Movie-going in 2012

2012 is almost over. Again I find myself thinking ahead to the Oscars. Again I'm considering reviewing a couple dozen films with the hopes of better remembering the ones I've seen and evaluating them in a more critical light. And again, I find that I've missed many interesting films, and chosen to ignore even more.

Please take this opportunity to inform me if I should skip a film on my "to see" list, or see a film on my "to skip" list. I value your opinion!

Movies I've seen	Movies I'd like to see	Movies I'm going to skip
Woman in Black Casa de Mi Padre Jeff, Who Lives at Home Cabin in the Woods Moonrise Kingdom Prometheus Magic Mike Amazing Spider-Man Dark Knight Rises Bourne Legacy Premium Rush Looper Argo Cloud Atlas Skyfall Silver Linings Playbook Licoln Les Misérables The Dictator Hope Springs  Beast of the Southern Wild Monsieur Lazhar Sinister Men in Black 3	Man on a Ledge Zero Dark Thirty The Kid with a Bike The Master The Secret World of Arrietty Django Unchained It's Such a Beautiful Day Marley Deep Blue Sea Holy Motors This Is Not a Film Chronicle Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Life of Pi The Man with the Iron Fists Killing Them Softly Dredd	Devil Inside Ghost rider: Spirit of vengeance The Lorax 21 Jump Street Hunger Games Wrath of the Titans Pirates! Band of misfits Avengers Snow White and the Huntsman Madagascar 3 Rock of Ages Brave Madea's Witness Protection Plan Ted Ice Age: Continental Drift The Watch Diary of a Wimpy Kid Total Recall The Campaign Odd Life of Timothy Green Expendables 2 ParaNorman Anna Karenina Resident Evil: Retribution Frankenweenie Pitch Perfect Taken 2 Here Comes the Boom Paranormal Activity 4 Man with the Iron Fists Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2 Hitchcock The Hobbit

Don't rain on my gay parade: Equality and the future of marriage

First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought. --Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
     President Obama's recent statement - his personal support of same-sex marriage and rejection of civil unions, putting him in stark contrast with Mr Romney - has given everyone a lot to think about. While I am not ignorant of the campaigning dynamic going on in such an unambiguous admission, neither am I interested in it. Rather, I am interested in the question it raises for the future of American society. Should we, like the President, embrace homosexuality as equal under the law in all respects? Or should we, like the soon-to-be Republican candidate, embrace the preservation of traditional, monogamous, heterosexual marriage?
     First, a preliminary philosophical observation. Always and in every society there is an Other (a group generally viewed as outside the accepted circle of good, God-approved individuals) who is denied social equality and legitimacy. We see a long list of Others in our society's history. Women, visible minorities, religious minorities, disabled persons, subcultures, and so on.

     Some societies perpetuate these prejudices and preserve social and legal inequality. This is done by squelching the voice of the Other and preventing it from being heard as a valid point of view. In some societies prejudices increase because of economic rivalry, a historical wrong or sociocultural resentment. However, as a democratic society evolves, these prejudices have generally been eroded by other more enduring values and principles.
     In a democratic society it is inevitable that, once they are considered persons and citizens with the right to vote, the voice of the Other will be heard. That voice will complain of the prejudices endured and their manifestation as gross legal inequalities. It is always in the legal arena that any issue in inequality will first come to a head.
     A democratic society will invariably increase legal equality of non-destructive preferences and behaviors, whatever these may be, and regulate or ban preferences and behaviors that hurt those besides their practitioners. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859. This ranges from sexual self-determination to the use of narcotics to ethnic background to religious belief/practice to protesting to riding a bicycle without using a helmet. Our legal courts are charged with seeing the basic trajectory of our country and, when it is time, creating or altering laws to increase equality and decrease destructive acts.
     Legislation in a democratic society cannot be coterminous with morality. In the United States we expect to enjoy personal freedoms, even if we do not always follow the status quo. We are allowed to live in peace with differing views and practices on many subjects. We understand the difference between morality and law - no wonder that so many moral people break laws on a regular basis without a single pang of guilt.

     You don't see pornography or other sexually explicit entertainment outlawed, do you? People who see homosexuality as immoral almost certainly view these other practices as immoral - and many others, too. However, it doesn't matter how many people believe watching porn is wrong. Laws are not written based on what the majority believe is moral or immoral. Laws have to do, as I said already, with stopping people from hurting others, and granting equality to groups disenfranchised in older generations. It is unethical to write a law stopping someone from doing something just because you think they shouldn't. That's called bigotry.
     Therefore, there is no basis whatsoever to outlaw minority practices unless they are destructive to others. I have the right to believe an act to be immoral but I do not have the right to impose my view on others. I have the right to believe an act to be moral but I do not have the right to require others to do it, or to see things the same way. A democratic society believes in free thought, which stands and falls on free speech, which stands and falls on free action - so long as my free action does not impinge on the rights of someone else.
     Only if gay marriage is destructive to others, therefore, can there be any basis for outlawing it. Otherwise it's simply a clear-cut example of an oppressed minority finally having an opportunity to receive equal treatment under the law - the constitutional right of the GLBT community as much as it is mine or any heterosexual person.
     So, does gay marriage hurt others? I don't think that it has ever hurt me. No gay or lesbian has ever hurt me by simply being the way they are, much less hurting me by committing themselves to each other in monogamous, life-long union. I can't see how that could ever hurt me. Am I missing something here?
Here are some possible arguments of how homosexuality and gay marriage could be destructive to others:

