Digital Alterity

I’m a little sick of the disingenious way that everyone is reading this Virginia Tech massacre. I have no problem with anger at the shooter. I have no problem with aggressive responses, melancholy mourning, or concerned fear. Everyone deals with tragedy in their own individual way. Candlelight vigils and watercooler conversations are helping everyone come to terms with a remarkable situation that makes us feel vulnerable and shocked.

No, what bothers me is the number of times people are asking what could cause something like this with a tone in their voice that clearly speaks to the fact that they have no idea. To be frank, do none of you remember what it was like to be in school? Even those of you who might have been popular have to remember how awkward and insecure you felt as a teenager. Now, think back to the cruelest things that other children ever said to you. Really remember how it felt for just a minute. Now imagine that happening to you multiple times every single day with a teenaged mindset that says that the way things are right now are the way they will always be.

Frankly, our schools are not places that embrace or even tolerate difference. I’ve always been a quiet, geeky kid. I routinely got called “fag” and “queer”, even though I was always quietly and shyly attracted to one girl or another. I had good friends called “Satanists” because they dressed differently and listened to something other than top-40 radio. High schools chronically ostracize and marginalize those who are different. And when someone points this out, people inevitably spout crap about how “kids will be kids”.

Attention people who dismiss this: Fuck you.

I’m not talking about that one time you might have been made fun of. I’m talking about kids who were ridiculed every single class break of every single day. Because they’re too ugly. Because they’re too quiet. Because they’re too foreign. Because they have different religious beliefs. Because they’re too fat. Because they’re too skinny. Because they’re too brown. Because they have hair on their arms. Because they matured too early. Because they matured too late. Honestly, all of us snap in one way or another. Some of us turn to music, performance, or the written word to try to change things. Some of us buckle down and quietly dedicate ourselves to our schoolwork until we can get done with all of this madness and escape. Some of us try to join a sports team or the band so that we can seem more normal. And unfortunately some of us choose to snap and start shooting at classmates. It doesn’t make it right, but pretending not to understand the problem doesn’t make it go away either.

You want to reduce school shootings? Put more good teachers who genuinely connect with kids in our schools: teachers like Barbara Klepper, teachers like Harold Lumpkin, teachers like Jeff Burnham, teachers like Phillip Pinello. Stop condoning bullying. If you hear your kid making fun of someone who’s different, call them out and help them understand how they would feel if someone was treating them the same way. If you hear someone in your fraternity excluding someone else, don’t tolerate the behavior and work to include the affected person with your own actions. And more than anything, people like you and me need to get more involved with kids in high school and college. Those of use who banded together and identified as outcasts need to reach out to the next generation. Heck, start going to more all-age concerts in your area. Get involved with physics or computer clubs as a volunteer. Start a community playhouse or a poetry slam. It’s a lot easier to see a way out once you’ve made some connections with people who share your interests and genuinely care about you as a unique person.

Why did the Virginia Tech shootings happen? Because I didn’t give enough of a shit to reach out before something like this happened. Again.

Technorati Tags: Education, Culture, Virginia Tech, Violence, School Shootings

The root cause of many of the divisions we feel in the “Culture War” I keep hearing about so much on talk radio and cable news is classification itself. Any time we simplify a complex person to a simple ideal, we are committing a form of violence. In essence, we are dismembering that beautiful person in front of us until they fit into a convenient mold.

I’ve had to do a lot of work talking to people to show by example that, while I’m one of those Christian types, I don’t fit into the classification they may have built from their youth. Likewise, I’ve had to learn that my own childhood notions don’t fit anyone other than some non-existent ideal caricature in my head.

One of the lessons I’ve had to really learn in teaching myself to draw is that lines aren’t really all that common in the world. Boundaries aren’t made with clear cut lines segregating things. Most often, when you really look deeply at the boundary in question, you see that what we interpret as a line is really just a difference in tone (or “value” to use my recently acquired artistic jargon).

