09.26.05
Posted in life at 9:42 pm by
My dear ‘blog-community’,
My heart is heavy. I am finding myself in a place where I’m exhausted. I’ve got about 40 posts on my fingertips, but no energy to get even one onto the page. I love having you all stop by day in and day out, and I love chatting with all of you about this or that. Thus, it’s discouraging to me that I need to say that I won’t be blogging for a while.
I need to get myself to a place where I can write with a tad more confidence, because I need this forum to be a place where I can be a confident person. Right now, I haven’t much confidence in my voice. If I can’t be satisfied (at least to some degree) with the things I write here, I’m not sure there’s much use in pressing on at a point of exhaustion.
I don’t know for sure “a while” will be. Perhaps a week, maybe two, maybe a month. But, I’ll be back. I just need some time to gain some perspective. Some time to read, and get back some of the fire, piss, vinegar, and ‘young adult angst’ that I fear has left me. I hope you all can wait this dryspell out, because you all give me a great deal of joy; the thought of you not happening by saddens me. Yet, I need to be restored a tad.
I’ll still be around: Lurking, sticking my nose into theological or political discussions, and asserting myself where I feel I should.
But, for now, I need to sign off. To sleep calmly and deeply. I need to recharge.
Your patience is appreciated. And, your prayers (or good thoughts, if that’s more your speed) are coveted.
With love,
Brandon
P.S. Greg, if you’re reading this, I’m appointing you the Minister of Internet Troll responses. If you could just handle that, preferably in a manner as vulgar as possible, I’d appreciate it. 
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Posted in grad school at 3:55 pm by
So, a few of you asked about my thesis. And, because it’s been completely monopolizing my thoughts of late, I thought I’d clue you in as to what it’s about. Basically, it’s a group communication study that is interested in the outcome variable of leader emergence in a zero history initially leaderless group.
Basically, I have this model that predicts that Self-Monitoring (a construct that was originated by Mark Snyder in about 1974) leads to leader emergence. This, of course, has been demonstrated numerous times; however, studies have been less successful at explaining why this happens.
I theorize, in my thesis study, that individuals who are high self monitors participate in more goal congruent communication so that they are more likely to help the group achieve its goals and thus, they emerge as leader of their group. I also propose that past studies have been solely focused on a groups task performance goals, as opposed to its socio-emotional goals. Thus, I vary the group goal in my experimental manipulation.
Thus, I speculate that task performance communication is only a predictor of the communication that leads to leader emergence in groups with an overt task performance objective. However, in groups with a more distinctly socio-emotional task goal (i.e. a team building task, for example), I speculate that goal congruent communication is more likely to be communication that helps the group achieve those socio-emotional goals.
I’ve been brutally exhausted by this whole process. As I type this, I’m about ready to fall over and sleep. *sigh*
If I make it through this semester, I’m home free.
I hope I do.
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09.23.05
Posted in life at 9:26 am by
In the question asking/answering little game we’re playing, I opened up the floor to take questions from y’all. That last post was a little long, so I decided that I’d start a new one. Plus, this next round of questions is a tad weighty. They come from Benjamin:
1) Can you explain to me exactly what is the purpose of prayer?
2) What do you do when you see someone with a “Please Help, God Bless” sign?
3) What is the thing that keeps you awake at night when everything’s gone quiet and there’s just you and your thoughts?
See? Not a single question about bodily fluids, secretions, or auto-fellation. That’s what happens when you turn thirty and find a grey goddamned hair on your chest and realize it’s time to grow up….
I think I wish that he had asked a question about bodily fluids. Those are hard, and potentially revealing questions. But, I promised honesty and transparency. You’ll get just that.
1. No. I can’t explain what the purpose of prayer is. Frankly, it’s not a forte of mine in my personal life. If you were thinking of asking me to pray for you, you might as well find someone else because I’m pretty bad at meeting my prayer committments. At least in the traditional sense of ‘prayer’ that is an all out time of folded hands, clinched fists, and verbal speaking to God, that is.
