Some thoughts on identity

Whoa, you may say: if the title is any representation of the content of this current post, Tom is making quite the haughty re-entry into the blogosphere. My response would be to settle down, and not get your hopes up - merely some thoughts that I jotted down whilst procrastinating from reading Bonhoeffer's Ethics last Sunday, which Luke Hill and I are currently moseying through. Clearly, I haven't been that motivated to write down anything creative lately, so a digitized version of some scatterbrained thoughts will have to do. I'm not entirely sure why my thoughts turned to the idea of identity at the time -Dietrich must have written something to spur on the segue. I feel as if my conceptualization of an "economy of identities" has its roots partly in a conversation I had with Luke earlier this year, well represented by his subsequent blog post; however, for the most part, the following content has no distinguishable origin other than as a confluence of random thoughts. Anyways, here goes:

"It is in the economy of identities that we become defined by our aptitudes, proficiencies, and powers. In this economy, "we are what we are good at," whether it be sports, relationships, or cooking. Personally, I feel as if I constantly find identity in my perceived capacity for knowledge, as well as my ability to communicate that knowledge.

I believe this inclination - to define ourselves by what we are good at - originates in a number of sources. For the sake of simplicity, I'm only going to cover the two that immediately struck me as applicable in my own context. The first sources is purely worldly and rational: it is capitalism. A spate of unabashedly Marxist analysis has led me to the conclusion that we're raised with the constant assurance that we're "special" in some particular way, that we're especially "good" at something - able to contribute to society in some "unique" fashion. While this type of affirmation, during early childhood, may be solely meant to add some character to an otherwise blank slate, by the teen years it has the primary intention of forging us into the particular cog that benefits society as a whole. As our molten identities harden, they become more and more rigidly defined; we are not developed into malleable substances, but of hard, brittle material. When this metaphorical casting process ends, the ability of our identities to evolve further is severely limited; indeed, the only alternative to remaining in a hardened state is crumbling - total brokenness.

This first source - capitalism - is close to universally applicable. Most countries have adopted the Western capital-driven economic model to some extent, and one gets the feeling that those that haven't are only stalling. The second source I'd like to highlight applies to a narrower (but not too narrow) sub-group: Christians. It is particularly relevant to those Christians convicted of the paramountcy of God's Word as revealed in the Scriptures. My experience growing up in an evangelical, somewhat "fundamentalist" atmosphere nurtured within me a belief that each individual is endowed with a unique "spiritual gift," which, accordingly, could be utilized in performing certain applicable acts of service within the community of the Church. Common interpretations of passages such as Ephesians 4:7-16 can cause the adherent to identify solely with his perceived strengths; in this way, interpretations of these "spiritual gifts" can play a similar role in personal and extra-personal perception as notions of specialization within capitalist systems. Believers are subjected to a refining process (e.g. "discipleship") in which they are tempered to perform a certain set of tasks, usually in pursuit of an ultimate "mission." In this sense, their perceived possession of such gifts becomes central to their identities not only as Christians, but also as people in general (exasperated by the fact that many evangelical Christians confine themselves almost exclusively to their church community).

The alternatives to the first "source" - capitalism - are notably scarce. As previously stated, most human cultures are careening full-speed ahead towards specialization-based economies, if they aren't there already. And even if systems such as socialism became ubiquitous, increased agency and determinism on the part of the state would have very similar effects on the "designations" of people, ala Huxley's Brave New World.

On the other hand, Christian spirituality offers an alternative to the "dictatorship of spiritual gifts" previously described. Prior to the passage previously referenced is a preface - Ephesians 4:1-6 - which proclaims the united identity we have with God and the Church. It is in this encounter with God, who is "above all and through all, and in [us] all," that we are meant to be defined.

A lack of realization of the identity in Christ achieved through acknowledgement of unity with Him, leads to the omnipresence of fear within the human mind. Fears of death, ostracization, and irrelevance abound. The "brokenness" I referred to earlier - not to be mistaken for the meek, humble brokenness touted in the Gospel message - represents the crumbling of confidence temporarily "propped up" by an assigned identity. Whether one attaches his identity to the expectations of a "market" community or a "spiritual" community, he always runs the risk of being overcome with the fear of failing to meet those expectations. This fear, in turn, prevents him from seeking out the power offered to him by God, which is often embodied in authentic, genuine encounters with others. Depression, anxiety, and addiction, I think, are all possible consequences of this disconnect."

Hopefully, you were able to get past some of the hyperbolic/exaggerative phraseology used in this piece (I'm especially proud of "dictatorship of spiritual gifts"). Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after a stimulating service at Priory Park Baptist, I was perhaps a bit over-enthusiastic when I wrote it; although I could have more thoroughly edited it this time around, I wanted to fully capture the no-holds-barred charm of the rough copy. Further thoughts to follow - as usual, comments are appreciated!

Powerlessness

To say it's currently raining outside would be an understatement: in actuality, it's totally cats and dogs. Although I'm rather enjoying the current episode, there's something about extreme weather conditions that generally makes me feel vulnerable. It's as if I suddenly come to the realization that the elements - whether downpours, thunder, or tornadoes - are much bigger and more powerful than I am. I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that a world where individuals in certain privileged positions - achieved by means of education, money, etc - are made out to be larger-than-life, it takes something as omnipotent as Mother Nature to bring us back down to earth. For me, while this is often a positive, humbling experience, it can also be relentlessly diminishing. I've always been mindful of the distinction that needs to be made between healthy meekness and outright powerlessness, and I'll readily admit that I'm very uncomfortable with the thought of the latter.

In Radical Gratitude (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002), which I'm currently studying with some friends, Mary Jo Leddy claims that society has compelled us to believe in the "forced alternatives" of being "totally in control" of our lives, or "totally powerless." As one can gather from the title of the book, Leddy is primarily concerned with examining the virtue of gratitude; in the process, she frequently contrasts it with what she identifies as a pervasive dissatisfaction in the lives of Westerners. While she quickly dismisses the quest to be totally in control as a vain, irrational, "impossible dream," she's also quick to point out the dangers associated with feeling powerless. Leddy claims that powerlessness stems, rather ironically, from the eventual realization that quests for absolute power are doomed to fail. Consequently, because we've been convinced of the system of "forced alternatives," we become mired in self-pity and apathy, unconvinced that any initiative we take will have a lasting impact. The only way to prevent the onset of the self-fulfilling prophecy that is conviction of personal powerlessness, Leddy argues, is to act on the realization that there are certain areas of our lives that we can change, and others we can't.

Admittedly, I've been feeling pretty powerless lately, and not just because of rainstorms. Whether it's lack of discipline in my work, poor efforts in maintaining relationships, or a variety of other vices that I won't get into, I feel a genuine lack of power to affect significant positive change in my own daily habits and routines. I've learned a fair amount about myself through self-examination and conversation with others in the past couple years, and have come to realize that I'm a perfectionist to the extent that if there's no prospect of me accomplishing a task to the highest standard, I don't feel as if it's worth doing at all. Thus, Leddy's humbling assertion that there are some things that I naturally won't be able to achieve on my own is hard for me to swallow.

I am, nevertheless, encouraged by the new train of thought my reading of Radical Gratitude has developed. 2 Timothy 1:7 comes to mind in all of this: "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." Coupled with a good deal of prayer and consultation with friends, I think I'm going to start trying to make more small changes in my life, in place of my tendency to constantly try to reinvent the wheel. Hopefully, this will help me overcome the feelings of "corrupting powerlessness" that Leddy identifies as having got under the skin of our society.

Raising the dying

You may find it ironic that I'm writing a post about dying in a blog that's barely twitched in the past two months.  If this was the first thought that popped into your mind, congratulations  - very clever.  Perceptive, too: it's true that Tom's Passage to India has been something of a ghost-blog of late.  I think it would be an exaggeration to attribute this to writer's block, as the ideas - and even the odd witticism - have been churning out of my mind at their regular pace.  The problem has been actually getting them down into legible form; simply put, the ideas are there, just not the will or the words.  I think I'll ineloquently dub it "writer's glass wall", in that by all accounts, the potential for a solid post seems to be there, but I just can't get pencil to scratch paper.  

