This is sort of an explanatory follow up to my 11/04/06 post.
The simulacrum is a postmodern appropriation of a Latin term that just meant "image" or "likeness" (as in "similar") and has come to mean a few different things (you can find a wiki on it) ; the sense in which I'm using it here is sort of the sci-fi/fantasy sense of a copy indistinguishable yet distinct from its model. The other sense is that of the copy being modeled on an image or copy, and becoming the truth of the retreating historical origin ; it is like in Walk the Line, as one might argue, how the life of Cash is mapped onto a standard biopic narrative of struggle > sudden success > drugs, sex, marital problems > final reconciliation and balance. The conventional story itself seems so common or true that we'd almost be upset if the film didn't "end right."
The tribute band is a kind of simulacrum - an attempt at making a convincing copy of an historical model. It's a strange phenomenon, really. Why would one want to spend so much time in imitation of someone else? As a "tribute," they say, an homage to an important person or group in one's life. But, in most theories of creativity, be they rhetorical or poetic, it strikes me that most people consider it a tribute to imitate the virtues of one's model but to strive always to improve upon them. Quintillian, for example (you were hoping I'd mention Quintillian), says that "everything that is the resemblance of something else, must necessarily be inferior to that of which it is a copy, as the shadow to the substance..." Plato (how could I mention Quintillian and not Plato) even qualifies the power of the arts altogether on the grounds that they are copies of copies (a painting of a horse is a copy of a real horse, which is a kind of copy of the ideal Horse). What is it to copy a copy of a copy?
I don't think I'm actually so concerned about actual historical fact (what "really" happened, what it was "really like") as I'm concerned for our present taste. Not believing in any truth beyond what you can "create" can lead to sloppy or lazy art, or to empty art. The first kind is where you're just subjected to the old cliches, usually wrapped in self-conscious irony, in hopes of both making you feel a prefab reaction and of making sure you and they know it's prefab. The empty kind demonstrates more effort, but has nothing ultimately to offer, except perhaps a "twist" that's supposed to make you go, "Oh, I didn't see that coming."
Take Pan's Labyrinth (yes I'm going to talk about the end!), for example. The whole film is rather dark and desperate, and there's even a part where the little girl, Ofelia, tells her unborn baby brother that "things aren't so nice out here." The film proceeds through a series of tortures and dangers - some "real," others ambiguous - to its violent conclusion. The girl's redemption is supposed to be in the fact that she succeeds in her fairy tale quest, but you're never sure if it was real or not ; in fact, you have reason to believe it rather wasn't. So, we're supposed to be satisfied that the girl dies happy? Even the film cannot only offer this conclusion, but places Ofelia's story next to a real story about rebel holdouts against the fascists, which story follows a more standard kill-the-bad guy plot as a way of satisfying your vengeance.
What is the message here? What can we conclude? We make our own realities? Well, sure, and then we nearly kill our little brothers and are killed by our stepfathers. That's not how I would make my own reality, personally. You're left with a feeling that the world sucks so it's nice when you can imagine something better, but really the way to make it better is violently (kill the bad guy).
15 January 2007
04 November 2006
Consciousness Studies Finds Its Conscience
The following I wrote back in May, but didn't post right away, thinking they might want it at the Burnside Writer's Collective. If they did, they didn't tell me, so here 'tis:
First, because I keep getting these spam comments, I've switched to a login system, which only means you have to create a Blogger account to comment (I know, I know, the last thing you need is another online account).
Second, the occasion of my blogging is an article one of my professors sent me from the Chronicle of Higher Education (unfortunately, you can't read it unless you have a subscription--I can forward it to anyone who requests it). It looks at a handful of neuroscientists who are doing consciousness research that doesn't necessarily assume materialism. A quick primer: materialism is the view that everything that exists or occurs can be accounted for in terms of matter, energy, and other physics things, including the mind and anything like a soul or a will. It is not the same as empiricism, which is a method of asking questions where you only look at observable phenomenon, but the empirical sciences have been religiously committed to materialism since at least the late 19th century.
