Violence and religion in Paris

The same narratives will repeat themselves as reaction to the deadly attacks on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

• There will be calls for national unity in France and flaming of concern over Muslim immigrants and threats to French values and culture. The latter will be echoed beyond France.
• There will be calls for religious solidarity against violence, and there will also be condemnations of religion, especially Islam, as promoting violence, with mockery of Islam as a religion of peace.
• There will be outrage over and sympathy for victims of terrorism in the heart of Paris, but little talk of violence perpetrated against Muslims or other non-Europeans/North Americans by radical groups. Let alone violence against such populations condoned or carried out by European and North American governments.
• There will be even less informed talk about globalization and the regional economic/political polices that may increase or decrease cultural conflicts. At best just sweeping generalizations about "Islam vs. the West", in which the murderers will stand for "Islam".
• There will absolutely be a flood of images offensive to Islam to demonstrate resistance and defiance of an attempt to curtail freedom of expression.

And in the end, what will have changed?

One Year Anniversary of Major Surgery

One year ago today I was unconscious with my heart and lungs stopped from early morning to sometime in the early to mid-afternoon.


There was a recovery period, not many meds after the first few weeks (and pretty much just extra strength Tylenol for the pain/discomfort), and some rehab. Then it was done. A scar remains and that's all that's left of the event.

No deep affirmation or appreciation or new awareness. No triumph. No new life. Just more of the same life that went on before, despite the popular cultural narratives in North America about going through potentially life threatening or challenging times. 

Be well.

Are you ready for the 2014 World Cup?

[Not me cheering for the start of a match.]

It's almost time for the first match to start!


If you are not a football fan but are considering following coverage of the tournament, this link offers a good guide to some basic terms. It isn't complete (the playing field, for example, is referred to as the pitch) but it's a good starter.

Here are a few more things that it helps to know.

Players are prohibited from intentionally touching the ball with their hands in any way, which is an offense known as a handball. In this game, though, the hand includes the arm, starting where the arm attaches to the shoulder so handling the ball is broadly construed. This rule has two exceptions. The first exception is the goal keeper, who can only pick up the ball inside the penalty box, which is the larger of two painted boxes on each end of the pitch. (The smaller box inside of the penalty box defines goal area.) The other exception is when a ball leaves the pitch on the sideline. In this case the team who isn't responsible for the ball going out of bounds (the one that didn't touch it last) has a player pick it up and throw it back in. With the proper form of course -- failure to do a throw in right will be flagged.

Why the two boxes on each end?

Because some fouls are handled differently depending upon where they occur. If a defender draws a foul in his team's penalty box, the opposing team earns a penalty kick. Some context is needed for this as it is a crucial occurrence in any match.

There are basically two kinds of free kicks awarded for fouls, indirect and direct. You'll know a typical free direct kick because defenders will line up between the ball and the goal (at least 10 meters away from the ball) while covering their crotches with their hands. A direct kick means you can score directly from the kick itself, whereas an indirect kick means the ball must be touched by another player first. But not just any free kick is a penalty kick. A penalty kick is a free direct kick awarded for a foul inside the penalty box that is taken from a designated central spot located between the lines for the penalty box and the goal box. In other words, right in front of the goal. And it's a one-on-one shot against the goalie at that point blank range. Which means that at the professional and international levels of competition, a failure to score on a penalty kick is considered to be either blown attempt for the one taking the shot or an amazing save by the keeper.

The smaller box marks the limits of goal area where a goal kick may be taken. What's a goal kick? If the ball leaves the pitch along the goal line (the one marking the far ends rather than the sides of the pitch) and an attacking player was the last to touch it, the defending team gets a goal kick to reintroduce the ball into play.

I'll finish up with the corner kick. If a defender is the last to touch the ball before it crosses the goal line and go out of bounds, the attacking team gets to place it on the corner of the pitch on the same side where the ball exited. Defenders must stand back 10 yards for the ball as with indirect kicks. Often the player taking the corner will try to "cross it" in front of the goal in the hopes that in all of the pushing and jumping it gets knocked into the net for a score. A different strategy is to kick the ball back away from the goal to another player who can either take a power shot (through the crowd) or try to pass it around to an open player.