To be honest, I'm still not feeling all that creative.  I've decided a good way to kick-start my cranium would be to quote someone much smarter and more intelligent than me, out of the hope that it'll lead to a remotely insightful response on my part.  I'll leave it to you to decide whether my strategy is sound; for now, I pass the baton to Sheila Cassidy, a British doctor best known for her contribution to the hospice movement:

Medically speaking, hospices exist to provide a service of pain and symptom control for those for whom active anti-cancer treatment is no longer appropriate - there isalways something that can be done for the dying, even if it's only having the patience and courage to sit with them.  Most lay people imagine that hospices are solemn, rather depressing places where voices are hushed and eyes downcast as patients and their families await the inevitable. Nothing could be further from the truth.  Hospice care is about life and love and laughter, for it is founded upon two unshakable beliefs: that life is so precious that each minute should be lived to the full, and that death is quite simply a part of life, to be faced openly and greeted with the hand outstretched.  One of the hallmarks of hospice life is celebration: cakes are baked and champagne  uncorked at the first hint of a birthday or anniversary, and administrators, nurses and volunteers clink glasses with patients and their families.  (Cassidy, Sheila. "Precious Spikenard", Catholic New Times of Toronto, 1985.)

This is actually an excerpt twice removed: I pulled it out of The Road to Daybreak, a memoir by the late Catholic priest Henri Nouwen that I currently have my nose in.  In this context, Nouwen is using Cassidy's passage to illustrate that hospices, like the Daybreak community for the mentally challenged that he worked at, are places that "proclaim loudly the preciousness of life and encourage us to face reality with open eyes and outstretched hands", where "the certainty of the present is always much more important than the uncertainty of the future."  (Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak, p. 21). 

More than anything else, this made me think about the way that many people - myself included - conceptualize compassion.  In my last post, I suggested that popular support in the West for development aid signifies the presence of elements of selflessness and empathy amongst it's citizens.  What I've recently come to suspect, though, is that we give largely on the condition that there are prospects for improvement; in the case of development aid, for example, we want to know that children will be given the opportunity to hone their potential in school, leading to more promising livelihoods.  Would we be as enthusiastic about contributing our resources and efforts to the wellness of those who don't have a future in this world in a physical sense?  In other words, would our compassion flow as freely to someone on their deathbed, as it would for a repressed child?

I suspect that the hospice movement addresses a need that has gone largely unnoticed in the mainstream.  Stephen Lewis, in his widely popular contribution to the Massey Lectures, Race Against Time, speaks passionately of the importance of treating those already afflicted by HIV/AIDS, in addition to preventing the spread of the disease.  At one point, he recalls a conversation with a World Bank official who bluntly states the need for a "trade-off" in favour of prevention, considering the impending mortality of those already infected (Lewis, Race Against Time, p. 157).  Although this anecdote may relay seemingly exceptional callousness, I'd imagine it represents the attitude of many institutions charged with serving the suffering and vulnerable.  

I think it comes across as pretty unnatural to invest in the dying in our results-based world.  Then again, the broader idea of compassion doesn't fit that smugly into this paradigm either.  Personally, I feel that if I'm going to ever learn to serve others, I'm going to have to elevate them to a position of preeminence, regardless of their position, potential, or usefulness.

Huffing and puffing over aid

After four years of being tube-fed international development discourse, it quickly became obvious to me that the aid debate is one of academia's favourite varieties.  Apparently, the popular media has also picked up a taste for it as of late; of particular note is the cyber-spar that recently occurred between Jeffrey Sachs and Dambisa Moyo, two "household names" of development economics (OK, so the classification's slightly absurd - bear with me).  Sachs' contribution to the Huffington Post is a layman-friendly introduction to his conviction of the need for development assistance, which he defends primarily by pointing out the flawed positions of aid skeptics such as Moyo and William Easterly.  Moya responds in an equally terse fashion, suggesting that the confrontation at hand is only the most recent in a history of editorial animosity.

I'd like to start off by saying that my opinion of Sachs has been slow to galvanize.  Likely, this is due to the circumstances in which I've been exposed to him: aside from the occasional required-reading snippet, I wasn't exposed to his work until I cracked The End of Poverty on a rambunctious riverboat floating down the Laotian Mekong, the "crew" of which were constantly supplying debauched British backpackers with local moonshine.  Needless to say, Jeff came off as a bit dull in comparison.  

As I got more into it, though, I started to recognize qualities that also come through in the discussed article: although he is a committed free-market economist, Sachs recognizes the role that non-reciprocal financial interactions have to play in improving the prospects of developing countries.  Whether it's the forgiveness of debt or the provision of aid, offerings of resources that don't need to be paid back play an important role in increasing the capacity of countries to help themselves.  Sachs is insightful in pointing out that these resources are often the capital upon which countries like Rwanda build effective health infrastructures; he is even more profound in emphasizing that aid funds represent the immediate lifeline to millions on the brink of demise.  Although the article doesn't include the case studies and statistics to prove Sachs' points in and of itself, it serves as a useful call-to-action to Westerners to rethink their meagre contributions to global welfare.

Conversely, I found Moya's response to be smug, trite, and bordering on naive.  Her assertion that "development is not that hard" is enough to propel any development practitioner's head towards the wall, and serves to solidify her place amongst the ranks of one-dimensional conventional economists.  Although we can certainly take hints from past work in areas such as poverty alleviation, the "300 years of evidence" that she refers to is hardly the panacean canon that she makes it out to be.  Sachs knows as well as anyone that certain strategies, such as curbing inflation, have been, historically, applied with similar success in different contexts; however, he would also acknowledge that a smorgasbord of socio-economic-cultural factors come into play when these types of plans are actually implemented.  Moya displays her ignorance to this key historical fact, by attributing the effectiveness of the Marshall Plan and India's Green Revolution primarily to their brevity.

Moya's disciplinary tunnel-vision is further confirmed in her myopic diagnosis of Africa's problems of corruption and economic regression.  Although it is likely true that, in some cases, aid monies have been manipulated fraudulently by crooked officials, the conversation isn't complete unless problems such as poor transparency and judicial independence are mentioned.  The immense sums that Nigerian leaders have historically siphoned out of that country's oil industry is evidence that governments have the potential to be massively corrupt, regardless of whether the money comes from foreign sources or their own wellspring.  As for her claims that Africa is worse off now than in the 1970's, she conveniently fails to mention the effects that AIDS and economic structural adjustment programs alone have had on the continent's ills (ironically, SAP's - facilitated largely by Moya's ex-employer, the World Bank - were characterized by the kind of rapid free-marketization that she espouses).  

All in all, it seems to me that Moya is far more stubbornly attached to her ideology of African self-sufficiency than Sachs is to the idea of the importance of aid, as she alleges.  As far as I can tell, her claims that he neglects job creation in favour of aid-dependency in Africa are wholly unsubstantiated when this article and The End of Poverty are considered.  Although I'm horribly under-qualified to make any type of economic assessment on my own, it seems likely that the differences between Sachs' recommendations for Eastern European development and that of Africa are based on a recognition of the different socio-political-cultural conditions within those areas - exactly the type of broad-perspective that Moya has no apparent interest in adopting.  

Although I won't go into them in depth, I think there are also some important philosophical questions that come into play in the aid debate.  They centre largely around the concept of dependence, and whether it really is a bad thing to rely heavily upon another individual, group or country (check out my earlier post, in which I addressed this more generally).  Certainly, history is full of examples where economic powers have created dependence complexes as a means of exploiting weaker regions; however, the basic concept doesn't have to be painted this darkly by default.  Perhaps the acts of giving and receiving aid on an international, governmental scale could contribute to the development of human attitudes of altruism and humility.  There could be something to this; I think it more likely, however, that these attitudes will have to form on individual levels, before they're embodied on such a large scale.  

