Sara has been contending that most people in the study probably were thinking about personally helping people and not so much the government connection when asked about social justice. It hit me the other morning that she is probably partially right because there was another question on there about the federal government reducing inequality and no matter what I did, I could not get the same findings out of it. So, not conclusive, but it may be a hint that the social justice in the study may be more on the person-to-person side of the scale. I know that was keeping you up at night. Now you can sleep well.
Either way, I stick by the symbolic connection with the word. That much is clear, but what the symbol is or what pops into peoples' heads is an open question still.
If that is the case, then it is definitely welcome news like some people have commented. It is always a good thing to get people to care more about caring for people.
I forgot to mention in the last post that it is super ironic, I think, that as far as comments on the study go (not counting the plain jane journalistic reports) Glenn Beck was actually one of the more even-handed commentators on it all. Almost made me feel bad for singling him out. It was close.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
Symbolic Justice
(Buckle up - this one will probably take a bit)
This has been a very weird week and I have been fairly (ok, very) unproductive.
I have had this struggle with academic work. I think a lot of academia is very odd because we do all this schooling, we write these massively in depth papers about very small things and topics, very few people actually read them, and then we start the process over again with new academics (like me). So basically we create knowledge that no one really cares about, few read, and then get others to join the party so we still have a job. When it comes to publication of research and what not, the question 'why does this matter' is always asked and sometimes my answer - obviously rarely out loud however - is IT DOESN'T!
Clearly this is a very cynical view of academia. It does have value even if no one cares about the research and all we are left with is educating undergraduates. They learn to think, understand their world more, and hopefully see that the world is deeper, wider, and more complex than their small cornfield-surrounded home town. This is good for them and is good for all of us in terms of both general community as well as civically (yep, one day they may each vote once or twice). But the research. The stuff that is often of most interest to us academics - it is usually what is of least interest to non-academics.
Well, that may not really be the case. Turns out the opposite is even possible. I wrote my MA thesis on something that I thought was cool, but also thought was deeply specific and although slightly counter intuitive had a general interest only to the degree that knowing what we read matters is of interest.
In the beginning of July a journalist wrote an article about my paper that was on the ARDA website. The same article was then posted in a couple of other places. I didn't even know it was up yet and the managing editor from Christianity Today began to email with me about it, and they asked me to write up a fairly lengthy article about it for an upcoming issue. Then this week the same ARDA article was publish by The Huffington Post. Which was crazy - both that they picked it up and the response from it. Maybe the next day, The Blaze, some kind of Christian news outlet I think, published an article based on the HuffPost article. Then the other day, after HuffPost and The Blaze, Glenn Beck apparently talked about it on his radio show and put an article on his web page. Dagen, a Swedish newsweekly or something like that, has an article coming out about it soon. Yesterday a Dallas radio station did a live phone interview with me about it. It was also on Beliefnet twice (here and here), and a blog that seems to get some attention, The Friendly Atheist.
It has all been very weird to me. It is good to see that people actually are interested in the/some of the work that we do - maybe it is just a matter of wording and story telling. One of the most odd things about it all, I think, has been the comments, responses, and emails that I have received from people. I have been labeled both a 'whitey' leftist political preacher, as Sara pointed out, as well as a Bible thumping conservative Baylor religion-defender. Some Christians adamantly reject that 'social justice' is 'Christian,' a lot of non-Christians are offended that Christians think they have a right to 'social justice,' and some Christians are reassured by the fact that when you read the Bible more the odds of supporting social justice increase. This is all very interesting to me. What is it about the term, the concept, or whatever it is that is apparently so strong and somewhat divisive?
I think that each response has its own interesting story, but a few initial thoughts: it is interesting that Christians are so strongly opposed, it is sad that there is something about the Christian community that makes the non-Christians think we have no right to 'social justice,' and although I am glad that some Christians are reassured by the findings the question should be raised about what it is they are reassured about? We are all about having groups to which we belong and knowing who does not. The reaction seems to show this clearly, with people seemingly saying either 'we are losing!,' 'You are not one of us!,'or 'we are winning!.'
More interesting to me, however, is the apparent symbolic importance of this amorphous 'social justice.' It is not, and cannot be, defined concretely in the study. The question asks whether people need to be actively engaged with social and economic justice in order to be a good person, and so it seems that many of them may have been thinking about personally doing things - the person to person kind of social justice. But I think I may contented that many of them may have been thinking of what has become the popular conception of social justice - government to person, and this, I think, is the main reason why at least some of the Christians oppose the findings.
