faith and spirituality
My notes:
Economics, politics, and society
-public realm as indistinct
-the Right defends the west foolishly; the Left makes it impossible to understand traditional culture with any significance or meaning
-Must democracy and capitalism go hand in hand?
-socialists wanted workers to feel solidarity with each other, as opposed to ethnic kin
-rivalry between class and nation
-Whereas most cultures are defined by food, faith, dance, dress, etc., the U.S. is defined by... borders?
-"If the new rulers did not tamper too much, or too suddenly, with the existing mechanisms of life at the local level, then the real imagined communities of the invaded remained intact. It is this kind of stability that the intrusion of modernity from the West has destroyed."
-"Both communists and Taliban relied entirely on force - and failed even then - because they were not perceived as legitimate. The Western powers now wish to impose democracy and the creation of an impersonal nation-state at the point of a gun. It will be interesting to see if they succeed."
-religion as tool for escaping western universalism and pluralism (cultural imperialism)
-economics (class struggles) as exacerbation of other causes? (who am I like when family and morality are erased?)
-anonymity of town life reduced accountability of individuals (rant about kids stealing from michaels)
-collapse of west positive for ecology
-rights culture associated with Left
Morality
-What is the relationship between morality and secularization?
-tolerance vs. respect of own culture/culture of others
-respecting of differences vs. moral relativism
-If obedience is a cardinal value, then violence and disorder result as opposite. What is our cardinal value?
-west as temptation; non-west as tradition and morality
-justification by faith = moral standards collapse?
-What is the origin of ethics? Pearse says it is God; I say it is...?
Sex and family
-Sex: female empowerment through sex on condition of marriage
-Does a woman lose future freedoms by marrying at a young age?
-Who is responsible for raising a child? How many people should be involved?
-Are we intentionally killing our family, past, and sexual selves?
-industrial revolution --> detachment to place and extended family
-What is the relationship between sexuality and number of partners to sense of insecurity and self-worth?
-Pearse says embarrassment about sexuality is healthy; I say lending ourselves to embarrassment leads to limited sex education, and I don't think that sexual morality and sex education are mutually exclusive
-sexual devastation and rejection that follows from a broken relationship
-What is the relationship between fashion, "bragging and exhibitionism," and self-esteem? I do not believe that every woman who dresses either provocatively or fashionably is doing it to be "used" in the public realm, as Pearse asserts. I think this problem is a problem of how she is received, which is a problem of the media and of socialization.
-Pearse says mature adult life is ridding ourselves of "partying, nights out with 'the boys'/'the girls'" but even if in a serious relationship, I certainly do not want to exclusively hang out with my partner.
-What is the relationship between American teens and 20-somethings need to "find themselves" and the lack of a cultural rite of passage?
-He attacks "every child a wanted child" by pointing to child abuse and neglect, but this is not a problem of abortion rights people; it indicates to me a problem with people who ARE HAVING kids in that they are not giving the task meaningful forethought.
-western cultures not reproducing themselves - is this a problem? Waking Life and section on ants and how this ties in to ecological balance (reincarnation)...
"Instead, having children is not a commitment to a partner so much as a consolation to the mother for being forced to live in a criminalized and brutalized environment; not a financial burden to be embraced with trepidation so much as a career move and a guarantee of being given public housing." WHOA!
-relationship between family background and educational system and disposition to gain from it
Miscellaneous
-historical continuity and ideals of Dignity, Courage, Honor, and Duty
-harmony between inner/outer person and humility/punishment
-wealth leads to disconnection, boredom, feeble-mindedness
-Religious anger = response to something wider?
-"condemned at every instant to invent man" - existentialist view of responsibility? What guides morality: faith in a higher power, or responsibility to behave with forethought?
-"...we have gained the world, and lost our own souls." But I think GREED contributes to this sense. Regaining our souls through charity and action?
-ceasing to be fully human: result of lack of morality? result of technology? result of...?
-belief in something more worthwhile than self
-acting like guests
These aren't real thoughts as much as they are fragments of what I was thinking when reading it or statements I found noteworthy, but I'd be happy to elaborate on any of these, if anyone is interested.