Life in uniform: not just guns 'n roses

I was checking out baseball scores on ESPN's website today, and decided to look at the power rankings to see if editors were giving the Jays the credit they're currently due.  Despite their usual bias against teams north of the border, the ESPN pundits pegged Toronto at a lofty #3 on the list, which was very conspicuously brought to me by the recruitment division of the US Army.  Out of appreciation for their thoughtfulness, I decided to indulge the sportscaster by checking out their sponsor's website.  The experience that followed bewildered me far more than the Jays' recent success on the field, which is significant to say the least.  

At first glance, the homepage of GoArmy.com strikingly resembles the interface of a military-based real time strategy video game, along the lines of Command and Conquer or Warcraft.  Upon entering the website, I immediately embarked on a nausea-inducing approach from the perspective of some kind of attack helicopter, eventually being presented with a bird's-eye view of what is, ostensibly, a typical desert US army installation.  This interface acts as a type of virtual graphical sitemap: by clicking on a section of the "base", the user is directed to related occupational info.   A click on the link hovering above the MP station, for example, lead me to a video narrated by an ambitious young military policeman.  The video game-feel of the site is further advanced by the columns of soldiers and battalions of vehicles moving around in the background - overall, I wouldn't be surprised if they had contracted Electronic Arts to design the darned thing.

Initially, the whole spectacle seemed comical.  The awe-inspiring graphics, zealous accounts by bright-eyed recruits - it all came across as harmlessly over-the-top.  The biggest laugh came when I started talking to "Sergeant Star", the virtual guide who's job is to tell you anything you'd want to know about a potential career in the trenches.  Truly a marvel in web-based artificial intelligence technology that's worth checking out: click on the link on the bottom-right of the main page.  Just don't call him too many names - three strikes, and it's off to boot camp, private!

As I thought about it more, though, I realized how strongly the website affirmed some common critiques of US Army (indeed, western) recruiting practices.  My mind immediately went back to those World War II-era soldier's letters I read in Grade 10 history, in which farm-boys-turned-riflemen spoke of the excitement of leaving for foreign lands; the thrill of fighting for one's country.  Is GoArmy.com the US military's attempt to piggyback this timeless fantasy?  Apart from a few sober caveats on the part of Sgt. Star (which I really had to pry out of him, by the way), there really doesn't seem to be much on the site emphasizing the physical and psychological risk one inevitably takes on by signing the roll.  

Also, as classist as it may sound, the format of the site seems to have set a certain demographic clearly in it's sights.  Can anyone say uneducated, suburban, upper teens-early 20s male?  Not to say I didn't / don't currently play video games: I've had my share of Goldeneye-induced all nighters and LAN parties.  However, is any well-informed, thoughtful person going to give serious consideration to a career in the army because of a super-cool recruitment website?  I'm not in any way suggesting an average member of the said demographic would fall for such sensationalism, but it's pretty clear the army is trying anyways.  At the very least, I'd describe it as vanity; more critically, it could be seen as insulting to the intellect of potential recruits.  

Above all, I view GoArmy.com as a gross misrepresentation and glorification of the business as a whole.  Even if the army's chief role isn't simply to "kill people", as Canada's former Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier once so controversially asserted, the fact remains a life in the military is ominously filled with tough decisions and lose-lose scenarios.  "War is hell" is a truthful cliche, and a soldier's job is, all things considered, an unfortunate one.  The world of the army may very well be characterized by "courage and honour", as the voice-over on the discussed webpage claims it is; however, many have also experienced it as one crawling with death and despair.  The salient message of GoArmy.com simply fails in conveying this core truth.

I suppose I could be rebuked by a claim that a job in the army is "just another job" that millions of ordinary people work at every day, and should be treated as such.  There is, of course, truth to the second part of that statement: I know plenty of people who currently work, or have worked, in the military, including my best friend and family members.  I can confirm that they are (or were) in it just as much for an honest living as anyone else.  However, I refuse to accept that it's "just another job".  The reason that I reserve so much respect and admiration for members of the military is that by taking that gun into their hands (or wrench with which they fix a fighter plane, or microphone with which they call in an air strike), they're shouldering a degree of responsibility not experienced by other members of society.  Exceptional nature of the beast considered, GoArmy.com's "bed of roses" - or more like "guns 'n roses" - portrayal just doesn't fit the bill.

Dealing in Death

If you've been reading this blog for a little while, you've probably discovered that I enjoy over-analyzing some of the more obscure, mostly irrelevant things in everyday life.  For the most part, I like to think that I've gotten a pretty good handle on a lot of it: the fact that nobody else bothers to analyze this stuff notwithstanding, I've come to view myself as pretty damn perceptive.  Two things that I don't relate to very well, though - no matter how well I try - are marketing schemes and funeral homes.  My feelings toward marketing schemes are something of a disillusionment, mostly because they're so commonly intended to sucker people into buying things they don't need.  The fact that I know perfectly friendly people in the funeral business dictates that my attitude towards this beast is slightly more amiable; however, I simply can't bring myself to fully understand an establishment that profits off of people dying.  Needless to say, when these two entities come together - most commonly as funeral home marketing schemes - I'm totally thrown for a loop.

Let me explain.  Before you start worrying for my sanity, rest assured that this isn't a dilemma that I randomly dreamed up during this morning's sermon (out of the possibility that Dave Williams is reading this, I'd like to emphasize that it was tres good).  It actually emerged right when I got home from church, upon my decision to open an unaddressed piece of admail placed in my mailbox by a local funeral home, that will remain unnamed lest my ass gets sued for libel.  I'm not sure what initially inclined me to open it; what I do know, is that the content elicited a pretty mixed bag of emotions, ranging from humour to shock.  As a taste, check out the introductory paragraph of the letter:

Dear Family,

This is your opportunity to recieve a FREE FUNERAL COST ESTIMATE.  You can also receive a FREE Planning Ahead Brochure, filled with valuable information on planning ahead.  Simply mark your answers below and return the completed questionnaire in the attached postage-paid envelope.  It's easy and there's no obligation!

NO COST - NO OBLIGATION

Am I the only one that feels as if this represents a compilation of much that is seriously screwed up about our society?  On a trivial, personal level, this letter had the callous effect of tainting my otherwise sunny, happy, content day, by reminding me that I'd eventually have to plan a funeral for myself or my loved ones.  Whoopee!  Slightly more nauseating is the fact that the following portion of the letter was a questionnaire format, in which the "future client" is prompted to anticipate their future preference for a wood or steel casket, much like an airline passenger would be asked to choose between the vegetarian blog of unintelligible matter and it's meat equivalent.  The utilization of such marketing standards as "no cost - no obligation" - in bold and caps, to boot - also just doesn't seem quite right to me.  Call me crazy.

I was especially struck by the concluding paragraph of the piece, which informed the reader of the fact the funeral home had the gall to make the advertised product a "limited time offer."  Are these guys serious?  Is it meant to be a joke, something along the lines of "your time is limited, and so is this offer"?  I also found it pretty amusing that at the end of the letter, the author provides a check-box beside a sentence reading "Please see that I also receive a FREE Planning Ahead Brochure".  Couldn't they have just said something along the lines of "Please ensure that I receive another depressing reminder of my impending death"?  The ridiculousness of this content has convinced me that these guys are either failed stand-up comedians who got booed off the stage one too many times for making their audiences feel like crap, or zombies.  One of the two.

I realize that if I was truly writing in the analytical tradition of my last few posts, I'd try to draw some sort of absurd sociological/theological/philosophical conclusion from this stuff.  After considering this course of action for about five seconds, though, I've decided that it would be mostly ridiculous, considering I just concluded what could be described as a glorified book review of a funeral parlour pamphlet.  I may not be headed for a six-foot deep hole anytime soon, but I won't rule out the nuthouse...