As you might imagine, penalty kicks and corner kicks are major events in any match as they are prime scoring opportunities, and both are the responsibility of the defenders to avoid if possible (and for the attackers to try and draw). There are other rules and lots of team formations and strategies involved (see "diving" for example), but this short introduction includes the highlights that will best help you better appreciate the matches.

Go on and enjoy the international competition!

Understanding the concept of social privilege by example

[Pay attention, class.]

Social privilege is a set of unearned advantages and pre-existing priority afforded to one group over another. 


Typically, this kind of privilege is invisible to those who possess it, so that such people often have trouble understanding why those who lack such privilege are asking for equality. Isn't everyone already treated the same? Hence equal rights or treatment is termed by those resisting any acknowledgement of their own privilege as "special rights" and "special treatment".

In some cases there is a lurking sense by those resisting the acknowledgement of social privilege that true equality doesn't exist, so that they must lose out and take their turn being "down" to others if others are to "rise". In other cases the idea that equality is really special treatment is taken to such an extreme that arguments for equality are seen as just a ruse to attack and subjugate those identified as having privilege.

These kinds of resentful and fearful reactions can blend together in some really unhealthy and paranoid ways. Here are some recent examples of threatened-privilege derangement syndrome.

Glenn Beck: Obama Is About To Put Conservatives In Internment Camps

Tony Perkins Says Gay Rights Advocates Want Anti-Christian Holocaust, Will 'Start Rolling Out The Boxcars'

Evangelical Leaders Warn Of 'Secular Totalitarianism' And 'Jail' For U.S. Christians

Peter LaBarbera Fears LGBT History Initiative Will Destroy America

BarbWire Pundit Warns The 'Homosexual Juggernaut' Will Rival Nazi Germany

Yup. 

What do you really know about gender-nonconforming children?

[Symbol for transgender/non-gender conforming identity]

To those questioning their value because of their social status, whether the issue is related to ideas about the right career, amount of money, level of education, skin color, religious (non-)affiliation, sexual orientation, or gender identity, there are many people out there who aren't like those who've judged and dismissed you as not good enough.

To those who base their opinion of a person's worth on how they look, how much money they have in the bank, and whether your holy book says that someone is worthy of respect just as they are, you are missing out on the chance to know some amazing people.

Knowing someone with a gender-nonconforming child and having followed the highlights of the journey from revelation, acceptance, and education to activism, I have become aware that while kids who are nerdy, clumsy, or overweight may develop image issues, acquire social phobias, and suffer the effects of bullying, the frequency and severity of these issues can be much higher for gay and especially transgender children.

An informative piece called "Dispelling Myths, Misconceptions and Lies About Gender-Nonconforming Children" was recently published on The Huffington Post which lists and refutes many of the uninformed and unfair assumptions that I have been hearing about for over a year.

Even if you don't know of someone who is openly gender nonconforming, the odds are someone you know or meet will come out as such in your lifetime. Take a couple of minutes to learn about this topic so that even if you only ever read about legislation and policies regarding trans* children and their families, you will have some idea of what they need and what they go through.

The context of George Will's campus rape column

[Another headache for US conservatives regarding women and rape]

The silver lining in George Will's recent column decrying progressivism on college campuses is that he has accidentally trolled both the misogyny and rape culture and an ugly side of conservatism.

I have no doubt that there will be dozens if not hundreds of blog posts on George Will's  trivialization of efforts to deal with sexual assault at universities in the United States. Sadly, many of them will be in defense of the attitude expressed in the op-ed.

Despite the coverage that the column has received it is first and foremost is not about rape on college campuses. It is about painting an awful caricature of those who are socially and politically progressive.

