Justice

(1 November 2003)  A group of Catholic School girls are being hailed as heroes for attacking a man that repeatedly exposed himself in front of their school in probably the biggest perversion of justice I have seen this year. After 'Bobby' apprehended the man down the street, and before the police officers could arrive, the man was surrounded and brutally punched and kicked by the crazed crowd.
   Now, I can understand being rough with him in the process of restraining him, but what happened here clearly fell outside of that range. If someone goes through a stop sign, around which children are playing, do you chase him down and beat him? How is this different from a lynch mob? Justice is clearly intended for institutions to administer, not impassioned bystanders.  I include a quote from Emerson:

    A story that really stirred me was one where a Klansman found himself in the protest section of a KKK rally and was being beaten mercilessly by enraged protestors—until a lady came to his rescue—a black lady. She shielded him from the blows and screamingly implored the crowd for mercy and reason. They relented their hate-filled attack and the man was escorted safely away.
    If one of those girls had wanted to be a hero she no doubt would have taken a similar action. How can someone in love with Christ and his counsel of 'turn the other cheek' and 'let him without sin throw the first stone,' conscionably assault this defenseless man? And how even more absurd is the hero designation that is so quickly being given to these vigilantes? I leave you with a quote from Bahá'u'lláh:

Food Choice

    ► See my food list  

    There is a vast food conspiracy that has engulfed us all. Recently, I attended a vegetarian summer camp and the reactions I got from my selective diet were fierce and unapologetic. I eat predominantly meat, simple carbs, and a dash of vegetables. There are however a host of foods that I do not care for and don't like. Yet the staff was generally unaccommodating since they saw my fastidiousness as mere childish pickiness and not a legitimate consideration. I protest.
      Becoming vegetarian is largely a choice with the person who then has to decided their degree of deprivation: eggs, dairy, fish, etc. With Vegans this is never more clear, as some abstain from simple sugars, yeast, and other oddities. So with everyone with their own seemingly arbitrary, self-chosen diet, why am I not entitled to do the same? The jury is still out over the salubriousness of traditional diets and diet crazes so there is no standard per se to hold me to. In light of this I would like my food choices to be honoured with the same conscientiousness as those of the vege and vegan world. Is that too much to ask for?

Cliquishness: Paradise or Poison?

I have encountered a number of youth who feel slighted and marginalized by their peers through what they view as cliquishness. In a world where everyone seems to have some sort of grievance, this feeling of snubbing would be easy to overlook were it not often accompanied with raucous ballyhooing. The wailing lamentations of those who feel excluded from the social circle are loud, persistent, and generally contagious as few can question their sincerity or dispute the numerous examples of these slighted individuals. I take umbrage at using the word ‘cliquishness’ with its strictly negative meaning and its swift dismissal of the paramount virtue of unity. ‘Cohesion’ is a more neutral and accurate word that I feel is less apt to being used as a mindless absolute in this ongoing debate. However, as I feel the words are effectively synonymous in their essence, my aim is that this position paper will reclaim the positive connotations for ‘clique’ using examples, logic, and theory.

Of the youth I have spoken to in regards to their poor and often hurtful experiences with cliquishness, the solutions they offer, if any, seem to be simplistic and out of touch with the realities of human interactions and sociological patterns. This does not include the primarily outward-looking focus of their suggestions—how everyone needs to change in some usually large way to embrace them and others who are groveling on the fringe.

When taken in the absolute form, cliquishness looks absolutely bad when in fact it is required as a basis for human interactions. There is an intrinsic danger in seeing things as only two polar extremes and dismissing the viable and often optimum combinations that lie somewhere in-between. Sarcastically, as a humourous yet telling detour, I thought I could run some scenarios in which the evil of cliquishness had been rooted out from the darkened hearts of those harboring this malignant plague and replaced with complete ‘uncliquishness’.