Some scientists interviewed in this piece are beginning to think that the (empirical) evidence of mind/consciousness research (much of it on Tibetan monks) suggets an immaterial aspect to the mind. Through the discipline of meditation, these monks seem to be able to change the physiological behavior of their brains. In other words, there seems to be something like a will at work, something immaterial causing material changes. Now, ancient and medieval philosophies assumed this for centuries; it was only with the Enlightenment turn to empiricism, and then materialism, that this had to be debated and rediscovered. That only a few people are willing to pursue what the writer playfully calls a "heretical" line of study has to do with the faith-nature of materialism, which by definition cannot accept immaterial causes even if apparently shown in the empirical evidence. Instead, what you get are long books by philosophers trying to argue the material causes of consciousness.
In literary studies, we oppose desire to the determinism of materialism, since some things people desire seem counterintuitive and/or are rarely accounted for in any satisfactory way by material explanations. But even this is a bit of a ruse, as many of the theorists of desire, as atheists, are basically materialists; the main difference is that they don't want to believe in the despair and emptiness that a strict materialism leads to--in other words, they have a religious desire.
Lately I've been realizing that the heresy of rejecting materialism seems closely connected with what Aristotle called the final cause. A final cause is "that-for-which" something is or is made: a chair for sitting, a leaf for exposing cells to sunlight. The problem, of course, is when you get to people. "What are people for?" Any answer, as I hope is obvious, will have something of a religious quality to it, for it suggests an ultimate purpose and thus implies certain things about how we should live. But all people, deep down, have some belief about this, about right and wrong, good and bad, for humans are religious creatures and everything we do reflects a value.
These scientists have decided that science is a human activity and therefore ought to acknowledge or select its values. They "have resolved that the pursuit of science, even basic research, must promote their own personal growth and the welfare of other people," as the writer puts it.
Again: "According to [Amherst physics professor] Mr. Zajonc, 'the knowledge-value divide is the idea that human beings can be factored out completely, that knowledge can stand on its own, decontextualized. That's not a position that can be defended.'"
And again: "According to Tibetan philosophy, [Ms. Harrington, of Harvard] says, 'the point of knowledge is to ultimately refine one's ethical stance in the world or act in the world to increase compassion and so on.'"
The last quote reminds us of the fact that this "insight" has been gleaned through study of Eastern relgion and philosophy, though, as I mentioned, there are ample roots in the history of Western civilization. This isn't really surprising, given the liberal West's identity crisis of the last forty-odd years, a crisis that began when a generation looked at its parents and decided they weren't just applying their principles poorly, but that their principles were poor to begin with and ought to be scrapped. Having gone too far by scrapping any coherent concept of principle (and hence character) altogether, it is interesting to see some of them returning to the idea that there may be something more worth pursuing.
That "something more" leads to questions of ultimate value, and in a properly pluralistic society that ought to mean that we can start talking about the relative merits of competing value systems, rather than continuing in the contemporary mode of skepticism toward value as such. This is where Christianity has always operated best--not in answering all the particular problems of how we should live together, but in pointing to the ultimate Good who should motivate our desire to live together at all.
First, because I keep getting these spam comments, I've switched to a login system, which only means you have to create a Blogger account to comment (I know, I know, the last thing you need is another online account).
Second, the occasion of my blogging is an article one of my professors sent me from the Chronicle of Higher Education (unfortunately, you can't read it unless you have a subscription--I can forward it to anyone who requests it). It looks at a handful of neuroscientists who are doing consciousness research that doesn't necessarily assume materialism. A quick primer: materialism is the view that everything that exists or occurs can be accounted for in terms of matter, energy, and other physics things, including the mind and anything like a soul or a will. It is not the same as empiricism, which is a method of asking questions where you only look at observable phenomenon, but the empirical sciences have been religiously committed to materialism since at least the late 19th century.
Some scientists interviewed in this piece are beginning to think that the (empirical) evidence of mind/consciousness research (much of it on Tibetan monks) suggets an immaterial aspect to the mind. Through the discipline of meditation, these monks seem to be able to change the physiological behavior of their brains. In other words, there seems to be something like a will at work, something immaterial causing material changes. Now, ancient and medieval philosophies assumed this for centuries; it was only with the Enlightenment turn to empiricism, and then materialism, that this had to be debated and rediscovered. That only a few people are willing to pursue what the writer playfully calls a "heretical" line of study has to do with the faith-nature of materialism, which by definition cannot accept immaterial causes even if apparently shown in the empirical evidence. Instead, what you get are long books by philosophers trying to argue the material causes of consciousness.