As close as I can figure though, prayer must be about a dialogue. And, most often, dialogue is meant to bring two people together. I think it’s that way with prayer. While I’m not a good pray-er in the traditional sense (and I recognize that I could stand to get a lot better), I think that there’s a lot to be said about contemplation. I hold that that’s a big part of prayer, too. Listening.
So, if the prayer is a dialogue, and the purpose of dialogue is to bring two entities together, then I’d reason that the purpose of prayer is to bring human beings and God closer together. How that happens, well, that’s a mystery of epic proportions.
2) You’re a bastard Benjamin, you know that right? What do I do when I see a person with a sign that says ‘Please Help, God Bless’? I avert my eyes and keep walking / driving. And, if you want to know the even more dispicable thing about me, it’s that I don’t regularly see these signs. Why? Because I’ve structured my life so that I don’t have to see poverty day in and day out. I’ve moved away from poverty, I’ve moved away from hurt, I’ve moved away from pain, I’ve checked out of the ole’ heartbreak hotel. (Though, while we don’t live on skid row, we live in the city, we’re not suburb folk, either…and the truth be told, there’s probably a good deal of poverty right under my nose that I just don’t take the time to fully examine.)
It’s not that I don’t do anything for those in need, but I certainly don’t do enough.
All that said, I’m not sure supplying the guy with the ‘Please Help, God Bless’ sign with 20s, patting him on the ass, and saying, “have a good one pardner” is the way to go either. I’m thinking that part of battling poverty and homelessness in America and abroad is living in community with it, rather than moving away to the suburbs.
3) Often the things that keep me up thinking aren’t really ‘mid-life crisis’ sorts of panic attacks. More often I’m kept up speculating about applications of communication theory that no one has thought about. (For example, and if there are any communication scholars out there this would be a great study/thesis/dissertation, I think about applications of Berger’s Uncertainty Reduction Theory on the organizational communication processes of formal and informal routes of performance feedback.) Sometimes, I panic about the SOC 820 paper I should be writing, but am not. Sometimes, I ruminate about God and the Kingdom, and what I’m doing to bring about futher manifestations of the Kingdom.
But, frankly, I’m usually so exhausted by the end of a day of work/school/teaching/blogging/husbandry/feline-fatherhood that I don’t find myself laying awake at night very often. And, when I do, more likely than pondering the nature of God and humans or the finer points of communicative theory, I curse the fact that I had too much caffine earlier in the evening.
Then, Rachel asked:
1. What advice would you give to someone who wants to believe in Christianity but can’t, and who doesn’t believe that one can just make the choice to believe or not?
2. What do you think are the three best movies of all time?
3. How can you hold to a belief in the Bible while also believing the some Biblical authors got things wrong?
1. I would say, “be calm.” I suppose my specific answer would depend on what, exactly, about Christianity the individual ‘can’t’ believe. I mean, honestly, I’d first ask them to tell their story. Then, I’d listen. Then, if they were open to it, I’d tell them my story. I’d tell them that the times in my life that my ‘belief’ was REALLY strengthened were when I allowed myself the latitude to challenge my beliefs.
I don’t really think belief is a choice. However, wanting to believe is more likely going to end up in belief than un-belief (though, I’m not entirely happy with my phrasology there.)
In the end, though, my take away message would be this: “You don’t need to believe for you to be an important part of my life; your value to me is not contingent upon the things that you think.”
That was a really tough question, yo.
2. Well, I’m not really an ‘old movie buff’ so I can’t really speak for quality movies of all time. Also, I tend to think that subjectivity is key when one is discussing movies. Okay, last disclaimer: my rating is limited by the movies that I’ve seen, so I can’t really say these are the best of ‘all time’. (All that to say that I don’t really care to get into an argument about what anyone who reads this might think of my personal preferences…unless you agree with me, then feel free to comment on preferences at length.) All that said, here’s my list:
- The Big Lebowski - without any question at all, my favorite movie.