A categorical cry for help

For those of you who haven't noticed, this blog is a bit of a hodgepodge.  When I actually make the effort to post multiple times every couple weeks, the range of topics addressed becomes quite diverse, to say the least.  The first absurd metaphor that comes to mind is a typical food plate at an after-service church pot luck: it's hard to make out what is what, and when your taste buds are finally getting accustomed to the vegetarian chili, that little bit of jello dessert that snuck it's way onto the fork throws you right back off again.  

With this in mind, I've flirted with the idea of categorizing my posts.  Practically speaking, it makes sense, both for myself and others: whether one of my readers wants to skip to a certain topic because he thinks I suck at everything else, or I want to track down something I wrote in the past (I think it's all good), a classification system of sorts would come in handy.  It seems as if my most avid blogging buddies - all of whom are far more well versed in the trade than myself - have elected to categorize; the pragmatist in me advises me to follow their example.

Logical sensibilities aside, however, I can't help but feel a type of aversion to the idea.  Perhaps I'm reading a bit too far into it (not a far-fetched possibility, by any measure), but it seems that by attaching a label to something, I'm creating a condition where all of the preconceptions and stereotypes associated with that label could taint my post.  Not that this is necessarily a bad thing - personally speaking, if I didn't regularly group ideas together, my mind would be as confounded and disoriented as a Lewis Carroll novel.  One of the things I value the most about this space, though, is that it's a place where disciplines, topics, themes - whatever you want to call them - can intertwine and relate to one another.  Whereas Marxist economics and evangelical theology might be considered strange bedfellows in many conventional forums, my blog gives me the unique chance to throw them in a room together, and see what happens.  

As I write this, I'm deprecating myself for sounding conceited.  Who am I to think that I'm in a special position to draw these types associations in my humble blog, while critiquing well-aged classifications in the process?  Perhaps categorization would be a needed shot to my ego, a wake-up call to the limits of "thinking big" and the merits of dedicating oneself to a focused topic.  

If you haven't figured it out already, this is more of an call for opinions than anything else.  To those of you who do keep a blog: why or why not do you categorize your posts?  If you do, do you find it limits the perspective they offer?  There may be people who don't read a blog, but have a pretty good idea how they'd structure it if they did; my menial appeal extends to you also.

A work in progress?

I spent last weekend with my good friends Jon and Steffen at the latter's cottage in Kincardine.  To me, it was a unique setting, where one wakes up to the crashing waves of Lake Huron while also taking in a subtle whiff of fertilizer from nearby farms.  An offering to the senses quite alien to the more typical cottage serenity of my native Haliburton Highlands, but very pleasant in its own way.

Unorthodox locale aside, the cottage itself was pretty typical.  Cedar plank walls decorated with cheery folk art, eclectic, character-filled furniture, and, of course, a fireplace.  Airtight wood stove, to be exact, but that's beside the point.  It seems to me that the fireplace is the focal point of any self respecting cottage or cabin, largely due to the activities that typically take place around it: hot chocolate drinking, lively conversations, and awkward attempts by overconfident urbanite males to keep the blaze going with butane and birchbark, to mention a few.  A slightly more subtle, but equally fabled, pastime is to sit and watch the flames.  Long convinced as a child that this was an affinity reserved for octogenarians in La-Z-Boys, I've only recently begun to appreciate it's appeal myself.  There's something mysteriously calming about watching fire - a normally hostile element, but in this case tamed by membranes of brick and metal - eat away at hapless pieces of dead organic matter.  I can't quite put my finger on it, but the fact that it's an interest shared by myself and grandfathers the world over implies some sort of intrinsic appeal.

As I sat gazing at the modest little blaze in the Pentelow cottage's living room, it occurred to me that as well as being rather boring and odd, this activity was also characterized by it's blatant uselessness.  From a purely practical standpoint, any more than the occasional glance to make sure the fire didn't out - thus exposing us to the rather impractical realities of cold and sickness - really didn't serve any tangible purpose at all.  Aside from inciting a fleeting state of relaxation, my act of watching the flames was wholly antisocial, unproductive and materially inconsequential.  I'll admit, the fact that I was in the middle of a typical weekend of R&R didn't prevent this realization from being a bit disheartening.

Likely, my unease was largely due to the emphasis I put on the idea of "progress" in my life.  I often feel as if the primary goal of my existence is to increase my knowledge, advance my credentials, and expand my influence; when these pursuits begin to feel narcissistic, I confidently reassure myself that they're requisite to my being able to help the maximum number of people possible in the world.  The constant need for improvement on my current state at any given time, it seems, dominates my very identity.

Daunting as this conditions sounds, I hardly suspect I'm alone - the need for progress, it seems to me, manifests itself in everyday life everywhere in the world.  My mind turns back to the Laotian banknotes I carried throughout my SE Asia travels, and their depiction of bridges, power plants, and factory farms - all symbols of the technological modernization human societies strove after throughout the 20th century.  Closer to home, politicians speak of "progress" being made towards states of gender equality and universal human rights; to them, we're set on a linear track, with the sole gear being full speed ahead.  The motives that drive these mindsets are often commendable; however, their propagators all-too-often ignore lessons learned from the past, as well as neglect to consider the opinions of those who are perpetually overlooked in our current age.

Even religion, it seems, isn't immune to the influence of the culture of progress.  Whereas one might expect followers of Christ, for example, to be inclined towards stillness and introspection, it seems as if they're "on the move" as much as anyone else.  I've observed this to be evident in their everyday lives: whether they're fine-tuning the wealth-creation potential their stock portfolios, or ensuring their family's continual financial "security", Christians seem just as concerned with "betterment" as anyone else.  The trend is also marked in Christian theological and philosophical thought: an example can be found in C.S. Lewis' influential Mere Christianity, where the author makes the distinction between the "old days" of theology, when it was "possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God," and today, when a great deal more discretion must be made between good and bad ideas.  According to Lewis, "to believe in the popular religion of modern England is retrogression - like believing the earth is flat (Lewis, 155).  Although I'm not in the position to oppose his judgement of the "religion of modern England", I do question his apparent bias towards modern ideas.  In a recent work, philosopher/theologian James K. A. Smith highlighted the danger this type of "temporal hubris" poses to the development of a healthy Christian worldview (Smith, 135).  

In addition to endangering the role the ancients have to play in our everyday lives, I get the feeling this hegemony of progress hampers our ability to live a healthy degree of our lives in the present.  Another post for another time - suffice it to say, I'm increasingly convinced many of us move through our lives obsessed with the future, without enough focus on our personal past or future.  Stay tuned for a good laugh, as I try to unpack yet another topic way out of my ballpark :)

In summary, progress is ubiquitous.  I'd be a fool to lambaste it as general thing; on a basic level, after all, my continuing existence relies on a number of basic biological progressions. Socio-politically, progress is also very real, and, in many ways, good - one of the most admirable applications of the study of history, after all, is it's use to ensure we don't repeat mistakes of the past.  All too often, though, it seems that we adhere to a type of progress-regression dichotomy, in which our minds place activities within one of these two categories.  As hard as I try, I can't find a  place for staring into the fire in either of those categories, leading me to suspect there's something in between.

Semi-obsessed with semicolons

I was just reading my last blog post, and realized how much I over-used semicolons.  Partly due, undoubtedly, to the fact I started writing it at about 12:00AM.  More so, I'd say, to my unwillingness to finish a thought when it duly should be put to rest.  God help my future spouse, if this is any reflection of my communication skills in general.

I'll leave it up to my grammarian friends (all of whom, presumably, are still in the closet) to draw correlations between my use of certain types of punctuation and my life as a whole.  Take this post, in all it's brevity, as a mere admission of guilt;  I'll try my hardest to repent.

