One day, we will wake up in a world, where, when we cross the street we will look up and know that most of the cars that are coming toward us are self-driven. Some of them might not even have people in them. We will realize that the way we walk is important, because we don’t want to register any false negative on the AI sensor. We will follow rules specifically designed to keep us safe in the presence of these huge, robotic machines. And, when we see other humans, we will wink back and forth with them.
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Thursday, August 9, 2018
I think one tragedy that has occurred in our nation over the last two or three decades is the gutting of public education. The alleged strength of charter schools is that they allow children to avoid state indoctrination. We need a degree of “state indoctrination,” though, to have a society that is uniform enough to remain intact.
The substandard quality of education in public schools is not something inherent to public education, (nor have they always been substandard) but is the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we neglect public schools because we see them as unworthy of support, they become exactly that. Look at the pay and treatment afforded to public schools. Look at the removal of programs and curriculum items, made necessary by reduced funding. In the public schools in my area, we had to pay a fee for basic classroom supplies, that were already present in schools when I was young. These used to be paid for (rightly so, in my opinion) by tax payer money. Education is a public good, so should rely on public resources.
If we treated our public water supply the same way we treat public schools (and there are indications of a trend in that direction), the only drinkable water would soon be only that which is purchased from corporations, for profit. We would have a two-tiered system of water—in which people with means can drink clean water, while the rest have to go with unregulated, unprotected water of uncertain quality. This is what has happened, and is happening, with public education. We have lost the understanding of the value of a common public sector. Society depends on it.
When we make education a matter of denomination and merely personal interest, and correspondingly deemphasize common, public education, we fracture a unity essential to society, and deprive a significant part of the population from what has, in the past, been considered a basic human right: the right of children to nourish their minds, and become informed citizens in a great republic. As a result, individuals suffer, and society suffers, as part of a vicious cycle.
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Friday, October 14, 2016
I am going to try to make a statement here that transcends the current political storm. Is that possible? I don't know, but I'll try.
When, after this election, all the dust settles, we have some serious soul-searching to do as a nation, especially as to what it means to be American. It is the vast range of different answers to that question that drives what we call "the culture wars," and which contributes to a paralyzing polarization between our parties. I would like to suggest that we have been looking to wrong places when we try to answer that question.
I would like to suggest that the essence of American identity consists in our willingness to live according to the ideals of the U.S. Constitution. One may come from any religious background, and have any theory of economics they want. They are in, as long as they desire to abide by the Constitutional pattern for the conduct of civic life. If they have embraced this idea and want to enter into it, that's enough.
We need to be careful of adding other expectations, such as, "They need to embrace an American way of life." As reasonable as that sounds, it allows us to exclude people based on what is comfortable for us, instead of whether they have embraced the idea of democracy. It allows us to exclude people who wear clothes we don't like, or wear head coverings, or the wrong kind of head coverings. It allows us to exclude them because they pray, or don't pray, or pray facing in the wrong direction, or pray in a language we do not understand. For these reasons, we cannot insist on requirements beyond the requirement that one desire and intend to live within the land governed by Constitutional ideals.
We also, though, cannot insists on less than this. If we know for certain that somebody intends to set up a theocracy on our shores, to force the practice of their own beliefs upon those who do not voluntarily share them, or to commit crimes, they are not an acceptable candidate for immigration. There is no religious litmus test that can determine this, though. Religious life in a democracy needs to be of the kind that is able to find within itself a tolerance for the practice of other religions, or no religion at all, alongside itself. The arguments about whether or not certain religions are inherently more susceptible to being intolerant than others is an important one, but our immigration policy needs to be blind to everything except the question of whether this or that particular person is capable of practicing their convictions, whatever they may be, without jeopardizing others, or infringing on their freedoms.
There is much debate about the place of religion in American identity, and about the relationship of religion, properly speaking, to the American "civic religion." I think this confusion is cleared up if we dare to think of the Constitution (along with the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights) as the quasi-scriptural documents that make up the text of our civic religion. We furthermore have a series of historical moments, monuments, proclamations, and documents that have acquired status as part of the canon of our self-understanding, including (by no means limited to) the annals of the Civil War, the advance of the suffrage and civil rights movements, the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.--not to mention the record of legal interpretation by the Supreme Court.
My thinking about this is stimulated by reflecting on how the Torah, in the Old Testament, functioned as the founding myth for the nation of Israel. It was none other than a constitution. Our own constitution holds a place very much parallel to that. Most Old Testament scholars agree that, as Israel evolved in its self-identity, tribes were grafted in on the basis of their coming to understand themselves in light of this story--and not primarily because of their biological or genetic heritage. Inclusion was always by adoption, as tribes recognized the story of the Exodus to be the story that essentially defined them. They thereby came to call Israel's God their own. Israel, in turn, embraced them as one of their own.