In much the same way, our categorization of the people around us has fuzzy boundaries. Christians aren’t a single group mind. Both the lapsed Catholic and the fundamentalist Southern Baptist are Christian. Atheists are likewise a diverse set. Richard Dawkins is an atheist out to expose what he sees as harmful ideologies of the theists. Other atheists are just quiet people who don’t share a belief in God. There are theist Buddhists and atheist Buddhists, but both groups attempt to follow the same dharma.

I resist the attempts of my culture to balkanize us via religion, race, politics, ideology, gender, and sexual preference. Sometimes I don’t notice my biases, but I’m always happier when I do so that I can mindfully seek what they have to teach me about myself.

Technorati Tags: Religion, Culture, Difference, Culture War, Balkanization

Just yesterday, Allyson and I had a great discussion in the car on the way to dinner about the general lack of scientific understanding here in America. My contention after reading through this article on science journalism was that very few people in America have an understanding of the role statistics plays in science and the scientific method. Frankly, scientists don’t exactly prove anything. Instead, experiments are largely designed to assess the statistical likelihood that some combination of factors is correlated in some scientifically significant way. Each scientist must lay bare methodology and raw data in a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Then that scientist’s peers are expected to challenge or confirm those results with new experiments to test the relationship of those factors using a different method. Science is a conversation, and statistics is the language in which that conversation takes place.

Coming out of our discussion yesterday, I did some digging online and found one of the best examples I’ve found of explaining the role that statistics plays in science. This quote from Gavin Schmidt comes from a recent public debate on whether or not climate change is a crisis.

I want to talk to you a little about the nature of this public debate. And I want to give you some background to what you’ve been hearing so far, and what you’ll hear a little bit later on. The issue of global warming and whether it’s a crisis or not, is in fact a scientific decision, it’s a scientific issue. It’s not a political one. On the other hand, deciding what to do about it is obviously political. Science can inform those decisions, but it can’t determine what decisions society makes. But we’re here to debate the existence of the problem and whether it is a crisis. That’s something that the scientists on this side are eminently suited to do. You’ve all seen or heard about the CSI police drama, where high tech forensic scientists try and work out who done it when they come across the scene of a crime. Well think of climate scientists as CSI planet Earth, we’re try-, we see a climate change and we try and work out what’s done it. Just like on CSI we have a range of high tech instruments to give us clues, satellites, ocean probes, radar, a worldwide network of weather stations and sophisticated computer programs to help us make sense of it all. The aim is to come to the most likely explanation of all the facts fully anticipating that in the real world there are always going to be anomalies, there are always going to be uncertainties. Conclusions will be preliminary and always open to revision in the light of new evidence. If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it’s exactly the same approach that doctors take when examining a patient. They don’t know everything about the human body, but they can still make a pretty accurate diagnosis of your illness. We end up then with a hierarchy of knowledge. Some things that are extremely likely, some things we’re pretty sure of, and some things that we think might be true, but really could go either way. There isn’t a division into things that are completely proven and things which are completely unknown. Instead, you have a sliding scale of increasing confidence. Let me give you a few examples. We’re highly confident that the sun is gonna rise tomorrow, it might not, it might go nova. But it’s likely that it will happen. It’s quite likely that you’ll be able to get a cab home from this event, unless it’s raining of course. [LAUGHTER] But, but those two things have different levels of certainty. You’re used to the idea that different kinds of knowledge come with different levels of certainty, and that’s exactly what we’re talking about when we talk about the impacts of climate change.

If more people understood this simple truth about science, I think that we would be in a much better position to have intelligent discussions about scientific topics in the media. If you’re a science educator at any level, I implore you to stress this point before all others. Hypotheses aren’t proven. Science is an on-going conversation.

Technorati Tags: Education, Science, Statistics, Gavin Schmidt

One of my biggest pet peeves involving marriage and married people is the tendency for people to address a couple as “Mr. and Mrs. Husband’s Name”. The very language structure subsumes the feminine and, in that omission, makes it clear that the woman is a lesser being, a mere unmentionable moon orbiting blissfully around planet male. This annoyed me so much that at our wedding I insisted that my father (who performed the wedding) refer to us at the end of the ceremony with the phrase, as either “Allyson and Rusty Haskell” or “Rusty and Allyson Haskell”. I honestly can’t remember which version was used.