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. How can I hold to a belief of the Bible when I think some of the authors got it wrong? Well, I actually stepped back from that statement a little, but I’ll run with it because I did infer this. The answer is simple actually, because I believe that all scripture is inspired by God. This doesn’t mean that I think God physically moved the hand and stylus of Paul while he sat idly sipping some first century beer. But, I do think that God enabled Paul (through the gift of wisdom) to get it right some of the time, even a lot of the time–probably more, even, than Paul could’ve gotten it right all by himself. The Kingdom direction in which scripture points is in no way negated by the cultural values of its authors, it just means we need to read with a critical eye.
Good questions, Rachel!
Next was Pete:
1) What happened to Christian music? (Or rather, what hasn’t happened
yet?)
2) Why should we allow practicing homosexuals to be leaders in
churches built on divine doctrine that is adamantly against
homosexuality and sexual impurity?
3) If you were to become front man for any band, living or disbanded,
who would it be and why?
1. I don’t think Christian music (roundly, there are abundant counterexamples) has ever captured the art of storytelling like “secular” (those are big fucking scare quotes if ever I saw them) music. CCM artists (or producers more likely) seem either unable, or unwilling to do anything that substantially challenges the minds of their listeners. They’re much more happy just to give the public what it wants. (Much like mainstream pop music.) Thus, you get formulaic songs in which when stories and metaphor are applied, they’re tissue-paper thin. Rather its much easier to slap a few praise songs on a disc (because people can feel good about praising God) and sell that for 21.95 a pop.
2. Because practicing homosexuals aren’t impure sexual beings any more than you or I.
3. This is hard, it’s difficult for me to not quickly scream “U2!!!”. But after further review, if I were the frontman for U2, there’d be no Bono and that would never do. Though after further, further review…I suppose that I would have to pick U2 anyway. Honestly, it’s pretty hard for me to answer this question, I’m not a big ‘rock and roll’ guy, so my knowlege of bands with anything resembling a frontman is pretty weak. And, of the bands I do know, part of the reason I like them is because of their front people…thus I’d hate to replace them!
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09.22.05
Posted in life at 10:01 am by
Okay, new meme. Nicole started this one; Ninjanun participated, too. I’m now having second thoughts about asking Ninjanun questions, but rules are rules. I am to follow these instructions:
1. Ask me 3 questions. Any 3, no matter how personal, private or random.
2. I have to answer them honestly. I have to answer them all.
3. In turn, you post this message in your own blog or journal and you have to answer the questions that are asked of you.
The only consolation I have about playing this little game is that the three of you that read this blog probably don’t really give two craps about my private life (or at least I hope you don’t, now).
I’m having a caveat, though. I’m not going to give away any personally identifying information, or tell any stories that could defame or embarass anyone but myself (such as my wife, or anybody else for that matter.) I’ll happily tell y’all things about my own shortcomings, habits, or idiosyncrasies, but others’ are their own…and theirs to tell.
I’ll be editing this post as the comments comments trickle in.
First question, Kurt asks:
I saw a car in front of me that had window sticker that said, “VOTE…for Jesus Christ.” My question is: What the fuck does that mean? Thanks.
First off, great question. I don’t have any ‘cut and dry’ sorts of answers, so I’ll offer a few options for what that might have meant.
- We should vote for Jesus Christ as a write in candidate. (Of course if he won we’d be in the awkward position of having an absent political office holder…ya know, him being seated on the right hand of God and all.
- We should vote for the candidate Jesus Christ has clearly defined as THE candidate of his choosing. (A.K.A. George W. Bush, John Kerry, etc.)
- There’s a new political party named “Jesus Christ” and we vote for their candidates straight ticket.
- We should be convinced by this witty slogan that we should repent of all our sins and ‘come to Christ.’ (I’m sure this bumper sticker is particularly convincing…right?)
Then, Ninjanun asked:
1. What about Christianity makes you the maddest?
2. When would you say you became a Christian?
3. How do you interpret those passages (mainly in Paul’s writings, but sprinkled throughout the Bible) that say women should not speak or have authority over men?
