Saturday, June 20, 2009
Mullah May I
Interesting that the Supreme Leader is asserting his entitlement to absolute control while claiming the OUTCOME (most likely bad) is his enemy's responsibility. There's always that paradoxical aspect to power and control. I'm convinced the most powerful strategy is to shun attachment to power. That takes patience in a world where "powerful" people are admired and rewarded, and have to hide their doubts and flaws.
Power has always been derived from grassroots, distributed cultural processes. It is only the king who remains unaware of his dependency on systems outside his control. The crowd keeps the king in the dark long enough to see if he does anything to justify his existence, and if he fails the test, the mechanisms of culture unravel the king's power even as he cracks down in his need to display it, to make it fact. Facts exist within networks of relationships and cannot be manufactured at will, even if the outward semblance of factual power can be maintained for a while through the theatrical use of fear.
One nice new fact of technology: digital cameras don't distinguish between the abuses of government and the abuses of revolutionary militias -- violence is allowed to be UGLY in its sensory form, as opposed to the disembodied language of political sacrifice which easily dismisses cruelty as necessary treatment for "lawbreakers". Maybe with that kind of impartial presentation of events, humanity will start to realize that "evil" people are trapped in bad systems that eventually cave in upon them, more tragic than terrifying. It's only the theatrical use of power, harming flesh-and-blood human beings, that is terrible. Individuals use systems of power to feel important and secure, and it's only a matter of degree whether we're talking about Rush Limbaugh's dismissal of the suffering of detainees at Abu Ghraib, or the Supreme Leader's denial of the legitimacy of civilian protests. Either way, someone's pain is papered over by words, and souls inherently capable of redemption and rebirth become trapped in labels, turned into instruments of some other will.
One nice new fact of technology: digital cameras don't distinguish between the abuses of government and the abuses of revolutionary militias -- violence is allowed to be UGLY in its sensory form, as opposed to the disembodied language of political sacrifice which easily dismisses cruelty as necessary treatment for "lawbreakers". Maybe with that kind of impartial presentation of events, humanity will start to realize that "evil" people are trapped in bad systems that eventually cave in upon them, more tragic than terrifying. It's only the theatrical use of power, harming flesh-and-blood human beings, that is terrible. Individuals use systems of power to feel important and secure, and it's only a matter of degree whether we're talking about Rush Limbaugh's dismissal of the suffering of detainees at Abu Ghraib, or the Supreme Leader's denial of the legitimacy of civilian protests. Either way, someone's pain is papered over by words, and souls inherently capable of redemption and rebirth become trapped in labels, turned into instruments of some other will.
Why Obama isn't Reagan
When Reagan made his Berlin Wall speech, everything that followed was a fait accompli -- not because of the drama of his speech, but because of all the work that had been done prior to that point, most of it not done by the US but by many factors orchestrating a perfect storm of freedom. Republicans seem to admire the Great Man who takes a stand, but without much understanding of how one must work with surrounding circumstances and not attempt to push the river of history uphill by force. To make a Great Man, things have to line up just right, and it's only marginally a matter of individual will. Bush acted Reaganesque, without the preparation or historical momentum to make the Great Plan work out. Obama isn't that blind, that I can see.
Worshipping the Great Man is a strange mistake for Christians to make, given that Christianity is a transcendent religion that provides no support to the Great Man theory. Nobody is great, that was the point of Christ's denunciation of hypocritical religious power. When the stoning mob was about to devoutly stone an adulteress to death, Jesus stepped in and used the best line ever from the field of revolutionary judo: "Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone." Anyone arrogant enough to take a throw would immediately single himself out, and his peers would know well from the grapevine that he was no saint. That kind of statement levels the usual power disparity between the well-connected and the isolated -- the anonymity of the jury pool is eliminated by the fact that *someone* has to be the first to throw, and instead of legitimizing the cruelty of the second and third throwers, the first stands alone and is judged by his own judgment. Note how this works before any stones are thrown at all -- the woman is saved from a horrible death at the hands of an arrogant, judgmental mob acting in God's name. The stoning mob is not punished, in part because they represent the law and it would be difficult to hold them accountable in such a system, but also because the intervention WORKS. It has power in the moment that matters to change the course of events and disrupt a contagiously oppressive mindset of unaccountable judgment.
