and beliefs.

So when, after landing a not-even-glancing blow concerning human rights, Obama got to the real point, I was disappointed:

And as I said, I think the commercial ties that are taking place -- there's something about when people think that they can do business and make money that makes them think very clearly and not worry as much about ideology. And I think that that's starting to happen in this region, and we are very supportive of that process. OK?

I'm not blaming Obama. He's doing what any Roman statesman would do... follow the money. But late last week when one of the visiting monks told one of my classes that he was very disheartened when President Obama became the first American President in forty years to refuse to meet with the Dalai Lama ("scheduling conflict"), I became disheartened with him. The monk said, "If we can't count on Americans to speak Truth, the situation will be terrible." I just don't want us to turn into this:

That image is borrowed from today's Times article by Niall Ferguson and some less-important guy. Read it.

If America is willing to sweep under the rug a persecution similar to its own persecution of Native Americans in the 16th-19th centuries for the sake of better GDP, I fail to see how we can maintain any position of moral authority on an international scale. I won't hold my breath for the kinds of trade restrictions that America imposed on Cuba for half a century, but I think it might be the right thing to do. We're still at a point where China needs us more than we need them -- but I worry that's not for long.

In a related story, China censored part of President Obama's Inauguration Speech back in January. And Amnesty International has no presence in China. And let's don't forget the Uighurs. And after promising to make great strides in human rights if they IOC granted them the 2008 Olympics, China just fucking reneged and lied their way into even worse oppression of "separatists" in Tibet.

Okay, I'm done for now. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Mention it to your students next time the topic of China comes up -- they'll be stunned silent. All they've heard is good press for China over the past seven or eight years.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Wittgenstein

A follow up on my post from the other day:

I was okay with my "History of Ideas" courses (HIST 514 and HIST 515) and with my "Existential Philosophy" course (PHIL 520) and even with parts of my "Theory" courses in graduate school... right up until I was assigned Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, which looked like this:

4.1 Propositions represent the existence and non-existence of states of affairs.
4.11 The totality of true propositions is the whole of natural science (or the whole corpus of the natural sciences).
4.111 Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences. (The word 'philosophy' must mean something whose place is above or below the natural sciences, not beside them.)
4.112 Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.
4.113 Philosophy sets limits to the much disputed sphere of natural science.
4.114 It must set limits to what can be thought; and, in doing so, to what cannot be thought. It must set limits to what cannot be thought by working outwards through what can be thought.
4.115 It will signify what cannot be said, by presenting clearly what can be said.

All of that just seemed too devoid of human feeling to me--too objective. And even as I couldn't read it, I accepted what my teachers and books said: that only Heidegger challenged Wittgenstein in terms of influencing 20th century philosophy and theory. Unfortunately for me, Heidegger seemed only marginally more appealing than Wittgenstein. But trusting my professors, I always felt that there must be "something there," even if I wasn't (yet) able to access it.

...which is why stumbling upon the work of Nāgārjuna is really exciting to me. First, simply because it confirms my suspicion: "we" have gotten nowhere since ancient written history in terms of the complexity or validity of "our" ideas. My repeated complaints that contemporary American academics would do well to broaden their horizons--diminishing the influence of the relatively narrow cross-section of German and French intelligentsia that has dominated "Theory" for three decades--...all my complaints find a little vindication when I discover that Nāgārjuna was saying very similar stuff two-thousand years ago:

48

If mind could grasp form, it would grasp its own own-being. How could a [mind] that does not exist (since it is born from conditions) really conceive absence of form?

49

Since one moment of mind cannot within [the very same] moment grasp a form born (as explained), how could it understand a past and future form?

50

Since color and shape never exist apart, they cannot be conceived apart. Is form not acknowledged to be one?

51

The sense of sight is not inside the eye, not inside form, and not in between. [Therefore] an image depending upon form and eye is false.

52

If the eye does not see itself, how can it see form? Therefore eye and form are without self. The same [is true for the] remaining sense-fields.

...And so on. So anyway, the second thing I'm enjoying about discovering Nāgārjuna is that it's giving me other terms by which I can begin to imagine the "things-themselves" that he and Heidegger and Wittgenstein and others have always been talking about. What I believe they have always been talking about is essentially unspeakable, and must therefore be imagined beyond language. And it is immensely difficult to imagine beyond language, especially, I think, for a person who is fluent in only one language. If two thinkers two thousand years and dozens of cultures apart can use twelve or fifteen completely different words to plant the same "thought-stuff" in my mind, then I can hesitate, and dilate, in that space between. So it is through Nāgārjuna that I am beginning to appreciate Wittgenstein and others who have eluded me for so long.