Great questions!
1. I think the thing about Christianity that makes me the maddest (at least in the sense that it drives me bonkers) is the people. I love the idea of Christianity. How it’s practised by its adherents is my issue. I am forever baffled how Christians think that Christianity is somehow about THEM. Now, I think it is about the individual in the sense that the individual is (or at least should be) transformed into a new creation. But, for many, if not most, Christians, that’s where Christianity ends. I play that game, too, though. So, I suppose my critique is a double edged sword.
2. I have no clue how to answer this question. I mean, I can remember being about 6 and not wanting to go to hell, so I prayed the ‘dear Jesus, let me in’ prayer. Truthfully, though, I think I had faith (in the sense of belief) before that. Before I can remember, really. But, in another very real sense, I think I’m still in the process of becoming a Christian. Depending on how this whole afterlife thing shakes out (what the new Heavens and new Earth look like), I would imagine that I’ll never be done becoming a Christian. So, I suppose I have two answers–I was a Christian as long as I remember, and I’m not a Christian yet. How’s that for elusive.
3. I could answer this last question in a number of ways. But, when you get down to the meat of what I believe about Paul and passages that seem to put women ’second’ I have to say that I think the Bible is wrong. Okay, yes, I said that to get a rise out of people. I don’t really think the Bible is wrong, but I do think that it was written to a specific people in a specific place and time and culture. To ignore the purpose of a passage of scripture is to miss out on the nuances of its meaning.
Further, I think scripture points us in a direction. I think that rather than reading certian passages (I Cor. 11 springs to mind) as immutable and unchangable statements about moral culture, Christians need to look at the direction such scriptures point us in. So, I suppose I would say that Paul was wrong. And, Paul was very right. Paul’s intent was not to point out a moral law about the role of women in society, his point was that in changeable and varied societies, Christianity can and should adapt in order to further glorify the kingdom.
Finally, Paul was a misogynist. I don’t blame him, entirely. His society, his culture, they all play into his views, yes, even the views that worked their way into scripture. But, if we don’t recognize this about Paul, we miss further nuances in his writing.
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09.21.05
Posted in sunday school journal at 10:47 am by
As a part of the Adult Sunday School class I’m taking our Professor (or teacher, or leader, or whatever,) we’ll just call him Dr. Smith, has asked us to participate in a journaling exercise. He offered us blue books to journal in (he really is a professor). The class is called Desiring the Kingdom: Worship & Culture. I’m not the blue book sort, but I decided that I’d do my best to take part in the exercise. In doing so, I hope you all can get a bit of a flavour about what the class is about. I’m pretty excited about it; it should be a great experience.
Each week we get a different writing prompt. We were given the overarching journaling instructions to “learn to see our world with more critical eyes–to become more attentive to the rituals and practices of our culture.” Additionally, we’re given a more specific topic each week. I think, the hope is that we’ll be able to talk critically about the roles of the weekly topic in the overarching theme of critically evaluating ourselves in the world we live in.
Each week, on Wednesday, I’ll post our weekly topic and my response to it. I would extend an invitation to any of you who’d like to play along with this little escapade to jump right in, the more the merrier, right? Either way, your feedback will provide me with helpful thoughts about my own journey of discipleship and desiring the Kingdom. Okay, so, here’s the first topic:
In the coming week, find some time to reflect on what you hope for. Does your hopeful expectation about the future shape what you do in the present? If so, how? If not, why not? How should our hope shape what we do with our time in the present?
What do I hope for? I think another fair way to ask this question is to ask, in what direction do the desires of my heart point. I think there are probably a number of different ways to answer that question. Concretely, my heart points in the me in the direction of becoming an educator and a researcher. I hope to eventually become a professor so that I may help to shape some of what we know about the process of human communication. I hope to be able to participate in the lives of young people. I hope to help those young people find their own hopes and give them some of the tools to realise their dreams.
