Your Heart is Where Your Body Goes

The last week has been a very trying and stressful time. It's a good kind of stress. Everything important in my life has come under some kind of examination. Progress has been made by hard work and a lot of sleepless nights. Everything from my religious views to my own mortality as been ran through my mind. I've been gathering from my friends that for some reason a lot of other people were in a similar situation. I've come to one recommondation. For the next little while do something completely unrelated.

Remember why you work so hard at becoming a better person. Enjoy what humanity and this world has to offer. If you have an art musem close by, go to it. Wander around and just smile as you see how wonderful we are at creating beauty. Go to a library, take in the smell of books. Be puzzled that there are so many stories that exist. Enjoy the changing of the seasons. Walk somewhere new or old. Take it in with bright eyes. Remember the smell, the colors, the earth under your feet. Notice the little things on your walk; how unique the insects are, if they still are around. Listen to some good music. Don't listen to it to distract you from something else, listen to it. Don't let it be a part of another activity, make it the sole activity. Enjoy the sounds, and if there are words enjoy the poet. Look up into the sky on occasion. Remember God is an artist. Enjoy his work. I love it at night. Let all your senses be alert so that your heart can know where you are.

Fall Says the Oddest Things

My mind was walking and a fall Leaf touched my nose. I made this comment:

Jimmy Carter was the peanut man,
He believed they could do anything and they can.

If this sounds like a strange acid trip I'm sorry. Let's just say I have my reasons. But seriously look at the post below.

God be Willing

Will’s position was the most difficult to write a response to. One of the things that made it difficult was I kept thinking Will isn’t really right, but he’s not really wrong either. I’ve decided to split Will’s position into three parts: the source of racism, the solutions to racism, and Will’s token Dan is wrong argument. I think I would have to talk to Will in a round about way before I could generate any sufficient answers to my questions regarding Will’s position. That’s generally how Will and I converse about most issues. As such more will probably be said during the comments section than the actual post. But before all of that a couple of clarifying notes.

First if it hasn’t been made clear by now this string of posts is not talking about overt racism. Nor is the purpose of this string of posts to generate some standard to call other people racist by. These posts were intended to help me (and anyone else) better recognize racist tendencies and notions that might be hiding within me (or yourself). Ultimately these posts hopefully generated some food for thought that would help you become a better person. I know that thanks to the responses a great amount of clarity has been reached for me (though far short from where I need to be) and I think I now have the basic tools to really start addressing this issue in my life. (Not that I hadn’t been addressing it previously, but now I can do so much more rigorously than before.) One issue that was not addressed as much as I would like was the issue of how one balances the celebration of differences, and the (for lack of a better term) entrenchment of differences. I feel Will’s point three sort of address the issue so I’ll leave it up to the comment section to flush it out if need be. Well on to Will’s observations.

Will points to the source of what might be the basis for humans developing some of our notions about race. From what I got from Will’s response I gather that when we start making classifications based on day-to-day experiences we tend to give people that are similar to us the benefit of the doubt. I think it is implied that this is not the sole source of our racial notions. My first question is sort of a abstract one and might not do a lot of people any pragmatic good (but you know what it’s my blog and I haven’t gotten any complaints so I’m going to do whatever I feel like.). By saying that we in general give people that are more similar to us the benefit of the doubt; does this imply that we are hard wired for racism? That is our minds work in a way that by default will form more favorable opinions about people that look like us (or are similar) than people who are different. It seems odd to me that human beings would have a genetic disposition that would be so far from the real truth of the world. I can see how humans might have evolved into such a state, but saying humans are hard wired for racism seems unacceptable to me. I’m also having trouble establishing when the leap happens from giving people who look like me (by look like me I mean similar to me) the benefit of the doubt to developing negative notions about other people. The concept of benefit of the doubt does work in a lot of instances but what about instances where nobody is like you. Do you think that being alone where everyone is different than you increase or decrease the likelihood of developing racist ideas? An example would be a black person who had to live in an all white town. Would that black person have a greater likely hood of developing a notion that all white people hate black people? Another source of racial notions are ones that are taught. I think that this is a larger source of racial notions than any other. Do you agree with this assessment? If you do then are these racial notions more like indoctrination, or do you think that we give deference to people that would teach us these ideas because people who tend to teach racist notions about other people tend to be similar to you? Another difficulty is where do positive yet harmful notions come from? An instance would be the idea all Asians are good at math. If we give the benefit of the doubt to people that are similar to us then how do these notions develop? Once again please forgive me for being hard to follow, it’s just the way Will and I tend to converse about issues.