In literary studies, we oppose desire to the determinism of materialism, since some things people desire seem counterintuitive and/or are rarely accounted for in any satisfactory way by material explanations. But even this is a bit of a ruse, as many of the theorists of desire, as atheists, are basically materialists; the main difference is that they don't want to believe in the despair and emptiness that a strict materialism leads to--in other words, they have a religious desire.
Lately I've been realizing that the heresy of rejecting materialism seems closely connected with what Aristotle called the final cause. A final cause is "that-for-which" something is or is made: a chair for sitting, a leaf for exposing cells to sunlight. The problem, of course, is when you get to people. "What are people for?" Any answer, as I hope is obvious, will have something of a religious quality to it, for it suggests an ultimate purpose and thus implies certain things about how we should live. But all people, deep down, have some belief about this, about right and wrong, good and bad, for humans are religious creatures and everything we do reflects a value.
These scientists have decided that science is a human activity and therefore ought to acknowledge or select its values. They "have resolved that the pursuit of science, even basic research, must promote their own personal growth and the welfare of other people," as the writer puts it.
Again: "According to [Amherst physics professor] Mr. Zajonc, 'the knowledge-value divide is the idea that human beings can be factored out completely, that knowledge can stand on its own, decontextualized. That's not a position that can be defended.'"
And again: "According to Tibetan philosophy, [Ms. Harrington, of Harvard] says, 'the point of knowledge is to ultimately refine one's ethical stance in the world or act in the world to increase compassion and so on.'"
The last quote reminds us of the fact that this "insight" has been gleaned through study of Eastern relgion and philosophy, though, as I mentioned, there are ample roots in the history of Western civilization. This isn't really surprising, given the liberal West's identity crisis of the last forty-odd years, a crisis that began when a generation looked at its parents and decided they weren't just applying their principles poorly, but that their principles were poor to begin with and ought to be scrapped. Having gone too far by scrapping any coherent concept of principle (and hence character) altogether, it is interesting to see some of them returning to the idea that there may be something more worth pursuing.
That "something more" leads to questions of ultimate value, and in a properly pluralistic society that ought to mean that we can start talking about the relative merits of competing value systems, rather than continuing in the contemporary mode of skepticism toward value as such. This is where Christianity has always operated best--not in answering all the particular problems of how we should live together, but in pointing to the ultimate Good who should motivate our desire to live together at all.
Scenes from the Simulacrum
I've been wanting to blog this for some time, so now, sans excuse, I will.
About a month or so ago my parents took us to a performance by a Johnny Cash tribute band called Train of Love. Now, I was skeptical of what this evening might entail, not least because the whole concept of a tribute band is a little strange when you think about it, but I appreciated my parents taking an interest in my interests, so we went.
The first moments of that evening did not necessarily work to allay my anxieties. The rest of the audience was largely senior citizens (my father quipping that it is rare he feels so young in a crowd), and the program showed a disturbing picture of a mulletted man in a sleeveless leather vest and had an essay about his career and his interest in Johnny Cash that put religious witness very near the heart of the whole event. Now, that last thing is not inherently negative, but, having northern city-boy notions about the South, I feared we could be in for some cheesy sentimentalizing and some form of slapdash sermon meant to convert the whole room. Oy...
The lights went down, the crowd hushed, and the opening notes of "Folsom Prison Blues" sounded from the speakers as the curtains parted on a spare stage with four older men spread out upon it. The middle man, in black, with his back to us. Suddenly turning, he stepped up to the mic and, in a familiar deep, resonant voice said, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash."
There was something chilling in how like this voice and the band's whole sound were to the recordings I knew. There were, naturally, subtle differences in rhythm and in some of the solo licks, differences significant to someone who appreciates Cash's instinct for the drama of timing, but otherwise there was an uncanny sense of time collapsing upon itself, the kind of thing which people attribute to "channeling" and of which they say it "was like being back in 19--."
It's not clear there's enough of a myth of Johnny Cash one might wish a tribute band to live up to, but of course we were witness to a particular version of his legacy. Between songs, "Johnny" would tell stories from his life and introduce the next song, and the band warped from the '60s to the '70s during intermission, then took a wormhole to the late '90s to perform "Hurt," before returning to the more familiar Cash repetoire. You knew it was just a version, a simulation, but there was something compelling about the thought that, "It might have been like this," some dream or fantasy of "being there" that had a unique pleasure.
