Infidels of Every Denomination

Little Angels

Today marks the first of the Dias de los Muertos in Mexican tradition, the annual festival celebrating the memory of those who have gone before. On this day, All Saint's Day, the angelitos are remembered, the children who have died; tomorrow, on All Soul's Day, adult loved ones are honored. Celebrated as a Christian holiday, it has its roots in the indigenous tribal practices of Mexico and has become as much a cultural celebration as a religious one.

I am not Mexican, but the customs and spirit of the Day of the Dead are an important part of my Samhain celebration. The building of a tiered altar, the offerings of copal and flowers and food to the visiting dead, the colorful and even festive imagery, these all speak to me on a deep, intuitive level. This year I baked pan de muerto and molded sugar skulls to decorate with my admittedly limited skills. Kitchen witch that I am, the tangible acts of kneading dough, grinding incense, squeezing out frosting served as a spiritual practice in their own right, a meditation in motion, a joy tinged with pensiveness at the festive preparations to welcome our "guests".

New Spin From An Old Idea

I think there's a reason that I first read the word as "theidiocy" when I began reading this NY Times article by Edward Rothstein.

The actual word, and the subject of his commentary, is "theodicy"-- a term referring to the belief that vindication of the goodness of God can be found in the existence of evil, or more particularly that an "evil" event can be explained as the manifestation of divine goodness and justice. Since it's kind of convoluted reasoning, it may not surprise you that it was real popular in the medieval era and less so post-Enlightenment. It's kind of like Karl Rove saying that Bush's razor-thin margin of victory in 2004 is evidence proving a mandate. (ok, and he pretty much did say that...so I guess that tells you what era our administration most resembles, not that you didn't know already.) Rothstein seems to use the term somewhat loosely, to mean any assignment of cause to any person, group, or power in order to explain the effect of a disaster or other generally inexplicable and devastating event, where there is no logical proof of cause and effect.

The thrust of the article is that we are crafting a new theodicy to explain Hurricane Katrina. I bet you'll agree, thinking of the wackjobs on the right who are eagerly calling the disaster proof that God hates gays, druggies, and sluts. Guess what-- you're wrong. (Even though that would be a much more classic example of a theodicy-- God causes floods to wipe out sinful cities, thus proving that he is super just and mega committed to rewarding goodness and punishing evil-- than what Rothstein actually proposes.)

No, the theodicy that he sees is that people are pointing to the hurricane and the flood as proof of a lousy administration-- that we're mad at Bushco. because we think that if they had been better people, there wouldn't have been a hurricane.

Yeah. Because, you know, anyone who criticizes Bush over the federal (lack of) response to the disaster is a medieval thinker. Probably we also want to treat the victims' humour imbalances.

He's in part talking about the folks who lay Katrina at the feet of global warming and anti-environmentalism, but he seems to take a broader view:

There is a theodicy at work here, in the ways in which the reaction to natural catastrophe so readily becomes political. Nature becomes something to be managed or mismanaged; it lies within the political order, not outside it. Theodicy, if successful, does not overturn belief but confirms it. So, for some commentators, the flood and its aftermath provided confirmation of their previous doubts about the Bush adminstration.

It's sort of a nerdy way of criticizing the post-Katrina Bush critics for "playing the blame game".

Here's where the argument falls down: For those of us who've been taking the administration to task over Katrina, it's not the flood or any natural effects of the aftermath that confirm our previous doubts about the Bushies, it is their handling of, lack of preparation for, and reaction to those events that confirms it.

Get it? It's not that we think God or Mother Nature or Aquaman pushed a whole lot of water over the levees because they were mad at George Bush for being an oversized Mike Teevee complete with cowboy hat. It's that we saw the levees breaking as a logical result of slashed federal funding that prevented the fortification and upgrades of the levees-- as something that could have been avoided, or at the very least something we needed to try a lot harder to prevent. It's not that we think that poor black people dying proves that George Bush is a racist, classist patrician pig. It's that he and his administration showed themselves to be racist, classist, patrician and by the way *incompetent* pigs when they failed to act or even show concern at a time when swift and decisive action would have saved many (largely poor and black) lives, particularly when contrasted with the swift and decisive action and great concern demonstrated over the extension of one white brain-dead woman's life. Get it? If preventative measures had been taken, if the threat of flooding and hurricane damage in the region had been taken as seriously as we knew it was, if at LEAST every single official involved had made the storm a priority and rushed to mobilize as fast as possible and helped the victims instead of blaming and shooting them-- if after all that there was still flooding and destruction and even death (as surely there would have been), most people would be saying, "well, it was a terrible tragedy and we will mourn it for a long time, but everyone worked hard and we did the best we could."

And whether or not you agree that global warming had any measurable effect on Katrina (I don't feel knowledgeable enough about it to make any assertions), it's clear that draining swamp and marshland to build casinos and housing developments damaged the natural defenses of the Gulf Coast. Holding anti-environmentalist officials accountable for actions that made the aftereffects worse is not the same thing as blaming them for the existence of natural disasters in the first place.

