Henry Imler October 15th, 2006

Can humans be liberated from their flaws in Augustine’s teachings? They cannot; yet, they are to try. Augustine constantly reminds his readers that due to the results of the fall, the human will is in a state of constant rebellion. An example of this is the idea that every sexual act is a sin. Ruether maintains that Augustine thought that due to the fall every sexual act had lust at its root and was the way original sin perpetuated in the world.

Harrison showed Augustine’s reply to conversion and to the question of liberation. He thought that true liberation from our sinful nature would come in the next life. With that said, Augustine also thought that one was to constantly apply the “ask, seek, knock” mindset of Matthew 7:7 to one’s life. It was more important to have this mindset than to have understanding of true doctrine. It seems that for Augustine, the conditions that the fallen world finds itself in prevent any from truly turning towards God. Once the Holy Spirit has instilled in a person the desire for God or the delight in loving God, then a person can use their intellect to try to turn the unruly will towards God. On a side note, Harrison talked about the idea of the weight of the soul and it finding rest in delight on the way towards fully loving God. This seems to mirror Aristotle’s physics of rest, that a body’s natural position is rest. The Greek idea of substances seeking their place seems to factor heavily in Augustine’s metaphysics. I wonder how his explanations would have changed if he knew of the more modern versions of science.

• Christianity , Religion
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Henry Imler October 15th, 2006

In Augustine’s entire framework, his treatment of sex is both odd and seemingly logically necessary. As a product of the latter 20th century some of his ideas seem strikingly ad hoc, starting with the idea that if the fall had not happened, “Eve would have remained virginal in intercourse and parturition, never losing her bodily integrity.” It is hard to understand what that even would mean, let alone why it is necessary. I do not identify with the idea that virginity is necessarily better than non-virginity. From my Christian tradition, sex is a wonderful thing in its proper place; it is a gift of God to married couples. This thinking would exclude the idea of Eve being a perpetual virgin in an unfallen world. Ruether also has Augustine setting Eve closer to the “lower soul” than Adam. I think that Augustine has male/female as parts of a whole and they are only whole in union as the image of God, but I might have misread something in the readings. The idea that Eve was lesser than Adam and Adam’s sin being obeying his wife is similarly curious.

With these things said, it is very easy to identify with the movement that would completely sweep away with Augustine’s ideas of sex and gender hierarchy and all that comes with it. What West argues for is the keeping of some of the stuff that came along with the ideas of sex and sin for Augustine. She implores us to not throw out the baby with the bath water. Augustine did have some good things to say about the misappropriation of desires.

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Henry Imler October 15th, 2006

The chapter in the latter half of Conjuring Culture I found the most interesting was the chapter on Wisdom. The beginning question of the chapter, “What is the relationship between African, American and European elements in this [Black folk tradition] experience?” intrigued me. The idea of wisdom literature as not being very concerned with historical narration is relatively new to me. It is a very different way of looking at the world. I have always employed the narrow scope of viewing things either through the historical narrative or the abstract philosophical lens. Thus the ethos and cosmos would always remain separate. I found the following quote to sum up the idea of wisdom:

“Wisdom fulfills one of religions fundamental functions which is to bind together ethos and cosmos, the sphere of action and the sphere of the world. It does not do this by demonstrating that this conjunction is given in things, nor by demanding that it be produced by our action. Rather it joins ethos and cosmos at the very point of their discordance: in suffering and more precisely, in unjust suffering. Wisdom does not teach us how to avoid suffering, or how magically to deny it… [but] how to endure, how to suffer suffering.”

I found a similar truism in Dixon’s problem with the either/or distinctions that are used so commonly in the West. In binary opposition there is always a preferred element. When the least preferred element is attached to actual groups of humans, it leads to a dehumanization of the loosing group, which in turn usually leads to atrocities. It was very reminiscent of Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities by Albert Bandura. What I liked the most was that the categories themselves are not the problem, but the either/or distinction was the problem. Adopting a both/and approach will allow one to maintain distinctions which really appear to be there that does not result in atrocities and injustice.

I also found the idea in the latter part of the chapter, the idea of High John the Conqueror, to be a fascinatingly creative construct.