More theologically, I like to at least pay lip service to the idea that my hopes point me in the direction of pursuing the Kingdom of God on earth. I say that I pay that notion ‘lip service’ because I’m not always convinced that I’m REALLY pointed in that direction. My habits, as they were presented in the overarching goal of these writings, sometimes belie the fact that I’m probably not AS committed to the idea of the renewal of all of creation as I would like to believe myself to be.
For example, in the process of the dialectic here I think I sometimes am more enchanted by the idea of having my blood pressure shot through the roof, than I am by the idea of participating in a real and honest dialogue. I would imagine that I’m not all that uncommon in this practice. The way I bring things up sometimes can be more combative than transformative. In that sense, I’m not convinced that my hopes of furthering the Kingdom are outweighing my hopes of getting a ‘rise’ out of an argument.
Too, I think my habits of outrage are a tad out of whack. By this I mean that I’m not sure that the things that outrage me are the things that really should be outrageous. For example, I find myself outraged by Ingrid’s Slice of Laodicea, and her discussion (diatribe) about why feminism is ruining families and America, when folks like these probably aren’t doing massive damage to the Kingdom. I happen over there when I need something to write about, when I need to stroke my ego by seeing a post with 30+ comments. All the while, I find myself needing to manufacture outrage about people living on less than a dollar a day.
Perhaps, my hopes aren’t pointed as squarely at the Kingdom as I hope for them to be. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think feminism is an important movement in the furthering of the Kingdom, really, I do. However, I think that it’s possible that I (and I would probably venture ‘we’) focus on these issues for the wrong reasons. I think that issues of equality are essential, but responding in outrage because some folks espouse views that offend MY OWN PERSONAL values is probably where I tend to fall short. Feminism isn’t important because it’s a value important to Brandon. Feminism is important because equality is a value important to our community. And, feminism in Christianity is a value important to our community because equality is a value important to God.
When I respond out of personal offense, I think I miss the point. My hopes (though I like to label them as ‘Kingdom-ward pointing’) are distinctly pointed at myself. In short, I’m one selfish son-of-a-bitch. My individualism is a lens that clouds my view of the Kingdom.
Now, I don’t think that means that I have to give up the entirity of my sense of ’self’ in order to point my hopes, my motives Kingdom-ward. I do think, however, that I need to be a more active participant in the process of critically thinking about my outrage. Asking myself, why am I outraged? Am I upset because of my own personal values?
I think what I’m trying to say is that my personal values and the values of the Kingdom don’t always match up 100 percent of the time. This should surprise no one, but I think it pays for all of us to hold our personal values up to the light. It probably pays to be critical of our outrage before we jump right into the self-gratifying (almost mastubatory) act of frothing at the mouth about it.
The above is hard to confess. I hate falling short, but we all do it. I wish I could say that I could just toss on a set of ‘Kingdom glasses’ and write the truth all the time. Unfortunately, though I try to be a ‘wearer’ of ‘Kingdom glasses’ even with corrective lenses, my vision isn’t 20/20. Oh, heavens, do I ever need the body, the community of Christ.
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09.20.05
Posted in politics at 11:24 pm by
Well friends, I’m sad to inform you of this, but it’s only fair you hear it from me first. I’m going to swear off being a liberal. Turns out those commie bastards have been polluting this nation. The liberal anti-God ‘intellectual elites’ are the reason that there are hundred’s of poor people suffering…and those liberals keep trying to blame things like racism…hogwash.
You see, I just read this article by Brannon Howse (founder of Worldview Weekend) and I’m totally convinced by his reasoning. Here’s that article, read and learn, Pink-o:
Hurricane Katrina has brought to the nation?s attention the plight of the poor in America. While Jesse Jackson and other liberals attempt to blame poverty on racism and the President and other republicans look to throw money at the problem, few are discussing who and what are really to blame for the root cause of poverty in America.
