From Nov. 4th:
I like A New Religious America. The historical info is helpful, and the wide variety of examples is really valuable. Eck's a good writer, as well.
I remember talking to an old and dear friend of mine about the influence of religion in government. He strongly felt that there needn't be a separation between religion and state. If the religion is being properly embodied, there should be no conflict. People would do what is in the best interest of everyone, and be guided by a strong sense of morality.
Eck's examples of tolerance in early America based on Christian values reflects this, I think. They weren't acting in a secular manner: they were being good Christians by limiting the exclusive power of religion. It's an interesting claim, and one that seems correct to me.
I'm uncertain about where I stand in regard to how involved religion should be with the state. I do deeply wish that politicians were dedicated to an egoless, other-concerned, moral service; I think it'd transform our society for the better. But religion doesn't always seem to mean that. Indeed, religion seldom seems to mean that. There's a lot of ego in reducing the ego.
I'm not done the reading for the Hindu chapter yet, but I was contemplating Eck's claim that Hinduism is inherently pluralistic. Sounds right given what I learned in World Religions, but it seems clear to me that the Authentic Practice / and Understanding of a Particular Religion doesn't always match up with what the people themselves embody. I think of the BJP, for example. Definitely exclusivist, and growing in power. I guess you could question if they are proper stewards of Hinduism, but, eh, I don't feel like getting into that debate. I'm exhausted.
Friday, November 20, 2009
I was sitting in Sociology of Religion today, and Chris was giving his presentation on women converting to conservative traditions, such as Orthodox Judaism, conservative Protestantism, and (some forms of) Islam. A lot of it struck me as similar to what I was researching: monasticism in the US. The key word in these conversions, he said, was "disenchantment," particularly with modernity. That's the key word in monasticism, too.
And I was thinking about how it's a pretty key word in my life, too. These women turn away from perceived depravity (Chris often highlighted a dissatisfaction with modern approaches to female sexuality) and embrace something that they see as authentic, true, and whole. Given what I've learned about religions, I have a hard time taking those kinds of claims at face value. But I remember a quote Nathan once referred to us from Reverend Rice, something along the lines of "Something doesn't have to have happened in order to be true." It seems to me that it's a shift of priority of values. Us folks in the academic establishment hold having an accurate picture of what has happened in the world to be of more worth than what inspires us to act in the world and make decisions. And it should do that; we need people to incessantly probe and find what is true, even to the extent that nothing can be found to be true. We need to incessantly test and doubt in order to bring to light what is inaccurate and false, even if that means totally undermining our foundations.
But I think that there's a fundamental problem with it, as well. If one only denies, and never avers, never says, “Well, I don’t know, but let’s give this a shot,” then that, itself, is a profound injustice. To sit on a peak and criticize everything below without contributing anything substantive is, in many ways, equivalent to doing nothing at all. It steps outside (as if one could) and presumes that other people will do the work that needs to be done. Honestly, what is the worth of having an accurate picture of the world in one’s head if nothing ever becomes of it? What’s it matter if someone knows the deepest, most profound truth, if it does not in some way help others? What is the worth of pieces of paper when rape, murder, starvation, addiction endure? I don’t know if I’m making much sense, my stomach is really bothering me right now.
So, sitting in class, I was thinking about my own faith. I was attracted to Buddhism, like many other Americans (as I’ve learned due to my allegiances to the academic establishment!), because it affirms certain principles while not presuming to hold the undeniable truth. “Don’t cause harm, don’t take what’s not given, don’t commit sexual misconduct, don’t drink or do drugs, don’t be deceptive. These things are not evil in their deepest reality, but they harm others and they harm you, so avoid them like the plague, unless they can do some good.” Looking at this, even before getting to the other important aspects of Buddhism, I could question it deeply: How do I decide which precepts to follow? How do I avoid “shopping for religion?” Isn’t it a modern principle that divorces the breaking of precepts from their karmic implications? (That’s not directed so much at myself as at other folks; I do believe in the [conventional] reality of karma.) Isn’t it such a Tibetan approach to Buddhism that I’m taking?