This was notable toward the very end, when suddenly "Johnny" spoke in his real voice, described Cash's death, and introduced a tribute song he wrote in memoriam. There was a notable break, a shift, an adjustment of the mind as you were forced to go, "Oh yeah, we were just pretending; Cash was a real man, who lived and died. Now he is dead."
The long and short of it is, I still don't know what I think of tribute bands, but I understand better that they do offer a unique and pleasurable experience that needn't be shmaltzy or cheesy or even delusional. After all, they have a lot to live up to, performance-wise, to really give the audience what it wants, which means they have to be sufficiently talented musicians. But that doesn't mean I'm going to go get tickets to Mini K.I.S.S.
About a month or so ago my parents took us to a performance by a Johnny Cash tribute band called Train of Love. Now, I was skeptical of what this evening might entail, not least because the whole concept of a tribute band is a little strange when you think about it, but I appreciated my parents taking an interest in my interests, so we went.
The first moments of that evening did not necessarily work to allay my anxieties. The rest of the audience was largely senior citizens (my father quipping that it is rare he feels so young in a crowd), and the program showed a disturbing picture of a mulletted man in a sleeveless leather vest and had an essay about his career and his interest in Johnny Cash that put religious witness very near the heart of the whole event. Now, that last thing is not inherently negative, but, having northern city-boy notions about the South, I feared we could be in for some cheesy sentimentalizing and some form of slapdash sermon meant to convert the whole room. Oy...
The lights went down, the crowd hushed, and the opening notes of "Folsom Prison Blues" sounded from the speakers as the curtains parted on a spare stage with four older men spread out upon it. The middle man, in black, with his back to us. Suddenly turning, he stepped up to the mic and, in a familiar deep, resonant voice said, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash."
There was something chilling in how like this voice and the band's whole sound were to the recordings I knew. There were, naturally, subtle differences in rhythm and in some of the solo licks, differences significant to someone who appreciates Cash's instinct for the drama of timing, but otherwise there was an uncanny sense of time collapsing upon itself, the kind of thing which people attribute to "channeling" and of which they say it "was like being back in 19--."
It's not clear there's enough of a myth of Johnny Cash one might wish a tribute band to live up to, but of course we were witness to a particular version of his legacy. Between songs, "Johnny" would tell stories from his life and introduce the next song, and the band warped from the '60s to the '70s during intermission, then took a wormhole to the late '90s to perform "Hurt," before returning to the more familiar Cash repetoire. You knew it was just a version, a simulation, but there was something compelling about the thought that, "It might have been like this," some dream or fantasy of "being there" that had a unique pleasure.
This was notable toward the very end, when suddenly "Johnny" spoke in his real voice, described Cash's death, and introduced a tribute song he wrote in memoriam. There was a notable break, a shift, an adjustment of the mind as you were forced to go, "Oh yeah, we were just pretending; Cash was a real man, who lived and died. Now he is dead."
The long and short of it is, I still don't know what I think of tribute bands, but I understand better that they do offer a unique and pleasurable experience that needn't be shmaltzy or cheesy or even delusional. After all, they have a lot to live up to, performance-wise, to really give the audience what it wants, which means they have to be sufficiently talented musicians. But that doesn't mean I'm going to go get tickets to Mini K.I.S.S.
07 September 2006
Can the Church go PoMo?
Some time before we moved away from Portland we learned that Imago Dei Community had been categorized in some guy's book as an "emerging" church. I think there is a proper definition floating around out there somewhere, but the gist of it is that emerging (i.e. postmodern) churches shie away from "institutional" church structures in favor of more relational and affective forms of worship and spirituality, which they feel to be more authentic. They are more likely to adopt a variety of traditional forms of worship and liturgy, to value narrative and the arts, and to have little patience with making rules about proper Christian behavior. In at least one author's opinion (so I've heard), emerging also includes a postmodern skepticism toward truth/knowledge claims made about the faith, springing in large part from a historical guilt over past acts of violence and coercion committed in the name of Christianity.
So far as this goes, it does seem to describe Imago more or less--at least, many of its congregants. Certainly Pastor Rick would insist that we can make truth claims--indeed, must make truth claims--though other aspects of our faith should prevent us from doing harm to others in the process. So is a non-institutional, pluri-traditional, relational-affective, story-telling church that insists on claims of truth properly postmodern?