The issue is not racism but anti-Christian bigotry on the part of the ACLU, the NEA, the DNC and Barry Lynn and his group, Americans United for the Separationof Church and State. The sad stories of the poor should be laid at the feet of the liberal, anti-God “intellectual elite” known as the secular left.
Decades-long brainwashing by liberal-leaning social engineers has so altered the worldview of the underclass that they have little choice but to live in the mire of their culturally bankrupt caste.
We in developed nations use the term “poor” flippantly to describe people who are really not poor in the historic sense of having literally nothing and living on the verge of starvation. It is also crucial to understand that sometimes when the Bible speaks of the poor, it is referring to a person’s spiritual, not financial, condition. However, when the Bible does discuss the fiscally poor, it is not the American definition of the term. Biblical poverty is someone that does not have a coat, food or shelter. Often in America those the government says live in poverty not only have a home, an apartment, and a coat, but a color television, cable TV, video games, an automobile, beer, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and other comforts as well.
While there are a few true victims of poverty, children who suffer from their parents’ bad choices (which all too many choose to repeat as adults)the blame for poverty lies not solely with those who make lifestyle decisions that lead to their status. The great facilitators of chronic indigence are liberal humanists and their worldview of ‘if it feels good do it.’ Much of America’s poor and criminal element have become what they are because of the liberal intelligentsia that have removed God from our schools and public square.
With the expulsion of God in America we have seen the increase of the poor and their practice of abortion, domestic violence, laziness, gambling, drug use, alcoholism, theft, assault, sexual promiscuity and countless children being raised in single parent homes with the same mother but different fathers. These consequences stem from the rejection of a belief in fixed morality and the God that ordained the consequences for its rejection or the rewards that flow for its adherents.
The annual resolutions of the National Education Association, (NEA) the cases brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the political platform of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) or the defense of child pornographers by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, furthers their goal to make us one nation under man not one nation under God.
The data from the Justice Department, Health and Humans Services, FBI and other agencies documents the overwhelming consequences that began to increase in 1962 when the liberals declared war on God and outlawed prayer in our nation’s schools. Their anti-God, socialistic worldview has fostered the chronic poor in America and their morally bankrupt lifestyle.
The liberal, humanistic elite, educrats, and social ‘the pimps of moral relativism’ have foisted their worldview on the underclass and the outcome has been ruinous.
Founding Father Noah Webster wrote, “All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.”
Do ideas have consequences? Does your worldview matter? Liberals can enjoy the distinct satisfaction of seeing just how radically their “forward-thinking” ideas affect the world in which people live day by day. Isn’t the compassion of unrestrained sexual expression, of ongoing handouts to the needy a wonderful thing?
Anyone who regards with even a shred of honesty the destruction of unregenerate people in the underclass knows the liberals’ time is up. Their social experiment is as bust as the former Soviet Union’s Communism. The Christian worldview is the hope that is left and a genuine hope it is. Christians must reach out to the underclass, seek to change hearts, renew minds, and reframe their deformed worldview by showing them the need to embrace Christianity and biblical morality and reject the secular left’s destructive, humanistic, anti-God religious
worldview.
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09.19.05
Posted in culture, life at 10:12 pm by
Anne from Bananie brought to my attention the fact that I’ve been woefully (or gleefully, I’m not sure which) ignorant some of the recent drivel that’s been getting some air-time over at Ingrid Schleuter’s Slice of Laodicea.
The topic du jour over there has been feminism. And, yes, it’s been enough to get my feathers ruffled. And, yes, I’m outraged. I seriously doubt whether my critique will live up to my own and others standards about the ‘ethic of outrage.’ Why? Because I’m pissed.
So often when people banter about feminism it’s not long before they start tossing around half-truths about what feminism is or is not. Frankly, I’m ill prepared to define feminism because of the large number of ‘feminisms’ there are. You could be a liberal feminist, a radical feminist, a pro-life feminist, a pro-choice feminist, a multi-racial feminist, and the list could go on.