I don't know how one would create a similar dynamic to stop gangs of self-righteous biker-priests. But the principle must be useful somehow.
Worshipping the Great Man is a strange mistake for Christians to make, given that Christianity is a transcendent religion that provides no support to the Great Man theory. Nobody is great, that was the point of Christ's denunciation of hypocritical religious power. When the stoning mob was about to devoutly stone an adulteress to death, Jesus stepped in and used the best line ever from the field of revolutionary judo: "Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone." Anyone arrogant enough to take a throw would immediately single himself out, and his peers would know well from the grapevine that he was no saint. That kind of statement levels the usual power disparity between the well-connected and the isolated -- the anonymity of the jury pool is eliminated by the fact that *someone* has to be the first to throw, and instead of legitimizing the cruelty of the second and third throwers, the first stands alone and is judged by his own judgment. Note how this works before any stones are thrown at all -- the woman is saved from a horrible death at the hands of an arrogant, judgmental mob acting in God's name. The stoning mob is not punished, in part because they represent the law and it would be difficult to hold them accountable in such a system, but also because the intervention WORKS. It has power in the moment that matters to change the course of events and disrupt a contagiously oppressive mindset of unaccountable judgment.
I don't know how one would create a similar dynamic to stop gangs of self-righteous biker-priests. But the principle must be useful somehow.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Apocalyptic fits
It's disturbing but possibly informative that millions of American Conservative Christians (note the placement of Christian AFTER Conservative, in contrast to their moderate and progressive counterparts) believe that any nation that protects Israel against the Arab and/or Russian hordes predicted to attack Israel in the End Times will be immune from prosecution, so to speak, when God's judgment swamps the world, and particularly the Middle East, with blood.
And yet, the Bible doesn't mention America by name. Will America be protected by God's warm, faithful blankie of non-wrath, or abandoned to face the famines, the plagues, the locusts, and the righteous, final genocidal ass-kicking by the Lamb of Vengeance, aka Jesus in his "manly" incarnation -- in contrast to the wimpy martyr who preached loving one's enemies as a pathway to heaven. This lamb is angry, not only because of rampant pork-eating on the Sabbath (although that would anger ME if I were a lamb) but because of homosexuality, drug use, promiscuity and disrespect for the flag. This lamb would make a biker-gangster feel guilty about setting a bad example. Bikers rarely kill lots of people all at once. They might have a few bodies in their basement along with the unused band gear and porn. But Apocalypse is mega-porn, a cosmic bloodbath of such epic proportions it's strangely disappointing that nobody has made a movie of it with decent CGI graphics and awesome, simply awesome three-dimensionally animated locusts with human faces and long hair like women. It's like you're THERE!
I'm done imagining the movie. Wow. So anyway, millions of Christians believe literally in this stuff, and by all appearances, there is great fear that America will sell out Israel just when it needs us most. And that would anger God, and so on, and before you know it, you're surrounded by painful (but not deadly) man-faced locusts who for some reason aren't stinging the gay couple across the street with the sign of the Antichrist in their foreheads or hands. Since they don't wear hats, you assume it's on their hands... you grasp your shotgun for comfort, and you know you're ready to be raptured or recruited for holy combat, one or the other.
And that means, Obama has a lot of very zealous souls to affect on the heart-and-mind level before they find some way to derail America's exponential descent into godless, amoral hedonism and even-handedness in matters of conflict. Can he do it? I suspect that depends a lot on you and me. Or God. I hope God is the good guy in all this, if he/she/them/it/us is there and is paying enough attention to Tweet CNN with some good ideas.
