We had (nearly by accident) some Jewish friends over to help us finish up the cheesecake leftover from Friday. We talked about all sorts of life-goings-on, and our guest asked how our church was. We explained a little (nothing terribly or anything) but before we knew it, we all were talking about how our respective religious population-segments have actually developed in parallel. It seems the Modernism has had a very similar effect: shifting the focus off of any transcendental identity/other, instead towards a logical ethical system. While we all have our stomachs turned at the thought of such reductionism, it seems our parents, or grandparents are absorbed in this perspective. (Note: I’ve been on about this before)

But a second, more interesting view has emerged among us youngsters. It seems there’s a tad bit of agnosticism afoot, mostly in reaction to a lack of differentiation between “faith” and “knowledge.” Oh, those two ideas have quite a history of clashing, but it seems in the more conservative camps, where “truth” is trumpeted, knowledge of it is playing in harmony. Earlier, older fundamentalists would speak clearly of their “conviction” of what is or is not truth.. but that was apparently not good enough. Now, conservatives “know” what is true. That’s great, because now everyone else is, well, stupid! ..eyes-rolling..

But do you see what has happened? In honest-to-goodness matters of the empirically unprovable nature (transcendent ontology), knowledge is now being claimed, instead of faith. Well, if you have not faith (only knowledge), how is it you please God? Frankly, I don’t find it surprising that people say they “know” God; I’m glad. What surprises me is how people seem to leave faith behind! Faith– the act, the hope — is what is common to all mankind. We were fully able to communicate with our Jewish friends because we both understood this basic nature of humanity & reality: that throughout history there have been varying ideas about what is transcendent, and some may be more reasonable, but none of them are provable. This equal-footing in the face of the dark, empty other-worldly void is where communication can occur with all people. Knowledge-claims are confidence-claims, and our confidence is only partly a matter of rationality; reason can hint, and can improve our will-to-believe, but belief is still willed.

It’s tough being human. We see only what we’re tuned into. Such selectivity is the basis for prejudice and violence — I face it daily in my Sociology classes. Sociology is committed to clarifying the reality of social-aggregates for the masses, but the masses first learn most of their sociological-reality before truth can get to ‘em. Tribalism sucks, objectivity is handy.. but so very rare – rare unto the point of non-existence; our inter-subjectivity suggests much to trust in.

Money (in the West) is directly tied to security. We buy expensive houses to be in “safe” neighborhoods. Rent’s cheap if there’s daily gunfire across the street. Lose a job? That’s ok, you’ve got a savings account, right? Retiring? You’ll be fine with that retirement account you’ve been feeding since you were 25.

Now take that perspective and apply it to other things hoards of money are spent on. Case in point: weddings.

Ok, so not everyone who spends lots of money on their wedding doesn’t get divorced. That’s not exactly what I’m saying. And of course daddy’s usually gonna drop as much as he can for “his little girl.” But is there a chance, and underlying view of money & worth that says, “If I have/fund an expensive wedding, maybe that’ll keep ‘em together.” That doesn’t sound right, I’m sure. Perhaps nearly mercenary too.

But instead of looking from the top-down, try the bottom-up. “Man, that wedding cost someone lots of money– ya don’t wanna go through that again..” I’d wager 2nd, 3rd & 4th weddings are less costly than the first. And even independent of re-marriage, wedding-costs go up the more reminders of it you have laying about. And it’s those reminders which can help secure a marriage (even though there’s plenty of other ones too).

Now, don’t get me wrong. Plenty of people get married for under $50 and stay together for over 50 years. Fact is, they have something going, independent of money. But for those people out there who aren’t sure they have that same something, fear can be a great motivator to do silly things like spend $30k on a wedding. I’m really writing about those silly people who never decided to think twice about what marriage really is about.

Ahh the “New Media makes you dumb” debate. The WSJ has it going, and Slashdot picked it up.

My spin agrees with both sides, in the context of actor-responsibility/meaningless-drone. That itself is a rough divide for humanity; I mean, how many of us are *fully* determined in our thought patterns? Most of us are in small ways, but not in all ways. Further, we are only as determined by what is available to us. If no one is ever forced to turn off the TV, read a book, or read a full webpage, they never will. Humanity is *that* fickle. We’ll live in the present, assuming the past isn’t consequential. The Internet has only “given the people what they want” in that regard.  To this end, Shirky did a wonderful job with the history of new media; theories are only good if they hold water across time & place.