And what’s the point of all of that questioning? Will it really get me anywhere? Perhaps, but perhaps not. What a maddening idea it is that I will die someday. What if I do not have the opportunity to perfectly settle everything before I start practice? Surely, you can’t. Moreover, practice, itself, is supposed to show what is true; you can’t have the ideas correct before you start.
And so I do meditate, and I do other practices, and yet I still doubt myself. I hear about middle-class white kids perverting profound Buddhist teachings in order to justify their social justice efforts, I hear about folks finding in Buddhism a safe place to express their desire for ceremonial ritual, I hear people say that monastics are people who are disenchanted with their lives, with the implication that all they need is a little more serotonin in their lives. And I wonder, is that me, too? Are they seeing me more accurately than I see myself?
They could very well be right. They could be portraying an accurate picture of things. But they might also be missing things. And, more importantly, I just think they’re full of bullshit. People can criticize and find all of what’s wrong, but what if they are missing the beauty, as well? Yes, a lot of Buddhists shy away from the teachings about the nonexistence of the self, but what if they’re finding other things in it? Gracious, I have no idea what to even think. I mean, I, myself, have found myself mentally criticizing other Buddhists for an incomplete portrait of it. And, as I write this, and feel very tired and ill, I wonder if, when I come back to this tomorrow, I will think, “Wow, I was just pissed off, and reifying my sense of self around selflessness.” And of course, even to identify with that is a total contradiction, because it is that self which in the first place is finding the problems.
I am critical of a lot of religious practices, but there is something about many of the more conservative branches that I profoundly respect: they move forward in the face of doubt. They act and do what they understand to be right. That’s something beautiful and worthwhile, even if I think a lot of them could take a lesson from the more liberal ones regarding self-reflection. The answer’s somewhere in the middle, I suppose.
And I was thinking about how it's a pretty key word in my life, too. These women turn away from perceived depravity (Chris often highlighted a dissatisfaction with modern approaches to female sexuality) and embrace something that they see as authentic, true, and whole. Given what I've learned about religions, I have a hard time taking those kinds of claims at face value. But I remember a quote Nathan once referred to us from Reverend Rice, something along the lines of "Something doesn't have to have happened in order to be true." It seems to me that it's a shift of priority of values. Us folks in the academic establishment hold having an accurate picture of what has happened in the world to be of more worth than what inspires us to act in the world and make decisions. And it should do that; we need people to incessantly probe and find what is true, even to the extent that nothing can be found to be true. We need to incessantly test and doubt in order to bring to light what is inaccurate and false, even if that means totally undermining our foundations.
But I think that there's a fundamental problem with it, as well. If one only denies, and never avers, never says, “Well, I don’t know, but let’s give this a shot,” then that, itself, is a profound injustice. To sit on a peak and criticize everything below without contributing anything substantive is, in many ways, equivalent to doing nothing at all. It steps outside (as if one could) and presumes that other people will do the work that needs to be done. Honestly, what is the worth of having an accurate picture of the world in one’s head if nothing ever becomes of it? What’s it matter if someone knows the deepest, most profound truth, if it does not in some way help others? What is the worth of pieces of paper when rape, murder, starvation, addiction endure? I don’t know if I’m making much sense, my stomach is really bothering me right now.
So, sitting in class, I was thinking about my own faith. I was attracted to Buddhism, like many other Americans (as I’ve learned due to my allegiances to the academic establishment!), because it affirms certain principles while not presuming to hold the undeniable truth. “Don’t cause harm, don’t take what’s not given, don’t commit sexual misconduct, don’t drink or do drugs, don’t be deceptive. These things are not evil in their deepest reality, but they harm others and they harm you, so avoid them like the plague, unless they can do some good.” Looking at this, even before getting to the other important aspects of Buddhism, I could question it deeply: How do I decide which precepts to follow? How do I avoid “shopping for religion?” Isn’t it a modern principle that divorces the breaking of precepts from their karmic implications? (That’s not directed so much at myself as at other folks; I do believe in the [conventional] reality of karma.) Isn’t it such a Tibetan approach to Buddhism that I’m taking?
