It sometimes seems that my dislike of Fox News has prompted me to see flaws in it that don't exist. Whenever I watch it , I usually can pick out some underlying message that supports some conservative agenda. I wonder if this is actually the case or if I am just imagining things. Last night, for example, Fox ran a groundbreaking story on the subject "college is expensive." Now, I do forgive Fox for being unoriginal, because I'm sure just about every news network has run something similar, especially in the slow months of summer. But in the story, I thought I saw the faintest whisper of something I despise.
Let me set the scene:
Fox is following a family whose daughter has been accepted to several mid level schools like the University of Massachusetts and SUNY Binghampton (sp?). The daughter was a straight A student who was involved in several clubs at her high school. The parents though were afraid of how much it would cost to send their daughter to college, despite the fact that they had a combined income of $132,000 a year. The Father even suggested her going to community college at one point, but the Mother objected saying that her daughter would never go to a community college when she got straight A's. A Fox voiceover then chimes in "but many experts say (the Mother's name) is wrong about community college."
In my mind there are so many problems with this:
Problem #1: Really this family is being a little pathetic...they make a combined income of $132K a year, their daughter went to PUBLIC schools, and now they are bitching about a University that will cost them a relatively inexpensive $17K a year (SUNY Binghamton). Somewhere their priorities aren't straight. Even if the parents wanted to pay the bill on thier own, up front, they would still have over 50,000 in after tax disposable income (probably more since they get tax breaks for mortgage and having a dependent and everything else), AND they wouldnt' have to support their daughter at home. But, there are even easier financing options with loans (student and otherwise) where they would easily be able to cover this sum. There are millions of people who have to get by on much tighter budgets. Suck it up and don't buy the flat screen TV until 2010.
Problem #2: This kind of goes along with #1, but how is the problem with the system with the people who can't pay all of their tuition bills in four years? This story pushes this myth that the problem of higher education is one of woe-begotten upper middle class people who might have to take out a home equity loan to invest in their children's education. This is not that big of a deal, and they can even have their child go into a little debt if needed. The real problem with our higher education system is with people who can't get access to the credit or the money to go to college, not the people for whom it's a sacrifice.
Problem #3: Fox also seems to push the mistaken notion that community college and universities are basically the same thing, except one has less liberal indoctrination. This is just false. The benefit of a good University is that your mind can expand in ways in never could if you stayed near your hometown and went to school with local kids.
This is my biggest problem with the report, and I think Fox presented it in this way because they don't believe the university experience is a valuable one. To SOME parts of the conservative movement, a university is a dangerous place because a good one will teach the young mind that the world is a complicated place filled with people, and not stereotypes. A large part of the sucess of the conservative political movement in recent years has been the creation of stereotypes, and the simplification of the world. It makes sense to not want the government to help the poor when they are a lazy, stupid mass of people. It seems obvious that you should act with the utmost ferocity and unrestrained violence against those in the Middle East who hate you if you don't think of them as people, but rather as mindless zombies obeying their corrupt leaders.
But when you see both Muslims who hate America and the poor not as stereotypes, but as people who are in a certain position and who believe a certain thing for a reason, misguided or not, you realize that the world is a more complicated place which may require more complicated solutions than the anti-intellectual brand of conservatism would support. A good university will give you that experience by exposing you to people in situations in which you would never find yourself, and by exposing you to professors who are professionally obligated to speak responsibly about people as people and not as caricatures.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Saturday, August 12, 2006
A New Beginning
Hey all,
I've decided to restart the blog, as forshadowed by the recent post and the return of my blog to the links on my profile. I'm restarting World of Dennis because I once again feel the need to talk about my life. For a while I felt as if I didn't really have anything new to add to the body of thoughts already posted, but now I once again feel as if I do. This was spurred on both by my attempt at starting a blog with Jonathan, and my graduation from college and subsequent move to Washington, DC.
The attempt to start a blog with Jonathan got me thinking about what to put into a post, and I felt like talking about my own life again. I discovered that I missed being able to pour my thoughts and feelings in here, and also having back and forth with people about such things. It's not like I don't have conversations with people about what I'm thinking or feeling at a particular time, but in many instances the constraints of time and awkwardness make it difficult for everyone to know the myriad of things going through my mind any particular week. With a blog it's pretty simple; people can go here whenever they have time and get the cliffnotes version of the inner workings of Dennis. If they have something to add, they can bring it up to me without much awkwardness, because they know the topic is up for discussion.
I also feel that I have more interesting things to say because my life is in transition, much like it was when I started the blog. I've recently packed up my life and moved to Washington DC to work for at least a while. The way I adapt and experience the new city and the new life seems to be at least as interesting a topic as my middle two years of college were. In those years, I was growing and changing into the person I am today. In these years, I may or may not change but I certainly hope that I will grow and have a lot of interesting experiences.