Ingrid, in her last few posts explores her view of the non-biblical nature of feminism. Really, it contains so many inaccuracies about feminism that it’s not REALLY worth delving into. However, she raises one point that I think it’s worth getting at. In the quote below, Ingrid asserts that gender is not a social construct, rather it’s a genetic one. Here’s that quote:
The God-given instinct of the heart of a woman is to nurture and to protect the vulnerable and the hurting, especially her own child.
This is simply untrue. AND, the real danger of espousing this position, though I doubt Ingrid would hear anything of it, is that it attributes the works of humans to God. Largely, gender is a social construct. If you’d like to consult the empirical literature on this, you’re more than welcome. I’ll point you in the direction of the library and PsychLit.
You know, the things Ingrid rants about might be fine for some folks. Some women are perfectly happy to stay home with the kids. They’re thrilled to live lives of devotion to motherhood, etc. For them, there’s no higher calling. I have no problem with this. In fact, if you believe that it’s your calling as a woman to stay at home with your children and be a mother, I’m thrilled you’re serving the Lord in that capacity.
What I do have a problem with, however, is folks claiming that gender roles came down from the mountain with Moses. Now, I’m sure Ingrid and her ilk are honestly trying to pursue holy lives. But, in language that our friend Ingrid could understand, just like it seems a bit heretical to attribute to humankind the things of God, it also seems a tad coercive and heretical to call things of man “divine mandate” straight from the lips of the God.
And frankly, I suspect that if we were to clue God in on half the things we’re attributing to her: she’d be pissed, too.
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Posted in culture, life at 8:14 pm by
In a series of posts in the past few weeks, Zalm from From the Salmon, and Kristen from McCarty Musings, have both made keen insights into the way dialogue happens in society. Kristen made a comment (either at her place, Zalm’s, or over here–I don’t remember) that emotion was a key part of why exactly people are moved by stories.
I think her point is a good one. Indeed, folks are often swayed and moved by the stories we share as a community. My point here is not to disagree with Kristen. Quite the contrary, I think her point is valid. Yet, I think there’s always the possibility of going too far in telling our stories.
While sharing emotion is the key to deepening our understanding of eachother’s experiences, too much emotion (nod to Shakespeare’s, Romeo and Juliet) can get us into trouble. Now, I don’t suppose that many of us are going to be taking our own lives because of an emotionally charged story of another, yet emotion has it’s pitfalls, too.
Emotion has a unique use in dialogue. Sometimes we can use it honestly. We can use it to share, to reveal, to deepen our commitments to others. Interestingly, though, emotion can be easily perverted. Emotion, commonly as it is used in the dialectic, is a tool of coercion. So, while Kristen’s absolutely right, emotion has the power to change people…there’re two sides to that coin.
In one sense, emotion absolutely needs to be aroused in the stories we share with one another. In another very real sense, emotion needs to find its place along side of reason and temperance in the wholeness of the beings we are.
At the end of this short thought, I’ll leave you with the thoughts of one who said this much better than I could ever hope:
The two worst sins of bad taste in fiction are pornography and sentimentality. One is too much sex and the other too much sentiment. You have to have enough of either to prove your point but no more. . . .
–Flannery O’Connor
She’d have passed the Bad Christian test, I think.
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09.16.05
Posted in life, grad school at 5:23 pm by
I’ve forgotten to mention something. I’ve opened up the registration portion of the blog (see above in the green bar) so that any of you can officially register with the site. Right now it doesn’t do anything, but someday–I hope someday soon–it would give you the flexibility of editing your own comments and deleting duplicates all by yourself. You wouldn’t have to wait for me to do it. Also, if the world were coming to an abrupt end and I were the only one to know, I would be able to email all of you in one fell swoop. So, if you’d like, go ahead and register!
Second, and more exciting–for me anyway–it seems that the Human Subjects Committee at MSU has determined that I’m not trying to maim, wound, spay, neuter, otherwise damage, or cause any serious and lasting psychological harm to any human beings through my thesis research. I may now continue with my thesis. That’s good news. In the past, I would’ve told you that this means that I’ll probably blog a bit less. The thing about that is, well, nothing really makes me blog less. I’m an addict.