Mostly I disagreed with his views on sexuality and abortion, though I cannot honestly argue totality of disagreement. As someone who engaged in sexual relationships early in adolescence and as someone who, now in her 20s, experiences great anxiety with sex, I cannot make the argument that he is flat out WRONG in saying that early sexual relationships or relationships without marriage are the cause of low self-esteem and rejection in women. I really WANT to say that this is wrong, but I wonder if what I would use in defense would be mere justification or truly legitimate. I want to say that the cause of my current anxiety with sex is that the man who introduced me to sex was violent in temper and unpredictable in temperament. I want to say that it was the lack of respect and meaningful understanding he had for women and the concept of being penetrated that caused this anxiety - that a different type of man (say, Dylan) could have introduced me to sex in a healthier manner, and even had the relationship ended, I would have suffered no long term sexual rejection. I know other people who engaged in sexual relationships early in adolescence, and they do not speak of similar experiences. They have sex in their current relationships without anxiety, and I assume this is because their original sexual relationships did NOT cause such rejection and low self-esteem. But again, I don't know if I am saying this because I'm feeling defensive or because he's getting at something true that also happens to be personal.
I agree with what he says about family and respect. We are not a society who is very well rooted, nor are we a society that celebrates and acknowledges the stages of life. Apache culture has a number of rituals for adolescents' coming of age, and we have nothing. I would have liked some honesty about what to expect from adolescence but got nothing but silence and "You're going through a rough time." This is, I think, because the Right is afraid that conversations such as these promote instability and the Left thinks that rituals are too traditional. Personally, I disagree with both. We need to trust that our youth are ready to hear the reality (and totality) of what's going on in their hormonal changes and we should give them credit and responsibility for coming of age. We need to celebrate them, show them that we understand that they're going through hard times but that we love them and will forgive them for the mistakes they will make. As adults, we need to cultivate a culture of respect (which is largely absent all around) and try to communicate honestly and respectfully both with ourselves and with each other. Communication is key, and as long as you do it while conveying dignity and approval (wording somewhat borrowed from Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz), respect comes naturally. This sounds so conservative to me, but I'm not trying to spark Left vs. Right debates.
Family as foundation for the present, which is just a medium for the past to reach the future. I think success in treating family as foundation comes in flexibility.
On ethics, I cannot propose an origin except that I've always firmly believed in treating others as I want to be treated. This, Noemi tells me, is something the Bible tells you to do. Maybe my ethics DO stem from Christianity, as much as I would love to claim that they were created on some independent grounds. Though, I must say that I wonder about the relationship between morality and faith. Who is more moral? Someone who tries to act on behalf of God-as-Creator or someone who acts on behalf of accountability and the what-if-everyone-behaved-in-that-way philosophy? The Existentialists (or Sartre, anyway, himself an atheist) believe that we are responsible for evolution, that we choose to behave in certain ways, and that these ways imply our support and approval for large-scale replication. That, by acting in a certain manner, we believe that EVERYONE could behave in this manner and life would sustain itself. Which is why, then, littering becomes a huge no-no, killing bugs and other living things is reprehensible, driving like you don't care whether you live or die is catastrophic, etc. On the other hand, Christians as followers of God-as-Creator behave, I assume, according to their interpretation of the Scriptures and in a way that aims at what God considers Heaven-worthy behavior. Morality is morality, in my head, and each motivation has its merit. I don't think there's any gain in making an argument that one is more moral than the other. (By saying God-as-Creator, I imply the difference between the Christian understanding of God-as-Creator and God-as-Amorphous-Energy-Being, the latter of whom is more frequently referred to in Hinduism and other faiths.) I don't know that the origins of ethics are really that divergent. I believe that the ethics of Christianity also stem from a what-if-everyone-behaved-in-that-way philosophy because things like "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not steal" and other things of this nature are obviously the foundation of a non-chaotic society. Furthermore, I believe that these moral grounds both stem from acquiring balance, which is the ultimate goal of every aspect of a living society.
More to come, but this is an enormous undertaking.
Perhaps related tangentially, I'm reading The World's Religions and am finding Hinduism very compelling. Amazon.com, send me my books already!