But pardon, good gentles, prithee I fear I am in excess of the choler, and mun find the cirurgeon to cure me. Alas!

The Poor in Funds vs. The Poor in Spirit

Several years ago, when I was still living in Manhattan, I remember reading an article about the growing wealthy class in the city. (I want to say the article was in TimeOut New York, but I couldn't swear to that.) Much of that article is lost to the mists of memory now, but the one thing that stuck with me was one of the people who was quoted in the article-- someone who was raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in some hip profession or other-- who sneered at New York's working poor for, basically, polluting his city. He actually said something along the lines of why didn't they all just move out of the city and commute in to make his overpriced coffee drinks and clean his offices.

(Believe it or not, this has something to do with Katrina's aftereffects. My point comes from many lines of thought...so bear with me, they will all come together in the end.)

I was raised in a family where the concept of "personal responsibility" was constantly hammered home. We didn't have much money, but it was expected that however much or little you had, you earned yourself. "Handouts" were shameful, and if you ever fell so far as to end up on the welfare rolls, well, you might as well just kill yourself. The message was clear: the world is every man for himself, the government is evil and should be effectively disempowered, and if life sucks, it's because you screwed up. Fortunately, we always stayed just enough ahead of the game never to test those theories too sorely. I got enough earfuls of "personal responsibility" growing up to last me a couple of lifetimes.

As I mentioned in my last post, there is now a rush amongst the neocons to fall all over each other trying to spit on the victims of Katrina in ever more outrageous ways, and the point they keep hitting home is that people "chose" not to "heed the warnings". Amongst the more maggoty of the pasty Randian right there is a palpable disdain that is at best delusional and at worst downright hateful. Through it all is this blatant "let them eat cake" theme, as though it is inconceivable that everyone in the Gulf Coast and the city of New Orleans in particular didn't just go rent an SUV and book a nice room at the Ritz.

NYT On Coelho

Great little New York Times profile today on the author Paulo Coelho, whose new book The Zahir is selling increasingly rapidly.

I've only come to the marvel of Coelho's writing recently, having just read The Alchemist for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Frankly, I don't know how it took me this long to discover his work for myself. His philosophies-- of life as a continual spiritual quest towards one's unique purpose in being, of synchronicity, of the power of love, of the essential interdependence of the material and the spiritual-- are very much in line with some of my deepest beliefs.

He's a wonderful author to read especially if you are feeling purposeless or lost or trapped or have begun to wonder whose life you're living. Listening to yourself is not something that most of us are ever taught, so a book like his can be a real eye-opener.

In this profile, I think he also has the final word on bad reviews:

"But the one thing I cannot stand," Mr. Coelho went on, "is criticism of the reader, that the reader is dumb. You can speak badly of me, of my books, but you cannot speak badly of the reader. It's like saying, 'Everyone is dumb; the only one who isn't is the critic.' That's not fair."

You tell 'em.

Work Daze

We all know that being overworked has some serious negative consequences-- stress, high blood pressure, lowered resistance, fatigue, frustration, burnout. But this WaPo article reports on the less-recognized other end of the spectrum, the negative effects of a job with too much boredom and downtime.

"We know that 55 percent of all U.S. employees are not engaged at work. They are basically in a holding pattern. They feel like their capabilities aren't being tapped into and utilized and therefore, they really don't have a psychological connection to the organization," said Curt W. Coffman, global practice leader at the Gallup Organization, whose large polling group measured employee engagement.

This article caught my eye because it ties into a subject of ongoing interest to me-- that is, the role of work in our psychological and spiritual health, and also its role in our-- to borrow the phrase used by Paulo Coelho in The Alchemist-- Personal Legend.

The Culture of No

“No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women
No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark”

Vapors, Turning Japanese

When did the US become a culture of “No”?

It is true that a group of people who were fleeing religious intolerance started a colony here. It is true that these people were being persecuted mostly because they were more strict and reserved that the other religious groups they lived near. (And on a different rant, how ironic that people who follow the same idea of deity, i.e. Jesus, God incarnate in the body of His earthly Son, died for the sins of mankind; cannot agree on which way to worship and so come to persecution and hatred… but I digress) It is also true, however, than many of the colonies that founded this nation were colonies of people simply seeking a fresh start. They sought a land where they could find new life, and new opportunities, a land where they were beholden to no established hierarchy of nobility, but instead relied on their own work, a land where they could be truly free to live as free and independent people.

Really, everyone was free, and independent, and self-reliant… and nobody was worried about how to live, as long as they managed to actually live.

And then they met their neighbors.

When you have neighbors, you have community, and eventually, society. Society must have rules, or at least common conceits, to survive and flourish. These are not moral issues, but simply societal norms that must be observed for the health and welfare of society. Don’t kill each other. Don’t take your neighbors stuff and pretend it’s yours. Otherwise, live and let live… right? No.