It makes sense that we sometimes feel our nation's founding story possesses a sacred quality, and that it brought into being something transcendent to the work of mere mortals, because that is the nature of myths of origin. Establishing a reasonable premise for how things got started, they then form the basis for reasoning about what takes place from that point on--about how we will conduct ourselves civilly, for example. In other words, myths of origin reflect particular values, which then get projected out into the details of how we will conduct ourselves.
It is not then a complicated thing to understand how someone is established as "American" in their identity. It is by joining oneself to the quasi-sacred story reflected in our own myth of origin, as it is conveyed in our founding documents and our history. To require that one, in addition, subscribe to the Bible, or to any particular interpretation of the Bible--or, on the other hand, to forbid someone the practice of their religion, whether that is to a particular understanding of the Bible or any other religious perspective--is to add to this list of requirements in a way that unjustly (from the standpoint of our Constitution) excludes.
It is not, then, a complicated thing to determine what it means to be American. At the same time, it seems to have become very difficult for us to do so, and we have become polarized and contentious in the process. I would like to suggest--continuing with the understanding of our Constitution as our myth of origin--that part of the reason is that we are not very good at practicing our civic religion. Most of us have not reviewed the the basics of our Constitutional form of government since eighth-grade civics class. There is little chance we can be informed and inspired by its values if we do not have a conception of it in our minds. It is ironic but true that recent immigrants usually know more about American civics and history than those of us who were born here.
So many of our culture wars, and the endless arguments they generate, originate from our appeal to things which, though they may be vitally important to many individuals in our society, cannot fairly be considered essential to whether or not one is American. One of the more damaging forms of this, in my opinion, is the claim that adherence to Christianity is essential to American identity. Once that becomes part of our understanding, the question of what it means to be American becomes as complicated and contested as the debate about which religion or denomination is correct. (If you haven't noticed, that's not an argument likely to come to quick and peaceful resolution.)
This view of citizenry still leaves ample room for disagreement about how to interpret the Constitution, and ample room for argument about which values--in addition to the civic values embodied in the Constitution--take precedence in public life. That's why we have democracy, so we can settle questions about how our daily lives together are going to look. That's why we have a legislative branch of government, and why that legislative process is reflected on all levels, from the federal to the local. That's why we have the Supreme Court, and state and local courts beneath that.
Framing ourselves as adherents to America's civic religion, though, and making sure not to confuse that civic religion with religion in general, will allow us to partake in these disagreements productively, and to see our government as more than just a necessary evil. Our participation in it can possess a sacred quality, in that it represents our participation in our sacred founding myth, and our continuity with those who oversaw its coming into being, and with those who have struggled to define its ideals for generations. It allows us to experience our identity as Americans as uplifting and inspiring, without confusing that with the identity that individuals derive from their participation in their religion of choice (even if that religion happens to be no religion or atheism).
I started this post by saying I hope to say something that transcends the current political storm. I hope I have. In any case, I do think we have plenty of soul-searching ahead of us. As for me, the above thoughts show some of the directions that might take.
When, after this election, all the dust settles, we have some serious soul-searching to do as a nation, especially as to what it means to be American. It is the vast range of different answers to that question that drives what we call "the culture wars," and which contributes to a paralyzing polarization between our parties. I would like to suggest that we have been looking to wrong places when we try to answer that question.
I would like to suggest that the essence of American identity consists in our willingness to live according to the ideals of the U.S. Constitution. One may come from any religious background, and have any theory of economics they want. They are in, as long as they desire to abide by the Constitutional pattern for the conduct of civic life. If they have embraced this idea and want to enter into it, that's enough.
We need to be careful of adding other expectations, such as, "They need to embrace an American way of life." As reasonable as that sounds, it allows us to exclude people based on what is comfortable for us, instead of whether they have embraced the idea of democracy. It allows us to exclude people who wear clothes we don't like, or wear head coverings, or the wrong kind of head coverings. It allows us to exclude them because they pray, or don't pray, or pray facing in the wrong direction, or pray in a language we do not understand. For these reasons, we cannot insist on requirements beyond the requirement that one desire and intend to live within the land governed by Constitutional ideals.