According to the metaphorical analysis articulated by George Lakoff in his book Moral Politics, wherein Lakoff claims that US citizens subconsciously treat society as a really large family, US conservatism tends to favor a government that behaves like a tough-love disciplinarian  and strict father-figure. Spare not the rod so you don't end up with a helpless wuss who is defenseless against danger and temptation in a dangerous, sinful world. People largely deserve what they get and get what they deserve, and personal moral failures such as dependency and lack of ambition are the primary cause of social ills. Individual strength of will and character is the primary virtue.

The other side of the coin, which Lakoff associates with liberalism in United States, is the nurturing parent. Leading by example rather than demanding obedience is preferred. Tolerance and acceptance are lauded. Hard work is also promoted, but systematic inequality and discrimination means that some people do not in fact get what they deserve or deserve what they get.  In this view societal problems are linked largely with selfishness, and morality is as much of a community virtue as an individual one.

These are generalities about ideologies and not straight-jackets for individuals, but these generalities do seem to describe some fundamental differences in perspective and attitude that show up in national debates. Approaching societal issues from the strict father-figure perspective, the nurturing parent approach appears weak and soft. The liberal view is overly permissive. It does not adequately challenge the citizens to improve, instead coddling them and keeping them from the discomfort of the hard truths of life. Asking about inequality for women and minorities or the poor is whining and trying to correct such inequalities demonstrates an unearned sense of entitlement. Challenging the unearned privilege of those who benefit from their sex, gender, skin tone, religion, and so on isn't a fight for equal rights but a demand for "special rights". The liberal view is associated with a negative spin on Western cultural stereotypes of femininity, hence the term "nanny state" for anything that isn't sufficiently libertarian.

Following this strict father-figure view, all of the rules and regulations liberals want are just ways to prop up inadequate ideas, businesses, and people and to keep the latter dependent so that they in turn will keep voting for liberal candidates. Unless of course it comes to issues such as controlling women's bodies, denying equality to the LGBT community, or protecting the interests of the very wealthy, in which case government isn't interfering with personal liberty but rather acting to promote the proper view of morality. And while on the one hand this nurturing paradigm is naive and squishy when it comes to its ideas and attitudes, its governing wing is portrayed (when convenient) as a strong-armed totalitarian regime. Like the worst misogynist stereotypes of women, the liberal paradigm is either a dithering sappy ditz or a manipulative hard-assed witch.

This is the social and political context in which Will wrote his column and it is important to keep in mind to appreciate his choice of words and his examples. He talks about "the regulatory state" and how those in academia who support it are now being broken in "the government's saddle". People are so coddled by liberalism and its governing elite that it isn't just too easy to label yourself a victim  and get attention for you hurt feelings and a kiss on your imaginary boo-boo, but "they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges". If you have been traumatized in the past by violence, you should understand that your sense of "entitlement" to things like trigger-warnings on material that may cause you to re-live some aspect of your pain is just part of an effort to make everyone on campus "hypersensitive, even delusional".

Isn't that just like a clueless, soft-hearted broad--err, progressive? Hypersenstive and delusional?

This is the heart of the op-ed. It is not about whether some efforts at making college campuses safer are effective or whether other efforts are over-reaching. It isn't even about whether the campus rape epidemic is real or exaggerated. This piece is a screed against progressivism and how it is dangerously ridiculous and ridiculously dangerous to (college) men and common sense, especially in the hotbeds of liberalism known as universities. Or even more succinctly, life at universities is awful and getting worse because the faculty and administration embrace progressivism.  There is also the usual implication frequently made by conservative pundits that progressivism is once again making a mountain out of a mole hill and that liberal politicians and Washington bureaucrats are using that as an excuse for the federal government to intrude further into everything.

The trivialization of campus rape by the specific example and mismatched statistics are there to illustrate the larger point that progressivism is delusional, hypersensitive, and out of control. Will doesn't come out and say that women are lying about being raped. But what other idea are we to draw with his example of a woman who said "No" to sexual contact but who didn't fight off her former partner while screaming and fighting tooth and nail? That it wasn't really rape?  That she must not have been too certain she didn't want sex? Especially given that he prefaced that example by talking about "the supposed campus epidemic of rape" and followed it by

• putting "sexual assault" in scare quotes.
• suggesting that assault claims are being dug up rather than reflecting genuine complaints.
• insinuating that these claims are tenuous because of hormones and a hook-up culture (which fits well with the men can't control themselves when tempted/it's a woman's fault if she tempts a man kind of thinking on sexual assault).
• trying to make it look like the number of rapes isn't really so high after all, despite the numbers put out by the CDC as well as the fact that under-reporting of rape on campus is a known phenomenon.