For some of them they see social justice as the government forcibly stepping in and removing their possessions to give them away to someone who has less. The 'needy' person may indeed have less, but they may just be lazy and there is no reason why my hard-earned 'stuff' should go to them just because, they think. Additionally, it would seem that this has political connotations because clearly socialism, communism, and Marxism all support this approach to the world and none of the attempts have ended very well and most all that we know of have also been very opposed to religion. The worry may be that people are human and humans are broken and selfish, so it may only be a matter of time before that forcibly removed money starts to be squandered, wasted, and possibly not even find its target anyways.
As far as the charge of the term 'social justice,' I think some parallels can be drawn to what Owen Chadwick talked about regarding the shifting European mind of the 19th century (I know it sounds terribly boring, but it actually is really awesome). In many ways Europe was divided and it was one of the first times where regular people were able to be more involved with politics and ideas were flying around faster than before thanks to the new(ish) invention of newspaper. People wanted to take sides on topics, but they didn't want ideas and beliefs, they wanted platforms and sides to join. This is what the press provided; stronger opinions through more charged symbols attached to some platform. So some idea would be attached to one platform, say communism, and each side then merely reacts to the presence or absence of that symbol.
Back to today. We are clearly a politically divided country, and people want/need platforms to be a 'part of.' I think that social justice has, through its discussion in the media and press, generally become symbolically associated with socialism and communism. For good reason people think, thanks to the efforts of Marx and friends, the ideas of socialism couple tightly with atheism. So because communism and socialism were anti-God and had some failed field-trials, it is a very strong political symbol for all that is bad. Thus we get to the point now where social justice is in some ways generally linked to socialism symbolically and prompts a very strong reaction from all sides. Some Christians oppose because they see it as the great 'other.' Maybe some Christians support it because they have either been insulated from the symbolic coupling or have thought beyond mere symbolism. Or maybe they are on board with that political platform and so the news is reassuring that they are on the 'correct' side. Many non-Christians are opposed to the coupling because they do welcome the political platform but do not see Christians as a part of their club. Somehow those crafty Christians created fake ID cards. Or, and here is possibly the saddest option, they are opposed to the findings because social justice tries to help people and they think Christians are a failure at that and so they are offended by some research that shows Christians support it. Clearly only in thought and not deed, they may be thinking.
Anyway you slice it, this whole week and the response to all of this has been very interesting. It has prompted me to possibly look more into this stuff as a research topic. We'll see. Any thoughts are welcome, and you get a cookie for making it this far. Like a mini-pizza size one, of your choice of course. It is waiting for you in your kitchen right now. If not, it must have gotten lost in the mail. Talk to your local post office to rectify this wrong.
This has been a very weird week and I have been fairly (ok, very) unproductive.
I have had this struggle with academic work. I think a lot of academia is very odd because we do all this schooling, we write these massively in depth papers about very small things and topics, very few people actually read them, and then we start the process over again with new academics (like me). So basically we create knowledge that no one really cares about, few read, and then get others to join the party so we still have a job. When it comes to publication of research and what not, the question 'why does this matter' is always asked and sometimes my answer - obviously rarely out loud however - is IT DOESN'T!
Clearly this is a very cynical view of academia. It does have value even if no one cares about the research and all we are left with is educating undergraduates. They learn to think, understand their world more, and hopefully see that the world is deeper, wider, and more complex than their small cornfield-surrounded home town. This is good for them and is good for all of us in terms of both general community as well as civically (yep, one day they may each vote once or twice). But the research. The stuff that is often of most interest to us academics - it is usually what is of least interest to non-academics.
Well, that may not really be the case. Turns out the opposite is even possible. I wrote my MA thesis on something that I thought was cool, but also thought was deeply specific and although slightly counter intuitive had a general interest only to the degree that knowing what we read matters is of interest.
