Thoughts on Terri Schiavo

R.I.P., Terri. Her family has, I hope, some relief today, though I know that there will be plenty of bitterness. To be honest, I am a little surprised at the court decisions. They all seemed to go against the parents and for the husbamd, but I don't know what the legal arguments for the decisions were.

I am also surprised at the high emotions and general meanness that the case generated in the Schiavo/Schindler families. I shouldn't be so surprised. Every time, it seems, a family member dies, rifts are created between families and family members. I have seen it with my family and my wife's family.

I found it utterly distasteful and inappropriate for activists and clergy and politicians to be doing all of their huffing and puffing on the case. They all, and we all, should have just minded our own business.

In the end this wasn't a human drama about rights, dignity, death or love. It was a circus of seething resentment, disenfranchisement, frustration, and exploitation.

Now, I suppose, we'll be able to concentrate more fully on the Michael Jackson trial.

Good Things to Think About

I like the sentiment behind a quote that I found on Chabad.org: "You must always have good things to think about." There's actually a second statement that follows this, but it's this first part that interests me.

The interesting thing is that, while we're always thinking, we're not always aware that we're thinking. Personally, sometimes I am so busy at work solving sudden problems and accomplishing small task after small task, that I don't even recognize that something is on my mind.

That's why the quote struck me. It made me realize that I did not consciously have in my mind a good thing that I was thinking about. I suppose that for the good people at Chabad.org, good things primarily involve Torah, Talmud or the like. I don't have any good recall of these texts -- especially here at my workspace -- so I thnk of my family.

My daughter and my wife. My parents and my parents-in-law. My brothers and their families. They all make my life good, fun, interesting, stressful, and exciting. In other words, they give me "spirit and passion and values".

Make no mistake: I think Torah and studying Torah give these things too, but no one would ever mistake me for a Torah scholar or even a pious man. Maybe my true good thing to think about is reading some Torah tonight and ardently thinking about what it says -- as well as what others say about it.

Good thinking leads to good resolutions, and we hope to good actions. If we are really sharp, we repeat the process over and over. And, importantly, we remember to repeat the process over and over.

The good, finally, has got to be more in the doing again than in the doing.

March Plods Along

After an extended absence -- over a month -- here I am back with a post.

It's been more than just a little busy at my primary job -- that is, my primary source of income. When it gets really busy like it has been, I realize clearly that I could take or leave my job. It holds verry little interest for me, at least in any sustained way. The deadlines are grueling, the pressure from my boss is unrelenting, fearful thoughts come and go of the company higher-ups suddenly realizing that my job function costs too much to maintain, the projects seem the same and their differences are not enough to arouse much passion in me, and on and on and on.

This must be what is called "ennui." Or, suddenly at 35 I am entering my mid-life crisis. One thing's for sure: I Can't Get No Satisfaction! I want to earn more money, I want more excitement, and I want more flexibility -- is this too much to ask?

Well, I am looking around for an opportunity -- a different job, a freelance gig, a business venture. Something will come along because I am going to make it come along.

Morality and Hypocrisy

Morality has become my hobby-horse of late. More and more, I am interested in the behaviors as well as the principles that make up living a “good” life.

One prominent thinker of moral matters is Dennis Prager. Though I am always interested in the subjects he raises, his way of reasoning bothers me greatly. To me, it always smacks of self-righteous scolding. But what’s worse is that Prager seemingly addresses like-minded folks for the primary purpose of bashing people who take a different view. His otherwise interesting articles debase themselves by informing, entertaining, and inciting an audience that he must imagine is already prejudiced against “the Left” (capital L).

Sooner or later – but I suspect later, once my generation, the so-called Generation X, assumes major positions of public power – the cheap ideological use of terms such as “Left” will become tiresome to society at large. Stripped of their constitutive prejudice, people-bashing in the guise of moral posturing will become recognized, finally, for what it is at heart: immature thinking.

However, these writings can actually be both immoral and harmful. As an example, I want to present two paragraphs from Prager’s “On Worthless Humanity”:

Since I was an adolescent, I have been preoccupied with evil: specifically, why people engage in it and why other people refuse to acknowledge its existence. As I have gotten older, I often find the latter group more infuriating. Somehow, as much as I don't want to, I can understand why a Muslim raised in a world permeated with hate-filled lies about America and Israel, and taught from childhood that G-d loves death, will blow himself up and joyfully maim and murder children. As evil as the Muslim terrorist is, given the Islamic world in which he was raised, he has some excuse.