Will’s second part of his response was a suggestion about how to address the racist notions that we might develop or currently have. Will’s basic advice is we should focus on the similarities we all have. I have some concerns about this approach. Granted my instincts tell me that this approach is right, but as stated earlier my instincts tell me it’s wrong as well. First by focusing on similarities do we lose sight of the value of diversity? That is if we are always focusing on why we are similar isn’t there a tendency to under appreciate the variety that makes us or other groups special? A corollary question is if we keep focusing so hard on the things that make us similar do we become insensitive to the differences that are a concern to people who are different?

Will’s third section is his token objection to Dan’s point of view. Not that the argument is a token argument, or that Will and Dan always disagree. It’s just that the three of us, Dan, Will, and Me are bound to be wrong about something, so it’s just inevitable that the three of us will find something to disagree about. But I think that this is a good thing. My only issues/questions are dealing with criteria and evaluation of usefulness. How do you judge if an institution is inclusive? Also if an institution is inclusive, when does it outlive its usefulness? I think that the Tuskeegee Airmen story is an African-American story. If it weren’t about race then it would have been no different than any other story in the war. In other words if the Tuskeegee Airmen weren’t black would the story been as important? I think the answer is no. It’s not about black people flying; it’s about black people overcoming adversity, adversity that was caused by an idea rooted in a lie.

Jimmy's Definition is "Dan"gerous

I think the concerns in Dan’s response are strong concerns. In fact I share all of them. There is a strong pejorative meaning to being a racist. I also think that the negative connotations associated with being a racist are a good thing. I also think that if we throw the words racist and racism around in a non-serious fashion we dilute the impact of the negativity surrounding those words.

I do think that Dan’s position would agree though that it is a good thing to examine one’s self to see if one has racism or anything else that is bad in them. So if one is taking a serious look at one’s inside (for lack of a better word), and looking at some things and saying to one’s self that those things might be racist, I don’t think one dilutes the power of the word racist. To me the dilution comes when one says, “hey I have a racist tendency and I’m ok with it.” It’s not the identification of racism, but the lack of desire to improve as a person that dilutes the power associated with the word racism.

I am unclear as to your position on this statement; it is possible to have some racism in you but still not be a racist. I know I didn’t make it clear from my original post, but this was the underlying assumption. For instance, I can think all Asians like to eat rice. That idea might be racist (I really don’t know if it is or not), but I wouldn’t consider anyone that held that view to be a racist. My concern is where you (by you I mean I) draw the line between having racism inside of you and being a racist. For instance is it racist to feel uncomfortable around black men? Is it racist to avoid black neighborhoods? Is it racist to not date Mexican men because you feel that they won’t be faithful? There are the obvious cases such as the advocating of violence or denial of rights based on race. It’s the close calls that concern me. I find it difficult to make a line in the close cases. My strategy has been to try and eliminate all racism in me so that I never have to consider the line. Another aspect of drawing the line, to me racism depends a lot on intent. I think if you hold a belief because you feel by mere status of your race (whatever that notion is) you are better than another that is racism. But if you do it out of ignorance, I don’t know what to say on that.

On your second disagreement to my position, I think I should clarify. I think you might have misread or over applied what I was getting at. I completely agree with your statements: “The fact is that there are eternal truths.” “We should not be afraid to stand up and say X is wrong”. I completely agree that one should criticize cultures for doing evil acts. I think we need to understand the justifications for the practices before you make a judgment on it. Or in other words we need to make an informed judgment. For instance the Inuit culture’s practice of infanticide might have existed because everyone else would have died without it. Does it justify the practice? I’m going to say no but there are certainly arguments of its justification that extend beyond the mere “it’s my culture” argument.