The church shouldn't set as a goal being postmodern for the sake of postmodernism, but it is interesting to think about how the church might interact with postmodern critiques of modern society (of which there is much still left). I think among the most positive benefits of the postmodern turn in recent Evangelical Christian circles are the recommittment to the value of authenticity within communities, the reexamination of and openness toward traditional and cultural worship practices, and an increased willingness to engage uncertainty in individuals.
Most everyone I met at Imago told some version of the same story: I grew up with an image of Christianity that didn't appeal to me because the people were hypocritical or the teaching was dogmatic. I like Imago because I can ask questions and the people are so friendly. In fact, I could tell my own story as a version of this one. Imago is a church of broken people--mostly damaged Christians, but many who grew up without faith of any sort. This common background created an intimate space within the already circumscribed cultural space of Christianity. We'd all seen what I call "shiny happy Christianity," and we didn't want it anymore, because it wasn't real life and faith ought to speak into real life.
One of the more striking things about a first visit to Imago is the placement of icons on the communion tables. Only occasionally does someone get up front and talk about how icons work, and they probably should do more to educate the congregation, but the principle is that this ancient practice of worship via images can still be worked into a modern setting. It means in part a recognition of our embodied existence, i.e., that we aren't floating minds but have these physical forms through which we know ourselves and our world. I appreciate gestures toward more holistic and aesthetic worship because I think bodies are really interesting, if often challenging, and certainly an unavoidable aspect of human experience. The flesh may be weak, but it was still good enough for Christ.
Finally, more than anything else, "postmodern" Christians want to feel safe saying they don't always understand all aspects of the faith. It is, after all, difficult at times to understand miracles, or the attribution of God's hand in taking the Promised Land by military force. I think since Pastor Rick came from an atheist background himself, he was more understanding of people who begin "outside" the faith, or who aren't always firmly within it. The leadership in general, in implicit and impalpable ways, managed to encourage an open atmosphere where people could honestly express disbelief or confusion without ever suggesting that belief didn't matter. Rather, faith becomes the individual's responsibility, a value expressed most often in the form of, "we're not worried about keeping butts in the seats." In other words, not measuring success by attendance, Imago needn't fear "losing" people--they aren't even technically "theirs" anyhow, properly understood.
The online magazine TheOoze (theooze.com) emphasizes this last facet perhaps above all else, in large part because its founder, Spencer Burke, left mainstream evangelical Christianity over the issue of honest questioning. But it's unclear just how far Burke is willing to take that. That is, questioning is not necessarily a good in itself, nor can it be an end in itself. Those who wish it to be an end are really saying they are afraid of what might happen, or might be required of them, were answers proffered and affirmed as articles of belief. In particular, the fear is that tradition will be constraining and, in fact, oppressive, but as there is no such thing as absolute liberty, one must recognize the necessity of all actions and belief occurring within contexts, and therefore one must discover some reliable, worthy context in which to think and move if one is to live actively.
To always ask questions is to imagine you can live without a context, which is to remain ignorant of the context you inevitably inhabit. The point of orthodoxy is not to oppress and control people, but to guide our interpretation of the world as it keeps changing around us. It is not absolute, but it rightly changes only very slowly and very cautiously; when it becomes absolute it has likely become someone's idol. Some would say the same of the Bible, though I have not thought through all the implications of that being true.
The other danger, I think, is intellectual laxity. Modernity, especially in the form of scientific research, challenged Christians to account for their faith in terms of reason and the natural world. Sometimes they bought into modernity's assumptions to the point of losing the heart of the faith, but I would argue they were more justified in doing that than in turning against reason and learning itself. Postmodernity invites a kind of personal-narrative approach to truth, an "it feels right" or an "in my experience" standard that at least potentially discourages thoughtful reflection on one's justifications for belief or the consistency of one's beliefs. Accepting nonobjective experience into one's account of the world needn't mean also ejecting rational reflection on it.
All in all, I do think the church as a whole can benefit from the critiques leveled by postmodernism, but I am wary of those who are too quick to jump on the pomo bandwagon. To treat it as the next big thing is (a) to act just like they were acting under modernism by looking outside the faith for their models and standards and (b) to risk compromising the faith by uncritically adopting attractive philosophies. But, as in the past, God is the God of history and therefore nothing we can do can derail his plans for us. Modernism didn't kill the faith; postmodernism won't either.
