thesis and some other stuff
Sep. 22nd, 2006 06:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
2eclipsehad some ideas two nights ago for what i will do with my thesis.
dr. mitchell asked me what ideas was i struggling with in the area and i said i was really only struggling with the practical questions about how to get a job.....
well, i realized that's not really true.
I have a bit of a precis/proposal.
what i struggle with is self-justification from myself and others about WHY we should NOT give to the poor and why many believe....not that the poor are responsible for the poor (which is true) but that the rest of us are NOT responsible. In my mind, this is really an issue about free will and how we view it in this country. We are so married to the idea of our own independence (and that is not only because it is our history but because we are terrified of the alternative). It is not that we are not responsible for our own actions, but that we are also responsible for how our actions effects others, making us responsible for them and to them.....and we often ignore that idea or hide from it in this country. We are fond of saying "only we control our actions" but there is a framework outside of which we are not free to act. We are not free to be other than ourselves, for example. We are (mostly)not free to do things out of character, although we are free to change our characters. America's marriage to a narrow view of free will keeps us from seeing the poor as whole people. We generalize about people that "should be working" without acknowledging that they also are only as free as their abilities and their character. It also keeps both rich and poor from being free. The rich are not free to see the imago dei in their neighbors and treat them as loved children of God, and the poor are not free to actualize their real potential.
i believe in free will. I believe that we are responsible for our own actions, so i will be effectively arguing with myself some of the time....but i think there is another side to the truth as well and that unless we hold both sides of the argument together in tension with one another, we cannot see the whole picture or the whole truth.
if everything goes well, i am thinking of calling it My Brother's Keeper: Free-will and Poverty in America.
my cynicism thinks it is more likely that kendal soulen will make me re-write my topic all over again.
on the other side of things, jory interviewed for my position today. i told him it was okay to apply even though i don't think he'd be any happier there than i am. he might actually have a long-term future there as a salesman, whereas i'm pretty sure they will not hire me due to my conflict with physical inventory.
dr. mitchell asked me what ideas was i struggling with in the area and i said i was really only struggling with the practical questions about how to get a job.....
well, i realized that's not really true.
I have a bit of a precis/proposal.
what i struggle with is self-justification from myself and others about WHY we should NOT give to the poor and why many believe....not that the poor are responsible for the poor (which is true) but that the rest of us are NOT responsible. In my mind, this is really an issue about free will and how we view it in this country. We are so married to the idea of our own independence (and that is not only because it is our history but because we are terrified of the alternative). It is not that we are not responsible for our own actions, but that we are also responsible for how our actions effects others, making us responsible for them and to them.....and we often ignore that idea or hide from it in this country. We are fond of saying "only we control our actions" but there is a framework outside of which we are not free to act. We are not free to be other than ourselves, for example. We are (mostly)not free to do things out of character, although we are free to change our characters. America's marriage to a narrow view of free will keeps us from seeing the poor as whole people. We generalize about people that "should be working" without acknowledging that they also are only as free as their abilities and their character. It also keeps both rich and poor from being free. The rich are not free to see the imago dei in their neighbors and treat them as loved children of God, and the poor are not free to actualize their real potential.
i believe in free will. I believe that we are responsible for our own actions, so i will be effectively arguing with myself some of the time....but i think there is another side to the truth as well and that unless we hold both sides of the argument together in tension with one another, we cannot see the whole picture or the whole truth.
if everything goes well, i am thinking of calling it My Brother's Keeper: Free-will and Poverty in America.
my cynicism thinks it is more likely that kendal soulen will make me re-write my topic all over again.
on the other side of things, jory interviewed for my position today. i told him it was okay to apply even though i don't think he'd be any happier there than i am. he might actually have a long-term future there as a salesman, whereas i'm pretty sure they will not hire me due to my conflict with physical inventory.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-25 03:00 pm (UTC)what i struggle with is self-justification from myself and others about WHY we should NOT give to the poor and why many believe....not that the poor are responsible for the poor (which is true) but that the rest of us are NOT responsible.
There is a third way here: that the poor are responsible for themselves, but that we should still give to the poor because it is to our own benefit (spiritual, economic and all other kinds of benefits). The responsibility of each for himself does not diminish my ability to be charitable. And my lack of *requirement* to be charitable does not remove my *option* to be (and my joy in being) charitable. The creation of obligation removes much of what is good in charity. It is freedom that allows us to be good.
We are not free to be other than ourselves, for example. We are (mostly)not free to do things out of character, although we are free to change our characters.
What is "character" here? What would it be to act outside of one's (as you indicated, mutable) character? This sentence is at risk of being circular reasoning. How could you demonstrate this assertion; if I were to act outside my character, would you tell me that my character has changed? If so, is this nothing more than a tautology?
The rich are not free to see the imago dei in their neighbors and treat them as loved children of God,
I am rich and am touched daily with the image of God (and God herself) in everyone. It is the core point of most of my writings (I friended you, so you can go back and look). It is because I believe in the God within everyone that I believe that they can each become more than their current station, whether rich or poor. Through the God within them, the poor are "free to actualize their real potential." That I may be able to help them do that is a gift of God to me, but only the individual can become what they wish or need to be; others cannot do it for them. It is the separation of people's character into economic classes that obscures the imago dei. Good and evil are found in all portions of the economic spectrum.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-28 02:52 am (UTC)2) character means lots of things. in this context, let's say it is the collection of habits (both in thinking and in action) that determine/limit your scope of possible actions(i realize i'm going to have to flesh this out for the paper). you CAN change it, but it is a gradual long-term kind of change rather than a conservative jew suddenly attending catholic mass or a pacifist suddenly deciding to assasinate the president.....well....maybe that one is believable....but i think you take my meaning. there are actions that we wouldn't take at a given time because A) they just wouldn't occur to us or B) they are so out of character for us as to be distasteful/unthinkable.
tautology may be a risk here. i will have to be careful. but i feel my point is valid even if i need to discover a better way to get there.
3) i do not mean to say that rich people cannot see the image of God in others(although i may seem to). there are ALWAYS exceptions to generalizations like these...but i'm not sure you can write a proposal for a paper without generalizations. the thoughts are still unresearched and unfinished.
Yes, God is what allows us to be so resiliant that we can overcome whatever our struggles in life are allotted to be, but what do you say to those who fail to overcome these things? i don't believe it is because all those people are lazy or callous. i see some people who actively work and still fail. do we say that God is not with them? that their suffering and blindness is His will? i think this is the point where we start talking about free will and hold it in tension with the things we don't know how to change about life; like death, and suffering, and our own inability to mold ourselves instantly in to the people we want to be.
i hope you will keep talking to me about this, it forces me to clarify my thoughts, and that has always been a weakness in my writing.