The dilemma that enters my mind from your second response is when can we say someone is evil? For instance, there is a strong cultural norm for men in Mexico to have affairs on their wives. Both of our positions can agree that this social norm is wrong and evil. I feel very comfortable calling the men that do this evil. I think it is possible to draw a distinction between thinking someone is evil and hating them. In my faith I am called to love especially those people. When you apply your standard can you call these men evil when they continue the practice? Another example is a culture that says its ok to force sex on your wife (or Rape). I have no problem calling those who practice rape on one’s spouse evil. It would be different in some instances where the person did it and stopped doing it (don’t get me wrong the act is still evil, but I would find it harder to call the person evil). But I think in the cases where there is a social norm of rape or adultery and the person conforms to the social norm I have no problem calling them evil. Do you advocate calling the practice evil and the person not evil in these instances? Do you think you can call someone evil, period? If so what is your criteria? These are sort of unfair questions, as I have not answered them myself. But I think they are questions I need to ask to flesh out your stance.

You also made a third statement about exclusive groups. I think that exclusion, as rule is bad. I don’t think “pride” groups are necessarily bad. One good example of this is Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee (the man, the legend) advocated Chinese people taking pride in what the culture was about. The purpose of the pride though was to unite Chinese people and then teach it to others. People don’t fear what they know and understand according to Bruce. To unify so that one can show the beauty of the culture is a good thing. So any “pride” groups is a good thing if its goal is to unify a group so it can show how beautiful it is to the rest of the world. You probably feel the same way but I thought I’d just clarify this viewpoint.

Lastly there are a slew of things that really didn’t fit anywhere under your response but I think your response sort of touched on them. The primary focus of my post was to try and see how we as individuals can be better people. It wasn’t to try and develop some standard by which we judge other people. I was hoping that by this kind of discussion everyone could come up with a more thoughtful standard to apply to himself or herself (this will be discussed in the post regarding Will’s response a bit more). I see your point about by definition being too broad. You don’t have to use the word racist or racism. I think that those words are the closest approximation though. Now it is being judgmental as well but I think racism is a sub category of judgmental. I think that there is a lot of common ground between Dan’s and my point of view. However, I do feel the issues that Dan addressed (while extremely important) do little to shed light on the primary issue in the original post. What about those evaluations that are almost fundamentally just matters of preference? Beauty is a prime example. For example I know a woman that thinks white is an ugly color and thinks that brown skin is much more beautiful. I consider that racist. But that consideration is based purely on a gut feeling. I’m not comfortable basing my evaluation of racism on a gut feeling. It’s hard for me because the evaluation (or judgment) isn’t about good or evil rather it's about preference. I just don’t have a clue as to how to articulate in a logical way my gut feelings about these kinds of evaluations.

Hume's Principle of Anonymous Causation

My last post generated some interesting comments. All the responses were well thought out and had strong arguments. I think this was due to the ability of the issues in the post to help us be better people. I’m writing this post in response to the three viewpoints advanced by the comments. My hope is that members of these three viewpoints (not necessarily the authors) can clarify some questions I had regarding their positions. Also I would like this post to provide some inspiration to the three viewpoints, maybe helping to further clarity your point or expanding the ideas in them to situations you may not have contemplated. I’ve labeled the viewpoints as the following (because I can): Hume’s Principle of Anonymous Causation, God be Willing, and Jimmy’s Definition is “Dan”gerous. I plan to make three posts, one addressing each viewpoint. Well on to the viewpoints.

People of Hume’s Principle of Anonymous Causation:

I think for the most part you are correct in the assertion that knowledge of the physical world is done via induction. I don’t want to get into a huge debate between Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein (and other assorted people only geeks read) regarding the nature of knowledge. It is enough to say that in regards to how we formulate opinions about a certain group of people I think your position is correct. However this doesn’t answer the following issues:

1) Now that we know how our ideas about groups of people are derived are we slaves to that idea (classification)? Or are we free to modify them? Not the lip service modify, but a true change in the nature of our what we believe to be true.

2) If we can modify then should we modify them? If we should, under what conditions should we?

3) This still doesn’t address evaluative assertions about objective facts that have been associated with a group. For instance all people of religion X have hairstyle Y (say it’s a fact proven by excommunication if you don’t have hairstyle Y). By definition if you don’t have hairstyle Y you are not a part of religion X. Then you make the evaluation I think hairstyle Y is ugly, so people in religion X look ugly. People being in X or having hairstyle Y is an objective fact. Something being ugly is an evaluation completely independent of fact. When should we be concerned about those kinds of evaluations?