1. God will punish the entire society for its immoral conduct. The biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is the chief example supporting this argument. However, if you read the story carefully, you'll note that Abraham only has to find ten righteous people in the whole city to save it. As long as heterosexual marriage is resolutely preserved, then, I can't see why even the most superstitious person would worry about being turned into a gigantic salt shaker. 
2. Homosexuality will be approved by society so it will harder to convince our children that it is wrong. Exposure to a different idea or way of life is not the same as actual harm. If it was, we could not stop until we had a morally homogeneous society, and this conception runs contrary to every fiber in my democratic body.
3. Gay marriage will lead to gay adoption. Let's assume it does, or will, eventually, given the view of democratic society I outlined above. I've never heard of a study showing that a child raised by a gay couple is more likely to have some serious psychological trauma, or be abused, or anything else. Again, it's pretty clear that the horror of the idea of kids being "raised gay" is a result of moral prejudice. Such prejudice is the right of anyone, but by no means can it determine the direction of new legislation.
4. Gay marriage will lessen the validity of heterosexual marriage and lead to the destruction of the institution of marriage, raise divorce rates, corrupt society because the family unit no longer passes on valuable moral teachings to children, etc. I say, there's some truth in that. But the bigger truth is that Western society lost that battle almost one hundred years ago with the legalization of birth control methods as part of the early feminist movement and the liberation of women to be more than baby factories.

     The fact of the matter is that marriage isn't primarily about babies anymore. Society has changed, for better or for worse, and there's no going back. To try to salvage an obsolete notion of marriage is hopeless. In fifty years no one outside of extremely conservative religious groups will even bother. I can visualize the Catholic church continuing to maintain strict policies against both contraceptives and gay marriage for maybe that long, but not much longer. American society, meanwhile, will continue to develop and update its laws to reflect its nature - assuming the political scene is fixed sometime before the Union of States utterly dissolves. If you want a society that considers marriage to be primarily about progeny, you'll have to go to some other part of the world (not Europe). But I predict as their populations stabilize and the middle class becomes wealthier, as health care quality and availability increases and infant death mortality drops, the urge to define marriage in terms of procreation will weaken and ultimately fade.
     Folks, it's a brave new world out there, and we need to go and be part of it. Instead of pining for a lost era where black was black and white was white, we need to figure out how to make society work as best as it can.

Sex at school

     The other day I told my Creative Writing students, "Your job is to make your topic interesting. The only subject that's interesting by default is sex. No other topic is interesting until you make it interesting."
     The point I was making was valid, but I almost regret putting it that way, because simply mentioning sex in class gets them thinking about sex, rather than about writing. Case in point, right? It's such a powerful part of human existence. Those who treat sex casually are at war with the bulk of human societies and civilizations since the dawn of time.
     (I suppose I just enjoy being unpredictable. How often does a high school teacher mention sex? It's nice to be absolutely sure now and then that your students are actually listening to you.)

     Today I started the most ambitious instructional unit of my career -- sexual ethics. It's coming at the tail-end of a semester of ethics, starting with ethical issues relating specifically to young people, then environment, education, war and politics. It's been a great class. However, our school district has failed our students insofar as it does not require each of them to take a course on sex, sexuality and gender. This is my chance to fix that grievous error.
     Unfortunately I've only left myself two weeks to cover the material, so we'll have to move fairly quickly through some of the most controversial issues that will be raised this year. Homosexuality. Premarital sex. Age of consent. And once again, I think I will be able to hold my students' attention without too much difficulty.
     Of course, the challenge of an ethics course is to let the students arrive at their own conclusions instead of being told what to believe. Not only is it the ethical way to go about instruction -- as opposed to taking advantage of your position of authority and trust to preach your personal viewpoints -- but it will also result in a far more lasting impact on the way the students think.
     This is basically what distinguishes a teacher from a parental figure. Parents are keen to pass on their values and beliefs to their children. I, however, cannot adopt one hundred teenagers for 180 days, and repeat the process from scratch every year. For one, I'd probably kill myself. But the larger issue is the fact that they are not little mes, in any sense. Some might respect me and some might hate me, some will idolize me and others filled with disdain and scorn. Yet their background is not mine, their home life is not mine, their past is not mine, and although I can impact their future, it is not irrevocably tied to my own.