And yet, the Bible doesn't mention America by name. Will America be protected by God's warm, faithful blankie of non-wrath, or abandoned to face the famines, the plagues, the locusts, and the righteous, final genocidal ass-kicking by the Lamb of Vengeance, aka Jesus in his "manly" incarnation -- in contrast to the wimpy martyr who preached loving one's enemies as a pathway to heaven. This lamb is angry, not only because of rampant pork-eating on the Sabbath (although that would anger ME if I were a lamb) but because of homosexuality, drug use, promiscuity and disrespect for the flag. This lamb would make a biker-gangster feel guilty about setting a bad example. Bikers rarely kill lots of people all at once. They might have a few bodies in their basement along with the unused band gear and porn. But Apocalypse is mega-porn, a cosmic bloodbath of such epic proportions it's strangely disappointing that nobody has made a movie of it with decent CGI graphics and awesome, simply awesome three-dimensionally animated locusts with human faces and long hair like women. It's like you're THERE!
I'm done imagining the movie. Wow. So anyway, millions of Christians believe literally in this stuff, and by all appearances, there is great fear that America will sell out Israel just when it needs us most. And that would anger God, and so on, and before you know it, you're surrounded by painful (but not deadly) man-faced locusts who for some reason aren't stinging the gay couple across the street with the sign of the Antichrist in their foreheads or hands. Since they don't wear hats, you assume it's on their hands... you grasp your shotgun for comfort, and you know you're ready to be raptured or recruited for holy combat, one or the other.
And that means, Obama has a lot of very zealous souls to affect on the heart-and-mind level before they find some way to derail America's exponential descent into godless, amoral hedonism and even-handedness in matters of conflict. Can he do it? I suspect that depends a lot on you and me. Or God. I hope God is the good guy in all this, if he/she/them/it/us is there and is paying enough attention to Tweet CNN with some good ideas.
Obama pressured to posture on Iran
Why would anyone demand that Obama make a dramatic public denunciation of the Iranian regime, without first having plans for the safety of reformers and for the making and keeping of credible threats should posturing fail?
Maybe Republicans are more about posturing than credibility. That would explain quite a bit.
Maybe Republicans are more about posturing than credibility. That would explain quite a bit.
Friday, June 12, 2009
I must gleefully apologize to my reader/s for the inconsistent logic displayed in my previous post: obviously, if straight women flee an anti-abortion state, there will be a surplus of straight men, at least long enough to attract some of the anti-abortion women from neighboring states who want to avoid competing for men with the (obviously slutty and very liberal) wave of female immigrants. That's a simple population swap, like trading Texans for Mexicans, breaking about even.
The part about teenage girls potentially getting the death penalty in America is accurate, though. Go Sotomayor!
The part about teenage girls potentially getting the death penalty in America is accurate, though. Go Sotomayor!
Axiomatic reasoning and culure wars
I can't say the anti-choice movement is starting from a false axiom. How can I prove that killing a fetus isn't the same as killing a newborn? How can I prove that my own solution, taking into account the requirement of a functioning nervous system to feel pain, is correct? If one believes the nervous system isn't the hardware of the soul, they're starting from a different axiom, one difficult if not impossible to improve. Moreover, my own standard forces me to acknowledge that animals feel pain, including the cow-and-a-half or so I eat every year or so in Jumbo Jacks. Logic isn't going to get me anywhere in this debate. But perhaps my own human fallibility might:
What other axioms lead people to violate their own standard, with only a small likelihood of changing behavior to match the standard? (I probably won't stop eating hamburgers until I have my first, or maybe second bypass. I am, under my own axiom, a murderer of cows, a taker of life.)
What happens if the axiom, "Abortion is murder" is carried out in reality? Let's overturn Roe vs. Wade briefly and ask what changes would follow in the wake of criminalizing abortion (as murder, lest we appear soft on crime just because the perpetrator is a woman and the assassin holds a medical degree):
1. Rapid exodus of women from states that ban abortion. A woman has little reason to move to a state that has banned abortion, even if she agrees with it. We like to retain choice, we humans, and even if giving it up would make a good symbolic statement, we generally don't go that far in support of a cause. Rapid outflow of women means rapid outflow of heterosexual men (then gay marriage will HAVE to be banned, just to keep the population balanced -- Alabama doesn't want to be left with a bunch of gays in the jury pool empathizing with the accused because her shoes are fabulous).
