Ok, I have to admit that I have really fallen short on most of my resolutions for this year, and especially on keeping up with this blog. I have thought about this and have a plan to try to recover next year, but I will write about that another time.
Today is the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, and I would like to take some time out of my day on this holiday for some reflection here. I think it is more meaningful and appropriate to write in this blog on this holiday than to do chores around the house or play video games like I normally might.
I must confess that I am not feeling as positive as I would like to on this new year. I will try to end this post on a positive note, but I am going to write out the worries that are on my mind today first.
With that, let me put forth my version of a philisophical mashup:
Read this, which I saw for the first time today:
http://snuffysmithsblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/world-without-islam-by-graham-fuller.html
Then read this, which I read some time ago and remembered lately:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/research/Hammond%20and%20Axelrod%20JCR%2006.pdf
associated video simulation of above paper:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/Movie%20Midwest%20Doc.htm
What do you think about when you read those two together??
I have to commend the first aticle that I read today, I think it is very good. I clipped the conclusion for my away message on gchat:
"But, at rock bottom, conflict between East and West remains all about the grand historical and geopolitical issues of human history: ethnicity, nationalism, ambition, greed, resources, local leaders, turf, financial gain, power, interventions, and hatred of outsiders, invaders, and imperialists." - Graham Fuller
To add to this mashup, let me recount a conversation that I had with my girlfriend the other night. The conversation was about the afterlife. I have written in this blog previously about my concerns with the concept of an afterlife. After some tense moments, I was able to convince my girlfriend that my conception of right and wrong and source of hope, which do not rely on the afterlife, are really the same as her beliefs, which rely more heavily on an afterlife. Once, she understood my beliefs, she was quick to point out that most people, at least in our lifetime, are never going to think about it the way that I do and never be able to be satisfied without an afterlife in the way that I am. Now that I write this, I realize that people have indicated this to me in the past, such as Paul or Guillermo, but never quite as clearly as my girlfriend did this week.
In our conversation, it also came up that people's need to have a special personal identity (Eckhart Tolle, or more appropriately, Jung, would call this the ego) really clash with the ideas of globalization and peace. My girlfriend also pointed out that even though it is good for people to come together and see the goodness in each other, people are not going to give up their traditions/identity. People have a need to view themselves as different or part of a special group. So if we can't get people to stop clinging to their groups, how do we get them to treat other groups equally?....this obviously refers back up to the articles I linked to above.
Not that this will make sense to anyone else but I guess a mental map for myself would be that people's geographic location of birth originally linked them into tribes who banded together out of economic necessity, the desire for increased economic comfort leads tribes to clash, and religion can band tribes together beyond geographic location and give tribes an identity which allows them to justify their economic desires or defend their economic necessities. Whether it is the imperialist who justifies the economically greedy expansion because the people he trods upon are not part of his in-tribe or the terrorist who justifies his defense of the economic resources through his tribe's ideology at the expense of the lives of the imperialist in a mirror fashion, both groups suffer from not treating the other group as an equal worthy of love and cooperation.
To tie one more point into what has become an incoherent ramble, today at synagogue I saw the backwards component of my own religion. I went to an orthodox service. Their beliefs somewhat clashed with mine, and there was more undertone of the "chosenness" of the Jewish people than I have seen in other services and more than I am comfortable with. There were also references to satan and ressurection of the dead, so clearly even within Judaism there are those who incorporate the afterlife.
Bottom line, all of these different trains of thought led me to be feeling low on hope for humanity and somewhat despondent. I also felt alone in my conception of the unity of the universe, even though I was in a sea of supposed monotheists. It was difficult for me to feel a connection with my fellow jews when i was congizant of the ethnocentric beliefs in the room.
However, I have regained strength and hope later in the day. I have been fasting for ramadan. Here I am, bringing my culture and another culture together, realizing that we are not different at all, respecting the beauty in some of their traditions. I will be so happy and greatful for Eid tonight, and that is positive. Furthermore, i found a blog from a comment in the graham fuller article that led me to someone that seems to conceive of the world and the problems in the world in a similar manner to the way that I do: http://promiscuous-dialectic.blogspot.com/2007/10/prisoners-dilemma.html
This makes me feel less alone.
Everything is just one thing....but I am trying to understand that not everyone can see that.
I apologize, once again, for how unorganized and rambling this post is. Hopefully these ramblings will lead to something coherent someday.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
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