When I ended this blog last summer, it was for a pretty good reason: I had nothing left to add. Looking back on it, it was because I was waiting for an end rather than delving into an experience. During my senior year, I was really between lives. The one I had been living and writing about was in sunset. There was little time to start new things or embark upon new journeys, I thought. So I lived hedonistically. I lived my life as it was, gobbled up all the available pleasures, and made little effort to change things except to prepare for what was beyond graduation.
This is a poor way to live your life. Even if you don't have a blog, it is probably good that you always have something in your life that you could write about. Growth, change, and your experience doing both, is not only interesting to write about, but also good for your soul. When you stop your self examination and self improvement everything stagnates and you lose your ambitions and your dreams, which are the worst things to lose.
So, here's to a new blog and I hope to start posting pretty often, and I hope you guys start leaving me interesting comments.
I've decided to restart the blog, as forshadowed by the recent post and the return of my blog to the links on my profile. I'm restarting World of Dennis because I once again feel the need to talk about my life. For a while I felt as if I didn't really have anything new to add to the body of thoughts already posted, but now I once again feel as if I do. This was spurred on both by my attempt at starting a blog with Jonathan, and my graduation from college and subsequent move to Washington, DC.
The attempt to start a blog with Jonathan got me thinking about what to put into a post, and I felt like talking about my own life again. I discovered that I missed being able to pour my thoughts and feelings in here, and also having back and forth with people about such things. It's not like I don't have conversations with people about what I'm thinking or feeling at a particular time, but in many instances the constraints of time and awkwardness make it difficult for everyone to know the myriad of things going through my mind any particular week. With a blog it's pretty simple; people can go here whenever they have time and get the cliffnotes version of the inner workings of Dennis. If they have something to add, they can bring it up to me without much awkwardness, because they know the topic is up for discussion.
I also feel that I have more interesting things to say because my life is in transition, much like it was when I started the blog. I've recently packed up my life and moved to Washington DC to work for at least a while. The way I adapt and experience the new city and the new life seems to be at least as interesting a topic as my middle two years of college were. In those years, I was growing and changing into the person I am today. In these years, I may or may not change but I certainly hope that I will grow and have a lot of interesting experiences.
When I ended this blog last summer, it was for a pretty good reason: I had nothing left to add. Looking back on it, it was because I was waiting for an end rather than delving into an experience. During my senior year, I was really between lives. The one I had been living and writing about was in sunset. There was little time to start new things or embark upon new journeys, I thought. So I lived hedonistically. I lived my life as it was, gobbled up all the available pleasures, and made little effort to change things except to prepare for what was beyond graduation.
This is a poor way to live your life. Even if you don't have a blog, it is probably good that you always have something in your life that you could write about. Growth, change, and your experience doing both, is not only interesting to write about, but also good for your soul. When you stop your self examination and self improvement everything stagnates and you lose your ambitions and your dreams, which are the worst things to lose.
So, here's to a new blog and I hope to start posting pretty often, and I hope you guys start leaving me interesting comments.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
The Problem of Evil Revisited
The problem of evil is an age old paradox which has haunted human beings who believe in an all knowing, all loving, and all powerful God for centuries. For even the most faithful of us it can be a source of doubt and despair, and can make us wonder if our fears that a.) we are all alone in the universe or b.) God might be a bastard are true. The paradox, in question form, goes something like this: “If God is all knowing, all powerful, and all loving, why does He/She/It let bad things happen to me/my family/good people/people in general?”
From the “I know God exists” crowd we usually get a few basic responses to this question:
1.) “Shut up!”
2.) “Do not try to understand God, for it would be like an ant attempting to understand…blah blah blah”
3.) “God uses evil and bad things as a test.”
4.) “Humanity’s sinning is the source of all evil, even hurricanes…don’t ask me how.”
Now these responses usually satisfy the odd annoying kid in Sunday school and those who already have faith that an all knowing/loving/powerful God exists. The rest of us, however, are left twisting in the wind on this question as those responses either only work if you assume God exists in the first place (2), assume a God that is not actually all powerful (4), or assume a God that is not all loving of all humans (3). Don’t get too depressed though, as I think I may have an alternate way of thinking about the problem of evil.