2. Some states have the death penalty. Some have the death penalty for people under 18. Unless abortion is defined as SOMETHING OTHER THAN MURDER, there would eventually be the well-publicized (global and national) case of a thirteen-year-old girl, her parents and her doctor all implicated in abortion-murder, with at least the main offenders (the girl, who ordered the "hit" and the doctor who carried out with "cold-blooded efficiency") being exposed to the death penalty. She's tried as a juvenile (imagine how it would look if the country that condemned the Taliban to slow death for cruelty to women executed a teenage girl, rape or no rape, as if she were an adult) and has until she's 18 to ponder her evil act in detention. The doctor is, of course, executed, with appropriate cheering and waving of signs on the lawn outside the prison. The family gets time as accessories. Pretty ugly. Of course, it could be worse -- she could be fifteen and be tried as an adult. As in Afghanistan, when law loses its heart, culture crumbles to the ground as all the professionals, intellectuals, artists, gays (and their gay money, which no one refuses) flee an environment of cold repression and vindictive justice. Axioms are heartless -- you can be right (or at least no one can prove you wrong) about the axiom, and wrong in the conclusion, even if the logic is a flawless straight line... to insanity.
3. The law would almost immediately be adjusted so that abortion isn't defined as murder in the first degree (implying the woman isn't of sound enough mind to plan the abortion -- so how did she schedule it ahead of time?) but something more like manslaughter, some kind of reckless accident, like stabbing someone with scissors while skipping around a playground on LSD. The girl gets a lighter sentence (more signs and vocal displays by people who think she got off too easy) and the doctor is either given death or significant prison time. This means, not only are a lot of tax dollars now being used to inflict unnecessary suffering on women, their doctors, families, careers and whatnot, but the law is no longer reflecting the moral sentiment that created it! This is typical of axiomatic systems driven by punitive males: logic becomes so perfect, so absolutely right and unassailable, that actions spin out beyond the limits pluralistic culture can handle. If my logic is unquestionable and my axioms irrefutable, how can my actions be subject to restraint by civil authorities? Who has the authority to punish those who punish those whom God himself has condemned? Depends on whether the one who speaks for God also acts as his executioner, or eggs on the stoning mob when it finds a fresh victim who "should have known better".
If we can agree that abortion is different from murder, different from most crimes that involve victims (I'm certainly not afraid she'll abort ME if she goes free) and different from crime in general, in that there is no malice toward the embryonic victim, no intent to do harm, and no agreement in our culture on when human life begins. Taking axioms too far, even if they make absolute, perfect sense and the logic seems pure as the aroma of piety emanating from pro-punishment prophets of divine judgment, produces chaos in cultures that depend on freedom, differences of opinion and creative ways of channeling them into activities other than violence. When we present axioms as absolute and opposed, the mentally unbalanced can easily fall under the sway of the logic and rightness of them, and act them out in ways that undermine democracy as well as reason. We can be right, without having to witness the horrific consequences of being right with power. Just give up the power to punish, and let God judge, while showing compassion for people you believe are making the wrong decisions. Punishment is the kind of power people can't help but abuse, however right it feels to oppress a wrongdoer in the name of righteousness.
Besides, imagine late-night comedians around the globe, commenting on the trial of a fertility clinic worker, drunk on the late shift, who dropped a tray of fertilized embryos, killing them horribly. Imagine the funerals (gotta have funerals if they've been murdered). Imagine the offender's family, explaining that he feels terribly remorseful and realizes how much harm he's done to the lives of his victims, who will never again have the privelege of being selected for implantation, or kept frozen in meditative limbo, waiting for his or her turn at freedom.
Also, do identical twins share a soul?
What other axioms lead people to violate their own standard, with only a small likelihood of changing behavior to match the standard? (I probably won't stop eating hamburgers until I have my first, or maybe second bypass. I am, under my own axiom, a murderer of cows, a taker of life.)