“He was a wisper, a will to hope, a wish to find something worthy of laughter and a song. Then the whisper put on flesh. His footsteps sounded across the world in a low, but musical rhythm as if the world he walked on was a singing drum. The black folds had an irresistible impulse to laugh.”

I found a curious resemblance to the “whisper of a hope putting on flesh” with the way The Gospel of John describes the Word becoming flesh. High John served to sow the seeds of hope in the midst of their suffering and to conjure their freedom. Once again this concept was expressed most clearly in the following quotation:

“My mama told me, and I know that she would not mislead me, how High John Conqueror helped us out. He had done teached the black folks so they knowed a hundred years ahead of time that freedom was coming. Long before the white folks knowed anything about it at all… A heap sees, but a few knows. ‘Course the war was a lot of help, but how comes the war took place? They think they knows, but they don’t. John the Conqueror had done put it in the white folks to give us our freedom, that’s what. Old Massa fought against it, but us could have told him that is wasn‘t no use. Freedom just had to come. The time set aside for it was there. That war was just a sign and a symbol of the thing.”

That passage embodies all that Smith has set up in chapter five. It displays the Monkey-Lion dueling with the Monkey employing “wit over force” to accomplish his aims. The Monkey/John is not deceitful, but in his struggle over Old Massa/Lion he has to use his wit to turn the tables and bring about justice.

• Christianity , Religion
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Henry Imler October 15th, 2006

The first half of the book, Conjuring Culture is an odd read. I do not mean this in a negative way, but just to say the ideas and concepts are quite foreign to the world I have known. The religious culture of Black Americans is extremely creative. The way in which the base religions fused and reacted with the Christianity that they were exposed to, presumably after their enslavement is very intriguing. I believe it parallels with the experience of the Mexican Indians and Catholicism. However, I gather from the author that the use of “conjure theology” is unique to the African, and consequently the black American religious experience. The way that native-African religious ideas were reinterpreted as biblical types is intriguing.

The idea of typology to reinterpret biblical events as a prophecy of the black American events is very creative. It not only was used to give hope and strength to the religious members, but also to invoke the action of the deity to make the prophecy come to pass in their lives. The best examples of this are Exodus, Ethiopian, Moses, and Egyptian themes. These strategies of inducement served not only to give the people a sense of purpose, but to also speak to speak these things into existence. Another function was to tie together the people of the group and to craft an identity for them. It is noted in the reading that the very action of creating an idea of god is to create oneself in relation to it. Likewise, when a group creates an idea of god, they create an identity of the group in relation to that god. This is one of the ideas behind the usage of Psalm 68:31: “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands to God” (KJV).

The use of Psalm 68:31 was incredible powerful and diverse. There was a linking together of biblical themes to match their situation. The God of the Ethiopians would lead his people out of Slavery (Egypt) just like the God of the Hebrews did. Egypt was not only used as a symbol of slavery, but also of the destiny that there would be black princes. This pointed to the royal nature of the people and back, along with the Ethiopian kingdom, to the days of the two great black kingdoms.
It is very interesting to see how the religious culture of black Americans synthesized the religions and cultures of Europe and Africa into a synthesis that used to not only give them strength and comfort in their circumstances, but to also conjure up a betterment of their situations. It seems bizarre at first to imagine Moses as a conjure man that leaned secret words from God to recreate reality. But when viewed in the larger framework that Smith presents it begins to fit in naturally. The themes were constantly being reinvented to adapt to the current situation. It is hard to grasp at some of the concepts found in the reading, but with the repetitive frame work in which Smith reveals his theory aids in grasping the concepts presented.

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Henry Imler October 15th, 2006

[youtube]B0oF0TfZB3Y[/youtube]

Damn, did you see the kicker get body-slammed and then punched in the head?

So far, at least eight Canes have been suspended with more to come.

Still not as bad as these thugs (players and fans):

[youtube]0B9q3OGazzU[/youtube]

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Henry Imler October 15th, 2006

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Henry Imler October 14th, 2006

Well, not really, I have Five Crown.
For some reason I keep calling Five Crown Phase Ten. Five Crown is a
neat little card game that Meredith’s parents introduced us two about a
year ago. Instead of four suits, there are five in this game, hence the
name of the game. The fifth suit is stars. I guess having a suit like
circles or squares was just too lame. The rules are pretty simple and easy to understand.