     Sex and sexuality is sort of like religion and tradition. It's hard to break away from your roots. Students learn math, English, history and science at school, but when it comes to sex, they come with a set of presuppositions, sometimes hardened by specific theological premises. In the United States, anyway. In more secular countries  -- Britain comes to mind -- would have many parents who tell their kids, "Think about it, and go with what makes sense." Americans are more dogmatic. And by extension, whereas in Britain a teacher could have a full curriculum about sex, that's not true in Oklahoma. It's safer to skirt the most important questions, lest an instructor call down some serious parental wrath.
     Still, I don't deny that I have an agenda. My devious plan is to get them to reflect on their own assumptions, the traditions they've inherited, the biases the embrace as part of their subconscious endeavor to be accepted by their peers. Strong opinions in controversial matters are part of the adolescent experience and the search for one's personal identity. I get that. But they can't stay teenagers forever.
     When I was a high school student, like them, I had strong opinions about many hot topics. Then I grew up. At university I experienced the process of letting go of my purported wisdom, and much to my dismay, I was wrong on pretty much everything. Is it egotistical to want my students to similarly reject the simplicity of their youth? Do I claim that a phase of intellectual rebellion is necessary to internalize one's values and thus ensure that one is not merely a creature of habit but an empowered individual?
     I suppose so. And frankly, if a teacher can get a kid to rethink what she thinks she knows about sex, then pretty much everything is up for grabs.

Diversity in education

     It is often said that no two people are exactly the same. At the same time, it is also true that most children have a lot in common, whether it be the stages of cognitive development, generational social trends, or cultural thinking patterns. And it is on this very basis that teachers teach diverse classrooms as a single unit. While modifications per student are provided as needed, differentiation takes a back seat to the homogeneous modeling, scaffolding, skill-mastering and assessing that characterizes the bulk of what takes place in the classroom.

However, as the world shrinks and multicultural communities form in urban areas, schools invariably become increasingly diverse. Teachers are continually challenged to teach larger groups of students who give the impression of uniformity – whether due to age, dress code, or trends in language and behaviorisms – while in fact significant differences only multiply. As these differences become more apparent over time, educators determine whether to group students by specific characteristics – academic competence, language fluency, cultural background, special needs – or to let the chips fall where they may.

      The landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS emphasized that the desegregation of public schools would be a great boon to the American education system. The natural interaction between students despite their differences results is academically beneficial, as research and reason both demonstrate.

      Sadly, diversity can also be attempted thoughtlessly and may easily result in depressed education standards and increased conflict between distinct communities. The story of Erin Gruwell and her LA-based "Freedom Writers" is a case in point. Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach implemented a voluntary integration program that only aggravated the high level of tension between the African-American, Asian, White and Latino neighborhoods.

     Social engineering carries inherent risks and must be executed carefully.   Educators must be prudent not to promote students of different backgrounds in a way that reduces individual children to certain characteristics, whether sexual orientation, ethnic heritage, or learning style. Healthy interaction between diverse student groups demands equality, unity, and an environment where intimate peer relationships may be developed safely.

      At Santa Fe South High School in Oklahoma City, for example, a complex urban environment coupled with ethnic prejudices results in a unique situation that requires care and attention. The Latino demographic in Oklahoma City and southwestern United States generally is one that experiences social, and recently legal, prejudice, due to the ongoing complications of illegal immigration and related issues. SFS HS is predominantly Hispanic, with about 10% African-American and 10% White. These minorities, while economically and socially dominant (the former clearly less so) as a national ethnicity, now experience a turning of the tables on campus. Strained relations between these groups create ongoing prejudice on campus, but due to the clear dominance of the Latino community, conflict is minimal. Every school experiences its own issues relating to diversity and no educator has the privilege of ignoring its relevance to the success or failure of public education.

      The classroom teacher must understand and sympathize with these larger population trends if he or she is to create a venue where diversity can be expressed and embraced in the context of a broader and singular vision. And the same rules apply in the case of any significant student groupings. If students of different academic levels, for example, are to work together productively and safely, teachers must address the prejudiced treatment of students, whether by themselves or by other students. Different expectations for stronger or weaker students will not foster resentment or embarrassment if the teacher clearly articulates a common vision of growing in skill and knowledge of the subject matter. If the student's goal is to get a certain grade, and the teacher expects more of one student than another to get the same grade, then equality in assessment is lost, and the students will not trust the teacher, nor will they build healthy, intimate relationships with each other. However, if a growth model is adopted and students are consistently assessed on the basis of individual growth, equality is maintained.

      Indeed, successful diversity in public education is the best way to prepare our children to continue the American democratic tradition, to be responsible global citizens, and to let their world grow beyond the locality in which they were born.

What my dog taught me

      Stretch. Sigh. Pant-pant-pant. Lick the chops. Pant-pant-pant. Perk the ears. Head up. Curious. Push up from the hind legs. Trot toward the noise. The clicking of black toe-nails on wood. Sniff. Muzzle to the floor. Investigate the fallen flower of cold broccoli. Tongue out. Take it into the mouth. Doesn't taste right. Drop it. Pant-pant-pant. Raise head and eyes toward master. Inattentive. Want a head pat. Little tail wag. Master turns, lowers hand. Good boy. Turns back to stove. Trot back to bed. Stretch. Lie down. Sigh. Eyes open, watching, resting. Pant-pant-pant.

     To a dog, everything is now. Animals are a world apart from their owners, though their owners often forget. A dog may be anxious, but it cannot worry. A dog may be afraid or excited, but it cannot be pessimistic or optimistic. A dog may be jealous, but it cannot be bitter.