So far as this goes, it does seem to describe Imago more or less--at least, many of its congregants. Certainly Pastor Rick would insist that we can make truth claims--indeed, must make truth claims--though other aspects of our faith should prevent us from doing harm to others in the process. So is a non-institutional, pluri-traditional, relational-affective, story-telling church that insists on claims of truth properly postmodern?
The church shouldn't set as a goal being postmodern for the sake of postmodernism, but it is interesting to think about how the church might interact with postmodern critiques of modern society (of which there is much still left). I think among the most positive benefits of the postmodern turn in recent Evangelical Christian circles are the recommittment to the value of authenticity within communities, the reexamination of and openness toward traditional and cultural worship practices, and an increased willingness to engage uncertainty in individuals.
Most everyone I met at Imago told some version of the same story: I grew up with an image of Christianity that didn't appeal to me because the people were hypocritical or the teaching was dogmatic. I like Imago because I can ask questions and the people are so friendly. In fact, I could tell my own story as a version of this one. Imago is a church of broken people--mostly damaged Christians, but many who grew up without faith of any sort. This common background created an intimate space within the already circumscribed cultural space of Christianity. We'd all seen what I call "shiny happy Christianity," and we didn't want it anymore, because it wasn't real life and faith ought to speak into real life.
One of the more striking things about a first visit to Imago is the placement of icons on the communion tables. Only occasionally does someone get up front and talk about how icons work, and they probably should do more to educate the congregation, but the principle is that this ancient practice of worship via images can still be worked into a modern setting. It means in part a recognition of our embodied existence, i.e., that we aren't floating minds but have these physical forms through which we know ourselves and our world. I appreciate gestures toward more holistic and aesthetic worship because I think bodies are really interesting, if often challenging, and certainly an unavoidable aspect of human experience. The flesh may be weak, but it was still good enough for Christ.
Finally, more than anything else, "postmodern" Christians want to feel safe saying they don't always understand all aspects of the faith. It is, after all, difficult at times to understand miracles, or the attribution of God's hand in taking the Promised Land by military force. I think since Pastor Rick came from an atheist background himself, he was more understanding of people who begin "outside" the faith, or who aren't always firmly within it. The leadership in general, in implicit and impalpable ways, managed to encourage an open atmosphere where people could honestly express disbelief or confusion without ever suggesting that belief didn't matter. Rather, faith becomes the individual's responsibility, a value expressed most often in the form of, "we're not worried about keeping butts in the seats." In other words, not measuring success by attendance, Imago needn't fear "losing" people--they aren't even technically "theirs" anyhow, properly understood.
The online magazine TheOoze (theooze.com) emphasizes this last facet perhaps above all else, in large part because its founder, Spencer Burke, left mainstream evangelical Christianity over the issue of honest questioning. But it's unclear just how far Burke is willing to take that. That is, questioning is not necessarily a good in itself, nor can it be an end in itself. Those who wish it to be an end are really saying they are afraid of what might happen, or might be required of them, were answers proffered and affirmed as articles of belief. In particular, the fear is that tradition will be constraining and, in fact, oppressive, but as there is no such thing as absolute liberty, one must recognize the necessity of all actions and belief occurring within contexts, and therefore one must discover some reliable, worthy context in which to think and move if one is to live actively.
To always ask questions is to imagine you can live without a context, which is to remain ignorant of the context you inevitably inhabit. The point of orthodoxy is not to oppress and control people, but to guide our interpretation of the world as it keeps changing around us. It is not absolute, but it rightly changes only very slowly and very cautiously; when it becomes absolute it has likely become someone's idol. Some would say the same of the Bible, though I have not thought through all the implications of that being true.
The other danger, I think, is intellectual laxity. Modernity, especially in the form of scientific research, challenged Christians to account for their faith in terms of reason and the natural world. Sometimes they bought into modernity's assumptions to the point of losing the heart of the faith, but I would argue they were more justified in doing that than in turning against reason and learning itself. Postmodernity invites a kind of personal-narrative approach to truth, an "it feels right" or an "in my experience" standard that at least potentially discourages thoughtful reflection on one's justifications for belief or the consistency of one's beliefs. Accepting nonobjective experience into one's account of the world needn't mean also ejecting rational reflection on it.