And what’s the point of all of that questioning? Will it really get me anywhere? Perhaps, but perhaps not. What a maddening idea it is that I will die someday. What if I do not have the opportunity to perfectly settle everything before I start practice? Surely, you can’t. Moreover, practice, itself, is supposed to show what is true; you can’t have the ideas correct before you start.
And so I do meditate, and I do other practices, and yet I still doubt myself. I hear about middle-class white kids perverting profound Buddhist teachings in order to justify their social justice efforts, I hear about folks finding in Buddhism a safe place to express their desire for ceremonial ritual, I hear people say that monastics are people who are disenchanted with their lives, with the implication that all they need is a little more serotonin in their lives. And I wonder, is that me, too? Are they seeing me more accurately than I see myself?
They could very well be right. They could be portraying an accurate picture of things. But they might also be missing things. And, more importantly, I just think they’re full of bullshit. People can criticize and find all of what’s wrong, but what if they are missing the beauty, as well? Yes, a lot of Buddhists shy away from the teachings about the nonexistence of the self, but what if they’re finding other things in it? Gracious, I have no idea what to even think. I mean, I, myself, have found myself mentally criticizing other Buddhists for an incomplete portrait of it. And, as I write this, and feel very tired and ill, I wonder if, when I come back to this tomorrow, I will think, “Wow, I was just pissed off, and reifying my sense of self around selflessness.” And of course, even to identify with that is a total contradiction, because it is that self which in the first place is finding the problems.
I am critical of a lot of religious practices, but there is something about many of the more conservative branches that I profoundly respect: they move forward in the face of doubt. They act and do what they understand to be right. That’s something beautiful and worthwhile, even if I think a lot of them could take a lesson from the more liberal ones regarding self-reflection. The answer’s somewhere in the middle, I suppose.
The idea of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a compelling one. The authors are right to put it on a level with Civil Religion, and their chart on p. 169, while confusing, is a useful way to understand the levels of belief that are operating in the minds of teenagers. It’s very helpful to have a diagram like that, though I’m sure it’s difficult to construct, but I indeed feel like it’s accurate that there are causal factors like that working in our minds.
What a sentence: “Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith” (171). I’m glad they include their feelings about the matter, and I feel like it has interesting implications. The authors do seem to have their own feelings about what they’re reporting, and I think it informs their conclusions. One could say that it’s not particularly strong, and that they’re still essentially doing work in the social sciences, but upon reading that sentence, I felt a lurch in how I was reading the book. No longer was the book a lens through which I could see some objective realities. It suddenly became another subject for me to study. What are the authors hoping to gain from this work? How are their intentions affecting what they are seeing? What are the authors’ invisible religious beliefs? I guess, living in this postmodern world, I should never have presumed that the lens could escape consideration, and I certainly did detect plenty of their biases, but that sentence just threw my full attention onto the authors, rather than the subjects. Of course, their presentation is still quite objective, and will yield a lot of helpful information.
What a sentence: “Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith” (171). I’m glad they include their feelings about the matter, and I feel like it has interesting implications. The authors do seem to have their own feelings about what they’re reporting, and I think it informs their conclusions. One could say that it’s not particularly strong, and that they’re still essentially doing work in the social sciences, but upon reading that sentence, I felt a lurch in how I was reading the book. No longer was the book a lens through which I could see some objective realities. It suddenly became another subject for me to study. What are the authors hoping to gain from this work? How are their intentions affecting what they are seeing? What are the authors’ invisible religious beliefs? I guess, living in this postmodern world, I should never have presumed that the lens could escape consideration, and I certainly did detect plenty of their biases, but that sentence just threw my full attention onto the authors, rather than the subjects. Of course, their presentation is still quite objective, and will yield a lot of helpful information.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
I feel like I need a lengthy post in here, but between illness and responsibilities, my brain juices haven't been flowing too well.