But the non-Muslims who fail to acknowledge and confront the evil of Muslim terror and the evil of those monsters who cut innocent people's throats and murder those trying to make a democracy — these people are truly worth nothing. Unlike the Muslims raised in a religious totalitarian society, they have no excuse. And in my lifetime, these people have overwhelmingly congregated on the political Left.

In these paragraphs, Prager's subject is the willingness to recognize and distinguish good and evil. A suicide bomber commits an evil act, and, as Prager says, simply “is” evil. This is presented matter-of-factly: no need for further consideration because it’s obvious. Now, even though he knows that the suicide bomber is evil, Prager apparently also possesses an understanding of the evil act; that is, its origins lie in a world saturated with hatred and lies, and in a culture that misrepresents to children what G-d loves. Who knows, Prager may even have some compassion for that terrorist, since the joyful maiming and murder came about partly because of the terrorist’s world and education!

Prager goes on to assert that any non-Muslim (Muslims are apparently exempt) who does not stand up and declare that the suicide bomber committed an evil act, who does not state that terrorism is evil, is “truly worth nothing.” Such a person is worthless for refusing to identify evil. Unfortunately, Prager provides no real evidence – names, dates, etc. – of any non-Muslim actually failing “to acknowledge and confront” the evil or terror. It seems that if “we” are already on “the Right,” or maybe in “the Middle,” we may blithely assume that not acknowledging and confronting evil is just what “the Left” does.

Prager’s thinking is weak in this case because it remains at a general, assumptive level. It never gets into the messiness of details and evidence. From my point of view, arguments involving morality that fail to use – or even attempt to use – any hard evidence at all are hypocritical and immorally conceived. Living and behaving morally, and taking moral stances to the events and activities of the real world, require effort and generous amount of reflection. At least, this is true for me.

However, Prager’s thinking is irresponsible and even dangerous at another level. The Muslim who blew himself up and joyfully maimed and murdered children: did he believe he was committing an evil act? Prager himself says no. The Muslim actually thought he was doing a virtuous deed. He was, after all, “raised in a world permeated with hate-filled lies about America and Israel, and taught from childhood that G-d loves death.”

So, we now have two conflicting moral ideas: the suicide bomber thinks his act is good and Prager, representing the non-Muslim world, thinks the act is evil. The question is how to determine who is right. What standard is to be used and how is it to be applied? And, if one view is right, is it 100% right or are there any individual points at which the other view prevails?

The huge failure of Prager’s thinking is that he refuses to confront these legitimate questions as surely as he glosses over the alternate perspective of the suicide bomber. Prager clearly acknowledges this perspective, but then dismisses it quickly by tying it to lies and corrupt education.

Yet, refusing to confront this alternative view can hardly be anything except moral cowardice. Now, I am not necessarily calling Prager a moral coward, and I do not really know whether Prager is or is not willing to confront the tough issues that his own words raise. However, I am saying that in “On Worthless Humanity,” Prager fails to make a similar confrontation to the one he himself accuses "the Left" of avoiding.

It almost makes one wonder whether a more moral world, whatever that is, is at all Prager's goal. If Prager, or Muslims, or “the Left,” truly want to live in a moral world, then what’s needed are serious attempts to confront the environments and perspectives that people use to justify actions.

But perhaps it's not about a better world, anyway. The ideology Prager employs is useful for demonizing and scapegoating “the Left,” but it does not otherwise appear meant to change minds or contribute to the betterment of the world. It does not even help honest people to identify the difference between good and evil.

Ironically, Prager’s article is worthless in the same way the "Leftist" congregants it describes are. Sadly, though, the article had so much potential to be more and to do more with its chosen subject.

What Does It Take to Live a Religious Life?

What does it take to live a religious life?

I don’t mean “religious life” necessarily in the sense of being diligently observant of Jewish, Christian, or Muslim rituals. Certainly a religious life would entail one’s being observant in this way, but I think it is more important to be philosophically committed to the core ideas of one’s religion.

Abstract, egghead terms like “philosophically committed” are easy to dismiss. What I mean, though, is a kind of default mindset, a natural way of thinking all the time. As an example, I remember that my wife and I, at an early point in our relationship, understood that we were going to be together, to be married, and to build a life together. Breaking up or not being together ceased to be any part of our thinking – they ceased to be at all likely outcomes of anything happening in our lives.

I want this same kind of comfort and stability in my relationship with religion, specifically Judaism. I want to have a similar kind of entrenched commitment to and belief in a Jewish understanding of the universe. Obviously, I don’t feel that I live a religious life or that I have a strong internal foundation of Jewish belief.