The City of Joy

A couple weeks ago, I promised an imminent follow-up post to my initial thoughts on discovering joy.  Those of you who've been following my ramblings for a while know that when I predict a publication "tomorrow," reality dictates that it will actually be a couple of weeks in the making; with this in mind, hopefully you're not disappointed.  Fittingly enough, I just concluded a conversation with my housemate Janine on the topic of perfectionism, in which I described my tendency to procrastinate in blogging as characteristic of that tendency in my life. I'm sure I'll address this in a post in near future (read: sometime before Afghanistan becomes a fully-functioning democracy).

For those of you with poor long-term memories: in an entry in late March, I described my recent attempts to gain insight into the anatomy of joy using literature.  Frankly, it's turned out to be an absolute disaster - if anything, my perusal of C.S. Lewis' Surprised by Joy only served to increase my confusion on the topic.  If utter failure was ever the best thing that could happen to me, though, it was in this case; by neglecting to define joy in any objective manner, I feel that Lewis revealed to me the possibility that joy is a wholly subjective, or personal, thing.  I'm happy to say that Dominique LaPierre's City of Joy, while causing me to become even more intrigued about the idea of joy, didn't contribute any more to my cheeky original purpose.

City of Joy is a story set in the Indian city of Calcutta, based in the 1970's (I think; the date is never explicitly revealed).  It is primarily told from the perspectives of two people - a Polish priest called Stephan Kovalski, and urban immigrant Hasari Pal - whose lives, despite being separate at the beginning of the book, symbolically converge as the narrative unfolds.  One thing that they have in common throughout the whole book is that they live amongst the most destitute people in one of the most destitute cities in the world, with the most salient difference being that while Pal is forced by circumstance to live as a street-dweller, Kovalski is compelled by his Catholicism to voluntarily immerse himself in the lives of "the least of these".  About midway through the book, a young American doctor, Max Loeb, joins Kovalski in his occupation of the notorious slum of Anand Nagar, the name of which the book's title is some kind of translation.

If you were to glance at a set of Coles Notes for City of Joy (heaven forbid their existence), you would probably envision a place totally devoid of anything positive.  Slumlords, clogged sewers, lepers - the depiction of scathing droughts being immediately succeeded by invasive floods, along with being literal, serves as a metaphor for the cruel irony that characterizes the locale.  Indeed, at times the story was downright depressing; just as the reader is getting to know a character, for example, the latter will be stolen by the scourge of tuberculosis.  The suffering of children is perhaps the most unfathomable: those who happen to survive through the brief period of juvinility granted to them by the slum are, more often than not, thrust into an adolescence of begging and garbage picking.  Suffice it to say, an Amazon.ca "Sneak Peek" probably wouldn't increase sales in this case.

It is upon closer examination of the relationships of this book that the story becomes more compelling.  The spiritual bonds that endure in what could otherwise be described as a physical mess are the remarkable aspects of this account; indeed, I'd go so far as to say they offer a glimpse of an irrational, bizarre, supernatural thing that may best be described as joy.  What would compel Muslim and Hindu residents of the slum, one day fighting over deep-seeded disparities, to celebrate a Christian festival together the next?  Lepers, burdened by unimaginable physical incapacities and social stigmas, to drag themselves along with smiles on their faces?  A large family, living on a pittance of resources, to offer the best of their dinner to the young, healthy European priest in basketball shoes?  Some might deem it ignorance, others blame it on insanity - I'm convinced that it's something more, something given to humans by God.  

Without succumbing to the temptation of trying to define this thing - joy? - I'd like to suggest that it is most vividly eminent in people who are determined to live their lives fully, regardless of their situation.  As well as seeing this throughout City of Joy, I observed  it at times during my own travels in India: people, mired in the webs of class and caste, living lives characterized by cheerfulness and a contented demeanor.  I'm not saying this was the case with everyone, and I certainly don't believe the strangleholds of class and caste are morally right; however, there seems to be something that glows here, that isn't as readily seen in the West.  

In Becoming Human, which I also just finished reading, Jean Vanier talks of freedom as being "the acceptance of the world as it is together with the will to struggle to make the world a better place for us to live" (p. 121, see Mar 1/09 post for citation info).  At first, I considered this passage depressingly defeatist - how can I, as an outisider, accept the world of Anand Nagar as being how it is, much less the people that actually live there and experience it?  However, as I considered it more, I realized how essential the first clause is to victory in the "struggle" Vanier mentions in the second part of the sentence.  If the people of the City of Joy don't learn to live the fullest life and love with the little that they currently have, how are they going to work together to make their world an even better place?  The same logic applies, of course, to us in the West; if we don't nurture the small amount of spiritual awareness we possess in our society, how will it possibly erupt into a blazing flame?  Perhaps it is when we learn to appreciate the presence of God in our lives, no matter how small, that we truly experience joy.

Sincerely speaking, I really don't know.  Joy remains as mysterious a concept to me as it did before I naively picked up two books that just happened to have it in their titles.  The Bible is, no doubt, a good place to dig further; I've read it with this intention before, but I'll have to do some more focused study with joy in mind.  Thankfully, I feel as if I'm coming to the humble realization that joy is not to be found in crash-course format.  It looks as if I, like Father Kovalski and rickshaw-wallah Hasari, am just going to have to live it out.  

The "real world" - more of the same?

I just finished a short discussion with a couple of friends, which originated when one of them expressed concern over the effects a semester abroad program he's participating in would have on his learning experience.  I'm not sure what was exactly at the core of his anxiety, but he appeared to be skeptical of the balance between "academic" and "real-world" learning that the program would presumably try to strike.  A brief-but-succinct conversation ensued, in which those involved (the aforementioned friend, another friend, and I) contrasted academic and real-world (or experiential) learning in fairly different ways.

Not being foreign to this debate - indeed, I've tossed it around in my own mind many times, as well as with others -  I had a pretty good idea of what I thought was the most important factor to consider when discussing the nature of each learning method.  As those of you who've been following this blog for the past year (c'mon, there must be a few!) know, university, to me, has largely been a place where one gains status.  Hopefully, you've also recognized the immense respect I have for the academy's place in the world; however, in this conversation, it suffices to say that a good part of my motivation to "succeed" in my studies was that it would help me become a more respected (even exceptional) member of society.  For whatever reason, I've also been bred to believe that the academic type of learning is a prerequisite to being successful in the "real-world."  It won't come as a surprise, therefore, that I've been burdened with the misconception that success in university would necessarily precede eminence in anything that might follow in my life.

It's only quite recently that I've come to realize that I subscribe to this mentality, that success in the academy = high status and reputation.  I resent it, and believe that it's corrupted my view of what it means to live a life that's fulfilling to oneself and others.  With this in mind, for all of the positive impacts that university has had on me, it's also centrally contributed to the development of unhealthy motives within me.  I've come to view motivation as the factor that can "make or break" a student's tenure in the academy, in terms of how he uses the tenure to benefit the world around him.  For example, how is someone supposed to truly empathize with the poor and vulnerable if he maintains the pretentious conviction that his education makes him, in some way, more "refined" than them?

Considering the relative passion with which I expressed these ideas to my friends, I was surprised when they reacted the way they did: they blatantly disagreed.  Although I won't presume to know exactly what was going through their minds at the time, they seemed to be more concerned with the practical deficiencies of academic-style teaching than any possibility of the university advancing pompous mindsets.  The academy didn't seem to be teaching them to feel superior, as it did to me; rather, they harboured doubts that it was really teaching them anything at all.  Conversely, they seemed to believe that an experiential approach - talking to people instead of just reading about them - would help them better understand the issues that they initially enrolled in school to learn about.

My friends were, of course, making a very good point.  There are many realities which one can only become aware of through direct confrontation – in international development, the area of study for all three of us, this is especially true.  However, I don’t think that less academic learning and more experiential learning would have changed the attitude that I believe somewhat compromised my learning experience.  This is because I truly believe specter of ego resides just as threateningly in the “real-world” as it does in academia. 

