My computer's dead!

How long it will be so I do not know, but as I have no particular urge to fix it it could be some time indeed! Anyone who wants to get in contact with me I urge to either call me (512 497 0916) or write me at:

1910 Rio Grande
Austin, TX, 78705

Or if you really are a technophile I will make a point of checking my e-mail at least once a week.

Love,
Alex!
11:18 PM

For some reason blogger killed my last post when I updated the sidebar. Oh well, it's not like any comments were lost (hint hint). And I have it by luck saved (kickasssermonblog.txt), so again:

Gather ye round for the Sermon on the Blog. Here's a link to the passage we'll be discussing today. The meat of it is pasted below for those of you who are actually afraid to click a link.

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

Let's look at the historical context before considering the actual passage. This is from Matthew, written around 80 CE, and is the second of the gospels. Matthew was writing against the Pharisees, a group of Rabbis who aimed to keep Judaism as it traditionally had been-a religion for Jews. Matthew, meanwhile, offered a universalized interpretation of the Torah which would allow all cultures in. So in many ways this can be seen as a reaction against the scribes and legalism of Judaism in favour of the spirit of the rules: the Holy Spirit.



The Gospel of Matthew was officially accepted as canonical by the fourth century CE, and by the seventh century had become missionary's main weapon in converting China. One of the great powers of Christianity has been its flexibility: in 'The West' in melded with neo-Platonism (Nietzche: Christianity is Platonism for the masses), in Latin America it would meld with the folk religions there ("The images they kneel before are Christian, but the Lord alone knows to what deity they are praying"), and in China it would meld with Taoism.

It's not well known today how successful Christianity was in China between the seventh and fourteenth centuries, but it had become extremely significant, earning official recognition and occasionally support. It accomplished this by creating a fascinating synthesis of Christianity and Taoism, in which this passage became the centerpiece. Consider the lilies. It would hardly be out of place in the Tao te Ching.


So what are Jesus and Lao Tsu saying? First, and this is what Taoism emphasizes, a respect for nature as the, well, natural way of doing things. There is an unfortunate tendency among humans to invent problems where none exist. You could in fact say that this tendency has been the driving force of 'progress'. Animals do not worry. Humans do. This is the real difference between the two. Animals don't save food for the winter because they don't worry about the winter. They assume the world will provide.



Of course, the rebuttal could be made that this worrying has added not just a single hour but dozens of years through advances in medical science and technology in general that have made modern lives safer and longer. But this modern life has come at considerable expense-the worrying hasn't gone away and has in contrast gotten much stronger. Perhaps it's time we give the Tao of Jesus (in Chinese, 'Tao' means simple Way) a try.



The other major theme here is spiritual vs. mortal. Do not become attached to the things of this world, for they cannot bring you fulfillment. This is where Matthew's grudge against the Pharisees comes in. He sees them as too caught up with mundane affairs, with rules about what to eat, and what to drink, and what to wear. He invokes the memory of Solomon, the brilliant Jewish king who got too caught up in terrene (word of the day) affairs and had all his splendor reduced to ruin. True wealth cannot be found in the world, only in faith (literally: trustful loyalty) in God. In Tao we Trust..



2:42 AM

Well as a result of the last post my parents are rather upset (which I guess you could see coming, though they have done quite admirably, I think), and Kate is again not speaking to me (again, probably predictable). So it goes, so it goes.

So we'll see if we can't make this one a little more controversial: tracking. As in, honours vs. regular. Most of the readers of this blog were honours, and the ones that weren't have even stronger opinions. I was talking with Bob about this last time, and not since he stopped being a communist spewing invective against the bourgeois USA have I seen him so vehement. And he has every right to be. Bob and I became friends in 6th grade over a shared passion of video games. The main difference between us was that I was a happy tyke and Bob was not so happy, and was very passive aggressive. As a result, I went the honours track, and he the regular one, and that has made all the difference.

..or has it? In high school Bob drastically outread me, consuming Marx, Nietzche, Sartre, and Freud like other kids read comic books. He became well versed in the arts, developing good taste in art and music at a time when I listened exclusively to They Might Be Giants and saw the Art Museum as a sort of race. There's no doubt that to this day his is the more comprehensive knowledge and understanding.

By senior year though I (partially as a result of our many many argument) also started down the same path. Though my philosophers are different, Bob and I have reached remarkably similar ends with little correlation from eachother. Sure, I wouldn't have been as interested in existentialism without him, and he probably wouldn't have found Ellul (the famous Christian anarchist theologian? Geez, get with it...) as soon without me, but our evolutions were remarkably seperate-though parallel.

However, what's really important is that everything Bob and I have accomplished we accomplished in spite of school, not because of it. What is really significant about our paths is that both of us started on them by realising school was utter bullshit. As long as learning is viewed as something that comes from above (either to be resisted or swallowed), a real will for learning will not develop.

However, right now our schools are set up to kill the spirit to learn, because they like most things in our society are permeated with the perspective of Authority. In this perspective, which is top-down, students are like suitcases, and it is the job of teachers to stuff clothes in them. Some students are resistant to learning, so the clothes have to be hammered in. Others are bigger nicer suitcases, so the clothes can be laid out in nice logical patterns, and don't have to be stuffed. But either way those clothes are getting in there.

And so students are split up according to attitude, with willing students going to honours classes, and reluctant ones going to regular. In regular classes their will to learn is killed with punishment: busywork after busywork, rote memorization, all aimed at stuffing the clothes in. In honours classes it's killed with reward: learning is only worth it if it leads to a good grade/praise from the teacher. Once upon a time honours classes meant the teachers laid in the clothes in the best patterns, now it means that the students pick what clothes the teacher wants and puts them in according to the teacher. In Brave New World, you watch Big Brother.

There are of course exceptions. Ryan and me, for instance, both woke up to the fact that school was bullshit and real learning only happens from the bottom up-and its only reward is what you learn. Many of my friends in fact realised this and once they left the school behind they were no longer restricted by it and grew far past it (Aaron Wittrig is an example to us all).

Of course a lot of students make the charmingly naive mistake here that because school is bullshit it doesn't matter. People who think bullshit doesn't matter have a hard learning experience ahead (trust me). Bullshit matters. Individuating is not a guarantee of finanical or emotional well-being, and is frequently a hindrance to it. It's worth it, because otherwise you don't really deserve to call yourself, you know, human, but it can be a bitch.

Ok, to sum it up: school like all institutions in our society is run by Authoritarians. Authoritarians view the world machinistically, and feel the point of school is to make automatons. Tracking is the backbone of their system. Students must resist this by fighting the rewards/punishments and learning for themselves. Question Authority. All you need is love. The boss needs you, you don't need the boss. My other vehicle is a Mahayana.
3:10 PM