     To a dog, the past and the future, as we conceive them, do not exist. There is no set of distinct events fading toward the horizon. There is only a general sense of “how things are” and “what will happen if I do this.”

     It is without question that dogs have a sense of immediate past and future, in questions like “this happened because I did this” or “I want this to happen so I will do this.” Training animals that cannot apprehend simple causality, like a jellyfish or a bumblebee, is impossible.

     However, as not only a lover but also an observer of animals, I question anyone who says that dogs can remember distinct events that occurred even hours ago, much less months or years. Not only is such information irrelevant for an uncivilized species, the brain is not developed with those abilities. As researcher William Roberts famously observed, animals are “stuck in time” - they cannot travel backward or forward to other places, events or scenarios, historical or hypothetical. They can't remember when they were puppies or that traumatizing event two months ago, and they plan think ahead for the weekend or even envision themselves taking their afternoon walk. Dogs lack the kind of memory called “episodic.” In other words, even though a dog can learn something, it doesn't remember learning it. Similar psychological phenomena occur among humans in the cases of young children and anterograde amnesiacs.
     Try testing your dog yourself for evidence of episodic memory (thanks, Professor Ira Hyman). Put your dog in the backyard for ten minutes, then go and visit it. If your dog is like mine, it will be immediately overjoyed to see you. Now stay in the backyard for ten minutes. Your dog will quickly become bored with you. Leave the dog in the backyard for another ten minutes, then return. Bless its heart -- it is just as excited as the first time! You could repeat this procedure all day with little to no change in the animal's reaction.

     What about a dog predicting when its master will return home? Doesn't this prove that the dog distinctly remembers past events? Not at all. Dogs remember such repetitive events through something akin to a circadian rhythm or an internal clock. Mine gets antsy in the evening because he knows that we go for a walk every day, and he knows by instinct that it usually happens shortly after he starts whining and pacing in my office. The incessant clickety-click breaks me out of gaming, surfing or (occasionally) working reverie.
     On the other hand it is very difficult to find positive evidence of episodic memory without a strong semantic mode of expression. Hyman explains that this kind of memory is tied to an awareness of the self and argues that even chimps may lack the same cognitive abilities.

     Because of their episodic memory, consistency makes or breaks an animal's happiness. While most will enjoy some variety to their day - an exciting change to the walking circuit or a treat with a new flavor - too much will cause anxiety. Dogs' eyes are hardwired to learn an environment. Think of wolves in the wild. To be successful hunters they need to learn the position of every rock, tree and bush in their territory - and these are props that rarely move. Any aberration is perceived as a red flag, warning bells go off - threat or meal? Human beings, having created their own environments for millenia and abandoning the hunter-gather lifestyle for farming and industry, naturally are no longer this sensitive to visual change in their regular venues. But if you move a couch that hasn't been moved in a while, your dog will notice. Your dog won't even know why - but it will be at least a little anxious about this. The owner may be, too - but at least the owner has the power to move it back. The dog just has to deal with it.

     I've had a dog for nearly three years now. We walk or run together every day, usually late at night, one of the last things I do before I go to sleep. We walk alone. There aren't many people that walk when it's dark, and even when we cross paths with someone, we rarely stop to chat.

     This being the case, I've had hours upon hours to observe my dog's behavior and reflect on his psyche. I have to. I leave him off the leash and often signal him - a finger snap or a single word - to do or not do something. I want to give him as much freedom as I can, because he is first and foremost a living thing, and a pet second. And as one living thing to another, he inspires and challenges me and gives me a window to consider another kind of life.

     For the most part, it's a life that seems inordinately desirable. It is simple, present, and generally without worry. I could do without salutation-by-crotch-sniff and bark-in-the-back-yard-all-day, but the exception proves the rule. Dogs have it pretty good.

     I admire my dog for his boundless joy at the little things. Master coming home after a long day. A belly scratch. A quick game of chase. Scraps falling on the floor while master is cooking. A twisting roll on the grass in the sun. Yet another interesting smell.

     I admire my dog for his devotion and dedication. He is fascinated with me and interested by default in anything I happen to be doing. He is upset when I am upset with him and happy when I am happy with him. His existence only makes sense when he is being my dog.

     Doubtless, it's all too easy to idealize a life unplagued the anxieties that come as the price of a complex grasp of the self and the world. Like Adam and Eve, we have given up the world of instinct for the world of right and wrong, which necessitates experiences of shame, deceit, anger and bitterness, at the same time opening up possibilities of generosity, wisdom, courage and love. In short, the sophistication of our brains contains both the birth and death of civility and civilization - our very humanness.

     I don't wish I wasn't human. But my dog teaches me that when I suffer, it's because I choose to suffer. When I experience conflict, it's because I decided to wrestle with an outside force. My dog teaches me that I have the power to choose my battles. Never fighting at all would, I suggest, reduce my humanness to a mere appearance; and that, I cannot do. But what I can do is apprehend my own complicity in the internal, psychological and spiritual pain I experience every day.