But this consistently distracted state is in some ways my own life. I have trouble filtering out background conversations when in a restaurant, among other examples. I’m sure it’s giving rise to affective disorders (let’s not get beyond simple parole: dis-order = out of order). How can someone know what to love if there is no order or priority to in and out-flow of info, people, experience, etc.

The spiritual consequences are huge then. Jesus’ 2 commands of love God & fellow-man could be well-undermined by this novelty. That’s why I’m agreeing with a friend’s recent Facebook status: “Discipline is remembering what you love.” Discipline isn’t about saying “no,” so much as remembering, and remembering & reflecting is being killed off.

Reflection is a time-intensive activity, one which now-now-now-or-you’ll-miss-it-or-get-too-far-behind media won’t allow for, and as noted, is required:

“The researchers were surprised by the results. They had expected that the intensive multitaskers would have gained some unique mental advantages from all their on-screen juggling. But that wasn’t the case. In fact, the heavy multitaskers weren’t even good at multitasking. They were considerably less adept at switching between tasks than the more infrequent multitaskers. “Everything distracts them,” observed Clifford Nass, the professor who heads the Stanford lab.” — Nicholas Carr

This is exactly what the other side of the debate agrees with as well:

“Reading is an unnatural act; we are no more evolved to read books than we are to use computers.”–Clay Shirky

But what I like about Clay’s statement is the next line: “Literate societies become literate by investing extraordinary resources, every year, training children to read.” Resources maybe anything from mothers to educators, from $ for private tutoring to the publishing industry.. but it is always about time. My own time reading is only worth it if I spend the time to stop every other paragraph or so. Ideas need to sink in for any foundation to be placed. Who wants a skyscraper built on unset, wet concrete? That’s the best analogy I can give for what the Internet is doing: providing shortcuts for our memory, and keeping us from remembering anything. Even the act of scrolling a webpage is vague. Turning a page is much more definitive. I can’t glance-back as easily as I can scroll back & forth. (Ok, maybe not the best example..)

I suppose what this means for future information-design is clearspace. Data can also be held better when it is interacted with. Static graphs are visualization of too many numbers; interaction/overlays, compare-contrast is a beginning for too many graphs. Fickle “daily info-graphics” sent to my inbox or RSS reader only clog my mind, unless they spark interest  for further research (assuming I know where & how to research it!). I’d much rather have the data in contrast with something else, both of which are in connection with present values and personal states of knowledge. This way graphics could be delivered to my inbox for me, which overlap/redundant, and over-time help me learn and meat specified goals.

And finally for a sociological perspective. This little idea about remembering can be expanded further to include any binary-division, even gender-roles. While there’s a pressure from amongst egalitarians to “be equal” between/across genders, there is also a consequence of each gender doing everything, overburdening itself with too much. But that is still no “win” for anyone who would espouse a fascist (Modernist) sociology, where each person must fit the role assigned 100%. (I’m looking at you SB-preachers!)

Update: NYT picked this up too with their own spin that sounds like a good middle ground/awareness campaign.

I think I’m confused about what I think is & isn’t faith.
There’s faith *concerning* something, faith *in* something. They must both exist to be of any ‘utility’. There are contexts in which faith is appropriate, and some where faith is not.

Yet I feel a strong compulsion to fideism, that all life is faith. Not in the sense that over-religious take it, but in a philosophical sense of pragmatism: that I’m not able to prove that you are real, but I have no real alternative than to act like you are, continuing in this world, despite my lack of “absolute” knowledge. This is a metaphysical faith — as to what is or is not reality. Yet, I am not comfortable calling all my perceptions of the observable world ‘reality’. I *believe* reality to be bigger, more inclusive of the spiritual (super-natural) (forces/personalities/plans/plots). Again, is this now outside the realm of metaphysics? This is precisely where Kant draws the line. And to some degree, rightly so. Our categories of time, space, personhood, etc are all learned (so says sociology) here from our experience/others, and there is no real reason for us to have direct ability to reason / apply direct ideas to them. Such is simply imagination. Most blog-readers will revolt, but seriously — this is precisely the consequences of Kant. This is directly what he was troubled about. Leibnitz’s Monadology-world was mostly imagination to Kant. But the best part? Kant wasn’t an atheist. He wasn’t trying to kill off religion, just, as I am, understand what faith is, what knowledge is, and where the looney-bins in the middle lie, and confuse the Truth for everyone else.

