In part due to my long absence from blogging, and also in part due to a recent conversation I had, I have returned to rant, write, or whichever you choose to describe this. I will leave the details of the conversation out in order to protect those involved, but basically the issue was raced over financial policy in this country; You know, interest rates, banking policy, etc, and what the mean for the poorer citizens. The person I was conversing with felt that it was just to have extremely high rates for poorer folks because they shouldn't try to live beyond their means. My basic response to that sort of question is that it is delusional and wrong. There are forces beyond ones control that can dictate their economic standing. Sure, some people are in fact lazy and have no initiative, but I fail to believe that is a majority. Rather, there are those who get demoralized from the lack of opportunity and upward mobility presented before them. It's not laziness, it's called depression. Some people just can't get ahead because they start several paces behind the starting line that others begin it economically.
So is it right to have high interest rates for high risk borrowers? Economically maybe, morally absolutely not. A problem in society is that we use our wallets and pocketbooks to think more than our hearts. I think there needs to be avenues to help the poor with things that matter, like education, health care, and getting a home. Maybe we should lower our rates when it comes to borrowing for those purposes. I"m against the sort of reckless borrowing meant to buy needless things such as big screen tvs and plastic surgery, or what have you, but to help individuals live healthy fulfilling lives; it's not always wrong to give them a boost with more friendly borrowing terms.
And lets not forget that debt terms are often constructed to milk more from the borrower. It is a business, which means profit is the motive, not humanity. Lenders want you in debt, but not too much; They want you just enough in debt so that you can pay your monthly payment, yet not pay it off so that you can accrue more interest. Once again, the money is in this country to help everybody. We should be searching for ways to live a more virtuous lifestyle, which does not always translate into an economically more prosperous one. Humanity NOT profit should be our motives.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
The Church and Homosexuality
I usually write about class and economic issues so I thought I'd throw a bit of a curveball and write about an article I read this past week about Ted Haggard, the pastor who had homosexual relations with another man. I couldn't finish the article because I was completely angered by one comment that said something to the effect of; Ted Haggard after intense therapy was now 100% heterosexual. First of all, it's not something that is in need of therapy, it is something the church needs to realize has existed since the dawn of time. It is not a sickness, but a perspective, just like everything else in life, and who is to say which is the superior way of life? I'm a heterosexual male who has known several homosexuals and I am not in any way threatned by them. Sure, I am guilty of having judged them before, but college shed light on many things for me including what it means to be a homosexual.
Now for Ted Haggard to all of the sudden be 100% heterosexual is absurd. It's not something that can simply be rationalized away. The man had homosexual relations and that is just fine, but the church has to save face and create a stance that completely is out of touch with mainstream thought. In addition, just because somebody has homosexual relations does not mean they are a homosexual. It happens in prisons, in the military, and of course in church circles across the globe. It existed in Native American societies when men were away at war. The point is we need to make these distinctions, but this is in no way, shape, or form a denunciation of homosexuality. If Ted Haggard simply had homosexual realtions, or if he is in fact a homosexual, either way that is fine.
I am very critical of established religious institutions and this is just another example of why. They always try to deny human nature and the progression of society. Many religious fundamentalists, and many religious types in general, seem to denounce any way of life, or perspective, that is not in line with their ideas. This is not restrictive to religious believers though, it happens in politics and any other belief based system. However, established religions have done far more harm than good in this world. The wars, the death, and the harm all done in the name of religion boggles my mind, but I digress.
So Ted Haggard and the rest of the faithful, step outside the box you live in and see yourselves for what you really are. A product of humanity, a creation that is molded by its surroundings. God didn't create the world, the world created God and people don't choose to be homosexuals, but they deserve to be treated rightfully and justly as human beings, not as a social misfit.
Now for Ted Haggard to all of the sudden be 100% heterosexual is absurd. It's not something that can simply be rationalized away. The man had homosexual relations and that is just fine, but the church has to save face and create a stance that completely is out of touch with mainstream thought. In addition, just because somebody has homosexual relations does not mean they are a homosexual. It happens in prisons, in the military, and of course in church circles across the globe. It existed in Native American societies when men were away at war. The point is we need to make these distinctions, but this is in no way, shape, or form a denunciation of homosexuality. If Ted Haggard simply had homosexual realtions, or if he is in fact a homosexual, either way that is fine.
I am very critical of established religious institutions and this is just another example of why. They always try to deny human nature and the progression of society. Many religious fundamentalists, and many religious types in general, seem to denounce any way of life, or perspective, that is not in line with their ideas. This is not restrictive to religious believers though, it happens in politics and any other belief based system. However, established religions have done far more harm than good in this world. The wars, the death, and the harm all done in the name of religion boggles my mind, but I digress.