I’ll keep you updated as to my progress.
Okay, so, it’s the weekend. Stop reading this blog and get to the bar (sorry to all you west-coasters who’re reading this at work…what can I say…it sucks to be you.)
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09.15.05
Posted in philosophy, life at 7:04 pm by
I suppose I’ve neglected my blog for, oh, say, 48 hours now (which, for me, is some kind of record,) it’s time for an update. I’m afraid that the things on my mind of late haven’t been particularly related to my general content. My thoughts have been more distinctly ‘grad-school-ish’. That is, I’ve been pondering the wonders of Analyses of Variance, Multiple Regressive techniques, and the philosophy of science.
I would, eventually, like to make some sort of response to a comment Kristen from McCarty Musings made about the role of emotion in the discourse process. I’m fascinated by the role of emotion in communication. (And, if you’re interested, you may want to check out some of the work Robin Nabi has done on the subject.) Yet, this is a topic for another day. (Mostly, I just put the idea here because I hope to use this paragraph as a reminder that I want to write a bit about this.)
Today, though, I want to talk (and hear your thoughts on) the concept of the truth equation. Now, you won’t find the term ‘truth equation’ in any philosophy of science textbook (or probably any other textbook for that matter.) I stumbled across one such equation while I was doing a reading for my ‘Contemporary Research on the Family’ class that I’m taking. Essentially, the authors argued that truth could be boiled down to this:
Truth = Fact + Perspective
This, of course, is the most popular definition of a post-modern definition of truth. Truth should only be approached, so the equation goes, as a manifestation of both fact and perspective.
I have some problems with this definition. It might be okay, but I think it depends on the relative weight of fact vs. perspective. For example, let’s apply some values to those variables:
Fact = 42 (the answer to the question of life the universe and everything…of course)
Perspective = 2
Well, then, Truth = 44. Now 42 (the value of fact) and 44 (the value of truth) are relatively similar in comparison to the value of Perspective. Probably, using truth as an approximation for fact is not going to be a big problem. On the other hand, if the value for perspective is much higher, say, 44 itself. I have a problem with calling ‘truth’ true. In fact, truth, in this case, is as much perspective as it is fact.
By utilizing this equation, it’s also possible to see why some post-modern (or non-moderns, but I’ll use the post-modern term as it is more colloquially recognized) folk have such a frustration with modern religious types. You see, in their little equation, they’ve got direct word from on high about fact. That is, the value they are claiming for perspective is zero.
This, of course, pisses people off because if you don’t agree with these modern types–you’re the one whose perspective is getting between fact and truth. Post-moderns find this to be fantastically arrogant.
If it were up to me, I think the equation should go something a bit more like this:
Percieved Truth = Fact + Perspective
There are a few minor caveats/hypotheses to/about this phenomena.
- I believe that the set of people whose Perspective = 0 in this equation is null. That is, everyone has a perspective.
- Most folks perspective scores are similar. That’s not to say that they’re the same, it’s just that their perspectives are approxomately equally errant from fact–albiet some are errant in entirely opposite directions.
- As the number of equal participants in a community increases, the truth equation of the community (that is, the average of all members’ Perceived Truth scores approaches fact).
- In communities where there is not equal participation (i.e. the relative weight of individual participant’s truth scores are not equally represented in the cumulative Percieved Truth score of the group) will find that their Percieved Truth scores will, rather than regressing toward the mean, toward actual fact, gravitate toward the more extreme individual’s scores.
- This gravitation toward extreme scores happens in part because of the alienation and osteracism of some members (whose perspective the community would’ve otherwise needed in order to approach facts.)
If I’m right about this, it’s the very act of strict adherence to ABSOLUTE truth that may drive communities farther from actual fact.
Of course, little if any of this is empirically verifiable.
So, let’s hear it. What are your truth equations?
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