I'm not sure how I feel about Eck's book. I feel like she does an incredible service by presenting as much of the minority religious life of America as she does. People need to see and hear what life is like for those people, what is going on for them, and so forth. Her book is quite good at inspiring a much-needed empathy and sense of shared American identity amidst our differences. I'm not just saying these things as a way of making myself sound equanimous before I criticize her; I legitimately feel that she has done a true service by creating that informed tome, and I think it's something that a lot of people should read.
I think that everybody's right about what she chooses to focus on, though. There is a lot she could provide to fill out the portrait of what is going on in the lives of these individuals. Knowing the history of these groups and who has written what on the walls of their house of worship is imperative, but it would be neat to see the book from more angles. By failing to take on much of the criticism of the traditions (I did not read the chapter on Muslims, and I assume she took on those kinds of arguments there to some degree), she leaves half her argument untouched. Yes, they may be baseless or related more to economically-informed resentment or whatever, but issues should be put out there. Why is it that Koreans flourished in an area where blacks continued to live in poverty? She briefly mentioned the scandals in Tassajara, but what about the damaging cults that have often arisen around Hindu gurus? If Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, why do terrorists keep phrasing it in Islamic terminology? I don't think these questions are terribly difficult to answer, and I think they could even strengthen Eck's thesis to some degree. By focusing just on the destruction of houses of worship, she turns the immigrants into martyrs, which will definitely endear them to the reader, but it also idealizes them. In the end, that is not something positive, because it takes just one little incident to make someone say, “Oh! Everything Eck said about them was a lie! They’re not immaculate, after all!”
I started reading Soul Searching, and I’m reading the part on the statistics now. It was funny to see them outright say, “Harvard’s Diana Eck asserts that the United States is the most religiously diverse nation in the world. That simply is not true” (32). I wonder if their criteria for what it means to be a “religiously diverse nation” is different than Eck’s. Eck doesn’t give a lot of statistics, but she presents a picture of an incredibly diverse nation that tolerates and welcomes a great deal of traditions, allowing themselves to express themselves. Yes, numerically, we’re a Christian nation, but not by law, which I think she provides some good evidence for. Compared to what it means to be a Muslim nation, or a Buddhist nation, or even a nominally secular nation that still favors a particular tradition, we are not a Christian nation. Smith and Denton’s footnote just references the book itself, and doesn’t give any page numbers or commentary, so they might just be debating her title and subtitle.
I’m really wondering what Soul Searching will be like. The authors have a weird approach, and I’m not quite sure why. The chapter about the Baptist girls was an unsettling combination of seeing the interviewees as individuals and seeing them as abstractions, though I think it’s an acceptable approach. The whole “I could see she was not blessed with features reflecting cultural standards of physical beauty” rubbed me the wrong way. I dunno.
I think I just have an issue with sociology. Taking Sociology of Religion now, it doesn’t strike me as a science. It’s all so unverifiable, and it makes labels into something so much more than they possibly can be. I’m sure I’m giving it a hard time, and that if I were to look at its methods, I’d see more validity, but I just don’t like what wide brushes it paints. The first paragraph Smith and Denton have in the chapter on statistics acknowledges that they are cutting out a lot of the diversity and such, but I guess I just wonder what’s the point of doing it if you acknowledge that it’s an abstraction, and not a reality. I dunno what my point is.
This is closer to my issue: look at Appendix B, Survey Methodology. 3290 English and Spanish speaking teenagers by random-digit-dial. I don’t know how it is, but they say that this method “ensures equal representation of listed, unlisted, and not-yet-listed household telephone numbers.” Calling unlisted folks might help bring in some of the minority population, but I wonder how many minorities lack phones, and how many parents don’t speak English or Spanish. Probably not a huge number, but it would skew things from the start. I was wondering if Christians might be more willing to talk about their religious views than non-Christians, which could skew things, but it sounds like they pursued people who refused, and I think the monetary incentive would probably help, as well. I skimmed the chapter, and didn’t see any comments about how many non-English speakers were called, and thus couldn’t participate.