So Ted Haggard and the rest of the faithful, step outside the box you live in and see yourselves for what you really are. A product of humanity, a creation that is molded by its surroundings. God didn't create the world, the world created God and people don't choose to be homosexuals, but they deserve to be treated rightfully and justly as human beings, not as a social misfit.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Race and Ethnicity
This may not be a totally clear blog since it was written with my professor as the intended audience, but I thought I'd post a response paper I wrote for one of my history classes recently. I love reading, and debating, the questions of race, class, and ethnicity. I tend to think class trumps all other social categories, because it encompasses all others, but I digress. So here is a short paper on race, and the idea of post ethnicity.
This idea of post-ethnicity is first all a very difficult one to fully grasp without significant study on the subject. It is not the first time I’ve been exposed to this type of idea, in fact, over the past two years it has found its way into many of the classes or books I have read in some way shape or form. It falls under this idea of the social construction of race, ethnicity, and gender which can make one feel very uncomfortable at first. These sorts of ideas force a person to reformulate what they perceived as being fact, truth, or reality in many senses, and this can be extremely discomforting. I sometimes wonder if we will ever be able to fully reach beyond our concepts of race and ethnicity to reach a post ethnic society, but I’m not sure there is a positive answer to that question. It many ways it would involve the transformation of history as we know it, because even though I truly believe there are no inherent inferiorities amongst particular groups, they have been given meaning; and further meaning will be yet another imposition by an outside entity within the context of previously held notions of race or ethnicity.
Labels that we use to describe races or ethnicities are meaningless until they are prescribed a meaning by communities both within and outside of a given group of individuals. That being said we need to change the meanings that we give to somebody who is for example, Asian or African-American. I think how we teach history is crucial in this aspect. I think if academia can find a way present the historical forces that have assigned second class status to certain groups which is easily understood by the masses then we can make some headway in terms of our understandings of these subjects. Without knowledge individuals simply follow their senses of sight and hearing. I have seen it with my own eyes. People see a poor African American and automatically assign them as lazy and then they assign lazy as a characteristic of the whole race. This can change though and I’ve seen it change with myself. I come from a working class family who made these assumptions and therefore they became a part of me. However in college I was taught to rethink my notions about race, ethnicity, and gender. However, this raises another interesting question about the so called positive meanings that we assign to race and ethnicity. I think those are just as harmful as the negative meanings, but I think it is important to note if we are to re-negotiate our understandings of the negatives then we must also do so with the positives.
I find the question of post-ethnicity the most important in terms of our readings for this class. This question of race and ethnicity as being socially constructed, thus susceptible to being socially deconstructed is an extremely intriguing one. As I alluded to earlier, it involves in a very real sense, they creation of a new reality. Reality is not fact or even truth, reality is what we make it, but that is not to say it is what we intentionally make. It is completely out of our control in what reality is because so many forces act together to create it and there is no way we can control it. When I say we will never get past the point where we view differences among races and ethnicities I feel some people consider me to be a racist which would be incredibly faulty thinking. I think it is natural for a human being to see and acknowledge differences between their fellow human beings. I see darker skin than mine and it registers in my mind as so. Just as I see a female and realize that they are not male like me. In both instances almost immediately certain ideas pop up about they register as darker skinned or female.
We simply need to celebrate our differences. Differences are good; they make the world exciting and a more interesting place. I think in the United States, and the world, we have this problem with differences in physical and intellectual make up. In my world view it is because government fears what it would due to certain allegiances to their particular institution of rule. People fear the unknown; they fear what is different because they feel that person or thing is a threat to their personal reality. They also fear differences because they can constitute a political and social force and impose their own ideals on the rest of us. I honestly believe these beliefs exist, even if they’re subconsciously. So with all that I think we need to celebrate the good things about our differences and seek to understand the negatives to prevent them from occurring in the future. This may seem to imply that I find hope that a post-ethnic world can exist. This would mean changing history, changing government, changing economy, and basically negating everything up until now, which is impossible.
As I think is shown by my comments here, which I’m sure have many contradictions, this topic is wildly complex. We may be able to become post-ethnic in a social sense where people are allowed to determine their ethnic identity so a limited extent, but I fail to see it happening broadly, especially when it comes to social and governmental institutions. I always seem to tie things to class, but I believe class is the more important issue because the reason there is a concern for race and ethnicity is because of the economic implications. Of course I see power, both political and social, in this economic analysis because money certainly means power in this world. I think if we are ever to reach a post-ethnic world we would have to see our conceptions of wealth and economy do a complete 180.