To begin, I’ll ask you to engage in a thought experiment. Imagine, for a moment, if every second of your day was filled with an orgasm. This, you would imagine, would be much better than your current life, where orgasms occupy a very small amount of your time. However, if you knew nothing but a life with orgasms, wouldn’t that just mean that having an orgasm would be roughly equivalent to how you feel without pain in your present state? I’d imagine that after a few generations of people lived in the orgasmic every day, those people would think their lives no more charmed than you or I do. This means of course, that we’re a very hard species to please. Any universe created by God for human beings would inevitably involve us thinking that evil existed in it. Sure the hurricanes and natural disasters that we see might be pretty terrible, but could you honestly say that you would feel worse in your current state after having your house be blown away than being deprived of orgasms for a year in the orgasm world?
One way we could avoid evil in our world is if there was no good, that is, if there was no variation in our lives from moment to moment or from day to day. That seems inherently undesirable, and worse than the world we have now, even if the net utility of the world or of our lives is negative.The only other way I think to avoid evil though, is if human beings were somehow detached from viewing the world in terms of more=better. That is, if human beings somehow didn’t derive their happiness from the material happenings of the world they could gain a different perspective and not be trapped into being despaired by the bad deviations from the mean.
You might ask, well why doesn’t God just make us understand that? Well we could be made into more enlightened beings I guess, but, then again, I think we’d be deprived of the benefits of being human. Some of the more rewarding parts of my life have been when I feel I’ve grown as a person, or did something great through hard work. Somehow, being given enlightenment doesn’t seem more desirable than becoming enlightened through thought and experience. If God exists, though, I think he has shown us a way around the problem of evil by encouraging us to get around materialism. After all, that is the core lesson of most of the major religions is that we must reject viewing our lives as good or bad based on what happens around us on Earth.If anything suggests that God exists, I think this does. After all, it seems illogical for any movement in any species to not drive for more food, sex, and riches, the things which make it easier for us to have more and more children and out-compete other species. But where every natural instinct within us drives for more stuff, there still remains a strange voice which whispers to us that none of it matters and that we should strive for happiness based on other things.
In a world dominated by evil, it’s one of the few places I see a loving God.
From the “I know God exists” crowd we usually get a few basic responses to this question:
1.) “Shut up!”
2.) “Do not try to understand God, for it would be like an ant attempting to understand…blah blah blah”
3.) “God uses evil and bad things as a test.”
4.) “Humanity’s sinning is the source of all evil, even hurricanes…don’t ask me how.”
Now these responses usually satisfy the odd annoying kid in Sunday school and those who already have faith that an all knowing/loving/powerful God exists. The rest of us, however, are left twisting in the wind on this question as those responses either only work if you assume God exists in the first place (2), assume a God that is not actually all powerful (4), or assume a God that is not all loving of all humans (3). Don’t get too depressed though, as I think I may have an alternate way of thinking about the problem of evil.
To begin, I’ll ask you to engage in a thought experiment. Imagine, for a moment, if every second of your day was filled with an orgasm. This, you would imagine, would be much better than your current life, where orgasms occupy a very small amount of your time. However, if you knew nothing but a life with orgasms, wouldn’t that just mean that having an orgasm would be roughly equivalent to how you feel without pain in your present state? I’d imagine that after a few generations of people lived in the orgasmic every day, those people would think their lives no more charmed than you or I do. This means of course, that we’re a very hard species to please. Any universe created by God for human beings would inevitably involve us thinking that evil existed in it. Sure the hurricanes and natural disasters that we see might be pretty terrible, but could you honestly say that you would feel worse in your current state after having your house be blown away than being deprived of orgasms for a year in the orgasm world?
One way we could avoid evil in our world is if there was no good, that is, if there was no variation in our lives from moment to moment or from day to day. That seems inherently undesirable, and worse than the world we have now, even if the net utility of the world or of our lives is negative.The only other way I think to avoid evil though, is if human beings were somehow detached from viewing the world in terms of more=better. That is, if human beings somehow didn’t derive their happiness from the material happenings of the world they could gain a different perspective and not be trapped into being despaired by the bad deviations from the mean.
You might ask, well why doesn’t God just make us understand that? Well we could be made into more enlightened beings I guess, but, then again, I think we’d be deprived of the benefits of being human. Some of the more rewarding parts of my life have been when I feel I’ve grown as a person, or did something great through hard work. Somehow, being given enlightenment doesn’t seem more desirable than becoming enlightened through thought and experience. If God exists, though, I think he has shown us a way around the problem of evil by encouraging us to get around materialism. After all, that is the core lesson of most of the major religions is that we must reject viewing our lives as good or bad based on what happens around us on Earth.If anything suggests that God exists, I think this does. After all, it seems illogical for any movement in any species to not drive for more food, sex, and riches, the things which make it easier for us to have more and more children and out-compete other species. But where every natural instinct within us drives for more stuff, there still remains a strange voice which whispers to us that none of it matters and that we should strive for happiness based on other things.
In a world dominated by evil, it’s one of the few places I see a loving God.
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