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.