Anyway, game play is as easy as it is frustrating:

Five Crowns’ is a card game for the whole family. It has original
game play, but uses skills that you have obtained from playing your old
favorites like hearts, spades and rummy. Because Five Crowns has five
Royal Families - the Stars, the Clubs, the Hearts, the Spades and the
Diamonds - yes, five suits in the old usage, it allows a more equal
chance of making a book or a run, effectively giving each player more
possibilities to readjust their hand so as to go out. Good players are
able to take advantage of this and win more than an average number of
games.

The play starts with three cards and 3s are wild; next hand has four
cards and 4s are wild….working up to the last hand when Kings are
wild. Each of the royal families is portrayed in original art and has
its own colors. The Renaissance designs result in cards that are
beautiful to hold in your hand and give a “collector” feel to the game.
Five Crowns is a fast paced, ingenious new game in eleven rounds. You
may be winning, but before coveting the winner’s crown, beware…

“THE GAME ISN’T OVER ‘TIL THE KINGS GO WILD!”

They ain’t lyin’. You see, whatever points you have in your hand
when the round is over are the points added to your score. Being
unsuccessful in laying down books and runs of all 13 cards can add some
serious points to your score.

Why am I bringing this up? Ever since I was introduced to the game a
year ago, Meredith and I have been meaning to get it. You can’t buy it
from Target, or Walmart or any physical store I have been to, you have
to purchase it online. Well, I finally remembered to buy it when I was
not around the gaming section of a store and we are trying it out
tonight with a few friends.

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Henry Imler October 12th, 2006

Last weekend, Meredith had two close friends/cousins come down to Versailles, MO (our home town) for the “Old Tyme Apple Festival“.
The brought along with them their relatively new boyfriends to meet the
family. Meredith and one of the cousins, Bre, decided to have “lunch”
at a local tea room, Shady Gables,
which is probably the daintiest place I have ever been. I did not mind
too much because I was not there for the environment, but to have
relationship with Meredith, Bre and her new boy.

So, each of us gets to order whatever pot ‘o tea we want. There are
many kinds and many variations on these kinds of tea. I don’t know tea,
all I know is that I want “the captain.” So, when it is my turn to order I say with the best deadpan I could muster:

Tea, Earl Grey, hot!

Our dutch server, Bre, and her boyfriend all gave me puzzled looks. Meredith laughs; she got it.

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Henry Imler October 12th, 2006

Videora - BitTorrent RSS Reader and Media Converter

If you have an iPod, get Videora. If you have a Tivo, get Videora.

I have not tried it out for bit torrent, I still use Azerus for that. However, I have used the converter to do media files to iPod and to take avi files from bit torrents and put them on my Tivo.

It is sweet and easy:

We watched a missed episode of Smallville on our Tivo last night and
I watched lucky number slevin on my iPod a few weeks before.

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Henry Imler October 11th, 2006

Why did Luther find the bondage of the will to be a comfort? The short answer is that it allowed him to be incredibly abrasive to his opponents and get away with it. The long answer is that it, along with the rest of his metaphysics, allowed him to be sure in his salvation. Luther seems to hold that we, as humans are completely enslaved to sin. He writes that “free-will without grace is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil, since it cannot turn itself to good .” Therefore, for Luther, in order for a will to be truly free, it must be able to always choose the good. Thus the “ineffective power” of the will to choose good renders it as “no power ”. The only way for the will to choose God is by the grace of God enabling. It is evident that only some men choose to seek God, therefore God predestines some to receive this enabling grace and must therefore also choose to not give it to the others. These special individuals that receive grace are called the elect. Luther places an extremely high value on the will of God. For Luther whatever God wills comes to pass. God does not suspend his will for the sake of others like Denck suggested. When God wills that the elect receive grace and are saved, this willing cannot be altered or changed by anyone, even God, because it would be outside of His nature. So, in the realization of the bondage of the will to sin and to God, Luther can be comforted that his salvation is not in jeopardy by any sins he might commit, such as the sins of the false dichotomy and of the straw man.