Your response also mentioned the topic of dispelling simpler stereotypes. The two examples you pointed out I think can easily be dispelled by facts. For instances you could look up accident statistics or the percentage of people who are terrorist in relation to population. As with most “simpler stereotypes” I think mere fact finding and evaluation will dispel the stereotypes. The issue that concerns me isn’t stereotypes so much as the evaluations we make on the stereotypes. (See unanswered question 3) Now I know that stereotypes are a serious issue but the focus of my post was to ponder the question of evaluations.

On your issue of being offended at good willed intentions, I first have to quote my friend. My friend lets call them, Beef Jerky stated while we were watching the God Father 1, “the pathway to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Cloaking bad judgments in the guise of good intentions does a couple of dangerous things. Fist it lets the person doing things that might be hurt full to perpetuate the action. Second it gives the person who is making bad judgments a cover so they don’t’ have to evaluate their thoughts, they can simply go on not having any motivation to improve.

I have an example to ponder; most of the facts will be made up so bare with me. Peggy is the most popular girl in her high school. She’s beautiful everyone loves her. (I know people should be loved for their minds but we are talking about high school). A new girl moves into town. She’s from a land far away where the people of her land shave half of their head. Everyone as school is sort of weirded out by this new girl. She has a hard time making friends. Well our hero Peggy decides to help. She befriends our new girl. In fact she decides to take her shopping to buy her some clothes so she can fit in better. Our new girl is very thankful. Peggy decides to take it up a notch, she says to our new girl, lets go get your hair fixed; your people would be pretty if you didn’t cut your hair that way. Now if we retreat to good intentions we shouldn’t be offended at Peggy. Nor should Peggy have any problems, her heart was in the right place. It seems that good intentions insulates the individual from searching deep and improving as a person in this instance.

The next viewpoint to be addressed will be Jimmy’s Definition is “Dan”gerous. Please stay tuned.

Thin Line Between Love and Hate

I had a conversation with a friend (we will call them Leaf) of mine, sort of on the spur. We were driving and Leaf made an observation about a person and instantly mentioned how racist Leaf’s observation/thought was. We talked and concluded we all (yes that includes me) have racist stereotypes. Leaf agreed, and we didn’t really talk about it in any depth. I think it was because for the most part the observation/thought by Leaf was rather benign. But my mind kept on churning. A conflict arose in my mind; I wasn’t able to yield anything insightful to say; and because of how complex the conflict is; I remained silent about it.

This conflict affects most of us on a daily basis. I have no real answer to it. It primarily revolves around two ends of a spectrum, but the real problem happens because of human nature. So let me get to the body of the issues.

I make the assertion that we human beings are classifying beings. We make distinctions. That table is white, or it’s red, or it’s black. That organism is a cat. Certain distinctions are easy, like ones based on scientific classification. For instance this rock is a such and such kind of rock because it has such and such characteristics. Granted the characteristics that make a rock such and such are arbitrarily agreed to, but nonetheless we need to make distinctions to understand what something is. Some distinctions are harder than others because they are vacuous. For instance that person is tall. You have to ask well what do you mean by tall, or tall compared to what? There are even tougher ones like such and such is evil/bad. Or such and such is wrong. Or such and such is alive. Definitions that help us make distinctions in these areas are yet to be settled, thus making the classification near impossible in certain instances. More often than not you get answers like I don’t know if such and such is alive. There are clear cases in these groups, but there are also cases where things are difficult. Now some may say that is where the gray area comes in. It still doesn’t matter because we still try and need (by our nature) to make distinctions. With gray area issues (I’m conceding the existence of a gray area for the sake of argument) we will have to make distinctive assertions like such and such is evil enough to render this kind of action, such and such is alive enough to require this kind of protection. Even in gray areas we make distinctions. It’s just a part of being human.

In our society and in my own personal sense of ethics, we have made the assertion that it is desirable to be culturally sensitive, aware, and appreciative. Our society and my own personal sense of ethics have also concluded that racism, or rather making cultural and ethic pre evaluations are bad.