     I believe that through pain comes many good things that would otherwise be inaccessible. Through pain I can forge my way to a new understanding of myself. But, akin to the mandates of just war theory, I must apply the laws of proportionality and comparative justice to each case. It is hardly worth entering a war if I cannot prevent more evil than I cause - if the benefits do not exceed the cost. Strangely, through my dog's inability to choose his battles, he has taught me that I can do what he can't.

Politics away from the dinner-table

      The two topics you're not supposed to discuss at the dinner-table are religion and politics. Well, I've been interested in the former since the middle of tenth grade, and comfortable discussing it after the middle of six years of post-secondary study on the subject, after traversing the spectrum from theological conservative to liberal. And the latter? Well, we'll get to that.

      A bit o' life contributed to what I'd call an inevitable change in my opinions in such matters. First, my distaste for authority. Second, a belief in social and cultural influence. The origins of both lie in my upbringing. My mother was laissez-faire, my step-dad was an unclear parental-guardian figure, and my father strongly encouraged me to think for myself, argue, reason, and who to this day maintains incredible dissonance with pretty much every social, political, military and religious institution on the planet. Contrary to most children, then, the education system never successfully taught me to do what I was told.

      Add to this the reality of my cultural diversity. My grandfather grew up on a Navajo reservation in Arizona, my grandmother moved from Arkansas to Fresno during the Great Depression, and my mother's parents a pair of middle-class Englishwomen and Scotsman who became life-long missionaries to China, Mongolia, and Taiwan.

      It was a foregone conclusion that ultimately I would give up the claim of my youth that the Bible was an absolute authority, that morality was absolute, and to subscribe to the murky waters of ideological relativity. The fact that I'm now analyzing my own ideological development in terms of personal experience only confirms the persistence of this sordid tale. And so it goes to this very day.

       For a long time I was content to restrict my philosophical interest to the spiritual realm. However, since moving to the United States I've had to give up my precious apathy in matters political. Growing up in Canada, receiving a socialist education and enduring a traumatic religious transformation has resulted in my rejecting the moralizing sympathies of the Republican cause. As for their cry for smaller government, I cannot see the point. At this stage in economic history it simply means we trade a federal puppet for fifty state puppets, and all the while corporate powers are holding all the strings. Washington's great fall to the evil of money – currently enshrined in electioneering and lobbying – is troubling indeed, and the terrible polarization of a broken two-party system refutes any hope for deep and lasting policy changes to defeat this corruption. A minority in Oklahoma, I silently count myself a Democrat and try not to engage many of my colleagues in serious political discussion.

      My best friend in high school, Jay, always joked that a benevolent dictatorship was the most reliable and efficient way to run a country, and I sympathize with the thought. Unity without all the red tape and time-consuming procedure. An emperor to run the galaxy a la Palpatine. If Hitler had been for vinyl flooring instead of genocide, would fascism have such a bad name? In every strategy game I play, you don't win through democratic process. You win by being in control and making all the right decisions to grow your civilization economically, militarily, and culturally. And in nearly every one of those games, you are practically forced to adopt a militaristic ethic toward neighboring nations. Otherwise, the game is boring. Maybe real-life dictators experience similar internal naggings for conquest and... peace, of a sort.

      Sometime ago I ran across some youtube videos on anti-statism which, after years of living in Oklahoma, was a breath of fresh air. I'd heard about it in high school but the word "anarchy" was filled with frightening associations and I never seriously considered it as a political option. After listening to several long-winded but well-reasoned arguments and counterarguments, however, it gained my respect. Just like totalitarianism is the final form of political control (Democratic Party), anarchy is the final form of political freedom (Republican Party). And while neither will ever have a prayer of significantly impacting American politics, considering these extremes was helpful in trying to make sense of why the bulk of Americans are able to respond so emotionally and vehemently against one political party or the other. In a two-party system, the easiest way to discredit "the other" is to exaggerate its distinctive features – much like Nazis illustrated Jews with long noses in anti-Semitic propaganda. In reality, President Obama and Governor Romney are chiefly centrist, regardless of public perception, and whether one is in office or the other is in office will make very little difference to my life, socially or economically.

      Nevertheless, exhausted as I was from political nitpickery so popular in my new home, I repeatedly promised myself, my friends and my family that I will leave the United States as soon as possible. It's the simplest way to voice my real and well-earned distaste for American politics. For a country to come so far and yet be disabled by pointless bickering and in-fighting is so maddening, how could anyone look at it straight in the eye without wanting to flee?

      Desperation forced me to consider absurd options, like a benevolent dictator, the end of the state entirely, and... a third party. I've always thought that minority governments are relatively effective. The balance of power dictates that they compromise in order to rule, and this greatly slows the push toward the corruption and abuse of that power. However, in the current political climate the rise of a third party and the transition of American politics toward a Canadian or European likeness seems as absurd as the voluntary self-annihilation of the government, or the ascension of a true totalitarian to the White House.