In the beginning of July a journalist wrote an article about my paper that was on the ARDA website. The same article was then posted in a couple of other places. I didn't even know it was up yet and the managing editor from Christianity Today began to email with me about it, and they asked me to write up a fairly lengthy article about it for an upcoming issue. Then this week the same ARDA article was publish by The Huffington Post. Which was crazy - both that they picked it up and the response from it. Maybe the next day, The Blaze, some kind of Christian news outlet I think, published an article based on the HuffPost article. Then the other day, after HuffPost and The Blaze, Glenn Beck apparently talked about it on his radio show and put an article on his web page. Dagen, a Swedish newsweekly or something like that, has an article coming out about it soon. Yesterday a Dallas radio station did a live phone interview with me about it. It was also on Beliefnet twice (here and here), and a blog that seems to get some attention, The Friendly Atheist.
It has all been very weird to me. It is good to see that people actually are interested in the/some of the work that we do - maybe it is just a matter of wording and story telling. One of the most odd things about it all, I think, has been the comments, responses, and emails that I have received from people. I have been labeled both a 'whitey' leftist political preacher, as Sara pointed out, as well as a Bible thumping conservative Baylor religion-defender. Some Christians adamantly reject that 'social justice' is 'Christian,' a lot of non-Christians are offended that Christians think they have a right to 'social justice,' and some Christians are reassured by the fact that when you read the Bible more the odds of supporting social justice increase. This is all very interesting to me. What is it about the term, the concept, or whatever it is that is apparently so strong and somewhat divisive?
I think that each response has its own interesting story, but a few initial thoughts: it is interesting that Christians are so strongly opposed, it is sad that there is something about the Christian community that makes the non-Christians think we have no right to 'social justice,' and although I am glad that some Christians are reassured by the findings the question should be raised about what it is they are reassured about? We are all about having groups to which we belong and knowing who does not. The reaction seems to show this clearly, with people seemingly saying either 'we are losing!,' 'You are not one of us!,'or 'we are winning!.'
More interesting to me, however, is the apparent symbolic importance of this amorphous 'social justice.' It is not, and cannot be, defined concretely in the study. The question asks whether people need to be actively engaged with social and economic justice in order to be a good person, and so it seems that many of them may have been thinking about personally doing things - the person to person kind of social justice. But I think I may contented that many of them may have been thinking of what has become the popular conception of social justice - government to person, and this, I think, is the main reason why at least some of the Christians oppose the findings.
For some of them they see social justice as the government forcibly stepping in and removing their possessions to give them away to someone who has less. The 'needy' person may indeed have less, but they may just be lazy and there is no reason why my hard-earned 'stuff' should go to them just because, they think. Additionally, it would seem that this has political connotations because clearly socialism, communism, and Marxism all support this approach to the world and none of the attempts have ended very well and most all that we know of have also been very opposed to religion. The worry may be that people are human and humans are broken and selfish, so it may only be a matter of time before that forcibly removed money starts to be squandered, wasted, and possibly not even find its target anyways.
As far as the charge of the term 'social justice,' I think some parallels can be drawn to what Owen Chadwick talked about regarding the shifting European mind of the 19th century (I know it sounds terribly boring, but it actually is really awesome). In many ways Europe was divided and it was one of the first times where regular people were able to be more involved with politics and ideas were flying around faster than before thanks to the new(ish) invention of newspaper. People wanted to take sides on topics, but they didn't want ideas and beliefs, they wanted platforms and sides to join. This is what the press provided; stronger opinions through more charged symbols attached to some platform. So some idea would be attached to one platform, say communism, and each side then merely reacts to the presence or absence of that symbol.
Back to today. We are clearly a politically divided country, and people want/need platforms to be a 'part of.' I think that social justice has, through its discussion in the media and press, generally become symbolically associated with socialism and communism. For good reason people think, thanks to the efforts of Marx and friends, the ideas of socialism couple tightly with atheism. So because communism and socialism were anti-God and had some failed field-trials, it is a very strong political symbol for all that is bad. Thus we get to the point now where social justice is in some ways generally linked to socialism symbolically and prompts a very strong reaction from all sides. Some Christians oppose because they see it as the great 'other.' Maybe some Christians support it because they have either been insulated from the symbolic coupling or have thought beyond mere symbolism. Or maybe they are on board with that political platform and so the news is reassuring that they are on the 'correct' side. Many non-Christians are opposed to the coupling because they do welcome the political platform but do not see Christians as a part of their club. Somehow those crafty Christians created fake ID cards. Or, and here is possibly the saddest option, they are opposed to the findings because social justice tries to help people and they think Christians are a failure at that and so they are offended by some research that shows Christians support it. Clearly only in thought and not deed, they may be thinking.