All in all, I do think the church as a whole can benefit from the critiques leveled by postmodernism, but I am wary of those who are too quick to jump on the pomo bandwagon. To treat it as the next big thing is (a) to act just like they were acting under modernism by looking outside the faith for their models and standards and (b) to risk compromising the faith by uncritically adopting attractive philosophies. But, as in the past, God is the God of history and therefore nothing we can do can derail his plans for us. Modernism didn't kill the faith; postmodernism won't either.
31 August 2006
A Job in Poetry
This new venture, which I'd like to advertise except for my ambivalent commitment to anonymity/security, is technically a job, but looks more like a volunteer position at the moment. It all started when I ran into my ex-girlfriend at a conference in Michigan. Within 30 minutes of us catching up the last 6 or 7 years, she had decided to ask me to be her poetry editor for her start-up literary journal. The impetus for the journal was her and her husband's dissatisfaction with the quality of Christian literature they had encountered, coupled with their own interests in writing essays and stories that made a serious engagement with the world and didn't sanitize their content.
The journal is largely possible because (a) the editor's husband (and the journal's financier) is a computer tech guy and (b) there's so much free or inexpensive stuff available in our digital age. Our first issue is due out in November and I pretty much expect most of my friends to buy it.
It turns out it is difficult to be a poetry editor. To begin with, there's the aura that surrounds poetry as a form. It's supposed to be all high and lofty and esoteric, which often means difficult to understand. As 'the poetry guy' on the team, I'm sort of expected to get everything that comes our way, but, frankly, I don't always. Sometimes I can find other reasons for rejecting it anyhow, but some stuff appears formally strong yet is difficult to decide on respecting meaning.
On the other hand, there are plenty of people who think they can write paragraphs with funny line breaks and it counts as poetry. As it turns out, this is not true. I don't know that I could give a definition, but poetry is certainly more than line breaks.
It is also more than copying out psalms. A lot of stuff we get is just regurgitated church sermons which may or may not have tasted fine the first time, but certainly turn ugly the second time around.
Then there are our editor meetings. These include myself, the editor-in-chief, and the assistant editor, all of whom have widely divergent tastes in poetry (plus the editor has her more pragmatic commercial concerns). We end up getting into these fights about whether something is wonderful or complete tripe, which may sound like a lot of fun but can really be frustrating--especially at the first such meeting, when I wasn't even sure what position our assistant editor was in, and only knew she kept arguing with my opinions as though she had some business there. The thing I try to keep in mind is that all of us will have our names on this thing, so we all have a stake and are taking it very seriously. The end result is an issue that represents a great diversity of talents, a handful or so of compromises, and perhaps one or two that require me to swallow my pride.
We just had an editors' weekend of workshopping and socializing. This at least provided me some extended periods of rubbing against my fellow editors (in the non-scandalous sense) that hopefully will lead to increasingly constructive meetings over the months and years. This is actually a rather exciting experience, though at times I'm not sure I believe it will go anywhere. But we are all very interested in not only succeeding but in creating a quality product. Whether it lasts one issue or seventy, I do believe in our mission and am deeply intrigued to see if and how God will use it.
The journal is largely possible because (a) the editor's husband (and the journal's financier) is a computer tech guy and (b) there's so much free or inexpensive stuff available in our digital age. Our first issue is due out in November and I pretty much expect most of my friends to buy it.
It turns out it is difficult to be a poetry editor. To begin with, there's the aura that surrounds poetry as a form. It's supposed to be all high and lofty and esoteric, which often means difficult to understand. As 'the poetry guy' on the team, I'm sort of expected to get everything that comes our way, but, frankly, I don't always. Sometimes I can find other reasons for rejecting it anyhow, but some stuff appears formally strong yet is difficult to decide on respecting meaning.
On the other hand, there are plenty of people who think they can write paragraphs with funny line breaks and it counts as poetry. As it turns out, this is not true. I don't know that I could give a definition, but poetry is certainly more than line breaks.
It is also more than copying out psalms. A lot of stuff we get is just regurgitated church sermons which may or may not have tasted fine the first time, but certainly turn ugly the second time around.
Then there are our editor meetings. These include myself, the editor-in-chief, and the assistant editor, all of whom have widely divergent tastes in poetry (plus the editor has her more pragmatic commercial concerns). We end up getting into these fights about whether something is wonderful or complete tripe, which may sound like a lot of fun but can really be frustrating--especially at the first such meeting, when I wasn't even sure what position our assistant editor was in, and only knew she kept arguing with my opinions as though she had some business there. The thing I try to keep in mind is that all of us will have our names on this thing, so we all have a stake and are taking it very seriously. The end result is an issue that represents a great diversity of talents, a handful or so of compromises, and perhaps one or two that require me to swallow my pride.