Having doubt is perhaps a virtue. Posing questions about G-d, even directly to G-d, is about as Jewish as you can get. Besides, who can take seriously a person unwilling to examine his or her own spirituality? The problem for me is that I never seem to reach a point where I can say, “OK, I believe. Tomorrow, I might have doubts again, but right at this moment, I fully and genuinely believe in and love G-d.”

I understand that the best way to overcome my doubt is to study Torah, perform mitzvot, and participate in a Jewish community. Reading advice columns and other commentary – such as can be found abundantly online – provides little help for me.

For example, in “Is the Divine Just a Cosmic Party Pooper?” Rabbi David Aaron says, “People think that serving G-d is demeaning; servitude implies a slave-master relationship. But that is not the real meaning of serving G-d. The opportunity to serve G-d is the greatest gift we could ever imagine. It's empowering. To serve G-d means that we can do something on behalf of G-d. It's an unbelievable honor!”

If this formulation of the matter is intended to be persuasive, I don’t find it so – it’s essentially a he-said, she-said. One person equates serving G-d as a form of diminution; another feels honored to serve G-d.

Two sets of standards are needed here: criteria for diminution and for honor. Now, I am not looking to try and objectively determine whether it IS demeaning to serve G-d or whether it IS an honor. The criteria will influence the outcome, and if your definitions are more restrictive than mine, then we’ll get different results.

The point is, though, that someone needs to consciously install a standard. This is something I never see commentators do. Everyone gives his or her side of the he-said, she-said angle, and that’s it. Making a case is apparently a dying art.

I think that, for me, these are two sympathetic concerns, living a religious life and making cases. One way I need to find, explore, and express my beliefs is to argue for them. No, I don’t think I am someone who argues for certain beliefs; I argue for the things that justify and support beliefs. Maybe I hope to achieve a religious life and a certainty of belief by establishing the proper context.

It sounds silly when it is formulated like this, but it’s good at least to come to a conclusion. Conclusions are, after all, the context of conclusions yet to come.

Time Is Running Out for Opponents of Gay Marriage

There is not much new to say about the issue of “Gay Marriage.” The central matter of contention seems to be that proponents want the government to recognize same-sex unions as legal marriages. Opponents want the term “marriage” reserved solely for the union of a man and a woman.

Even this simple description conveys something of the deeply held personal, religious, and symbolic associations of the term “marriage” for many people. Being married myself, I know I have strong feelings about it. I find married life to be a source of happiness and strength. It is one of the good things in life, and why shouldn't everyone have the chance to experience it?

This is the main reason that I support Gay Marriage and hope that same sex unions in America become legal and recognized as marriage. To me, marriage falls under the “pursuit of happiness” right that we agree – in the Declaration of Independence, anyway – is the birthright of all people.

If a consenting adult willingly desires to be married to another consenting adult, then the government’s obligation is to protect the right of these people to be married. We can all understand the strong fears, feelings, and desires of those who covet a traditional definition of “marriage” and do not want it expanded. But trying to reserve the term for only one combination of consenting adults is childish, immoral, mean-spirited, and undemocratic. Using a moral guise, it attacks the very spirit and core principles of American governance.

More than this, even, the fight to restrict the definition of marriage is a profound waste of moral energy that might be directed toward helping the poor, the ill, and the lost. I cannot help but notice that the same folks who cry to have morality legislated in this case – through a constitutional amendment – are often the same folks who don’t want morality legislated when it comes to helping our country’s impoverished.

Inevitably, “marriage” will one day cover both heterosexual and homosexual unions. Only fear and prejudice stand in the way. But those in power in the government, courts and lobbying groups are aging and on the decline. Those of my generation, who are on the political ascent, will make the issue right and put it to rest.

Perhaps then our country will be better equipped to deal with the serious moral issues confronting us.

Morality and Text

Morality is an endlessly contentious and entangling issue. We can find several examples daily where the general concept of morality becomes critical in assessing a particular political issue. One current example of this is the inauguration ball expenses of George W. Bush, but the debate over a courthouse representation of the Ten Commandments and national discussions of providing values based teaching in public schools also illustrate the ubiquitous concern with morality – as well as how morality is communicated, by whom, and in what context.

Such concerns, debates, and discussions are by and large beneficial. Morality, ethics and values – as they apply to individual behavior, organizational activity, and societal conduct – are a proper focus for virtually any subject, so long as the discussion doesn’t deteriorate into self-righteous posturing and finger-wagging. Wouldn’t it be enlightening, and even entertaining, to consider the policy issues of our day from moral standpoints?