Now I begin to see that the best of all thinkers have always taught the same. Nāgārjuna teaches it as well as any before or after him:

But to the Bodhisattvas [the Buddha], the best among those who walk on two legs, has always taught this doctrine about the skandhas: "Form is like a mass of foam, feeling is like bubbles, apprehension is like a mirage, karma-formations are like the plantain, and consciousness is like an illusion."

And so like Plato's dialectic, like Buddha's teaching, like Jesus' parables, and like Wittgenstein, Nāgārjuna teaches that what he teaches is only a raft, a ladder, a means to an end that does not include the raft or ladder or end itself. I am not surprised to find that my summarizing-textbooks have always taken the mysticism out of Wittgenstein; but now I have discovered it for myself, right there, very explicitly, near the end. Wittgenstein writes, "6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical." And then concludes, "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence."

I guess that means I should shuttup now?

How Government Runs Business (and do NOT argue with me about this)

TIMELINE:

November 5th: G.S.P. goes to the local post office with a manila envelope that was carefully addressed to a major university. She is applying for a job. The application deadline is November 15th. She gets priority mail, and a tracking sticker, because the job is important to her.

November 10th. G.S.P. goes back the same post office and tells them the tracking sticker says the package has not arrived yet. They say, precisely, "It must have gotten lost." She gives them another package, paying again for priority mail and a tracking sticker.

November 13th. G.S.P. goes back to the same post office and tells them that the tracking sticker shows the package has not arrived yet at its destination (which is less than 200 miles from here). They say, precisely, "Hm. Well, they scan it in when it arrives at the post office where you're sending it. So I guess it hasn't arrived yet." G.S.P. says, "This was time-sensitive material, which is why I started trying to send it on November 5th." Very precisely, the postal worker shrugs, indicating not only that he cannot imagine that G.S.P. might accuse him of being irresponsible, but also demonstrating that he seems unable to fathom that anyone could possibly be accountable.

November 14th. G.S.P. goes back to the post office: "The sticker still says the second package has not arrived. It is Saturday. The deadline is tomorrow. My materials will not be there on time for a job I really would've liked." I tell her to ask them whether they think she should send another package from there, or just drive it the 200 miles to its destination herself. She is too polite. She drives across town to another post office and pays $25.00 to "overnight" a package, which will arrive one day late (at best), at its destination.

Without so much as an apology.

Logic and Logic and Logic's End

The monks I've been hanging out with this week told me that their monastery focuses on the study and interpretation of ancient and modern Buddhist logic and syllogisms. Honestly, I was surprised to learn that there was such a thing. I guess I have/had so swallowed the idea that I've inherited from Greek logic that Logic is universal that I was surprised to discover that there is another logic tradition.

Evidently, Buddhist logic is based on grammar, whereas Greek/Western logic is based on mathematical understanding. So I checked out a book they recommended to me from my library to get started: Master of Wisdom: Writings of the Buddhist Master Nāgārjuna. From what I can tell, Nāgārjuna is sort of the Plato of Buddhist logic. He's early second-century A.D.

Here's my favorite verse so far:

'Is' and 'is not' and also 'is-is not' have been stated by the Buddhas for a purpose. It is not easy to understand!

Of course, I don't understand it in one day. Nevertheless, I am reminded of what I believe to be the most overlooked section of Plato's Republic, a section I have quoted more than once:

And so, Glaucon, I said, we have at last arrived at the hymn of dialectic. This is that strain which is of the intellect only, but which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to imitate; for sight, as you may remember, was imagined by us after a while to behold the real animals and stars, and last of all the sun himself. And so with dialectic; when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible.

The point here is that the dialectic -- the process known as "the dialectic" -- is not an end in itself. One who practices that way is destined to become, well, an "insignificant wrangler." The dialectic is designed to bring practitioners to a very particular moment of... whatever: realization, or enlightenment, or awakening, whatever. The master dialectician simply encourages his students to continue practicing dialectic until that insight comes, until the student arrives at the hymn.

I wonder if Nāgārjuna's teachings are similarly directed. If they are, the ends might be similar or even the same... apparently both disciplines have a very distinct purpose, however difficult (even impossible) it is to describe that purpose to the novice.

---

Follow Up: So, how does the rhetorician of contemporary academia decide that he or she believes there is no end to rhetoric? If I say "practice lifting weights until you can bench press three hundred pounds," and you say, "I could never do that, so I will not practice," aren't you missing something? Especially if I tell you that I thought I couldn't do it when I started, but now I can?