We just had an editors' weekend of workshopping and socializing. This at least provided me some extended periods of rubbing against my fellow editors (in the non-scandalous sense) that hopefully will lead to increasingly constructive meetings over the months and years. This is actually a rather exciting experience, though at times I'm not sure I believe it will go anywhere. But we are all very interested in not only succeeding but in creating a quality product. Whether it lasts one issue or seventy, I do believe in our mission and am deeply intrigued to see if and how God will use it.
28 August 2006
Back on; Updates
It should be easier than it is keeping up with this thing. I think I have self-esteem issues complicated by cultural with-itness issues; that is, I often don't think people are interested in what I'm thinking, or else I have been thinking a thing so long that it doesn't occur to me other people don't already think it, too.
But blogs aren't necessarily created for the sake of others...
For those of you who do read when I post, I recommend checking out RSS feeds. Some e-mail accounts, like sbc/yahoo, have built-in RSS capability, but otherwise you'll probably need to google it to find the software. The basic idea is that you get a notice when I post things, so instead of checking every six months you can just go about your life and be notified when I actually write something.
The two biggest events of recent note are (1) we moved and (2) I've become the poetry editor for a start-up literary review. As to the first, it was a great idea. We disliked Highwood within weeks of moving in, whereas we still love Evanston after a month. Our new place also suits our personalities better, if that makes sense. It's probably smaller, but there's a hallway that angles around one of the bedrooms to the dining room and kitchen, which at least creates the illusion of great space--now it is possible to think, "oh, I left my beer all the way in the kitchen."
We kept our cats in carriers during the move, setting them on the coffee table facing the door so they could see us coming and going. I don't know for whom it was more traumatic: A was alright, but P just lay there panting and with a racing heartbeat. They are fine now, and trailing clouds of furry wherever they go.
But blogs aren't necessarily created for the sake of others...
For those of you who do read when I post, I recommend checking out RSS feeds. Some e-mail accounts, like sbc/yahoo, have built-in RSS capability, but otherwise you'll probably need to google it to find the software. The basic idea is that you get a notice when I post things, so instead of checking every six months you can just go about your life and be notified when I actually write something.
The two biggest events of recent note are (1) we moved and (2) I've become the poetry editor for a start-up literary review. As to the first, it was a great idea. We disliked Highwood within weeks of moving in, whereas we still love Evanston after a month. Our new place also suits our personalities better, if that makes sense. It's probably smaller, but there's a hallway that angles around one of the bedrooms to the dining room and kitchen, which at least creates the illusion of great space--now it is possible to think, "oh, I left my beer all the way in the kitchen."
We kept our cats in carriers during the move, setting them on the coffee table facing the door so they could see us coming and going. I don't know for whom it was more traumatic: A was alright, but P just lay there panting and with a racing heartbeat. They are fine now, and trailing clouds of furry wherever they go.
03 April 2006
My first taste of power
I just finished teaching my first two "trial" classes of college writing; I figured it was blogable (if perhaps bloggeral, and therefore unbloggishly impertinent of me, in which case I have committed a faux blaugh). My mentor teacher didn't have much to say except he liked it. He took issue with some minor points of my argument, which is fine since I'm trying to apply his model in a way I've never had to do before.
Observations:
Observations:
- It's hard to call on students when you don't know their names. You have to sort of wait until they look up and then wave your hand and catch them.
- Students think you can't see and hear things, like when they chat in the back of the classroom (it's not very big) or when they don't have the story out that we're studying. I still call on them because I'd rather they felt uncomfortable than me.
- When you find a student or two who talk all the time, it's hard not to just call on them all the time so you can move on, but probably wise not to.
- The second class went rather differently than the first, in part owing to having had one run through the material, in part owing to getting different sorts of responses. I found myself often departing from my notes when it served the overall purposes of the lesson.
- It's hard to tell if they're interested or not, since talking doesn't of itself indicate comprehension or attention. One guy wasn't even taking notes, but I called on him anyhow and he was able to answer. Also, every once in a while I got a laugh out of them.
- Getting laughs is nice, and makes you want to caper around like a Shakespearean fool just to know you have their attention. But I don't think they'd get my foolery at that point.
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