From a linguistics standpoint, terms such as “real world” carry undertones that are just as strong as contained in words such as “academic”, “university”, or “Dr.”.  Of course, this doesn’t have to be the case: just as being a scholar wasn’t considered synonymous with being an elite in the Middle Age European universities, as it seems to be today, entering into the “real world” doesn’t necessarily mean entering adopting a "more realistic, pragmatic outlook" than one's comparably naïve academic friends.  However, I think we need to be conscious of the fact that places such as academia and the real world are just as much mindsets as geographical places, and if we’re not careful, they’ll come to define us.

I’m not sure about my two friends, but graduating from university and entering the so-called “real world” hasn’t liberated me from the temptation to be motivated by status.  Unless I continue to be conscious of my vulnerabilities, I’ll always be looking for new ways to advance, progress, and refine, no matter what occupation I find myself in.  

Defining joy

If you know me well, you're probably aware that I really like to put my finger on things.  Before you get weirded out, don't worry - it's a metaphor, a way of me saying that I'm the bizarre type of perfectionist that won't even bother pulling my hammer out of the tool belt if there's not chance of me hitting the nail square on the head.  Aside from making me maddeningly slow at building stuff (that's not a metaphor - ask the construction crew I worked with back in '07), this trait also makes it quite frustrating for me to think  about problems for which there's no clearly definable answer.  Although my recent foray into postmodern/poststructuralist literature has helped me come to terms with this side of me a little better, it's far from quelled my desire to turn craggy mountains into neatly analyzed molehills.  

As you can imagine, this doesn't exactly make my experiments with Christianity (some might call it a "faith walk") a jaunt in the park.  In contrast to the picture that that Billy Graham Crusade rerun painted for you on CTS the other day, the Christian narrative isn't simple - there are more than a few concepts that will throw anyone who tries to squeeze them into a tidy box for a loop.  Become like little children, sure - just make sure you bring daddy along to explain the big words.

Recently, I decided to try and tackle one of the more enormous ones: joy.  Being the good student of history that I am, I was sure that the consumption of a couple books by famous scholars would answer all of my questions, and pave the way for a wonderfully lucid blog exposition of the meaning of this elusive little three-letter word.  

Wrong.  Brushing off the blank stares of my pastor and church librarian that accompanied my initial inquiry, I promptly checked out C.S. Lewis' Surprised By Joy, thinking the Great Sage of Belfast would undoubtedly offer a comprehensive definition.  To my disappointment, the concluding paragraph of this otherwise enjoyable work made me feel as if had actually lost ground in my quest for clarity regarding joy:

But what, in conclusion, of Joy? for that, after all, is what the story has mainly been about.  To tell you the truth, the subject has lost nearly all interest for me since I became a Christian... I now know that the experience, considered as a state of my own mind, had never had the kind of importance I once gave it.

Clive Staples, you have got to be kidding me.  Did I seriously just sit through 190 pages of you describing the meals you ate at yuppy prep school to hear that the central theme of the book didn't actually, in the great scheme of things, end up meaning a whole lot to you?  Anticlimactic is an understatement - this was borderline distressing.  

As I think about it a bit more, though, I really shouldn't have been too surprised/disappointed. Perhaps joy is something infinitely subjective, the meaning of which is totally based on the specific stories of individuals or communities.  Maybe the fact that my trusty Nave's Topical Bible Reference System highlights instances of joy ranging from warriors experiencing it on the battlefield in the Old Testament, to angels expressing it upon the birth of Christ, suggests that the only way of truly understanding it is to consider it a narrative.  Something that doesn't hold a definition that spans people, cultures, and creeds.  If this is the case, should even a teacher of such stature as Lewis be expected to form it into a universal theory?

Immediately after finishing Lewis, I began sinking my teeth into a significantly thicker package of pulp: Dominique LaPierre's epic The City of Joy.  Whether my subconscious deemed it worthy due to the presence of "joy" in the title, or simply because it looked long enough to last me through the long journey home from Australia and then some, I don't know; all I'm sure about is that it made me reconsider my drive to define joy objectively, and instead approach the topic in a way more reminiscent of the ideas proposed in the previous paragraph.  Details on the City of Joy next time, hopefully tomorrow.

The crisis that can be community

A few days ago, it was reported that a Russian "Bear" bomber - one of those old prop-driven behemoths that they built at the onset of the Cold War - approached Canadian airspace.  In a display of typically-Canadian self assurance, Peter MacKay went on to make a bunch of lame-o macho statements about how our "world class air force" turned the plane around on a dime, and how they better not try that again, etc.  Russia responded with the casual indifference that one would expect in light of such accusations on the part of a Canadian defence minister: a brush-off of the claims of airspace infringement, accompanied by an assurance that all proper diplomatic channels were being utilized.  

Despite the surface vanity of it all, I'm not surprised that it made the news in Canada and abroad.  Aside from the obvious questions that immediately come to mind - firstly, how the heck did a 55-year old tin can reach Nunavut, and secondly, how did the CF manage to get two fighters up there to meet it - this episode stirred me up in a couple slightly more abstract ways. Whether one considers the increasing amount of Russian shows of military force around the world - Harper & Co. aren't fabricating that one - or the sensationalist Canadian media response, it becomes evident that both governments are utilizing one of the most powerful weapons in history: nationalism.  

Now, it's important to point out that this type of allegiance to one's nation is so deeply engrained in human nature, that it would be arrogant to write it off as a wholly negative force.  On the contrary, I'd say that it can be a positive source of self-identity.  However, it also has the potential to morph into more isolating, inflammable phenomena such as patriotism, populism, and even racism.  If being united with others by nationalism can be characterized as a type of community - as I believe it can - then letting it take certain forms represents a loss of any positive nature that that community once embodied.   

Let me expand on that a little.  I'm currently reading Becoming Human, a print account of Jean Vanier's contribution to CBC's "Massey Lecture" series in 1998.  Vanier is the founded of L'Arche, a worldwide network of communities that exist to foster societal inclusion of, and care for, people that live with intellectual disabilities.  It's not hard to imagine, then, that Vanier fully recognizes the benefits of sharing communal bonds with people of a common vision or mission; in Becoming Human, he describes how the residents of the L'Arche communities are united by the simple desire to express love towards lonely people, and realize that they have just as much to offer to humanity as anyone else.  By inviting people to live at L'Arche, the organization is allowing them to experience the type of belonging that is, according to Vanier, a basic human need, as essential as food, water, or oxygen.  

However, Vanier also acknowledges that communion can take on forms that are exclusive, volatile, and encourage feelings or superiority over others.  I've quickly come to realize that the author is keen to identify key dualisms in human nature, and he succinctly summarizes the positive and negative potential of community as such:

There is an innate need in our hearts to identify with a group, both for protection and for security, to discover and affirm our identity, and to use the group to prove our worthiness and goodness, indeed, even to prove that we are better than others.  It is my belief that it is not religion or culture at the root of human conflict but the way in which groups use religion or culture to dominate one another. (Becoming Human, p. 35)

Although Vanier doesn't explicitly address national identity in his analysis, I don't think it's too far-fetched to draw a parallel between the type of cultural belonging that he speaks of, and our conceptualization of nationalism.  Just as he implies that the basic desire to "identify ourselves with a group" can be corrupted into segregation, I believe that the sense of belonging and unity that we naturally derive from being Canadians, Italians or Laotians can devolve into evil, base impulses such as racism.  Whether one looks at the rise of Facism in Europe in the 1930's or the genocide in Rwanda in the 90's, the conflicts that took place can characterized as community gone way, way wrong.  

"Belonging is a beautiful but terrible reality."  Vanier makes this statement in the middle of an elongated analogy, in which he compares the development of the relationship between a child and his/her parents with the experience of individuals integrating into community in general.  In this passage, he seeks to point out that as well as having a potentially damaging impact on people outside of the group through devices such as degradation and exclusion, communities can also end up harming the individuality of those within them.  Although the relative weakness of a child can be an opportunity for parents to influence them in loving, nurturing ways, it can also create a situation where they're, in the words of Vanier, "crushed or manipulated".  In the same way, nationalism that morphs into patriotism and populism can begin to devalue the unique individual nature of the people within the nation.