      Like the unending Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it feels as if there is no end in sight. We were driven here by unyielding historical forces, and those same forces are keeping us from discovering a solution. On the other hand, the best part of history is its unpredictability. Ten years from now I might be lamenting an entirely different set of seemingly insurmountable challenges, having forgotten the progress from yesteryear and taking for granted our new-found freedoms. Pie in the sky? Probably. But in the end it's optimism that keeps away defeatism and keeps me thinking and engaging a system that does change, albeit slowly and spasmodically.

      Here I am, on the cusp of a new chapter in my life, one I've been pining for all year, and it's still hard to believe it's finally on its last approach and descent. Perhaps America, too, is on the verge of something new. After all, aren't we overdue? Like the movie I saw last night – Cabin in the Woods – can we finally step down from our position as ruler of the cosmos, and give someone else a turn? The world badly needs a fresh hand at the wheel.

Put down that E-Reader and pick up a pen!

     Read How to Mark a Book by Mortimer Adler here. Adler was the co-founder of the Great Books foundation and published this magnificent essay in 1940. I discovered it through one of about.com's many treasure troves while searching for teaching resources and I'm confident I'll find many more gems like it soon.
     Adler goes to great lengths to persuade his reader that marking up a book with lines, stars, notes and cross references is not an act of mutilation but of love. Such annotations are the gateway to serious reading, remembering, and creating an intellectual diary of your conversation with a brilliant author that can continue again at the drop of a hat.
     Ten years ago there were two books whose subject matter concerned me enough to write in them: The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell, a conservative Christian apologist's wet dream, and the Bible. In my early college years I scored the woodpulp of many other works of non-fiction. My first two years after high school I spent at an ultra-conservative Bible College, and my thirst for theological knowledge drove me to spend quality time reading deeply, actively, and wrestling with the ideas I was presented.
     Sadly, that time came to an end. I remember walking into the library of Providence College for the first time. Row upon row of books were laid before me, and I walked between the shelves, my eyes dancing from spine to title to author to Dewey Decimal number. I was nauseated and knew immediately that not in my whole life would I have the time, energy and ability to consume the sum of human knowledge. It was simultaneously thrilling and devastating.
     Every semester I was assigned hundreds of pages to read, mostly highly complex research texts using the technical language of linguistics, philosophy and literary criticism, each with its own set of a hundred bibliographic references in the index in the back. I was trained to read quickly and broadly, to get the gist and move on. In fact, I utterly forgot the importance and method of reading deeply.

     After graduating from college I was set free from this endless academic burden and was granted another instead - the eight-hour day, the five-day week, the eternal countdown to vacation, the inauguration into a system designed to wrest your very best energy, digest every muscle and fiber, and spit out the lifeless remains. I still loved to read, but lacked the energy to do so, I believed, being exhausted from my daily marathon that constitutes my current vocation.
     Partially true, I still maintain. However, the greater truth lies in my forgetfulness. I forgot how to read seriously. When I tried to read the great philosophical, historical and intellectual works in my library as if I were reading a New York Times best-seller, and failed, the whole guilt fell upon my job, and none upon my method. Falling asleep, eh? Not able to read more than a few pages, eh? Sheesh. Pick up a pencil, for Christ's sake, and stop whining.
     I'm not saying I'm going to read everything seriously. There's a place in my life for leisure - much more so for the next six weeks! - and there always will be. I don't need to spend five minutes a page in a work of contemporary fiction, or even The Great Gatsby. But I sure as hell will if I want to read some well-written non-fiction or some well-thought-out philosophy. Poetry, even, maybe.
     I can't leave it to professional educators to drive me to read deeply. Frankly, not only can I not afford to be a perpetual student, more than that, I don't need to be. I know how to read. I know what I want to read. I know I want to skip the bullshit bureaucratic formality that we call college education. The books are there. Smart people to talk to? Yes, they exist off-campus.

     Marking up a book is so much better than the mnemonic techniques of the World Memory Championships - which despite reading a new release on the subject, still seems awfully gimmicky to me. (The subtitle should read, "Remembering anything," not "everything.") Paper was a revolutionary invention, not the mind map. I'm not denying the historicity of such methods, but I challenge anyone to demonstrate them to be a primary intellectual habit of any great thinkers and writers. It's a good tool for the tool belt, but it's not the bread and butter of critical thought.
     The scary part of this is how difficult it is to properly annotate a digital text. One of the more popular apocalyptic prophecies in the past decade has been the end of the printed word. I've always been a nay-sayer - and how much more so in light of the most important method of active reading! This is not to say we couldn't have a digital equivalent, but I expect it will be watered down on many levels. So much of the natural memory depends on the spatial physicality of an object (says Boer of Moonwalking, referenced earlier) and here we are, giving all that up without a fight!