We also, though, cannot insists on less than this. If we know for certain that somebody intends to set up a theocracy on our shores, to force the practice of their own beliefs upon those who do not voluntarily share them, or to commit crimes, they are not an acceptable candidate for immigration. There is no religious litmus test that can determine this, though. Religious life in a democracy needs to be of the kind that is able to find within itself a tolerance for the practice of other religions, or no religion at all, alongside itself. The arguments about whether or not certain religions are inherently more susceptible to being intolerant than others is an important one, but our immigration policy needs to be blind to everything except the question of whether this or that particular person is capable of practicing their convictions, whatever they may be, without jeopardizing others, or infringing on their freedoms.
There is much debate about the place of religion in American identity, and about the relationship of religion, properly speaking, to the American "civic religion." I think this confusion is cleared up if we dare to think of the Constitution (along with the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights) as the quasi-scriptural documents that make up the text of our civic religion. We furthermore have a series of historical moments, monuments, proclamations, and documents that have acquired status as part of the canon of our self-understanding, including (by no means limited to) the annals of the Civil War, the advance of the suffrage and civil rights movements, the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.--not to mention the record of legal interpretation by the Supreme Court.
My thinking about this is stimulated by reflecting on how the Torah, in the Old Testament, functioned as the founding myth for the nation of Israel. It was none other than a constitution. Our own constitution holds a place very much parallel to that. Most Old Testament scholars agree that, as Israel evolved in its self-identity, tribes were grafted in on the basis of their coming to understand themselves in light of this story--and not primarily because of their biological or genetic heritage. Inclusion was always by adoption, as tribes recognized the story of the Exodus to be the story that essentially defined them. They thereby came to call Israel's God their own. Israel, in turn, embraced them as one of their own.
It makes sense that we sometimes feel our nation's founding story possesses a sacred quality, and that it brought into being something transcendent to the work of mere mortals, because that is the nature of myths of origin. Establishing a reasonable premise for how things got started, they then form the basis for reasoning about what takes place from that point on--about how we will conduct ourselves civilly, for example. In other words, myths of origin reflect particular values, which then get projected out into the details of how we will conduct ourselves.
It is not then a complicated thing to understand how someone is established as "American" in their identity. It is by joining oneself to the quasi-sacred story reflected in our own myth of origin, as it is conveyed in our founding documents and our history. To require that one, in addition, subscribe to the Bible, or to any particular interpretation of the Bible--or, on the other hand, to forbid someone the practice of their religion, whether that is to a particular understanding of the Bible or any other religious perspective--is to add to this list of requirements in a way that unjustly (from the standpoint of our Constitution) excludes.
It is not, then, a complicated thing to determine what it means to be American. At the same time, it seems to have become very difficult for us to do so, and we have become polarized and contentious in the process. I would like to suggest--continuing with the understanding of our Constitution as our myth of origin--that part of the reason is that we are not very good at practicing our civic religion. Most of us have not reviewed the the basics of our Constitutional form of government since eighth-grade civics class. There is little chance we can be informed and inspired by its values if we do not have a conception of it in our minds. It is ironic but true that recent immigrants usually know more about American civics and history than those of us who were born here.
So many of our culture wars, and the endless arguments they generate, originate from our appeal to things which, though they may be vitally important to many individuals in our society, cannot fairly be considered essential to whether or not one is American. One of the more damaging forms of this, in my opinion, is the claim that adherence to Christianity is essential to American identity. Once that becomes part of our understanding, the question of what it means to be American becomes as complicated and contested as the debate about which religion or denomination is correct. (If you haven't noticed, that's not an argument likely to come to quick and peaceful resolution.)
This view of citizenry still leaves ample room for disagreement about how to interpret the Constitution, and ample room for argument about which values--in addition to the civic values embodied in the Constitution--take precedence in public life. That's why we have democracy, so we can settle questions about how our daily lives together are going to look. That's why we have a legislative branch of government, and why that legislative process is reflected on all levels, from the federal to the local. That's why we have the Supreme Court, and state and local courts beneath that.
Framing ourselves as adherents to America's civic religion, though, and making sure not to confuse that civic religion with religion in general, will allow us to partake in these disagreements productively, and to see our government as more than just a necessary evil. Our participation in it can possess a sacred quality, in that it represents our participation in our sacred founding myth, and our continuity with those who oversaw its coming into being, and with those who have struggled to define its ideals for generations. It allows us to experience our identity as Americans as uplifting and inspiring, without confusing that with the identity that individuals derive from their participation in their religion of choice (even if that religion happens to be no religion or atheism).
I started this post by saying I hope to say something that transcends the current political storm. I hope I have. In any case, I do think we have plenty of soul-searching ahead of us. As for me, the above thoughts show some of the directions that might take.
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