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Henry Imler October 11th, 2006

A polemicist is someone “who argues in opposition to others.” Try to think of the opposing talking heads one sees so much on quasi-news programs. These people are in such direct opposition to each other that they become entrenched. They do not fight for truth for its own sake, but for their view.

“The polemicist , on the other hand, proceeds encased in privileges that he possesses in advance and will never agree to question. On principle, he possesses rights authorizing him to wage war and making that struggle a just undertaking; the person he confronts is not a partner in search for the truth but an adversary, an enemy who is wrong, who is armful, and whose very existence constitutes a threat. For him, then the game consists not of recognizing this person as a subject having the right to speak but of abolishing him as interlocutor, from any possible dialogue; and his final objective will be not to come as close as possible to a difficult truth but to bring about the triumph of the just cause he has been manifestly upholding from the beginning. The polemicist relies on a legitimacy that his adversary is by definition denied.”

• Ethics
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Henry Imler October 10th, 2006

How many geek points does one get for turning in a weekly refection in grad school using the term Decepticon in the title? The movie has not come out yet so I don’t think I am drawing off of too popular culture. I used the title, “An Ambivalent Decepticon,” to bring out a comparison of the horrors one feels with Bentham’s Panopticon vs the feelings one has with Foucault’s Panopticonⁱ as a metaphor for society.

Vote in the new poll.

^{i. If you find that I have completely missed the point in my
description, please know that before yesterday, I pretty much had been
unexposed to Foucault.}

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Henry Imler October 10th, 2006

Besides his very practical advice on the polemicist, Foucault’s most intriguing concept is the Panopticon. Upon first reading, Foucault and Bentham’s Panopticon is a terrifying construct. Anytime power is wielded with such cool efficiency and detachment, one is reminded of the dehumanizing effect on the subjugated and as a consequent on those that administrate this power. The idea of the Panopticon as a laboratory is an especially heinous notion as the idea of human lab-rats it the highest expression of dehumanization.

However, the Panopticon differs from the more overt uses of force and control that one is used to. It is easy to rally against a tyrant-king or a slave master, but the Panopticon is quite different from these concepts. Instead of constant brute force enthralling a subject, the Panopticon trains the subject to be one’s own master; it grafts the tyrant-king onto the vassal, creating a compound subject. This is done, by my understanding, by the constant threat of supervision, via the transparency of the subject’s surroundings. The unverifiability of the Panopticon serves to make the system feasible, since it would be impossible to actually monitor for deviance and administrate force to correct deviations.

Before investigation, this process smacks of oppression. In Bentham’s version of the Panopticon, this is surely the case. However, one does need to ask if the subjects in Bentham’s Panopticon are deserving of this oppression. If they are prone to violent acts and have injured members of society, then perhaps is it perfectly justifiable to mold their behavior and graft onto these individuals the tyrant-king. Panopticon is really terrifying when Foucault projects the idea of the Panopticon onto all of society. It strips one of their humanity and reduces one to a potential lab-rat. It also strips one’s spouse, one’s mother, one’s brother, all of one’s friends into lab-rats; a very sour notion indeed!

Once this machine of molding has been discovered, the first question one is lead to ask is, “Who is doing or benefiting from this power over me?” In Bentham’s Panopticon, it is the owner or operator of the prison/lab that wields the power and can have an array of uses, from the beneficent to the treacherous. When applied to society at large, as Foucault does, there is no one that one can point to as wielder of the power. It is diffused throughout society; it is present everywhere with no centralized nexus of power and administration. Therefore, no one can point to the oppressor. If there is no oppressor that can be pointed to, how can one be oppressed? Likewise if there are no actors or agents to morally evaluate, how can the system be judged from a moral standpoint of just or unjust?