     No, no and double no. Raise your Nay to the Nook, Kindle and Kobo. Throw them into the fire! Ok, maybe a bit dramatic. E-read your way to relaxation on a Caribbean cruise or a quick jaunt up to the chalet. But don't stop building your library. For God's sake, don't stop buying the books that could change your life. Believe that as little as a pen in hand could make all the difference in the world.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion—several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. -Mark Twain
The full text free: legal download.
Further thematic reflections on the novel.
Sparknotes summary and analysis.
Caution: spoilers.
     Many students of great literature will come across Tom Hardy's magnum opus of the Victorian woman and have a hard time seeing beyond the protagonist's suffering, and, more troubling still, her apparently stubborn refusal to reject the system that belittles and hurts her, poor and female as she is. However, there is more to Tess than meets the eye. She is not so blind or foolish as it would seem. Moreover, Hardy writes her brutal story not to celebrate her misery but to show its philosophical moorings and effectively to unharness it. This he does with much success.
     First, we note that Tess does not believe that she is treated fairly - rather she is quite aware that her station in life is ugly. Her conversation with her younger brother, Abraham, reveals her awareness of the injustice of social inequality. It could be written off as a Victorian sensitivity toward sin, but the universal tone of the subject at hand (other worlds) suggests otherwise.
     "Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"
     "Yes."
     "All like ours?"
     "I don't know, but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted."
     "Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?"
     "A blighted one." (p.26)

     This being at the beginning of the narrative, I see Tess as being aware of class inequality but entirely ignorant of gender inequality. She maintains a staunchly Victorian attitude toward her sex, namely, that God intends her to be chaste, demure, delicate, subservient to men, and religiously devout. Throughout the entire story she never shirks this God-given identity, and this is her mantle of honor.
     The reader cannot question her integrity - and this is precisely what makes the story so compelling. Unlike The Jungle, which I read in December, the awful and horrific series of events the protagonist endures does not result in moral corruption here. While her naïveté disappears, the strength of her will never falters.
     This vignette concludes a couple pages later, when Tess falls asleep and Prince, the horse pulling her and her brother's wagon, is killed when he runs into a mail-carriage.
     " 'Tis all my doing - all mine!" the girl cried, gazing at the spectacle. "No excuse for me - none. What will mother and Father live one now? Aby, Aby!" She shook the child, who had slept soundly through the whole disaster. "We can't go on with our load - Prince is killed!"
     When Abraham realized all, the furrows of fifty years were extemporized on his young face.
     "Why, I danced and laughed only yesterday!" she went on to herself. "To think that I was such a fool!"
     " 'Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isn't it, Tess?" murmured Abraham through his tears.

     The self-reproach that Tess endures for the consequences of slight errors (due to her naivete - this is her only vice) is harsh, to say the least. And this is entirely consistent with the Victorian model of the ideal woman.
     It's discouraging to read about such a noble and selfless character so little rewarded for her virtues. Tess is certainly a Christ-like figure. Look at her end. She is hung for murdering an evil man, the pretty boy who wooed her and stole her virginity. Hardy makes several religious allusions (e.g. the Two Apostles painting) to tie her death to the crucifixion and suggests her death was inevitable, the expression of the blind justice created by a society that successfully exploits the working class every day.
     "Justice" was done, and the President of the Immortals... had ended his sport with Tess... The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless; the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength, they arose, joined hands again, and went on.
     Morally, Tess is as pure and spotless as Christ himself. However, she is woman - without power and the scourge of her society, guilty of all human sin solely because of her sex - and she is not divine - she has no great omniscience or omnipotence to tide her over until God can justify her. She can work no miracles to prove her virtue, and when walking through the wooded regions of southern England, she believes - falsely - that she is out of sync with God himself:
     A wet day was the expression of irremediable grief at her weakness in the mind of some vague ethical being whom she could not class definitely as the God of her childhood and could not comprehend as any other.
     But this encompassment of her own characterization.... was a sorry and mistaken creation of Tess's fancy - a cloud of moral hobgoblins by which she was terrified without reason. It was they that were out of harmony with the actual world, not she. Walking among the sleeping birds in the hedges, watching the skipping rabbits on a moonlit warren, or standing under a pheasant-laden bough, she looked upon herself as a figure of Guilt intruding into the haunts of Innocence. But all the while, she was making a distinction where there was no difference... She had been made to break an accepted social law, but no law known to the environment in which she fancied herself such an anomaly. (p. 85)

