Dealing with Loss

It is difficult to examine the bad faith of others, because in doing so we are forced to face it in our self.

Listening to Metric - Collect Call

Is Obama Religious?

We tend to project our own ideals on those whom we idolize, and we can only project onto someone what we know of them.  Obama is no exception to this when it comes to his admirers, but like all of us he is a man of contradictions.  The infamous "guns and god" comment, which may be construed as anti-religious, doesn't seem to mesh particularly well with some sentiments from his latest speech at a national prayer breakfast.  There are of course other instances, e.g. the Chicago pastor scandal, that demonstrate a certain degree of spirituality in the man.  What is unclear is whether that religiosity is sincere.  An irreligious admirer would believe that it is insincere.  A religiously apathetic or agnostic admirer would not think twice of it, and a religious admirer would ignore the seemingly disparaging comment and be heedful of his comments demonstrating religiosity.  Whatever one's religious persuasion, he's on the right moral track regardless.  The moral principles that he derives from Christianity, among other religions, to bolster his motivation for advocating health care reform ought to ring true to decent beings.*  There are moments in the speech where he plays a pan-religious note by discussing the origins and merits of moral principles and maxims which can be found in similar forms in various religions e.g. Polytheistic, Mosaic, etc.  This escalates the contradictory religious qualities he projects.  Statements projecting his spirituality become both meaningless and clear at this point.  He is a politician, and like all politicians most of his public words are carefully crafted so that his admirers consume the agreeable and disregard the contradictory.  So, my answer to the title of this is: who knows?

*see link, and I only know of the statements quoted there, so I say this only regarding what I read at the link and my memory.

Listening to YACHT - Psychic City

Political Genealogy of Voluntary Dietary Restrictions?

For some reason, I found myself drawn to American retro food commercials tonight. And the language in the commercials led me to think that the dietary restrictions that some of my peers follow might be a product of the post 1980's era of conspicuous consumption.  Generally, those who adhere to dietary limitations self-identify with a different political space than from which the prodigal habits popularly associated with this decade spawned. The above linked commercials both draw attention to their product's thrift, and I wondered how the purchasing power of $0.15 per serving compared to what is available today.  But I realized that it is probably not the case that dietary restrictions cost more, or are some kind of luxury enjoyed by our generation; it's more likely that gains in our food production infrastructure have granted affordable options no matter one's dietary preference.  Portion costs to ingredient costs yields no damning to results to my mind.  Is it that producers managed to whittle down food that was thought of as luxurious into something cheaper and less wholesome than its origin to be affordable to the masses?

Food for thought.


Listening to: Blood Orange - S'Cooled

Staying Grounded

Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

-George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"

My Piece for the Whittier Student Publication, The Zealous Advocate

Does Criticism of the Death Penalty Question the Legitimacy of our Justice System?

The Troy Davis execution was a highly publicized and emotionally charged event.  It temporarily brought to the forefront of the news cycle the ongoing (inter)national debate regarding the morality of the death penalty.  While the forms of the arguments against the death penalty are diverse, the particular one evoked by Davis’s plight may be succinctly put as “the inevitability of caprice and mistake,” coined by Charles Black.  However, this idea is not just problematic of the death penalty; it is a problem of our justice system in general.  We all know those common tropes: all prisoners are innocent men except for their incompetent lawyers, or they did not actually commit the crime, or they were framed by the cops.  Although, occasionally, these do turn out to be true, we nevertheless accept the legitimacy of our justice system in the face of these occasional errors.  And right now, the majority of the country is willing to accept a margin of error so that death sentences are still carried out.

So, even if it were true that his case were a slam dunk, and all the witness recantations turned out to be credible, the dilemma of an innocent man dying so that, say, nine hundred ninety nine actually guilty murderers are put to death is not going to advance the cause of anti-death penalty advocates.  While this sort of situation does tug at the heart strings (we think, "What if I were innocent? I wouldn't want to be put to death."), it isn't going to convince those who believe in such an extreme form of retributive punishment i.e. those who are willing to accept the possibility of an innocent person dying in order to carry out this absolute punishment on convicted murderers in their respective states.  Publicity stunts like the one performed at the expense of Troy Davis and his family are not going to advance the debate; they serve merely to further entrench those who already have a moral stake in the discussion.  Although I am sure Troy Davis and his loved ones were heartened by the outpouring of support for his cause, I cannot help but think that it also filled them with a sense of false hope realized by heartbreaking let-down.

What is needed is thoughtful discussion that is separated from the irrationality of pure emotion.  Until we as a country are unable to accept the idea that an innocent man might by killed by the hand of their own community, the death penalty will continue.

Keep Your Chin Up

Since we can’t extract beauty from life, let’s at least try to extract beauty from not being able to extract beauty from life.  Let’s make our failure into a victory, into something positive and lofty, endowed with columns, majesty and our mind’s consent.


-Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

The Morality of the Death Penalty re: Troy Davis

Even if it were true that his case were a slam dunk, and all the witness recantations turned out to be credible, the dilemma of an innocent man dying so that, say, nine hundred ninety nine actually guilty murderers are put to death is not going to advance the cause of anti-death penalty advocates.  While this sort of situation does tug at the heart strings (we think, "What if I were innocent? I wouldn't want to be put to death."), it isn't going to convince those who believe in such an extreme form of retributive punishment: those who are willing to accept the possibility of an innocent person dying in order to carry out absolute punishment on murderers in their respective states.  I'm not sure what it will take to convince people that the death penalty is wrong, but I do know that publicity stunts like the one performed at the expense of Troy Davis and his family are not advancing the debate.  Although I am sure Troy Davis and his loved ones were heartened by the outpouring of support for his cause, I cannot help but think that it also filled them with a sense of false hope only to be realized by a painful let-down.


Started writing while listening to: Arcade Fire - Well and the Lighthouse