The issue of Gay Marriage, for example, has not actually been treated from any such standpoint, to my knowledge. It’s easy to hear the shouting and stomping that “marriage has always been between a man and a woman” or that “Gay Marriage is a matter of Civil Rights,” but the underlying moral issues inherent in both claims are actually far more important and interesting than the claims themselves.

We never seem to talk about how following or departing from tradition – what’s “always been done” – makes our society morally improved or worsened. At least, we never get any examples or case studies. Likewise, we rarely get discourses that put rights, who grants them, and who protects them, in the context of the moral standards we hope to achieve and maintain as a society.

What do we get instead? Position after position and opinion after opinion. Moral grandstanding, in other words.

Personally, I believe in the concept of a “moral bottom line,” a cultural net gain or loss influenced by our actions, behaviors, and policies. The moral economy is encoded in official laws and programs, as well as social customs and traditions. It is driven by daily contests and decisions made in homes, synagogues, schools, offices, and on TV and the Internet. It is administered by authorities in the courts, police squads, legislative bodies, and religious organizations. But what anchors morality to the individual and collective consciousness is the perception that morality derives from G-d. Whether it actually derives from G-d is unknowable and probably irrelevant.

But the point is that morality works as a textual formation, as a perceived product of a perceived transcendental force. If morality ceased to be understood as such a product, it not only would cease to have a spiritual resonance but also would fragment individuals from each other, from their communities, from their society, and from their government. This, I think, would make the moral economy poorer.

The Textual Ecosystem of Football

There are many reasons to enjoy football in general and football games in particular: the complex, coordinated chaos of plays in action; vicious hits and tackles; the poetic arc of the pass; the warrior ballet of catching a football; the martial brilliance of a long scoring drive; and so on.

Yet, among the more arresting considerations of a football game is its textuality. At any moment “in” a game, an entire constellation of texts will link up, intersect, and overlap. For instance, imagine a single offensive play being run from beginning to end. From one point of view, that team’s offensive coordinator, who typically decides which plays the team will execute, functions as an intending agent, the producer or addressee of the play. To the opposing team’s defensive coordinator, the offensive coordinator is communicating a particular message, the substance of which is the change in field position.

How is this change, the message, communicated? Most obviously, the players executing the plan have primary responsibility for carrying – in both a physical and semiotic sense – the message to the opposing team. Their actions and movements anticipate and aim to manipulate response actions from the defensive players.

At the same time, the offense play develops in a rule-governed environment. Everything from the referees to the helmets, pads, cleats, and numbered uniforms forms a code or repertoire – to borrow terms from Roman Jakobson and Itamar Even-Zohar, respectively – governing the conduct of play and the appropriate response from the defense. In this single offensive play, there is also a surrounding context consisting of field position, down, time remaining, and so on.

A single play from a single point of view therefore carries an enormous textual charge. More than this, it reveals a textual ecosystem at work. But what’s truly amazing is that we only considered one play from one point of view. We could consider that play from the point of view of the quarterback, the head coach, the team owner, the television spectator, and many more positions. We can consider single plays, which are really dual plays: offensive and defensive. We can also consider bundles of plays, from a single drive, from a quarter, from a half, from a game.

Beyond this there are texts in the game planning, from film study to X and O diagrams; texts in the media coverage, from play-by-play coverage to post-game news conferences and interviews; and texts in the team and NFL promotion machines. The incredible textual life and traffic of football suggests the magnitude of our task: trying to make a systematic, incisive confrontation with the multiple textuality driving both the staged and impromptu events of our time.

Perhaps the lesson here is the need to establish the tools of textual analysis that will best assist in generating the results we want.

Mission Statement: Textuality and What Matters Today

This blog has been initiated and inaugurated to serve as a forum on textuality. Specifically, it is intended to support the analysis and understanding of current events, issues, and debates from the standpoint of textuality.

As I understand textuality, it is the quality possessed by a tangible thing of being a text. To proceed further, a text is a tangible thing – such as a piece of paper, a book, a Web page or Internet site, an onstage or onscreen performance, a painting, a sculpture, a building, a location in nature, and so on – that is understood to be or to be comprised of one or more signs. Signs may contain one or more signifying elements, but their referents are conceived of as statements of thought intended to be communicated.