I haven’t met this “Mrs. Rusty Haskell” person, but she sure gets a lot of mail at my apartment.

Technorati Tags: Feminism, Irritation

Forcing people boarding airplanes to dump out any liquids they would otherwise drink on the plane is a criminal act. Attention airline industry: I’m not willing to travel on your effing planes if I can’t take a water on board with me.

The problem is that all the sheep in this country will just say, “Oh, it’s terrorism-related! I better just go along with it…” If you’re on the other side of this issue, you are, by definition, a complete idiot. Giving up your civil liberties in the name of security is a losing game.

This country is sick. I think it needs an enema.

Technorati Tags: Security, Politics, Freedom, Terrorism, Liberty

It’s time to admit that design and room makeover shows royally piss me off. I don’t have any problem at all with changing a room to enliven it with your personal style. I don’t even have a problem with the notion of trying on a new style to see if you like it. No, the part that pisses me off is the way that the designer never takes into account the intended usage of the room. Like Ahab hunting a white whale, they’re hellbent on realizing whatever interior design vision might currently be rattling around their brain with nary a concern for anything in the way.

These obnoxious sucktards inevitably take a TV room and turn it into a socializing museum showpiece—even though the homeowners spend eighty percent of their time watching TV. This leads to people watching TV at an angle so absurd that they end up visiting chiropractors.

Good design—lasting design you will love—accommodates the functionality you depend on in a way that makes you thrilled to occupy that space. Don’t look to some TV interior designer’s dream to realize your own perfectly and artfully designed room. Think about all those things you would do if they weren’t so crazy, if you didn’t have to worry about the kids, if you didn’t stop yourself with excuses. Make the home you want to live in. Create a safe place for all the things you love to do and you might just makeover more than your living room.

Technorati Tags: Interior Design, Irritation

I believe that the highly variable personalities of human being accounts quite nicely for the diversity of opinions about what constitutes a great pet. We are drawn to companion animals that best mesh with our own psyche.

My mother-in-law had a wonderful Australian shepherd named Belle who exhibited all of her own best qualities—loyalty, obedience, and concern for the well being of others. Tux is frighteningly enough one of the best cats I’ve ever had because he is an avatar of the virtues I venerate—independence, randomness, chaos, and passion. While both of us can respect the other’s choice of companion animal, neither of us would be as comfortable or as happy if we had been forced to switch pets.

The beauty of this situation is that animals that others might find difficult—and I assure you that any sane person would probably have given Tux a lethal injection by now—instead find a safe and happy home with an environment in which they thrive and are appreciated for their unique qualities.

Technorati Tags: Felines, Canines, Cats, Pets, Animals

From the Metric System article on Wikipedia:

By the 1960s, the majority of nations were on the metric system and most that were not had started programs to fully convert to the metric system. As of 2005 only three countries, the United States, Liberia, and Myanmar (Burma) had not completed the changeover.

I am so sick of American exceptionalism. We certainly don’t have a good reason for maintaining the traditional system of measurements that we inherited from the English. The expenditure of switching over would pale in comparison to the amount of money American businesses waste with two systems of measurement (since any product designed for international trade must be marked with metric values).

Basically I never want to figure out how many teaspoons are in a cup ever again.

Technorati Tags: Metric System (SI Units), USA, Measurement, Exceptionalism

It’s not uncommon in Western civilization for artistic works to allude to the life of Christ in their plot and characters. Even for those who aren’t believers in Christianity, the religion serves as a convenient cultural common point for transmissions of themes involving sacrifice, atonement, and forgiveness. It should be hardly surprising to find Buddhist themes in a video game that originates in Japan. The storyline of Final Fantasy X, however, seem to be at times a discourse between the two, a conversation that reveals that, while the religions are clearly not one in the same, they are nevertheless also not two. Both have much to learn and much to teach in a face-to-face discourse.