Unfortunately, I see the world polarizing into an east-west dichotomy in recent years, and I believe it's largely due to this sort of corrupted nationalism, the type that idealizes the culture and history of communities, and closes them out to others.  As long as presidents, foreign ministers, and everyday Joes continue to search for differences between people around the world instead of emphasizing similarities, some of the biggest communal groups that exist in human society - nations - are going to be a perennial source of conflict and strife.  

All quotes in this post were taken from Chapter 2: Belonging of the book form of Jean Vanier's 1998 Massey Lecture, "Becoming Human" (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2008).  Contact me for specific quotation references.  

An unreasonable proposition

My aunt, who's trained as a nutritionist, recently told me that spinach is the healthiest all-around vegetable that I could consume.  Despite the fact that I find many preparations of spinach border on the offensive, I've chosen to take her advice to heart, and have tried to incorporate the chewy little leaf into my diet.  Metabolically speaking, this inclusion should improve my prospects for maintaining my overall health.

What if, however, I took her advice to mean that the broad range of benefits derived from eating it made spinach a panacea?  What if I perceived her statement that it had "all-around goodness" to mean that it was all I need to keep the ol' engine purring?  You probably think that I'd have to be some kind of kook to take it this way - fair enough.  It's amazing, though, how many people approach the realms of philosophy and theology this way.  One concept, one perception, as a type of cosmic cure-all.  Case in point in Wednesday's BBC Magazine.

Perhaps the author of the article, Manil Suri, had a word limit imposed on him by the publication, or was pressured into giving a very brief precis of a broader concept.  Still, I find it shocking that a supposedly well-respected academic could make such a bold (arrogant?) statement in so few words.  What exactly does he mean when he states we should not "get irritated or invoke God or tradition" when helping our children answer basic questions?  Is he implying that we are "misleading the malleable" by teaching them to explore questions of spirituality?  His parochial belief in the superiority of "basic humanist principles" - blatantly revealed by his equating of them with "common sense" - reeks of the type of dogmatism that he would seem to oppose.

Furthermore, doesn't Suri's identification of a logic-ideology dichotomy seem shamelessly ideological in itself?  The New Oxford American Dictionary defines ideology as "the ideas and manner of thinking characteristic of a group, social class, or individual."  In my opinion, his clear conviction of - indeed, obsession with - the preeminence of rationalist philosophy places him in a category of intellectual enslavement comparable only to the most extreme religious fundamentalists that he would presumably disparage.  Again, it's possible that he's not as tunnel-visioned as he comes across in this article; however, his word choice and audacious style makes it difficult for me to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Finally, I'm concerned with the sociological/psychological/emotional implications of bringing up our children based on such principles.  Of course, logical reasoning skills need to be at the centre of any educational strategy; they are, after all, one of the core faculties that allow us to function in everyday life.  However, if we teach them that all answers can be found using pure logic as we understand it, we're inevitably setting them up for a life of disappointment and breakdown.  Even worse, we're denying them the hope, joy, and wonder that should be definitive of any childhood, and indeed adulthood.

I thought that the photo at the top of the article was really telling.  Here you have a young man, probably in his pre-teens, sitting at a desk in a modern, metallic-looking study area of some sort.  He's wearing a t-shirt that seems to glorify "success" and "achievement" - note the soaring eagle, the great symbol of ascent and regality - and is probably doing a math problem, judging by his choice of a pencil as a writing instrument.  The backdrop is an outer-space view of Earth, and seems to bathe the entire room in an exciting blue glow.  Science is king in this scene, the vehicle that will propel this kid through the atmosphere of mediocrity to the unknown elite heights.  

As I consider it more, the  Suri's way of thinking doesn't just have philosophical and spiritual implications for the development of children, although these are profound.  This mindset also has the potential to prevent young people from becoming true neighbors to those around them. Where do virtues such as empathy, grace and humility fit into his paradigm?  They don't seem to, as I see it, and that's a very sad thing.  Ironically, this makes Suri's "logical" proposition one of the most unreasonable that I've heard in quite a while.

Virtual insanity?

Required listening/watching.

“Futures made of virtual insanity 
now always seem to be governed by this love we have For useless, twisting, our new technology 
Oh there is no sound for we all live underground”

Last week, my boss asked me to sit in on a “webinar” on the benefits of “social media” utilities such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter.  For those of you who don’t know, a webinar is basically a glorified power point presentation streamed over the internet; in this case, it was accompanied by a one-way audio dialogue of a guy/girl guiding you through the slides.  It was arranged by a firm called “Firstgiving” who, as is suggested by its utilization of the savvy presentation medium, extolled the opportunities social media presented for the fundraising operations of not-for-profits.  Although I thought the presentation itself could have been a bit more convincing, the base idea behind it – that the networking opportunities offered by the Internet hold endless possibilities – seems to be consuming western society like wildfire.

Admittedly, my own buns have been thoroughly toasted.  Despite the fact that I initially viewed Facebook as nothing more than a virtual plebe-filled People mag, I’ve increasingly bought into its virtues as of late.  As someone who’s studied /worked in the international development field, I recognize that civil society engagement and community building are some of the most powerful ingredients of an effective campaign: mediums such as Facebook and blogs are able to extend a common banner over individuals from vastly different walks of life.   Whereas I may have been able to have a conversation such as this one over a pint with a few friends on a Saturday night in a world without blogs, this forum grants me an unprecedented opportunity to share my thoughts with people whom I’d never have a reason to wet my whistle with.  Such an evolution could easily be casted as a social revolution, which has enabled people to advocate and mobilize for good causes at a level never before seen.  Every revolution has its guillotine, however, and all to often heads are rolling before anybody notices. 

If one can get past the seemingly blatant hypocrisy of a synthesizer-saturated band like Jamiroquai preaching the vanity of our obsession with technology, it’s easy to see that the lyricist has a point that can be applied to the social networking craze.  From what I can see, the verse that I’ve quoted above – the chorus from the band’s song “Virtual Insanity” – conveys a view that technological advancements have consumed us to the point that our individual and collective futures are controlled by them – a reality that we remain largely oblivious to.  I recently watched a PBS Frontline documentary called “Growing Up Online” that attempted to profile the demographic that grew up literally “snared in the Net”: those born in the early 90’s and onward.  It assembles a fairly diverse panel of academics, parents and teenagers, all of whom reserve widely ranging views on the cumulative impacts the ubiquity of the Internet is having on young people.  One thing they all agreed on, though, was that your average American 13 year old has been absolutely submerged in an ocean of social networks: as Jamiroquai so funkily asserted, their deaf to any world outside of Myspace.   

I'm stumped as to whether I should consider myself fully part of this generation. Granted, I've been using computers for must of my life: since Grade 3, a portion of my schoolday has been designated for some software-based activity, whether it involve slogging through touch typing drills or fighting off cholera on the Oregon Trail.  It wasn't until I was about 11 or 12, though, that my family got "wired", and another one or two years before I'd ever dabbled in e-mail or instant messaging.  Whereas my mom was still making me send snail mail to my cousin on his birthday when I was 8, a tyke of the same age in 2009 has likely never tasted envelope glue.  

Granted, extent of exposure aside, I feel fully caught up in the fast-pace, “now now NOW!” culture that’s largely the offspring of the advent of cyberspace.  My laptop decided – rather inconveniently – to “take a break” on an ill-fated night in mid-December, and during it’s R&R-filled holiday at the technicians’ place over Christmas I was, at times, absolutely, hopelessly lost.  Although it’s really not that hard for one to get access to a PC in Guelph in 2008 – there’s plenty at the university library – the prospect of having to get up every morning and catch a bus in order to access the almighty Internet perturbed me mightily.  At times, it was an almost unbearable inconvenience.  Indeed, this sounds melodramatic – but many of you, I’m sure, would agree.  If I feel like getting up at 4 am to re-watch Barack Obama’s inauguration speech for the 6th time, I damn well should be able to do it!