Having skimmed that appendix (writing that, “skimmed that appendix,” I imagine someone skipping rocks in a lake, but instead of a rock, it’s a human appendix [do I have ADD?]), I’m somewhat comforted by the exacting measures they took to do this survey. I still remain skeptical, though. I guess I am pushing for certainty of veracity, and that’s not something one can get in statistics or sociology. It’s intended to give a general portrait, and it does that rather well.
I’ll be very curious to see them substantiate their claims about how deeply religious children are happier and leave fulfilling lives. The thought that came to mind for me was, “Well, so what if they’re happy? Are they responsible world citizens? Are they going to be unethical when it comes to environment and such?” I'm such a grouchy old man.
I hope the kids had a fun time at the temple today. I wish I could’ve gone. I made a CD of different Indian music for the occasion. I look forward to hearing about how it went.
One of the things we talked about in Sociology of Religion the other day was how in Santería and Scientology, money is charged for advancement. People didn’t like that. I brought up how in some religions, frugality is valued and the ideal practitioner lives a life of poverty, fulfilled by spiritual needs. Christianity in most of its forms is like this. However, in Santería, poverty is seen as evidence of a spiritual weakness, and the book said that the poverty-stricken practitioners generally request health, love, and wealth from the orishas. So, of course, they would reciprocate their newfound wealth to the religious institution, particularly since they value sacrifice so deeply. Given the transmission of the tradition, which occurs on such a personal level, and not on an institutional one, of course they need to spend a lot of money to maintain their tradition.
In Protestant America, we like our churches bland, so we can focus on God. But some other traditions like to honor the divine by reserving their very best for it. I often thought of this as I visited Jain and Hindu temples in India. The people might have a terrible house themselves, but they express their communal gratitude by creating ostentatious displays for the divine. In an economy, money means power, ability, choice. To give your money to a certain institution is to place more importance on it. So why not display the great value of the religion by adornment?
I'm not sure how I feel about Eck's book. I feel like she does an incredible service by presenting as much of the minority religious life of America as she does. People need to see and hear what life is like for those people, what is going on for them, and so forth. Her book is quite good at inspiring a much-needed empathy and sense of shared American identity amidst our differences. I'm not just saying these things as a way of making myself sound equanimous before I criticize her; I legitimately feel that she has done a true service by creating that informed tome, and I think it's something that a lot of people should read.
I think that everybody's right about what she chooses to focus on, though. There is a lot she could provide to fill out the portrait of what is going on in the lives of these individuals. Knowing the history of these groups and who has written what on the walls of their house of worship is imperative, but it would be neat to see the book from more angles. By failing to take on much of the criticism of the traditions (I did not read the chapter on Muslims, and I assume she took on those kinds of arguments there to some degree), she leaves half her argument untouched. Yes, they may be baseless or related more to economically-informed resentment or whatever, but issues should be put out there. Why is it that Koreans flourished in an area where blacks continued to live in poverty? She briefly mentioned the scandals in Tassajara, but what about the damaging cults that have often arisen around Hindu gurus? If Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, why do terrorists keep phrasing it in Islamic terminology? I don't think these questions are terribly difficult to answer, and I think they could even strengthen Eck's thesis to some degree. By focusing just on the destruction of houses of worship, she turns the immigrants into martyrs, which will definitely endear them to the reader, but it also idealizes them. In the end, that is not something positive, because it takes just one little incident to make someone say, “Oh! Everything Eck said about them was a lie! They’re not immaculate, after all!”