Fair Warning

Since I intend to discuss the plot of Final Fantasy X, including the ending, you can be fairly sure that there will be spoilers involved. If you don’t wish to know plot details of the game, then you really shouldn’t read the article.

Who Belongs on the Crucifix?

In many Buddhist traditions, someone who foregoes the cessation of Nirvana in order to help others who have yet to attain enlightenment is known as a bodhisattva. These beautiful souls manage to transcend the notion of self to such a degree that they seek to help others see the true nature of reality. In Final Fantasy X, summoners seemingly take on the mantle of bodhisattva, leaving behind dreams of a comfortable life in order to ward off the destruction of Sin from those who don’t take up the summoners path. In the course of their pilgrimage, the summoners learn that their sacrifice will only earn a temporary calm, and with that knowledge in place, they still sacrifice themselves in battle for even a pyrrhic victory.

The problem, of course, is that Sin is always reborn in a new form that continues to harm others. Spira, you see, is trapped in what Auron rightly refers to as “a cycle of death spiraling endlessly”. The root of this problem lies in the church of Yevon. This false church teaches that suffering is necessary atonement through Sin, through perpetual sacrifice. The reality, in the end, lies in another path.

Defeating Sin through an adversarial relationship only leaves hate to be reborn in another form…which cycles suffering yet again. We must heal and stop samsara, the endless cycle of suffering, in order to truly resolve conflict. Eventually through bringing about the cessation of Sin’s suffering, Tidus sacrifices his very existence. The difference between the sacrifice of Tidus and the previous summoner sacrifices is key however. Tidus knows that the key to stopping the cycle is to awaken and cease the dreaming of Yu Yevon, who the Fayth tells us “is neither good, nor evil. He is awake, yet he dreams. But…maybe not forever.” The fact that Tidus is the player’s avatar in the world of Spira is the key here. We can’t be content with allowing someone else to sacrifice themselves for us. We have to be willing to take up the cross ourselves and actually be the sacrifice, and we have to give up our notion of self long enough to make that leap from saved to savior in the lives of those hurting around us. The story begins with self and ends with liberation from the very concepts of self and no-self.

This is all very familiar to Buddhists, but what can Christians take from this conversation? Quite frankly, Christ is not the only sacrifice required. You are the sacrifice. By truly sacrificing your self, you are reborn. Stop endlessly crucifying Jesus and take up the cross yourself. When we die with and like Christ, we are indeed reborn as new creatures. When we surrender ourselves to the will of God and become like Christ, we are reborn in the current moment into the fullness of life. Nothing ever changes until you surrender to that choice of choicelessness and change yourself. All else is a hollow shell of a religion. It is building a lie around the truth. As James wrote thousands of years ago, faith without works is dead.

Beyond this, there is a lesson in interdependence and interbeing to be found here. Sin, the characters realize, is just as much a victim as are those suffering on Spira. Sin is always a guardian from the summoner’s party who becomes trapped in the cycle of suffering in an attempt to defeat the cause of the suffering. The only way to liberate Spira from suffering at the hands of Sin is to likewise liberate Sin from the cycle of suffering, to cease the habitual dreamlike reality of Yu Yevon at the core of it all. True liberation and salvation is only possible through universal liberation and salvation.

Video games as a cultural phenomenon are a unique meeting place for East and West. Final Fantasy especially has become a unique fusion of Eastern and Western ideals. That cross cultural fusion serves as a philosophical discourse between systems of thought which previously existed in isolation. Every story has a cultural lesson to teach, and when those lessons meet in an interdependent forum, you have a unique opportunity to learn and to teach that yields returns far beyond the original scale of the initial lessons.

I really can’t stand Wal-Mart.

If I woke up one morning and found out that all the Wal-Marts in America were simultaneously burning to the ground, I would have to fall to my knees in prayer and immediately start going to church again. I would be in some sort of fundamentalist church every time it has services for the rest of my life. I would tremble at the good works that God had wrought, and I would know that God had smote the wicked with righteous fury. There would be amens and hallelujahs.

Because that would be one hell of a fire-and-brimstone revival.

Technorati Tags: Humor, Wal-Mart, Revival