I’m still fighting to understand these issues, and I will continue to do so even though I think nobody will ever find an answer. I love this topic and I love thinking about it despite the many headaches it gives me. I do think we need to make an effort to see each other as human beings, not as black and white, Christian and Muslim, or American and Chinese. That may make me a bit of an idealist, but I think hope must be kept alive and efforts must be made to do so.
This idea of post-ethnicity is first all a very difficult one to fully grasp without significant study on the subject. It is not the first time I’ve been exposed to this type of idea, in fact, over the past two years it has found its way into many of the classes or books I have read in some way shape or form. It falls under this idea of the social construction of race, ethnicity, and gender which can make one feel very uncomfortable at first. These sorts of ideas force a person to reformulate what they perceived as being fact, truth, or reality in many senses, and this can be extremely discomforting. I sometimes wonder if we will ever be able to fully reach beyond our concepts of race and ethnicity to reach a post ethnic society, but I’m not sure there is a positive answer to that question. It many ways it would involve the transformation of history as we know it, because even though I truly believe there are no inherent inferiorities amongst particular groups, they have been given meaning; and further meaning will be yet another imposition by an outside entity within the context of previously held notions of race or ethnicity.
Labels that we use to describe races or ethnicities are meaningless until they are prescribed a meaning by communities both within and outside of a given group of individuals. That being said we need to change the meanings that we give to somebody who is for example, Asian or African-American. I think how we teach history is crucial in this aspect. I think if academia can find a way present the historical forces that have assigned second class status to certain groups which is easily understood by the masses then we can make some headway in terms of our understandings of these subjects. Without knowledge individuals simply follow their senses of sight and hearing. I have seen it with my own eyes. People see a poor African American and automatically assign them as lazy and then they assign lazy as a characteristic of the whole race. This can change though and I’ve seen it change with myself. I come from a working class family who made these assumptions and therefore they became a part of me. However in college I was taught to rethink my notions about race, ethnicity, and gender. However, this raises another interesting question about the so called positive meanings that we assign to race and ethnicity. I think those are just as harmful as the negative meanings, but I think it is important to note if we are to re-negotiate our understandings of the negatives then we must also do so with the positives.
I find the question of post-ethnicity the most important in terms of our readings for this class. This question of race and ethnicity as being socially constructed, thus susceptible to being socially deconstructed is an extremely intriguing one. As I alluded to earlier, it involves in a very real sense, they creation of a new reality. Reality is not fact or even truth, reality is what we make it, but that is not to say it is what we intentionally make. It is completely out of our control in what reality is because so many forces act together to create it and there is no way we can control it. When I say we will never get past the point where we view differences among races and ethnicities I feel some people consider me to be a racist which would be incredibly faulty thinking. I think it is natural for a human being to see and acknowledge differences between their fellow human beings. I see darker skin than mine and it registers in my mind as so. Just as I see a female and realize that they are not male like me. In both instances almost immediately certain ideas pop up about they register as darker skinned or female.
We simply need to celebrate our differences. Differences are good; they make the world exciting and a more interesting place. I think in the United States, and the world, we have this problem with differences in physical and intellectual make up. In my world view it is because government fears what it would due to certain allegiances to their particular institution of rule. People fear the unknown; they fear what is different because they feel that person or thing is a threat to their personal reality. They also fear differences because they can constitute a political and social force and impose their own ideals on the rest of us. I honestly believe these beliefs exist, even if they’re subconsciously. So with all that I think we need to celebrate the good things about our differences and seek to understand the negatives to prevent them from occurring in the future. This may seem to imply that I find hope that a post-ethnic world can exist. This would mean changing history, changing government, changing economy, and basically negating everything up until now, which is impossible.
As I think is shown by my comments here, which I’m sure have many contradictions, this topic is wildly complex. We may be able to become post-ethnic in a social sense where people are allowed to determine their ethnic identity so a limited extent, but I fail to see it happening broadly, especially when it comes to social and governmental institutions. I always seem to tie things to class, but I believe class is the more important issue because the reason there is a concern for race and ethnicity is because of the economic implications. Of course I see power, both political and social, in this economic analysis because money certainly means power in this world. I think if we are ever to reach a post-ethnic world we would have to see our conceptions of wealth and economy do a complete 180.
I’m still fighting to understand these issues, and I will continue to do so even though I think nobody will ever find an answer. I love this topic and I love thinking about it despite the many headaches it gives me. I do think we need to make an effort to see each other as human beings, not as black and white, Christian and Muslim, or American and Chinese. That may make me a bit of an idealist, but I think hope must be kept alive and efforts must be made to do so.
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