I started reading Soul Searching, and I’m reading the part on the statistics now. It was funny to see them outright say, “Harvard’s Diana Eck asserts that the United States is the most religiously diverse nation in the world. That simply is not true” (32). I wonder if their criteria for what it means to be a “religiously diverse nation” is different than Eck’s. Eck doesn’t give a lot of statistics, but she presents a picture of an incredibly diverse nation that tolerates and welcomes a great deal of traditions, allowing themselves to express themselves. Yes, numerically, we’re a Christian nation, but not by law, which I think she provides some good evidence for. Compared to what it means to be a Muslim nation, or a Buddhist nation, or even a nominally secular nation that still favors a particular tradition, we are not a Christian nation. Smith and Denton’s footnote just references the book itself, and doesn’t give any page numbers or commentary, so they might just be debating her title and subtitle.
I’m really wondering what Soul Searching will be like. The authors have a weird approach, and I’m not quite sure why. The chapter about the Baptist girls was an unsettling combination of seeing the interviewees as individuals and seeing them as abstractions, though I think it’s an acceptable approach. The whole “I could see she was not blessed with features reflecting cultural standards of physical beauty” rubbed me the wrong way. I dunno.
I think I just have an issue with sociology. Taking Sociology of Religion now, it doesn’t strike me as a science. It’s all so unverifiable, and it makes labels into something so much more than they possibly can be. I’m sure I’m giving it a hard time, and that if I were to look at its methods, I’d see more validity, but I just don’t like what wide brushes it paints. The first paragraph Smith and Denton have in the chapter on statistics acknowledges that they are cutting out a lot of the diversity and such, but I guess I just wonder what’s the point of doing it if you acknowledge that it’s an abstraction, and not a reality. I dunno what my point is.
This is closer to my issue: look at Appendix B, Survey Methodology. 3290 English and Spanish speaking teenagers by random-digit-dial. I don’t know how it is, but they say that this method “ensures equal representation of listed, unlisted, and not-yet-listed household telephone numbers.” Calling unlisted folks might help bring in some of the minority population, but I wonder how many minorities lack phones, and how many parents don’t speak English or Spanish. Probably not a huge number, but it would skew things from the start. I was wondering if Christians might be more willing to talk about their religious views than non-Christians, which could skew things, but it sounds like they pursued people who refused, and I think the monetary incentive would probably help, as well. I skimmed the chapter, and didn’t see any comments about how many non-English speakers were called, and thus couldn’t participate.
Having skimmed that appendix (writing that, “skimmed that appendix,” I imagine someone skipping rocks in a lake, but instead of a rock, it’s a human appendix [do I have ADD?]), I’m somewhat comforted by the exacting measures they took to do this survey. I still remain skeptical, though. I guess I am pushing for certainty of veracity, and that’s not something one can get in statistics or sociology. It’s intended to give a general portrait, and it does that rather well.
I’ll be very curious to see them substantiate their claims about how deeply religious children are happier and leave fulfilling lives. The thought that came to mind for me was, “Well, so what if they’re happy? Are they responsible world citizens? Are they going to be unethical when it comes to environment and such?” I'm such a grouchy old man.
I hope the kids had a fun time at the temple today. I wish I could’ve gone. I made a CD of different Indian music for the occasion. I look forward to hearing about how it went.
One of the things we talked about in Sociology of Religion the other day was how in Santería and Scientology, money is charged for advancement. People didn’t like that. I brought up how in some religions, frugality is valued and the ideal practitioner lives a life of poverty, fulfilled by spiritual needs. Christianity in most of its forms is like this. However, in Santería, poverty is seen as evidence of a spiritual weakness, and the book said that the poverty-stricken practitioners generally request health, love, and wealth from the orishas. So, of course, they would reciprocate their newfound wealth to the religious institution, particularly since they value sacrifice so deeply. Given the transmission of the tradition, which occurs on such a personal level, and not on an institutional one, of course they need to spend a lot of money to maintain their tradition.