Stripped of cliquishness you would not be able to keep a personal address book as there would invariably be people that would get excluded. This would naturally extend to personal information of others stored on PDAs and e-mail contact lists. (The local phone book would be your only source of phone numbers) You could not invite your friends to a party without inviting everyone—all acquaintances including those you have only briefly encountered. If you did not have space or resources to accommodate them all you would have to conduct some sort of lottery where everyone would have a fair and equal opportunity to be selected—best friends and brief acquaintances alike. If you were going to the movies you could not just call a few friends, you would have to call them all—lest anyone feel left out. What would you do once you got to one of these events? You could not just talk to your closest friends, no, no, you need to talk to everyone present at the event. Not possible? Then you could randomly speak to attendees—all without showing the least hint of favoritism or preference. In case you are talking to a group of people be very sure not to make reference to any inside joke or esoteric expression in case someone feels left out. In fact, having people designated as friends and acquaintances, even if only a distinction you bury in your heart, would be a trace of cliquishness. You need to treat everyone exactly the same regardless of issues of capacity and mutual likes and preferences. The world that has been described above more closely resembles a hard-wired computer program than the varied rose garden of the human race. Eliminating cliquishness eliminates the very essence of humanity and reduces us to mindless, uncritical robots.

Often when youth have many things in common, spend plenty of time together, and are geographically proximate, they begin to enjoy each others’ company more and arrange social outings that include these friends. This is a psychologically natural expression of how they feel toward these fellow youth which triggers a positive feedback loop where the more time they spend with them the closer to them they feel and the closer they feel the more time they wish to spend with them. There is nothing unnatural or unexpected from this cycle as it predominates the way we all, as a gregarious species, craft social networks.

Assimilating new members into an established group or one in the later stages of coalescence can be a slow, awkward, and difficult endeavor. There are inner-group expressions that you must either grasp or must be explained to you, there is a set power structure that may be disturbed, and activities and modes of behaviour must accommodate or be accommodated by the newcomer.

Although I obviously do not advocate random association there are a few things we can do to ameliorate many of the downsides to cliquishness and bring others into the folds of friendship. Inviting one or two newcomers to our purposefully or traditionally closed events is a start. Bringing different circles of friends together is another possibility. Taking time to explain inner group expressions and dynamics may make such situations go over more smoothly. Yet, I see the onus principally on the excluded individuals to put themselves out there in the community, to quickly overlook the initial snubs, and to persist in doing what it takes to integrate themselves. Often, without vigilance, a downward spiraling cycle can emerge that is self-compounding and ever-worsening; one in which one early instance of exclusion is allowed to fester into bitterness and growing conspiracy which only pushes one further away from the group—leading to more snubs and worsening feelings. The only break of course is to dismiss the past with its inexorably heavy baggage and take confidant and determined steps to become a part of a particular group.

Cliquishness needs to be accepted as an inevitable, relative, and positive social force. To say that a particular group either has or does not have cliques would be a gross misstatement since it is both inevitable and relative. This does not include the patent injustice such a statement would have on the benefits of cliquishness as a means to bring people together. We need to accept the merits of cliquishness and endeavour to bring others into our groups and push ourselves into other social circles, all whilst abandoning tired and debilitating rhetoric bewailing the perniciousness of social cohesion and cliquishness.
 

‘God willing’: A handy excuse or a call to action?

When someone commits to doing something and then adds on “God Willing,” are they laying the foundation for an excuse or are they holding themselves to a higher standard? Although to the casual observer the former conclusion may be drawn there may be stronger evidence for the latter understanding.

When a student promises her teacher that she will have a particular assignment done tomorrow God willing and she spends her afternoon and night watching TV could she justifiably use as an excuse that God must have not wanted her to do her homework? Surely not. Unless God is Jeff Probst on CBS’s Survivor and she sincerely heeded his request to stay until the end and not leave during the commercials <sarcasm>.

No, this is not a situation of God-willing, but student-willing. There was ample could have honestly told the teacher she would do it if she was willing. Surveying history there is one particularly poignant incitation of this clause.

    So do we have to wait until a circumstance of this gravity occurs to invoke the ‘God willing’ clause? Probably not, but we should probably not be careless with it either. If we do use it, we need to strive our utmost to fulfill our pledge lest we be tempted to have God take the blame for our shortcomings.
 

Martin's Law of Compartmentalized Idolization

coming...