Not Ideas but the Things Themselves

I've been reading Sri Swami Satchidananda's commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds -- but I wish it didn't. I wish we were serious enough about postmodernism and fragmented epistemologies and so on to take seriously the notion that something written long ago might be truer and more resonant than something written after World War II.

Here's the one sutra I'm working on this week:

By cultivating friendliness towards happiness and compassion towards misery, gladness towards virtue and indifference towards vice, the mind becomes pure.

Satchidananda says that if we forget everything else from the sutras of Patanjali, we should remember this sutra. He says there are only these four locks even as you are presented with the only four keys you'll need. When you meet a person who is virtuous, be glad! When you encounter misery, be compassionate! -- and so on. And that's it! Isn't that "tight?"

This Wednesday

Looks like we've discovered and processed all of the gold there is. I can't think of a better use for it than building a GIANT gold pyramid with all of the world's gold. We could put it in Nebraska. It's not backing money anymore anyway, so why not make something awesome of it? The idea that we have collected almost all of the gold on the planet seems to beg for interpretation -- seems to reveal what our purpose has been all along. Why not put the crown on our achievement?

I had lunch with some Tibetan monks today, so I can't take anything seriously, least of all this blog.

A giant gold pyramid might be so dense that it throws the earth's rotation out of whack by creating an imbalance. Awesome.

Question to my Generation?

We're not really gonna do this for the next 40 years, are we?--The desks, computers, proposals, reports, committees, etc.?

Sympathy for the Devil & Co.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Something incredible happens in this parable, and I'd really like to be able to explain it to myself. I tried with my sophomores today (remember, I teach at a historically Baptist school). I had them read it, and then I said, "Who are you in this scenario--how do you enter it as a reader?"

One who was confident in her own reading abilities raised her hand and said, "As the tax collector."

"Why?"

"Because I recognize that I'm imperfect, that I've sinned."

"So you... sympathize... with... the tax collector," I muttered, and then I was lost. I had lost direction. I couldn't even imagine my own purpose for the exercise. Then finally I pulled it together and said, "Okay, so you read this as though you were the tax-collector. How would one who is like a Pharisee have read this parable?"

"They wouldn't have liked it," one student ventured, fishing as if he was trying to tell me what he thought I wanted to hear.

------

Something incredible is happening in this parable. My thought is ill-formed. But I know I'm... I was going to say, "I know I'm right. I'm confident of my own reading ability and I feel that I'm a better reader than others."

So, if I do claim to understand the purpose of the parable, I make that claim over those who admit that they do not understand it. In making that claim, am I not taking on the role of the Pharisee? But to understand the parable, I must understand that the better of the two characters is the tax collector. I must understand that I'm a sinner to read the parable. To even make it through reading the parable. There's no getting out of this parable. Not for me.

Something incredible is currently happening in this parable.

Is it possible to enter this parable as the Pharisee? Is it even possible for the Pharisee to read this parable? What is required of the Pharisee who recognizes that the tax collector is his superior? Doesn't he say, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." What is required of the reader who realizes that he is confident that he understands what he reads? Isn't the truth that when a person who is exactly like a Pharisee is confronted with this parable, he will simply enter the parable as the tax-collector? Isn't that what my student did: "One who was confident in her reading abilities?"

I'm stuck in this parable. I don't know how to exit this parable. I suspect that if I could figure out a way to teach it effectively -- to put someone else in its grip -- I might be able to escape this parable.

The Purpose of College

Heard this on a local conservative talk-radio program the other day:

I have had a good deal to do with young men in my time, and I have formed an impression of them which I believe to be contrary to the general impression. They are generally thought to be arch radicals. As a matter of fact, they are the most conservative people I have ever dealt with. Go to a college community and try to change the least custom of that little world and find how the conservatives will rush at you. Moreover, young men are embarrassed by having inherited their father’s opinions. I have often said that the use of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible. I do not say that with the least disrespect for the fathers; but every man who is old enough to have a son in college is old enough to have become very seriously immersed in some particular business and is almost certain to have caught the point of view of that particular business. And it is very useful to his son to be taken out of that narrow circle, conducted to some high place where he may see the general map of the world and of the interests of mankind, and there shown how big the world is and how much of it his father may happen to have forgotten. It would be worth while for men, middle-aged and old, to detach them selves more frequently from the things that command their daily attention and to think of the sweeping tides of humanity. --President Woodrow Wilson, October 24, 1914

I love that. The host of the radio-show hated it.

With Apologies for Length, a Serious Question

The Question

A friend who supports the rights of gay and lesbian couples to marry recently commented on Facebook:

"when will America realize that majority vote should not be applied to human rights issues? I seriously doubt interracial marriage would have passed in 1960s if it was put to referendum..."