Anyway you slice it, this whole week and the response to all of this has been very interesting. It has prompted me to possibly look more into this stuff as a research topic. We'll see. Any thoughts are welcome, and you get a cookie for making it this far. Like a mini-pizza size one, of your choice of course. It is waiting for you in your kitchen right now. If not, it must have gotten lost in the mail. Talk to your local post office to rectify this wrong.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
"Whitey"
So apparently I am married to a leftist political philosophist Preacher?!?! While on vacation in Durango with Aaron's family a few weeks ago, Aaron got an email form a blogger who writes about religion and then had a phone interview with the guy. This guy (David Briggs) then wrote a blog about Aaron's Master's thesis and its findings. He has been getting a few random emails from various people around the country who have read the blog post and had some questions, but now things have exploded after the article was published on the Huffington Post today.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/frequent-bible-reading-ti_b_897017.html. There are currently 454 comments. One that one of Aaron's colleagues found is below and is quite entertaining.
"Who is Aaron Franzen? Christ teaches us in the Bible to “love God with all our hearts, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength and to love our neighbor as our self”. He doesn’t teach that we are to follow a leftist political philosophy of getting even with “whitey” for slavery. What Franzen preaches is leftist politics not Holy Scripture."
The comments are interesting and many disheartening. Some encouraging, some downright angering or mean, and some entertaining. Mentioned in the comment above - I'm pretty sure that Aaron is not 'preaching' anything, but simply stating what he found when comparing different issues with level of Bible reading. Many don't seem to understand the findings in a correlational study. I was talking to one of my friends a week ago about Aaron's paper - she said she thought the findings were refreshing, that you would hope people that read the Bible more would be more into social justice and being more open to science and religion being compatible and such. I totally agree with her and think it is sad to see so many close-minded comments - both from Christians and obviously non-Christians.
Regardless, I am very proud of him and think it is fascinating how much interest the article has provoked! Check out the article link!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Read it like this
I have been working on this paper that looks at how a person's context impacts how they understand information. Specifically I am looking at whether people in different groups actually read/understand different content when they read the Bible. This could mean both that they learn to focus on some verses or sections more than others but also that they can read the same exact passage and think it says or means different things.
The Black Church in America has had an interesting religious development that is different from other churches, and this in turn should impact their beliefs. They are known to be highly morally conservative but politically liberal, especially since the Civil Rights movement. This means that they religiously tend to put a different emphasis on stories like the exodus and political topics like social justice.
Turns out that they do read the Bible 'differently' than others. Below is a chart that shows how one's views change as white people or black people read the Bible more frequently on the topic of how the government should change living standards. The question is worded something like, "there is a history of discrimination against Black people, and some people think the government ought to take action to improve their standard of living." Pretty interesting if you think about it. This theoretically is not only limited to this specific topic, but how we all always read the Bible (or anything else for that matter...).
Note: You may need to click on this thing if it is too small....
The Black Church in America has had an interesting religious development that is different from other churches, and this in turn should impact their beliefs. They are known to be highly morally conservative but politically liberal, especially since the Civil Rights movement. This means that they religiously tend to put a different emphasis on stories like the exodus and political topics like social justice.
Turns out that they do read the Bible 'differently' than others. Below is a chart that shows how one's views change as white people or black people read the Bible more frequently on the topic of how the government should change living standards. The question is worded something like, "there is a history of discrimination against Black people, and some people think the government ought to take action to improve their standard of living." Pretty interesting if you think about it. This theoretically is not only limited to this specific topic, but how we all always read the Bible (or anything else for that matter...).
Note: You may need to click on this thing if it is too small....
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Shrink to fit!
So a friend was educating me on jeans recently, and was telling me about raw denim. Apparently there is denim out there that has not been pre-shrunk or anything like that - a whole new world to a non-fashion person like myself. Most who wear them try to go as long as they can, usually aiming for like 6 months (!?), without washing their pants. The result is a very well fitting pair of distressed jeans that reflect the person who wears them in their appearance. Now, this appeals to me because I absolutely hate buying jeans that look like they are already worn or approaching worn-out. But not the not washing part. To keep them from smelling there are various strategies such as putting them in the freezer! Kinda crazy...
At the end of the day, I was interested because I like the idea of a pair of jeans being able to reflect me and what I do on a regular basis. The nice fit also appeals to me. I ended up buying a pair of Levis 501 shrink to fit jeans. These are fairly affordable, not pre-shrunk or distressed or anything and are meant to shrink and fit you specifically.