There is much ado about the idea that George Will suggested that rape victimhood is a status coveted by women on college campus, and that this somehow explains the discrepancy produced in Will's arithmetic purportedly showing lower campus rape figures. But there is much revealed in that column, not only about Will's views and attitudes, but the views and attitudes of a segment of the population of the United States that continues to misunderstand and misrepresent sexual assault. Apparently in this view it is somehow OK to perpetuate such mischaracterizations in order to feed and maintain the negative stereotypes about progressivism, especially progressivism at universities. To diminish the legitimacy of sexual assault claims to make a stale political point.

There was an idea that briefly emerged after the national 2012 elections that Republicans and conservatives really ought not to talk about rape other than to say it is bad. Or as GOP strategist Kevin Madden put it, "If you’re about to talk about rape as anything other than a brutal and horrible crime, stop."

When is that message going to get through?

You understand and live your life as the God (and servant, hero, and villain) of your own personal morality tale

[We live in the world(s) we create]

The human experience of reality is an inter-subjective moral universe.

To really explain it beyond that, I would need to get around to finishing the revisions of a book I started writing in the fall of 2012 and finished an initial draft of in the spring of 2013. But letting go for spans of time does help me to see the bigger picture I was initially grasping at and its implications.

Just to give a little more thought on what I mean, I am stating that our human experience is necessarily limited and subjective, even if we believe and strive for in the ideal of objectivity. Trying to pool our subjective experiences and refine something more objective out of them by mutual confirmation of our experiences is called being inter-subjective. So there's that term layed out.

I've become convinced that the human body, especially the brain, is a part of a larger cycle of information processing that is characteristic of all of life, a process which is cyclical, which has a natural tendency for deviation/error, and a process with mechanisms for either correcting such deviations or incorporating them into the larger pattern of information flow and storage. This information helps regulate organisms and ecosystems, and is involves in all life functions.

In the human mind this information processing gives rise to a narrative defining an individual and their identity, as well as other objects such as other people. These are all set in a framework or landscape with a history and with rules predicting how they will react and interact. This narrative is informed by our personal experiences, both those involving other humans and those which do not. This sense of "how things are" is complimented by the development of a sense of "how things ought to be". The distance between these two is a tension that creates moral unease. Morality is like a magnetic force trying to draw these two sense together.

It may not be apparent at first how fundamentally this influences how you see and experience the world, but try to really pay attention to why you act and feel the way you do in specific circumstances. These things are hard to notice because they are so familiar to us that they become invisible. But try to look for that sense of "But that's just (not) how things are..." and "This is (or isn't) how things ought to be..." The best time to look is when you are particularly pleased or really upset with something. Ask yourself why and search for the is/ought involved.

When you get some experience with this, you will start to see the moral undertones behind more and more actions, initiating and framing what people say and do. But that isn't all!

We are like unto Gods

I've also observed that we are the Gods our universes, our minds the authors of our narratives. We subconsciously try to make everything fit our own mish-mashed, patched together, not quite entirely coherent worldview. Our narrative written and edited and extended by our experiences and the influences of other people. Thus other objects outside of what we consider to be our self, especially other people, must fit into the categories and roles the narrative permits and predicts. If it doesn't some form of conflict or dissonance arises.

Not sure what I mean? I mean that every conversation you have is with yourself. The other person is more or less a prop onto which you project your sense of reality. If the other person has the proper part of their narrative very similar to the same part in yours, you won't notice since you both permit and expect the same kinds of potential responses. But what about when that isn't the case?