For example, an otherwise blank piece of paper with a single letter “b” scrawled on it may not be understood as a text. Why? Because the letter seems not to be placed to communicate any particular idea. In this view, neither the letter, the physical paper, nor the letter-paper combination is acting as a sign. Signs and texts are not always identical, but in this case no sign, no text.

However, another reader may view the paper and letter differently. This person might see the “b” as imitating a teacher’s grade given to a homework assignment. This reader might deduce the paper and letter work together to make a deliberately ironic comment on education. Suddenly, then, we have a text. That is, we understand the paper to belong that class of objects containing signs and possessing an inferable communicative intent.

My view is that if textuality can be said to exist, it does so in the eye and mind of the beholder. This forum is intended to allow a community of beholders to see and understand the textual themes and dimensions of various current issues. I have no objection to examining any topic of a political, social, or cultural nature.

I recently posted thoughts on morality. It was a response to Dennis Parger’s article arguing the need for G-d-based morality. One of the “hidden” texts of the matter, which I did not raise in my post, involved written law – anything and everything from the Tanach to the Bill of Rights. Prager’s arguments on the subject, as well as my own, implicitly differentiate between (1) a transcendent moral standard issued from G-d’s will and (2) a world-bound moral code set down by societies.

The former morality is purported to be eternal, absolute and stable. The latter is supposed to be flawed and subject to the ingenuity of people to find “loopholes” and manufacture “reasonable” justifications to illegalities.

I use this example to make the point that textuality is “in” many of today’s most discussed and controversial topics. What’s more, the nature of the contention often includes competing views of textualiy, such as a conflict between stable and unstable texts.

Having considered, studied, and written about textuality for some time now – in my master’s thesis and my aborted dissertation, I know that certain textual issues are common and prevalent enough to be almost tiresome: stability, authority, fluidity.

My hope is that the collision of textuality and various current issues will lead to interesting and unfamiliar ideas in both domains. I don’t know exactly how or when such ideas might come about, but I am confident that they will emerge and that they will ultimately be of benefit to a much wider audience than that which would regularly participate in a forum such as this.

I hope that this blog will be an active site for many, a place of challenge, conversation, debate, diatribe, experiment, feedback, flames, news, philosophy, polemic, and more. I have parenthetically titled the blog “alpha” because it is the first incarnation of what I hope will be an extended project. I wish that the blog will one day be morphed into a self-sustaining and self-generating publication. I don’t know exactly how or when such morphing might come about, but I am confident that if the field of textuality can be defined, described, and mapped to the fullest practical potential, then this project will develop most grandly.

The Necessary Illusion of Divine-Based Morality

Does morality derive directly from G-d? And does the derivation make a difference? My answer is similar to what the rat-bastard Voltaire is supposed to have said: "If there were no G-d, it would be necessary to invent him."

In "The Case for Judeo-Christian Values: Divine-Based Morality" (1/11/2005, http://www.jewishworldreview.com/), Dennis Prager defends the need for G-d-based morality: "if there is no G-d who says, 'Do not murder,' ... then murder is not wrong. Many people may think it is wrong, but that is their opinion, not objective moral fact. There are no moral 'facts' if there is no G-d; there are only moral opinions."

To Prager, moral fact can only issue from G-d's will; more than this, G-d's will creates the very substance of morality. Man-made morality is not and cannot be true morality: it cannot make an objective, transcendental standard.

But there is another approach to morality worth considering: not only are there are no moral facts without G-d, but there are no moral facts anyway -- at least in this world. G-d's moral will may be "Do not murder," but on Earth our defense after the act is "It doesn't qualify as 'murder.' There's a justification. There's a technicality." In some situations, we can even read G-d's will to favor our moral position.

However, just because morality is subjective doesn't mean we must act as though moral facts don't exist. Just the opposite: we can, should, and need to behave as if worldly morality were objective and concrete. Otherwise, as Prager notes, virtually any act or behavior can be construed as permissible. Anything can be justified or explained away.

The fact is that we need to believe in an objective moral reality. And we need to act accordingly, but we don't do a very good job of it -- not the so-called secular moral relativists, not those who proclaim to subscribe to Judeo-Christian values, not Prager, not me.

I hear and read so much name calling these days: "secularists," "conservatives," "elites." There's no end to the names, and attached to each name is a ready-made moral criticism against it. In these instances, it seems to me that those who claim morality and claim themselves to be moral not only discourage honest debate but also attempt to prevent people from approaching G-d.

For myself, I am prepared to let the necessary illusion of G-d-based morality guide my actions, but it will mean little unless I also jettison the unnecessary illusion of self-based morality.