So what are the basics of racism? Racism happens when one takes a preconceived notion about a race/culture and applies an evaluative judgment about that notion and then applies it to an individual. For instance a clear case of racism is black people have a disposition for violence, you see a black person at a job interview and then don’t higher them. But you can apply a preconceived notion and not have it be racist. For instance Muslims don’t eat pork. (I realize Muslim is a religion and not an ethnic group but I’m using a really broad definition of racism, see above.) So when you host a dinner party to which you invited your Muslim friend you decide to leave pig off the menu. Hey some just don’t dine on swine. Dog on the other hand, now there’s an animal with character. Sorry got side tracked. I know in the examples given above one was a false preconceived notion and one was a true one. I don’t think that changes the working definition of racism or the conflict that I will talk about.

So what must we do in order to be culturally sensitive, aware, and appreciative? A fundamental part of that is to know what constitutes a culture. That is we must develop notions and apply it to a group of people. In order to understand a culture I must know what people of that culture do for custom, believe, how they resolve conflicts, where values are placed, etc. Now there are a slew of issues that are raised by this requirement. I won’t go into depth about the issues; it is enough to say that one will have a hard time constituting what a culture is. But for the sake of argument I am assuming that I can define a culture.

Here comes what I consider the essence of what the conflict is. Racism is the evaluative application of a preconceived notion on an individual, cultural sensitivity requires creating preconceived notions based on individuals. So where do we draw the distinction between racism and cultural sensitivity? Some cases are clear, you don’t shoot an African American in a dark ally because you have built up a preconceived notion that most felons are African American. Some are still clear but less so; you don’t ask an Asian immigrant at a dinner party if they’d rather eat with chopsticks. You don’t instantly turn your radio to hip hop channels when you are ridding in your car with an African American person because you think that’s the kind of music he/she would like. I’m talking about the instances where it’s hard to make an evaluation as to its properness. An example would be, “hey he/she is dressing so black”. Or how about she is totally dressing Chinese, and she happens to be Chinese. Now these instances seem to be rather benign, but what if we add an evaluation of some sort. For instance she is wearing her hair so X, and I think X is unattractive. Or he is dressing so X, and I think X looks so stupid. Or person Y’s culture believes only a man can ask a person out on a date, and I think that is so backwards thinking.

Obviously more thought is needed on this topic. I have yet to generate an answer for the issue. I have a gut feeling, but I'd hate for the differance between racism and cultural sensitivity to be based on a gut feeling.

All In Beauty

This was my first public poem (wrote it for someone else's eyes), so I find it easier to post it in its entirety. If you feel moved to comment don't worry about sparing my feelings; as I have a very realistic view of my talent.

Not taken by the false succor of solitude,
They did blend to something new,
Her tears washed away the burrows that hid his flame,
Her vision clearing those apparitions,
Whose haste smothered his heart so sickly,
But by faith in one another they made one another,
Rising again in strength,
In beauty,
That they may live,
Breathe,
And be,
All in beauty.

It's Cool To Conform

There are great advantages to living in Utah. One of them happens to be Utah is filled with smart, expressive, and very Republican people. I fancy myself as a conservative. I also fancy myself as a non-conformist. Rather I think it's cool to be perceived as a non-conformist. So while I'm a conservative; in Utah my friends and people in general are extremely conservative so I come off as being liberal. It's great, I can have values and political ideologies that are considered conformist, yet compared to the rest of the field here people think I'm a liberal. Who said you can't have you cake and eat it to.

Advice From Paul the Poet not the Prophet

I had a friend of sorts back a while back. His name was Paul. He was a facinating man. He was beautiful. He also had insights that while simple struck at the core of the things he talked about. We had a small conversation about poetry. I mentioned that while I write quite a bit of poetry I never (or close to never) share them with anyone. Why? I felt they were to personal and I wrote them just for me. I think that Paul also saw that in part I was very insecure about the talent level of my poems. So Paul responded with his view on poetry. He thought that poetry was an expressive art. As such in order to fully express it one must share it. But that wasn't enough, one must get feed back from it and incoperate the feed back into how the poem effected you. This way the art effected others and others effected you. It was the process of being connected to other human beings that gave poetry it's beauty. If one didn't share one's poetry it wasn't art, it wasn't poetry, it was just a journal entry.

So I want my poetry to truely be art. So I've decided to come out of my shell in a very limited way by posting some lines from some poems. Hey baby steps. Here goes:

That awkward moment of distance when you are close,
Reminds me of how unfortunate life can be,

There is more to this poem, but that's all I'm willing to post. Hey I'm posting it for me.