What happens if the axiom, "Abortion is murder" is carried out in reality? Let's overturn Roe vs. Wade briefly and ask what changes would follow in the wake of criminalizing abortion (as murder, lest we appear soft on crime just because the perpetrator is a woman and the assassin holds a medical degree):
1. Rapid exodus of women from states that ban abortion. A woman has little reason to move to a state that has banned abortion, even if she agrees with it. We like to retain choice, we humans, and even if giving it up would make a good symbolic statement, we generally don't go that far in support of a cause. Rapid outflow of women means rapid outflow of heterosexual men (then gay marriage will HAVE to be banned, just to keep the population balanced -- Alabama doesn't want to be left with a bunch of gays in the jury pool empathizing with the accused because her shoes are fabulous).
2. Some states have the death penalty. Some have the death penalty for people under 18. Unless abortion is defined as SOMETHING OTHER THAN MURDER, there would eventually be the well-publicized (global and national) case of a thirteen-year-old girl, her parents and her doctor all implicated in abortion-murder, with at least the main offenders (the girl, who ordered the "hit" and the doctor who carried out with "cold-blooded efficiency") being exposed to the death penalty. She's tried as a juvenile (imagine how it would look if the country that condemned the Taliban to slow death for cruelty to women executed a teenage girl, rape or no rape, as if she were an adult) and has until she's 18 to ponder her evil act in detention. The doctor is, of course, executed, with appropriate cheering and waving of signs on the lawn outside the prison. The family gets time as accessories. Pretty ugly. Of course, it could be worse -- she could be fifteen and be tried as an adult. As in Afghanistan, when law loses its heart, culture crumbles to the ground as all the professionals, intellectuals, artists, gays (and their gay money, which no one refuses) flee an environment of cold repression and vindictive justice. Axioms are heartless -- you can be right (or at least no one can prove you wrong) about the axiom, and wrong in the conclusion, even if the logic is a flawless straight line... to insanity.
3. The law would almost immediately be adjusted so that abortion isn't defined as murder in the first degree (implying the woman isn't of sound enough mind to plan the abortion -- so how did she schedule it ahead of time?) but something more like manslaughter, some kind of reckless accident, like stabbing someone with scissors while skipping around a playground on LSD. The girl gets a lighter sentence (more signs and vocal displays by people who think she got off too easy) and the doctor is either given death or significant prison time. This means, not only are a lot of tax dollars now being used to inflict unnecessary suffering on women, their doctors, families, careers and whatnot, but the law is no longer reflecting the moral sentiment that created it! This is typical of axiomatic systems driven by punitive males: logic becomes so perfect, so absolutely right and unassailable, that actions spin out beyond the limits pluralistic culture can handle. If my logic is unquestionable and my axioms irrefutable, how can my actions be subject to restraint by civil authorities? Who has the authority to punish those who punish those whom God himself has condemned? Depends on whether the one who speaks for God also acts as his executioner, or eggs on the stoning mob when it finds a fresh victim who "should have known better".
If we can agree that abortion is different from murder, different from most crimes that involve victims (I'm certainly not afraid she'll abort ME if she goes free) and different from crime in general, in that there is no malice toward the embryonic victim, no intent to do harm, and no agreement in our culture on when human life begins. Taking axioms too far, even if they make absolute, perfect sense and the logic seems pure as the aroma of piety emanating from pro-punishment prophets of divine judgment, produces chaos in cultures that depend on freedom, differences of opinion and creative ways of channeling them into activities other than violence. When we present axioms as absolute and opposed, the mentally unbalanced can easily fall under the sway of the logic and rightness of them, and act them out in ways that undermine democracy as well as reason. We can be right, without having to witness the horrific consequences of being right with power. Just give up the power to punish, and let God judge, while showing compassion for people you believe are making the wrong decisions. Punishment is the kind of power people can't help but abuse, however right it feels to oppress a wrongdoer in the name of righteousness.
Besides, imagine late-night comedians around the globe, commenting on the trial of a fertility clinic worker, drunk on the late shift, who dropped a tray of fertilized embryos, killing them horribly. Imagine the funerals (gotta have funerals if they've been murdered). Imagine the offender's family, explaining that he feels terribly remorseful and realizes how much harm he's done to the lives of his victims, who will never again have the privelege of being selected for implantation, or kept frozen in meditative limbo, waiting for his or her turn at freedom.
Also, do identical twins share a soul?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
