Professionalization and Community

I start with a quote that is at tangent to what I want to talk about here, since the quote is what kicked off this line of thought. This is Glenn Greenwald in reference to the ongoing Wall Street protests and the reason why they are steadily gaining serious (instead of dismissive) attention and not petering out:

…and in part because their refusal to adhere to the demands from the political and media class for Power Point professionalization and organizational hierarchies has enabled the protests to remain real, organic, independent, and passionate.

There is much packed into this well-chosen phrasing. It strips away the neutrality professionalism usually enjoys and highlights the ways in which it is implicated in the system the protesters oppose. It makes professionalism a problem to be dealt with rather than a simple way of acting.

[Not Really a Review] Secrecy and the Gods by Alan Lenzi

I have just started reading Secrecy and the Gods: Secret Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel by Alan Lenzi as part of an effort to educate myself a little in the emergence and diffusion of religious ideas in the cradle of civilization. That fits into a broader project I have going on, but I talk about that sort of stuff on my other blog, Spirited Culture (and it will be a little bit before I am ready to post anything about that there).

Here, I just want to wax poetic on the value and rewards of clear scholarly writing. Well-formed scholastic discourse, with a clear sense of its foundations and aims, is like tonic for the intellect. Lenzi does an exceptional job situating his work within his discipline and, in so doing, shines a bright light on the temperament of the field at present.

Faith is not a supplement for politics

So, I came across this article over at Religion Dispatches which led me to an article by Melissa Harris-Perry in The Nation in which she articulates her view of religion’s place in politics. It makes for interesting reading in light of her response to Cornel West’s criticisms of the President. While she espouses support for the sort of theological views endorsed by Cornel West, she does so in a way that doesn’t commit her to them.

[News] Cornel West and Melissa Harris-Perry

Cornell West was in the news a bit last month because of some fairly harsh things he has said about the President. The story seems to have taken off here and, to my mind, had its most meaningful articulation here on the Ed Show. There seems to be a fair amount in between those two points, but especially Melissa Harris-Perry’s print response here.

What interests me most keenly is the pair of interviews on the Ed Show. The interview of West followed immediately with that of Harris-Perry shows off well the conceptual distance between them and their ways of thinking. I’m pleased that the show gave each interviewee a block of time rather than simply using the simultaneous split-screen method.

That space gave each of their views room to breathe and prevented the interview from becoming an occasion for debate-style one-upmanship. The show does give Harris-Perry’s view pride of place in terms of how the host responds and in closing out the segment, but a certain bias is inescapable.

[Follow Up] La Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra

I started to do some digging into the response to the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth and, finding only a little discussion online, decided to do a little summary post here about those responses.

In the Storm

Historical work is a strange affair for me. I spend most of my time tracking tiny little details through the dense woods, catching fleeting glimpses of them here and there in the historical record. Those sort of deer paths wind in and out of the sweep of history that draws together peoples and nations, distant lands and ways of living.

So much of what I find rests uneasily atop the comfortable history of cultures and nations. In place of great nations and peoples, I keep stumbling upon these half-hidden hollows teeming with shadows that comingle.

Then, sometimes, those paths open up to an overlook and look down on the valley of history. It looks to me like nothing so much as a heaving flood upon which everyone is adrift.

Except I am not really above it all. At the same time I feel like I am glimpsing it from above, I feel myself within it, adrift and cast about on the rising flood.

In those moments, I feel the deepest sympathy with Walter Benjamin. It is hard not to be overcome with horror; it is hard not to be overcome with hope.

“When it all comes down to dust, I will kill if you must, I will help you if I can”

Then, thankfully, it is back to the deer paths. There is hope to be found there, too.

Something to be optimistic about

Lately, I’ve been trying to keep an eye on what goes on in Central and South America (emphasis on trying). My reasons for doing so are a bit of a tangle. I have an increasingly historical interest in the region, to be sure, but I am also interested in how progressive politics have taken shape in the region. They face many of the same challenges as we in the U.S. do (sometimes more dramatically), so it seems worthwhile to be more conscious of how they are trying to deal with them.

Bolivia, recently, has gone and done something very interesting: la Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra (some English coverage here). The law’s primary influences seem to have firm local connections to the growing influence of indigenous people in Bolivia while being directed to the international situation. Admittedly, Bolivia isn’t exactly a power player in international politics, but taking there is surely no shame in staking a claim as the conscience of the world.

Less, not more, Education?

I wonder how well our current mindset about education in the U.S. really serves our needs. We seem to overdo it a bit in thinking that more education, by which we mean more time spent in educational institutions, is better than less. While there are many careers that genuinely demand a great deal of education, there are many that do not. Most people end up in careers for which a solid high school education would be ample preparation.

Sacred Environments

I am a big fan of environmentalism, by which I mean the responsible engagement with our world with an appreciation for the value of diversity in our ecosystems and the dangers our present way of living in the world threatens that. I am also, no surprise, religiously minded. I do not think those two things are dependent on each or other, nor do I believe they should be too tightly joined together. That holds for them as personal convictions, but also for them as political-social communities.

‘Tis the Season

Watching the back and forth around Thorn Coyle’s blog post on Christmas has been mostly disappointing.  I know, it is the internet and people on the internet (myself included sometimes) tend to respond rather than read and consider.  Still.

Why the urge to respond away her uncomfortable concerns, rather than to just sit and consider?  Consideration of her post does not equate to acquiescence to it.  Especially when the post itself is itself written from a place of consideration and not demand.