Consensus

I've been reading through a couple of books that discuss the politics of religion and the environment to try to gain some perspective on the topic I'm writing about. (I decided to go with the Christianity and sustainability topic, mostly because I had done the most work on it so far and I didn't want all that time to go to waste, but so far I'm finding it pretty interesting).

God and Country looks at the religious history of America, pointing out the constant struggle between our Puritan and Enlightenment histories that characterizes our national debates. Its tone is objective and conservative, and by conservative I mean that it is reserved about casting blame and cautious about suggestions for change--acknowledging that both "sides" of America must reach consensus. I found myself drawn in to the ideas presented, and thought its perspective on America's religious history insightful and illuminating.

The Last Refuge takes a more aggressive approach against all right-wing politics. The introduction launches into a series of accusations about the Bush administration. Further investigation reveals some of the accusations to be based on sources such as "Two Years Before 9/11, Candidate Bush Was Already Talking Privately About Attacking Iraq, According to His Former Ghost Writer." I don't recall hearing about this, but I don't pretend to remember everything that happened when I was 13. However, I do recognise that a lone former ghost writer is not really a credible source. People make up accusations about famous people frequently, as I understand it. However, I do recall in the fall of 2004 feeling that there was nothing I wouldn't believe about Bush. I was so angry that he had somehow won another election, I may have bought into the radical accusations of the type The Last Refuge is flinging. Now, though, I have some perspective, and a president who is oodles better than Bush, no matter what his faults (ahem, gay marriage?), so I'm more willing to be reasonable. And I find this book to be too extreme to be believed. Even though I'm sure the book echos many of my own beliefs, I don't feel the solidarity with its positions as I did with God and Country.

The introduction of The Last Refuge claims that Americans have a fault of following a leader blindly. It claims not enough Americans understand that "automatic obedience to power is merely subservience" (page 11). In the conclusion of God and Country the author assumes that "most Americans--Puritans and Modernists alike--are willing to abide by laws they disapprove of, if they are confident that those laws were passed by fairly elected legislators who listened to all sides of the argument and voted on the basis of their best judgment" (page 231). I don't really think that's the case. Now that Obama is in office, the people who were supposedly blindly obeying the authority du jour are raging against everything that is happening under Obama's administration. Likewise, I think that a lot of Americans want laws that reflect their own personal beliefs, even when those laws obviously exclude the rights of a group of people with opposing beliefs, and that Americans are more than happy to break laws they find inconvenient--especially laws that aren't regularly enforced like speeding. I think that Americans simply choose a side or an authority figure that they can mostly trust and then relax and let that specific authority figure (be it a president, a media agency, or merely a civilian exemplar) do the moralizing for them.

The media, as is pointed out in both books, has become partisan. An American can choose a radio station that agrees with her point of view and make it one of the presets on the car radio and never hear any views or opinions that oppose her own. But I don't think that is entirely the fault of the media itself selling out. Americans want to be able to position themselves on the political spectrum early in life and then choose the channels they want to watch for the rest of their lives and let other people do the thinking for them. It's much more pleasant not to be on the defensive all the time. I know, because I mostly just listen to NPR, and when I do venture over to foxnews.com, I feel a headache coming on. And it is this artificial partisanship that is really causing schisms in our communities and delaying action at the federal level on important issues.

Consensus building is necessary to create action. But how can we build consensus when we don't even know how "the other side" defines its terms and its goals? I think that most Americans probably agree that it is important for us to live within our means economically and environmentally. Obviously, most people do not want to fell every last tree on earth to build bigger houses, extract every last iron deposit in the ground to create better technology. If sustainability means living within the means of the next generation, then I think the majority agrees that sustainability is a good thing. Most people understand the need to budget. If buying CFLs saves money and electricity, then who could argue that CFLs are a good thing? The problem is, people do argue just that. And I think the reason they argue that is because they are so steeped in the rhetoric of their own chosen place on the political spectrum that they can't understand that we all want essentially the same things.

Dr.

On Monday, I had an appointment with a doctor about this fatigued feeling I've been experiencing lately. I had my blood tested, and on Tuesday I found out I have low thyroid levels and high potassium. The potassium is completely out of the blue for me, because I don't take supplements or anything that might cause that, and the two things aren't, as far as I know, related. However, the Thyroid thing was somewhat expected. My mom had major thyroid problems, and even had hers at least partially removed. Still, it was a shock to hear it and to be put instantly on medicine and told I would have to take it every day for the rest of forever. Today was my first day taking the pill. I think I feel better already, but it's really impossible to say, now that I am being ultra vigilant about how I am feeling. I'm already imagining that the medicine is causing me to feel like there is a hair brushing my left arm, when in fact there is nothing there (it's so annoying! I keep brushing at it, but it keeps coming back!). So, I would like to think that this thyroid issue is what has been causing all my problems. I'd like to think that I'm just around the corner from having all my problems solved, and I can use this to excuse anything I've done wrong over the past, say 3 years. Unlikely.

Dilemma

I've been thinking of writing my paper for this semester on religion and science. I have to write the paper "in the ballpark of sustainability" as my professor put it. I'm not really sure if that's what I want to do because it doesn't really have anything to do with my research interests, which I guess are literacy theories, digital literacy, technology, and maybe popular culture? So another idea I have is to research why science fiction always portrays a Utopian view of the future as a cityscape. Or something about science fiction that would allow me to watch star trek. How do science fiction writers suppose that the future came to be so great and sustainable without any apparent conservation? Now that's a question. But it doesn't really have anything to do with my research interests either, with the possible exception of the fact that I am generally more interested in popular culture and contemporary examples than with older texts. I would like to integrate popular culture into my studies because I find it more compelling.

I have a problem with texts that are overly analytical and theoretical and philosophical. I just realised how silly that sentence sounds. What I mean is, when I encounter a text that is steeped in numbers, with lots of complicated formulas and scientific things I don't understand, I find it frustrating. I doubt I will ever understand or be willing to really try to understand them. I would have to acquire a lot of specific knowledge first. So, the kinds of texts I prefer to encounter would be literary analysis texts, which require no numbers. I can say "Shakespeare has Viola cross dress very successfully: this is a subtle criticism of her sexuality," and all of my evidence is right there, easily verified, if easily refuted. The problem I have with texts that try to persuade on an emotional level in a similar fashion, without much qualifiable evidence, but rather appealing to a persons humanity or morality, is that it can be so easily refuted, particularly about important things such as sustainability, where facts are key to causing change. And this is similar to my problem with philosophy: they have tried to mingle empirical evidence with abstract traits like morality, which is difficult for me to understand, let alone believe. And it doesn't appear to help them be irrefutable anyway. Philosophers are the ones I understand the least, probably because it combines the worst of all my dilemmas. So where does this leave me? What can I study?

Time Management

Thoughts for today:
I need to manage my time better. The trouble is, I find that I procrastinate by doing work that isn't strictly necessary, or spending longer on a task than is needed. So, I've stopped hiding in my room watching Desperate Housewives or playing the Sims, but I haven't really progressed much.