Oh No. No, no, no, no, no…

We can’t have that…

Lets make rules about how others should live, should worship, should <gasp> enjoy themselves, should dress, should think. If we make enough rules, then we will control everything, right?

But wait… we have a Constitution, and a Bill of Rights. Those are pretty good rules, aren’t they? No.

Those documents label our freedoms. They are not rules, they are rights. Rules must be set down so that people do not get to involved in enjoying their rights. (Hey, maybe if we make the “rights” really limited, we can effectively ignore them!)

You can speak, but not too loud, or too much, or say things that are against the government, or against our religion.

Of course, this is what we get out of basing our legal system in part on the 10 Commandments of the Old Testament… we get Thou Shalt Not’s and No’s, instead of freedom.

NO sex… never mind how we got here. Even talking about it will warp the minds of the young, and drive them to a sexual frenzy. If we didn’t talk about sex, teach about sex, use sex to sell merchandise, watch sex on TV and in the movies… everyone would be a virgin until they either got married to a nice safe heterosexual, or died… right? Just like in the “good old days”. No-one ever had sex in the 50’s…

NO drugs. Never mind that drug use is a victim-less crime, for the most part… (And yes, I know some cause erratic behavioral shifts that can lead to violence) the culture of drug trafficking is the true source of the violence inherent in the drug trade. Does anyone honestly think that there will be any more violence over being able to pick up a pack of marijuana cigarettes at the drugstore or from a vending machine than there is for tobacco? But… drug use might lead to fun. It might let some folks relax… it might lead to… promiscuity (see above).

NO wine. At least, not if you are under 21. Oh, you can die for your country, but you can’t have a glass of wine with dinner…

No.

No.

No.

No wonder it’s dark… someone blew out Liberty’s torch.

Why Privacy Is A Right

Apparently I'm too lazy today to write anything original, so I'm just going to link to other people's stuff and say, "What s/he said".

This fantastic post by Amanda at Pandagon is a must-read for anyone interested in the question of a right to privacy. She has articulated beautifully the principles to which I am deeply committed but for which I had not yet found the right words. To wit:

Dumbass conservatives looking for a way to get their hands on women's uteruses argue there's no real right to privacy and petulantly insist that the right not to be searched is a very specific one with no larger implications. But that's not true--I think the privacy right that is closest to the one that covers abortion is the right to the secret ballot. We have a secret ballot because we know that if people had to publicize who they voted for, they would often have to change from voting their conscience to voting for who their boss told them. Or their church. Or their parents. It's a formula for fascism.

So the right to privacy, contrary to what conservatives often contend, doesn't protect one's right to do the wrong thing so much as your right to do the right thing.

In a perfect world, we could all be perfectly open with each other without fearing the consequences. But there's no way to control for that, I'm afraid. The powerful will always be looking for ways to exert control over the personal choices of the powerless and so privacy is a shorthand protection for those without power.

The long excerpt was necessary-- the post is longer, but this section neatly sums up exactly what is the value of a right to privacy, and why we should all be fighting tooth and nail for things like accessible legal contraception and against things like the (un)"Patriot" Act.

Being public about something means, rightly or wrongly, opening it up for judgment. People perceive public things as "fair game" for commentary, scorn or approval, sometimes even action-- regardless of whether the person it concerns is the one who made it public. It's a small step, barely a shuffle, from judging something to be wrong, to feeling one has the right or even obligation to Do Something About It. Saying that we don't have a right to privacy means saying that it's OK to make anything about a person's life public and implies that it's also OK to pass judgment and take action based on those things. After all, if you can't find out a woman's using birth control or has had an abortion, you can't condemn her for it and then harass her about it. And that's the real goal of the right-- to harass, to condemn, to spread fear and prejudice, to be able to get at things to hold over the heads of the dissenting and unruly.

Back from the grave to spoil the party

I was thinking about the recent furor over the secret sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto, and one question came popping up in my mind, every time another spate of pulpit-thumping bombast or melodramatic hand-wringing hit the fan:

What is WRONG with you people?

I'm sure that the scenes in GTA aren't the kind of thing that Alex Comfort would approve of, but it seems that the mere presence of sex in the game is what's driving people into hysterics.  Even if you buy into the dubious science that purports to prove that this sort of thing harms our precious children (and I don't), isn't there something a bit ridiculous here?  Look, it's a game about stealing cars, whacking competitors, slapping hos, and other wondrously uplifting topics.  How is some animated sex going to make it any worse?  If little Justin's (or little Amber's, let's be egalitarian here) psyche is so fragile that it could be damaged that way, why not keep the whole game away from the tyke?  (I will stop here, as this is becoming a rant about parents and parenting, and I want it to be a rant about something else.) 

Maybe it's just because I recently got around to reading Dan Savage's "Skipping Towards Gomorrah", and I'm over-sensitized.  But something's bugging me here; there's a familiar stench in the air.  The same one that I smelled during the hysteria around Nipplegate, and countless times before.