Foucault describes this network of discipline as a physics of power. This physics of power can be likened to the force of gravity that binds us all to the earth. Just like gravity serves as a bind on all of humanity, stripping them of certain freedoms. It is inescapable and there is no way to rebel against it. Even in jumping and flight, one is still bound to its ruses and is using the rules of the game to play in another way. Similarly, Foucault’s Panopticon is a description of the new physics of power that has developed. No one is free from the system nor can they be set free. There is nothing to be set free from, as any change, political, personal or relational is merely a change in speed or location, not a change in the way power is administered. Therefore, this method of power administration is not to be evaluated morally, as it is merely a statement of condition.

• Philosophy
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Henry Imler October 10th, 2006

I only meant to run the Greek/Latin poll for about a week, but
people keep on voting in small doses. Supposedly, the poll software
keeps a record of IP addresses as to side-swipe anyone from voting
twice. Each time I go to pull it, a few more votes have come in. These
votes have swung Latin to a tie at first, and then Greek will pull a
head.

• Blogging
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Henry Imler October 9th, 2006

A polemicist
is someone “who argues in opposition to others.” Try to think of the
opposing talking heads one sees so much on quasi-news programs. These
people are in such direct opposition to each other that they become
entrenched. They do not fight for truth for its own sake, but for their
view.

“The polemicist
, on the other hand, proceeds encased in privileges that he possesses
in advance and will never agree to question. On principle, he possesses
rights authorizing him to wage war and making that struggle a just
undertaking; the person he confronts is not a partner in search for the
truth but an adversary, an enemy who is wrong, who is armful, and whose
very existence constitutes a threat. For him, then the game consists
not of recognizing this person as a subject having the right to speak
but of abolishing him as interlocutor,
from any possible dialogue; and his final objective will be not to come
as close as possible to a difficult truth but to bring about the
triumph of the just cause he has been manifestly upholding from the
beginning. The polemicist relies on a legitimacy that his adversary is
by definition denied.”

• Politics
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Henry Imler October 9th, 2006

Why do the French refuse to pronounce the last half of their words?
For example, Foucault is pronounced Fŭcō. Why is this? Why in the world
is “ault” pronounced as a long “O“?

I hate language.

• Humor
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Henry Imler October 9th, 2006

Q - Why are liberal democracies more favorable than direct democracies, even with their flaws?

A - Because of mob mentality.

Case in point (of a negative mob mentality, not of direct democracy): Putin taps into a growing anti-minority fervor

• Philosophy
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Henry Imler October 8th, 2006

Bizzyblog � The Federal Budget Deficit: Bush Benchmark Achieved, Ignored

I am staying pretty ignorant of specific policies. I just don’t have
the time to catch up, stay abreast of everything to where I can say
something that is not just a regurgitation of talking points. With that
said, I don’t know if what is said in the above think is completely
accurate. With those disclaimers out of the way, check this out:

A huge point has been virtually if not totally ignored
since the announcement on Friday that the reported federal deficit for
the fiscal year that ended a week ago was $250 billion — The Bush
Administration has done what it said it would do about the deficit
three years ago, and has done it a full three years early, i.e., in
half the time predicted.

A deficit of $250,000,000,000 dollars is huge and I don’t like it;
so don’t get me wrong. However, it is a whole lot better than a
$250,000,000,000 and a $250,000,000,000 deficit.

Here are some of the headlines from the article I quoted:

1. Tax receipts have soared by over 35%
2. the
   administration has accomplished its goal of cutting the reported
   deficit in half by the time it leaves office a full three years early
3. Economic growth has averaged an annualized 3.89% during the past 13 quarters since the 2003 Bush tax cuts were passed.
4. “it will be fiscal nirvana — a honest-to-goodness REAL budget surplus will occur in fiscal 2011, less than five years from now.”
   - This is without the social security surplus being added to the
   receipts, which is how Washington has made the budget deficit loot
   smaller than it really has for decades.

Every time I think about the budget, I get really, really depressed.
This has kinda given me some hope for the future of this nation’s
finances.

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Henry Imler October 7th, 2006

bLaugh � Archive � Another Explosive Situation

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Henry Imler October 5th, 2006

I was grading a test today and a student did a excellent job
explaining the concepts contained in a particular question. I went to
write “good analysis” on the paper. I often abbreviate when I am writing comments and I left off the “-ysis.”

Lucky for me, I took another glance at it before going on to the next question.
Whew.

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