Haven't you been so surprised or confused by what you've heard that you could actually feel your brain searching for a way to figure out what the other person just said? Have you had that sense that there must be similar sounding words which would actually fit the conversation, so you must have misheard the other person?

Or perhaps you are familiar with the conversation in which someone takes one little thing you write or say and reads so much into it that isn't there and that you didn't intend that you are shocked by how far off they are and their reaction to your attempt at communication? Don't worry, you've done it too. Quite often.

And then there's the person that literally just carries on the entire conversation in a virtual monologue, in which case your role as a prop to allow them to talk to themselves is obvious. Nor can we leave out your own internal dialogue with yourself, which may or may not be vocalized.

This is all part of the constantly recycled individually mental narratives that are part of larger socially shared cultural narratives. And these in turn are the human elaboration of information processing loops of simpler organisms which also collect and react to information painting a picture of their internal status and the external world.

Conflict and suffering and social media narcissism

I doubt that if you've followed what I'm saying so far that you need me to do much to indicate how this relates to human personal and collective suffering, to internal and external conflict. When narrative elements inside our heads or between what's in my head and your head are incompatible, conflict arises.

Let's take the case of when this happens inside your own mind. In some cases this might lead to rejecting one element or the other (rejecting one belief in favor of another), to finding a way to keep the elements separate and ignore their incompatibility (cognitive dissonance), or creatively combining the two into a new perspective or seeing a third possibility lying beyond them.

The same thing can happen when the conflict is between two or more minds, only then things are more complicated when it comes to resolving or living with the differences. A new seed may form for a collective understanding between one crowd giving them the basis for a new shared narrative, further isolating them from others in their community. They see the world a differently, interpret events differently, and so on. If this trend continues, agreement between the two sides becomes more difficult.

Take the example of some conservatives in the United States who reject climate change, believe that their interpretation of Christianity should be the civil religion of their country, won't accept any gun regulation despite ever more frequent mass shootings, and deny things like evolution and (the human contribution) to worldwide climate change. That ideology is part of a narrative that has been emerging for decades and drawing from different social, religious, and political sources. But it doesn't have iron boundaries. Some people are drawn to it to varying degrees, and hence they cluster around it. Some embrace 75% of the ideology, some 85%, some 100%. And that's if we assume that the exact composition of the ideology is constant and stable.

My own sense is that this particular ideology was much more variable in what it stood for and more diffuse in the internal agreement of its members, and that perceived social pressure from those outside of the ideology is causing a contraction. More and more people near the center are drawing closer together in just what it is they believe, and are less tolerant of those who are on the margins.

This is only one example, and this phenomenon isn't limited to a certain kind of politics, or to politics. Or to really larger groups and widespread social movements. But if you strongly agree or disagree with the ideology I've described, which is associated with the political movement known as The Tea Party, you may have wondered whether people who feel differently that you are living in a different world. Well, they are!

And suffering, yes, well, think about it. All human narratives have that moral element at their core. Whether it is you judging yourself or someone else doing the honors, the narrative tells you "This is who you can be if you want to be a good, well-thought of, decent person." It also gives reasons why people fail. If the narrative emphasizes individual qualities and choice, which happens more often and more strongly in egocentric societies (look it up if you haven't seen that one before and its converse -- sociocentric), then basically you are a bad person because you suck. Either you were born to suck, you chose to suck, or a little of both.

This saves so much time when judging yourself and others. If you are gay, just stop being gay or control you nasty unnatural impulses. If you are unemployed or underemployed, you must lack ambition, education, or intelligence. So take that all of you lazy, ignorant, dumb slackers with college degrees who are working at or just above minimum wage after completing a rigorous course of study lasting four or more years!

As for how my way of seeing human behavior sheds light on social media narcissism, I am guessing you can grasp that.  And how it plugs back into what has been covered so far. The internet is another platform for this larger evolutionary pattern of information processing of which humans are a part. Similar perhaps to the first groups of individual cells that began more integrated and efficient modes of communication leading to the earliest multi-cellular organisms.

OK, well, if you want more then you'll have to hope I actually finish rewriting my manuscript and send it in to a publisher.