As an aside, I want to take on/clarify the nature/nurture thing. Christians of the conservative sort will often place man’s worth in being a human, using some confusing terminology of “direct creation” of God. This, oddly enough, is heretical. God is not continually creating, he stopped at day 7. He may be upholding & sustaining, but that’s not what they said. Nevertheless, an important philosophical question has been what is innate to man? The religious will say “a soul” (but that doesn’t answer the question of how much, and what kind of knowledge). The empiricist will say “nothing.” The rationalist will say “could be anything, likely plenty.” The Apostle Paul considered men to learn of God both ways, written on our hearts, and seen in creation. Sociology today will be more in-line with the empiricists of old, since we are born into a world already-started-and-on-its-way. There are cultural norms and symbols (called language) which has developed and progressed, and we merely pick it up (or are forced to learn it!). Notice how similar this is to God’s work: not creation, but sustaining. Notice also, how I don’t feel a great need to answer this question, just taking note of what is and is not readily knowable.

Returning to what is and is not faith, there is always the trouble of sociological data which tells of psychological projection: that Christians are those predisposed to “see” the world through religious eyes, like the artist predisposed to see through aesthetic eyes, and the musician, through orchestral, sonorous eyes and ears. This is a dandy position, but while writing this out, I realised, it is too dandy. It’s too easy, too simple, too comfortable. It has no prescription for change, no interest in cross-communication (of which I am entirely), and worst of all, it fearfully promotes individualism and group-ism which is always a tad too divisive for my likes. Such is the “wisdom” we hear all too often. No pre-disposition theories for me. Sad how inclusion theories rapidly turn exclusive.

So what can we say about faith? Is it “faith” for the young girl to believe Mr.Bear is drinking his tea? Is it “faith” for the dog to wait by the door, because you come home everyday at 6pm (and likewise the congregant who simply attends consistently every week)?
These two examples are often countered by what I shall hereby call the “duty of expectation.” The congregant is faithful, not just because he is *consistent* (methodological) but that he ‘expects’ ‘something’ (from God) to happen. Further (and even worse) this is meant to mean “right now.” See how this devolves rapidly to a prior position of “God is always doing something, and you need to keep watch, otherwise you’ll miss it/him!” I am fully aware that I am “missing” “the blessing” of God’s activity in this world. But understand the difference: they see God in the shadows, lurking. I see (believe) God in the forefront, maintaining all life at it’s deepest physiological/physical-chemical-particle-physics level. Christ *is* (I believe) the logos. (How’s that for a subject of an idealism/materialism debate!) Studying this world is studying Christ.. but not in a universe-as-God’s-body way. Upholding creation with One’s power & word is mightily different than essense.

Anyways, I feel like my personal-life-faith is macroscopic: I’m living out my large-scale plans which (I believe) will further God’s (Jesus’) life-work on this planet (were he still around). I also feel like my faith is at times empty and utterly blind, filled with nothing but hope. I doubt anything will happen, but I will act anyways.. or somethings I’ve given up on & don’t act anymore. If nothing happens, then so be it: resignation (and potentially bitterness). If something happens: enjoy it, run with it. This world *is* bitter. Christ tasted it’s effect (and likely affect), and did not keep himself from it.
Kierkegaard would call this resignation half-way to faith, and the truly faithful to be beyond resignation, enjoying life’s gifts even in their absense.

I’m stuck on the topic for now, but that’s the depth I’ve got so far.

While I was first introduced to Myers-Briggs (Jung!) I’ve long since revelled in the DISC system. And tonight, I think I finally have found explicit use for the Jungian system.

The first analytic idea is to assume any one of the 16 MB categories is the ideal of one of the D,I,S or C. This is utter failure though. I realize now it’s more of a noun-verb thing. The DISC is pretty clear on behavior. MB is horrid at behavior, but *so much* better at means and intention.

For instance: I know a few people who are dominant “I” folk. (In fact all my major friends are IC’s!) But there is huge variation in what constitutes their actions. One will talk and talk and talk thinking he’s adding to an idea, when truly, he’s only saying the same thing 5 different ways. This gets old quick, but fact is, he’s focusing on the interpreting of info part of the Feeling over Sensory on MB. However, there’s another character who likes to come up with stories as he speaks.. his words take him places: he actually IS adding meaning, but he’s also open the new things (MB: Intuition!), whereas the first guy is stuck, having already decided, and now just trying to influence his decision. I like stories. And short attention spans.

There’s more, so go get ‘em:
http://blog.doloreslabs.com/2009/02/age-and-gender-stereotypes/#more-118