Here are mine pre-shrink phase:
They are supposed to shrink about an inch in the waist and about 2 - 3 inches in length. Here is the fun part: you sit in a bathtub of hot water for about 30 mins - with them ON. Tip: if you try it, keep water to drink close by as you will sweat like crazy. Then you let them dry - with them still ON. To speed things up I went for a ride on the motorcycle with them wet and they dried in literally 20 or 30 mins.
Here they are after shrink:
You can tell by the floor just how much they shrank, kind of crazy. But now they fit fairly well. They are really stiff still so once that stops they will probably fit better. I have worn them for a little over a week now without washing them and they actually really don't smell - yet. I suppose I will try and go as long as I can to try and get them to break in well and look cool. Or something. Still seems weird. I'll keep you posted.
At the end of the day, I was interested because I like the idea of a pair of jeans being able to reflect me and what I do on a regular basis. The nice fit also appeals to me. I ended up buying a pair of Levis 501 shrink to fit jeans. These are fairly affordable, not pre-shrunk or distressed or anything and are meant to shrink and fit you specifically.
Here are mine pre-shrink phase:
They are supposed to shrink about an inch in the waist and about 2 - 3 inches in length. Here is the fun part: you sit in a bathtub of hot water for about 30 mins - with them ON. Tip: if you try it, keep water to drink close by as you will sweat like crazy. Then you let them dry - with them still ON. To speed things up I went for a ride on the motorcycle with them wet and they dried in literally 20 or 30 mins.
Here they are after shrink:
You can tell by the floor just how much they shrank, kind of crazy. But now they fit fairly well. They are really stiff still so once that stops they will probably fit better. I have worn them for a little over a week now without washing them and they actually really don't smell - yet. I suppose I will try and go as long as I can to try and get them to break in well and look cool. Or something. Still seems weird. I'll keep you posted.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Polyphonic fun
Last night we went downtown for something to do and to see this band, The Polyphonic Spree. I had never heard of them before, but it was an interesting show for sure. They have flutes, violins, and french horns in the band in addition to other things. They get super into it and like to play loud. They had this video projection going on, too. To top it off, they all wear these white gowns that make you feel like you are being recruited by a mid-west version of Hare Krishna. Generally, it was like they were a band at band camp on LSD or something and were doing all they could to give the rest of us a contact high through audio-visual means. Below is some love just for you. First is a song that is actually not too bad. Then comes the video. Seems about right.
update: looks like you have to actually go to the blog to listen to the song.
update: looks like you have to actually go to the blog to listen to the song.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
another year
It is funny how a little bit of no blogging seems to make any blogging a bit harder. Just sayin'.
This past Friday was the celebration of another year of residency for Sara and friends. They have this big dinner at the botanical garden here at the end of each year and give away some awards, watch a video that they make, and then dance for a bit before some have to go back to work at midnight (but they get a good half a day off!). It is super crazy to think that two years have gone by. Sara only has one more year and I, well, I have a few more - but still!
Most of the awards that they give out are chosen by peer vote, which makes it more special because it is the people that you work with all the time that choose who they think is consistently at the top of their game. Because Sara is a bad ass, she won the award for the second year residents. Technically it was shared with another guy as there was no statistically significant difference between their votes, so says the head dude. Anyway, it was pretty cool and she even got a nice little plaque for it.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
cut out of the loop
I was just reading that if you click on the first link not in parenthesis in a Wikipedia article, and continue doing that, at some point any and all articles will lead to 'philosophy.' This sounded like fun and a good way to not do work so I tried it. It may work, but I think I happened to hit on the only trail that does not. I wasted enough time doing it, and wasted enough time telling you about it that I didn't try a second time. Something interesting (maybe??) did happen - I got caught in a reoccurring loop. This was after a click trail randomly lead me to 'research.' I wonder if that means all of these things are, in some interesting way, basically linked to one another. Anyways, here were the topics:
Research > knowledge > fact > information > sequence > mathematics > study > Research
I figured instead of wasting more time thinking about how/why these topics are related in a closed loop I would waste your time by sharing and I could be done with it. :)
Research > knowledge > fact > information > sequence > mathematics > study > Research
I figured instead of wasting more time thinking about how/why these topics are related in a closed loop I would waste your time by sharing and I could be done with it. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)