In so many words, I replied that something about his making the issue a moral issue gave me pause -- after all, it was the emphasis on subjective epistemology that brought homosexuality into the semi-mainstream and out of cultural closet. It's easy to forget, but when MTV featured an openly gay man on "Real World" in (what was that, 1990?) it's first season, people were a little uncomfortable. Nowadays, no sitcom is complete without a gay sidekick, however minstrely he seems.

Anyway, my point was, postmodernism's emphasis on subjective ethics is what gave homosexuality a place in culture. But my friend's appeal relied not on subjective ethics but on an appeal that was idealist (almost objectivist) in nature. My friend was not content to rely on the demos to determine what-Justice-is. He was saying, in effect, "Let me be who I am; but stop being who you are (a bigot)."

The (Related) Digression

With another friend, simultaneously, I've been considering definitions and diagnoses within contemporary psychology/psychiatry. With apologies again for tediousness and length, I'm going to quote an excerpt from my dissertation to disclose my angle & interest in the topic (in blue) :

As Geoffrey Sanborn has demonstrated, Melville was deeply engaged with the problem of the middle space between sanity and insanity at the time he was composing [Moby-Dick]. Through scrupulous archival research, Sanborn proves that Melville read an 1823 article by Sir Francis Palgrave, and that Palgrave’s article was the source for the famous marginalia comments discovered in Melville’s Shakespeare set by Charles Olson in 1933-34. Sanborn quotes from the original Palgrave essay:

In considering the actions of the mind, it should never be forgotten, that its affections pass into each other like the tints of the rainbow: though we can easily distinguish them when they have assumed a decided colour, yet we can never determine where each hue begins…. Madness is almost undefinable. Right reason and insanity are merely the extreme terms of a series of mental action, which need not be very long. (Sanborn’s italics 219)

In his scribbling at the back of the 7th volume of Shakespeare, Melville dropped the “almost” and wrote: “Madness is undefinable” (Sanborn 212).

But Palgrave’s definitions were not uncontested in the first half of the 19th century; in fact, according to Paul McCarthy, most professional psychiatrists were comfortable enough with the term “insane” that they began defining and investigating sub-categories—most interestingly, “moral insanity” (16). In his book The Twisted Mind, McCarthy describes moral insanity has “a mental disease which affects primarily the emotions and may affect the cognitive faculties.” Symptoms include “absence or diminution of feelings to pronounced displays of hatred, fear, or melancholy” (15). As further evidence of Melville’s better-than-superficial familiarity with the contested terminology of his day, McCarthy summarizes the famous 1844 trial of Abner Rogers, a case presided over by Melville’s father-in-law, Judge Lemuel Shaw (52-53). McCarthy reports that Abner Rogers killed the asylum warden at the Massachusetts State Prison while “suffering from delusions and because, in addition, he was driven to commit the crime by ‘an uncontrollable impulse to do violence’” (53). According to the defense, McCarthy writes, “Rogers claimed that he had heard voices stating that the warden would kill him. He therefore acted to protect himself” (52). The verdict would be largely dependent upon Judge Shaw’s definition of two key concepts: insanity and monomania.

If you know me, you'll sense where I'm going with this...

The Synthesis-Question

The concept of "Moral Insanity" is a concept that could not exist within a postmodern schema--this is why behavior like homosexuality, which would very likely have been diagnosed as "moral insanity" in the past, is now considered not a disorder at all. It was the rise of modernism and subjectivism that ended the Victorian era, right?

What I want to know--and this time I mean it!--is what is our epistemological foundation!? Stop jerking me around. Do we believe in transcendent and eternal Justice, or do we believe there is nothing beyond consensus view? And if you insist on having it both ways (as, apparently, most academics do), please explain how you know when to rely on subjective epistemology as opposed to objective epistemology.

The person who is inconsistent in his ideas must either account for his inconsistency or be content to be far less persuasive. When I meet a person who speaks about fragmented and subjective "rhizomatic" ethics when it comes to things like the Ten Commandments, but who speaks about "human rights" idealistically on other matters, I presume that either A) they are unaware of their inconsistent reasoning or B) they are "simply" self-interested subjectivists using the language of objective Rights and Justice to bring about the change they desire to see.

So it was a turn to subjective ethics that led to a revaluation of homosexuality, but now it must be a return back to objective ethics that leads to an understanding that considers gay marriage within a context of human rights. How do we know what is right? Do we let individuals decide?--or do we need to bring the Philosopher Kings back?