In Protestant America, we like our churches bland, so we can focus on God. But some other traditions like to honor the divine by reserving their very best for it. I often thought of this as I visited Jain and Hindu temples in India. The people might have a terrible house themselves, but they express their communal gratitude by creating ostentatious displays for the divine. In an economy, money means power, ability, choice. To give your money to a certain institution is to place more importance on it. So why not display the great value of the religion by adornment?
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
We talked about how Lynn Westmoreland wanted people to follow the Ten Commandments, even if they weren't explicitly sure about what they consisted of. What they stand for is (probably) more important to him, the relationship that they open up with God is something he (probably) sees as imperative, as opposed to the specific words.
I feel like I can't understand where he is coming from. I think it would be helpful to stand back and look at this (etically, I suppose!), but I find it hard to do that, probably because I have so many prejudices on the matter from the start. Would I be accurate in representing it this way?: They believe that there is a transcendent universal controller who responds to your honoring of him by making good things happen to you, protecting you and your families? I guess that makes sense, but it still doesn't on some level.
My concern, I guess, is how to express that I would like him to honor my beliefs, as well. Would he be able to? Could he understand where I'm coming from, more than I can understand where he is?
I feel like I can't understand where he is coming from. I think it would be helpful to stand back and look at this (etically, I suppose!), but I find it hard to do that, probably because I have so many prejudices on the matter from the start. Would I be accurate in representing it this way?: They believe that there is a transcendent universal controller who responds to your honoring of him by making good things happen to you, protecting you and your families? I guess that makes sense, but it still doesn't on some level.
My concern, I guess, is how to express that I would like him to honor my beliefs, as well. Would he be able to? Could he understand where I'm coming from, more than I can understand where he is?
Sunday, November 1, 2009
I really have no idea about the melting pot thing. And I feel like it is adequately ambiguous for anyone and everyone to be correct. I think, even before looking at how culture changes, at how acclimation happens, even how identities are formed, one has to acknowledge something about self and culture. Namely, that though we all have lots of ideas about how a culture is formed, what is most important about a culture, what aspects of an identity people will reject, and which they will retain, we really can't tell with certainty any of it. We can't witness it, we can't say what is happening because of "human nature," and what is happening because of precedent, and what is because of genetics, and what is happening because of blah blah blah blah blah... Hell, maybe we can. But I can't tell what the hell I'm made up of. What is my Irishness? What is the Catholicism to which I was never exposed, but that snuck through my parents? What is the Polish grandfather I never met? And if you haven't taken into account these, surely you can still infer things about me, but what have you gotten?
One can quite legitimately point out that, yes, I may be an individual, and unpredictable in that way, but many of other things are quite predictable, namely as a result of my social life. But still, we can look back and say, "Yup, that's the aspect that was going to be expressed," and be all certain and clever about it, but I'm not convinced we have a whole lot of stuff looking at the future. Aren't those rare people who predict the popular things of any given age heralded as psychics? Are there scholars who do the same thing? I need to get educated, I guess.
Obviously, it's not essential, for one can make some helpful generalizations. But I think it's important to remember, if one is seeking to use language and concepts in order to adequately describe reality, presumably in hopes of according our inward mental picture with the "reality out there," that we will be wrong in many of the cases, and that we haven't really done anything particularly substantive. Maybe.
One can quite legitimately point out that, yes, I may be an individual, and unpredictable in that way, but many of other things are quite predictable, namely as a result of my social life. But still, we can look back and say, "Yup, that's the aspect that was going to be expressed," and be all certain and clever about it, but I'm not convinced we have a whole lot of stuff looking at the future. Aren't those rare people who predict the popular things of any given age heralded as psychics? Are there scholars who do the same thing? I need to get educated, I guess.
Obviously, it's not essential, for one can make some helpful generalizations. But I think it's important to remember, if one is seeking to use language and concepts in order to adequately describe reality, presumably in hopes of according our inward mental picture with the "reality out there," that we will be wrong in many of the cases, and that we haven't really done anything particularly substantive. Maybe.
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