No matter how much I rely on it, though, the Internet – and, more specifically, social networking – is mostly still purely practical for me; essentially, it’s a glorified means to an end.  Not so, for the group of kids examined in the aforementioned PBS documentary: all of them admitted a certain type of psycho-social dependence on social media, and that they would be totally lost without it.  Kind of like a draft horse without a load to haul, to utilize an Aggie-inspired metaphor.  Even more alarming were the observations of a couple of the more thoughtful, perceptive interviewees that they developed alternate identities on the web, easily distinguishable from their everyday personas.  One girl, for example, described herself as “happy-go-lucky” social butterfly by day, self-degrading anorexic by night (in a depressing admission, she identified the latter as closer to who she really was). 

The development of this type of duality and disconnection scares me far more than any role that social media may plan in allurement and abduction.  As one expert points out in Growing Up Online, the vast majority of Internet-related cases of physical and sexual harm are a result of an active engagement in risky behavior on the part of adolescents themselves, and God knows that teens were putting themselves at risk far before the advent of the web.  “The Predator”, despite his universally feared status, is as much a creation of urban myth as an object of reality.  From what I can see, there’s a much greater danger of losing our children to holes dug deep inside themselves, than to some grimy back alley behind the 2-for-1 pizza joint. 

Kids are going to make bad decisions.  In most cases, they turn out “just fine”; in much rarer ones, they end up losing their lives as a result, or at least a good deal of their prospects.  Does this risk justify building walls around our loved ones - locking them into the safe "havens" that parents such as Evan Skinner (in the doc) have so lovingly and intentionally constructed (truthfully, no sarcasm there)?  I think the benefits of social media, as outlined by folks such as my Firstmedia webinar leader, are far too promising to keep from the future leaders of society.  Rather than developing introverted communities that are primarily concerned with looking after our own, we need to learn to confront the world around us, with all of its blemishes - this includes the Internet.  What we do need to ensure, however, is that our most vulnerable don't get lost in the vastness of the world during the course of the interaction, as Jamiroquai warns.  When people, including kids, lose hold of the tether of family during the spacewalk of life, they'll inevitably become lost within themselves.  

If your head was just one big eye...

...would this church square look like this?  I have no freaking clue -all I know is that this is a 360 spherical panorama, which used a "stereographic projection" to create a globe.  Pretty wild; check out more of them here.

This image, which was originally posted to Flickr, was reviewed on 31-December-2007 by the administrator or trusted user RedCoat, who confirmed that it was available on Flickr under the above license on that date

A Declaration of Dependence

Earlier today, I had a post-church discussion with my parents about the nature and origins of the concept of "nuclear family" that is so engrained in North American culture. We chatted / debated about how long fathers have been commuting from nine-to-five jobs, and how realistic Hollywood-created imagery of families playing Scrabble around the dining room table really is. Although we immediately came to a number of tentative conclusions, it just occurred to me - about nine hours later, after pacing around the fireplace, staring into it's propane-fueled flames - how central the phenomenon of independence is to the familial institution. The independence I speak of isn't that of grandiose nationalist movements; rather, it refers to the type of separation on a personal level that stems from individualism.

Allow me to unpack that a little bit. Defenders of the "traditional nuclear family" often point, rightly so, to its deep roots in Western history, and the extent to which our current economic, social, and moral frameworks rely on it. People of religious conviction commonly take this even further, by claiming that not only is the nuclear family firmly established in our cultural fabric, it's also divinely ordained. Within Christian circles, I consistently hear passages such as Genesis 2:24 cited: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh". I feel like the popular emphasis placed on this arrangement is greater today than ever, with nuptials being noted in discussions on topics ranging from gay marriage to successful child rearing.

It would be absurdly naive of me to contest the centrality of the nuclear family unit to Western society. On a more subjective level, I would even argue that it is, more often than not, a functional, merit-filled system. However, I also think that stressing it as an environment of paramount importance to human development - as many commentators, such as Christian fundamentalist groups, tend to do - verges on dangerous, largely because this approach is a tunnel-visioned one that neglects the importance that community plays in people's lives.

Which brings me back to the notion of "personal independence". Taken by itself, the Scripture passage that I just referenced makes it sound as if a type of schism occurs between the newlywed couple and their parents upon their marriage - similar what takes place the day a colony of a great world power gains political autonomy. However, a broader examination of the Judeo-Christian canon reveals that young families often actually remained within the community of their extended families. In other words, although they may have got their own tent (which I'm sure they appreciated!), it was pitched on the same old campsite. Far from viewing a separation from their parents as a part of the "natural cycle" or the rite of passage to adulthood, they embraced it as a setup that would allow them to develop their relationship and love for each other on an even deeper level, while also retaining close links to those with whom they were previously in closest quarters.

As a Western-born young professional, I feel that a significantly different value system is being impressed upon me. Aside from the commonly-felt economics-based pressures to "find a job and do something useful with yourself" (undoubtedly a byproduct of merit-based capitalism), I often feel the need to achieve a sort of psychological and spiritual independence from others. Although confiding in a close person, such as a good friend or family member, has remarkable immediate and long-term effects when I'm going through a rough time, I often can't help but feel as if I've become undesirably reliant on that person - exposed, vulnerable. Today, while contemplating how I'd feel if someone close to me died (don't worry, it's not a common thought process!), I even went as far as to concede that my sorrow might be somewhat alleviated by the prospect of becoming less emotionally and psychologically attached to that person. Somehow, this type of event would represent the scaling of one more cliff face on the mountain of independence, a significant victory for my individual psyche. One step closer to completing the rite of passage to self-sustainability.

Just like the newly-wedded Hebrew couple enjoys a certain degree of autonomy without considering it in itself as an end, however, I don't believe people such as me are to desire economic, psychological, or spiritual independence as an ideal. If this were so, the highest degree of human development would be characterized by a solitary, lonely existence "at the top". Although some individuals, such as the fabled Egyptian Desert Fathers of the third century, found spiritual fulfillment from long periods of solitude, this was not intended to be the standard configuration of human society as a whole. Rather, people need to live in community in order to function properly. This is in no small part due to the fact that living in community forces us to learn to depend on each other - a prospect that offends the individualistic tendencies that urge us not to rely upon assistance from a neighbor unless absolutely necessary. According to these instincts, in the rare case that we are forced to accept charity, we're to reciprocate as soon as possible, so as to avoid creating a "vicious cycle" of obligation and undesirable interaction.

People haven't been able to successfully organize themselves with this attitude as of yet, and I believe it's foolish to believe that we'll be able to in the future. In his book entitled "Reflections on Christian Leadership", Catholic priest Henri Nouwen speaks of the defining characteristic of a true leader as being the ability to humbly place oneself at the bottom of the social ladder, and rely wholly on the wisdom and goodwill of others. Personally, I don't think there's a better time than now to take this advice to heart. Perhaps we need to reconsider the universal applicability of the maxim "pulling one up by one's own bootstraps", and focus on developing communities where we pool each others' resources. I'm no socialist, and I'm not primarily talking about economic resources (although there's definitely a time and place for this). I'm speaking of spiritual and psychological capital, that embodies itself in encouraging others, and making yourself vulnerable and authentic to them.

If the current economic crisis can be viewed as something of a failure of an economic system largely rooted in individualism and personal benefit, then there's hardly a better time to acknowledge the basic fact that we need to rely on each other. Just as the 13 Colonies needed a Declaration of Independence to free themselves from the political oppression resulting from despotism in 1776, we need a Declaration of Dependence to emancipate us from the devastating forces of the individualistic psyche that exist in 2009. If we would only embrace the strength available in our neighbor, we would gain the power to overcome looming strongholds.