     The same language surfaces when Tess's bastard child dies and she asks the vicar for a Christian burial. Social convention makes such a request impossible. The vicar, sympathetic to Tess's dignity and tenderness, brings about an internal battle "between the man and the ecclesiastic," or rather, between his instinctive human impulse and the mechanical social function called propriety.
     He refuses. Tess begs, reasons, threatens, abases herself, and ultimately the vicar tells her that a Christian burial is "just the same" as being thrown into the earth. Convention be damned! And the narrator vindicates the truth in his word, not his mind:
     In spite of the untoward surroundings... Tess bravely made a little cross of two laths and a piece of string, and having bound it with flowers, she stuck it up at the head of the grave one evening when she could enter the churchyard without being seen, putting at the foot also a bunch of the same flowers in a little jar of water to keep them alive. What matter was it that on the outside of the jar the eye of mere observation noted the words "Keelwell's Marmalade"? The eye of maternal affection did not see them in its vision of higher things.
     Tess's persistent self-doubt continues to plague her. Leaving home in an attempt to make a new life for herself and lift the burden of her presence - the consumption of three squares a day, and the loss of her virginity, the Victorian working woman's only prized possession - she sings some ballads to herself, some psalms, but stops suddenly "and murmured, 'But perhaps I don't quite know the Lord as yet.' " (p. 104)
     It is this self-doubt that cripples her one chance at self-preservation at the key moment when, after telling her husband, Clare, of her past inglories, he utterly rejects her.
     There was, it is true, underneath, a back current of sympathy through which a woman of the world might have conquered him. But Tess did not think of this; she took everything as her deserts and hardly opened her mouth... She might just now have been Apostolic Charity herself returned to a self-seeking modern world. (p. 242-43)
     Clare, too, is no less bound to convention than his wife:
     No prophet had told him, and he was not prophet enough to tell himself, that essentially this young wife of his was as deserving of the praise of King Lemuel as any other woman endowed with the same dislike of evil, her moral value having to be reckoned not by achievement but by tendency. (p. 267)
     In other words, morality is not a question of perfection but of intention. Because Tess is incessantly victimized as a woman, her intentions far exceed her degree of perfection; contrast this with an upper-class male of the same era, who only fails to achieve perfection as a result of his own moral determinations.
     Especially revolting is how Alec d'Urberville (the man who deflowered her, thus ruining her life) repeatedly castigates Tess for his own moral imperfections - a practice that still continues in many socially conservative communities today:
     He stepped up to the pillar. "This was once a Holy Cross. Relics are not in my creed, but I fear you at moments - far more than you need fear me at present; and to lessen my fear, put your hand upon that stone hand and swear that you will never tempt me - by your charms or ways..."
     Tess, half frightened, gave way to his importunity, placed her hand upon the stone, and swore. (p. 315)

     And Tess, named the temptress of the garden and the witch of Babylon, continues steadfastly to defend her husband of his innocence.
     Tess is repeatedly accused by d'Urberville to have rejected or recanted the true faith. Angel Clare, her husband, having studied theology and having readied himself to serve as clergy, ultimately chose a path closer to nature, with less deceit and hypocrisy on the way. While he and Tess were close, he imparted to her his more liberal understanding of matters theological. Later she hears d'Urberville expostulating a fundamentalist vision of salvation - he had turned preacher during their years apart - and she has a brief occasion to pass on what her husband told her, which to her instincts rang true, since (I suggest) it gave priority to morality over dogma.
     D'Urberville ceases to be a preacher as quickly as he became one, telling Tess her words instantly eroded his religious conviction. As soon as he saw her, he says, he instantly realized his conversion had been a lie, because he knew he would trade it all to possess her again. He admits to the thinness of traditional Christianity but cannot see how morality can exist without it:
     [Tess] tried to argue and tell [d'Urberville] that he had mixed in his dull brain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days of mankind had been quite distinct. But owing to Angel Clare's reticence, to her absolute want of training, and to her being a vessel of emotions rather than reasons, she could not get on. (pp.334-35)
     Is Hardy offering a critique of the Victorian philosophy of the sexes, or a statement about the nature of religion generally? I'm inclined to find both in this classic work.
     On the one hand, we see a clear indictment of the nineteenth-century model of womanhood. It takes a woman comfortable in the diverse avenues of social manipulation - thus betraying the very ideal she pretends to achieve - to play the desired role convincingly. For the high-minded, working-class woman, however, such niceties are impossible, for if you truly buy in to the model, you cannot maneuver your way out of the social sins you will surely commit. The ideal is fundamentally flawed in its conception and demands a hypocrisy to operate - and this very inconsistency is what destroys its spirit.
     On the other hand, Tess's religion is true and her intentions pure. Through her character Hardy espouses a religion of morals rather than of propositions. Clare rejects the religion of his father - the very same religion that Alec embraces, but to no avail for his spirit - suggesting that traditional Christianity is vanity, perhaps even destructive (but I am not sure if Hardy takes it this far).
     All three main characters - Tess, Clare and Alec - come into contact with natural religion - primarily moral and wonderfully simple in nature. Tess embraces it from the start, and at most the thicket shrouding the truth in darkness is hacked away. Clare experiences a true battle between the two - his mind embraces natural religion, but when confronted with social law returns to the ungodly propriety taught falsely as religion. In the end he realizes the error of his ways and turns around - too late, alas, to save his wife. The damage had been done and nothing could undo it.
     Last, Alec was Tess's opposite, in that he was fundamentally irreligious or immoral. For a while religion hid his true nature, but never had the power to change it. He pondered both propositional religion and moral religion, could never understand the latter, and in the end rejected the former as being equally incomprehensible.
     Ultimately all three characters are true to their inner identity, and no professing or pondering will change it. What a different story it would have been if Tess had given up her religion (and if anyone had just cause to do so, it was her), or if Alec had converted his heart to the religion of grace, or if Alec had never grasped Tess's true quality and rejected her finally.
     Much like Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamozov, Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles can be read as a guide to the three kinds of people in the world: those who embrace moral (true) religion, those who embrace propositional (false) religion, and those who live in confusion and contradiction by attempting to use the rules of the latter to grasp the former. It is only when you finally let go of your need to understand everything that you can experience true morality.
     Romantic? Absolutely. Simple? In theory, yes. But the book displays age-old wisdom beautifully and that's what's most important.