An open discussion concerning the nature of anti-Coptic violence in Egypt

For various reasons, I believe neither in rights nor in the truth-claims made by any religion.  I will preface this discussion with the warning, also, that I have no reason, other than my own cultural heritage, to concern myself with the anti-Coptic violence currently occurring in Egypt.  Nevertheless, for the love of a secular understanding of human beings and because the developments in Egypt, following its recent uprisings, demand an application of ethical discussion, I will concern myself temporarily with so-called “universal human rights” and the question of truth-claims made by certain “Islamists.”

For those of you unaware of the violence, perhaps a little background is necessary.  Extant in Egypt is a minority of Christians with a unique cultural heritage that may be traced directly to Pharaonic periods in Egyptian history.  St. Mark the Evangelist (you may know of him as the author of an appropriately named gospel) allegedly founded the Church of Alexandria in 42 A.D., thus creating one of five original Christian sees.  The group of Egyptians currently being viciously targeted is this group of Christians, also known as Copts.  If for no other reason, one, especially here in the West, perhaps should consider the importance of preserving the final remnants of one of the oldest civilizations.

“Attacks against Egyptian Christians in 2011 include, but are not limited to:
• The bombing outside the Church of the Two Saints on New Year’s morning that killed 23 worshippers leaving a midnight mass celebration in Alexandria.
• The destruction of a church by a Muslim mob following reports of a romantic relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman in the village of Sol on March 5.
• The killing of nine Coptic Christians by a radical mob and the Egyptian military while Copts were protesting in the Mokattam Hills in Cairo on March 9.
• The killing of twelve Christians and Muslims by an Islamist group that attacked St. Mina Church and Virgin Mary Church in the Imbaba district of Cairo on May 7. One church was burned to the ground and numerous Christian-owned apartments and shops were vandalized and looted.”

(photo taken from the cleric's facebook page)

So much for the background, though, what of a reply to comments such as those made by Egyptian cleric Wagdi Ghoneim?  I’d like to focus on two claims that the cleric makes, one theological and the other ethical.  These claims may represent the conceptual underpinning of the violence in Egypt and to that extent, there is empirical evidence for a lack of understanding of the relationship that should exist between two human beings.  The theological claim is that, “Someone who tells you that he doesn’t want Islam is a heretic. If he tells you he doesn’t love Islam, he is a heretic. If he tells you that God does not rule us, he is a heretic. If he tells you that we do not need Islam today, he is a heretic;” the ethical claim, “Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that there are 7 million of them [Coptic Christians] – and by God, there are less… There are 70 million of us! So how can you talk to me about equal rights?”

Happy Thanksgiving, All!

Last year, I was in Rome for Thanksgiving which is arguably a significant downgrade from Dallas which is where I have retreated for this holiday.

That being said, I am lucky enough to retreat into a place of great company. I was reunited with one of my dearest friends who I had not seen in well over a year and there is little to be disgruntled about when you are surrounded by family and lovingly made food.

To all the pages yet to be written, destinations to be visited, dialogues to be created, meals to be shared, and opportunities ahead, I am very grateful.

A Little Toast to Stagnancy

Though there are few of you who might read this, it is worth the effort (or the selfish desire for catharsis) to draft something. After returning from Berlin and fulfilling an internship over the summer stateside, I chose to return to the city where I spent my undergraduate degree and work my way through minimum wage positions. Why did this seem like the most reasonable option? Certainly the economy plays a role; after pursuing some entry-level positions at various universities and being denied employment due to “overwhelming applicant numbers”, it felt a little futile to continue to pursue employment that was unattainable without having someone attesting to your credentials within the field. That coupled with nonlinear career paths philosophy majors take left me with few options.

So it was back to Austin for a comforting but nonetheless striking exemplar of how the job market is abysmally difficult to infiltrate. To hold a position of interest and one that is also intellectually stimulating is almost impossible, so it seems. I sit at a coffee shop, a mere half mile away from my new apartment, commiserating with a good friend about how this tailspin of a post-graduate existence has evolved thus far. Huffington Post, as I type, just uploaded the equally as depressing piece penned by college seniors Mark Paul and Anastasia Wilson at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, titled “How Are the Kids? Unemployed, Underwater, and Sinking“.

This is not an issue I have ignored; it might be one that I have beat into a bloody lifeless and unemployed pulp. I have tried to attack it from almost every angle. I was apathetic, disheartened, provided tough love. I tested the job market out overseas! I worked for a non-profit! I was employed by companies who cared nothing for my degree, my sterling G.P.A., and my credentials! What more could I have done or could I do that would give me a better idea of how to beat this nameless, incoherent monster that had sapped me of a job and of a little portion of my dignity?

That question is to be followed by another: so what good comes from furthering this one way discussion? Probably none. But at least this is the lighthouse flashing, “You’re not alone”. The dry land might have to be each other, in creating these dialogues, and perpetuating a creative discussion on what we can do. I hope that the integrity of American academics can be placed as a priority again. I hope that we can have an invested interest in our potential outside of our stock portfolios. The impact that the U.S. has been known for over the last century was largely financial which has fused our sense of self with our pocketbooks, leaving a generation that is unable to replicate the same prosperity of our parents without a positive identity to sync with. It requires, for now, attaining jobs that provide and fighting through the lethargy to achieve something more.

It is without question that a new mythology must be created, one that accurately defines the ideals of this generation while formally acknowledging the limitations of past sociological fairy tales. Anyone willing to contribute to the new story, please, let’s get started.

Interesting Question, Sir…

As this is a blog of primarily philosophers or those who are philosophically-minded, I thought this Op/Ed from the NYTimes was relevant enough to share. I thought it was an interesting way of beginning to talk about philosophy. Generally the questions of philosophy revolve around what philosophy itself is or should be, what Truth is, what can be known with certainty, if anything. In other words, we spend most of our time fixated on the typical philosophical questions. When I read this piece, I was actually surprised that it was the first time I had considered what it actually means to call oneself a philosopher. It’s possible I’m alone in that regard, but nonetheless, I find it to be a question we don’t address often. Reading the comments that follow the piece were even more thought-provoking. Everyone seems to answer the question differently. To be a philosopher is to inquire, to doubt, to analyze, to reason, to search, to answer, to believe, to wonder… The list seems to go on ad nauseam.

To me, it seems that all activities or inclinations that could possibly be ascribed to philosophers are not mutually exclusive or contradictory. To be a philosopher is to do all of those things in different times and in different ways. But I could be romanticizing the disposition. I’m extremely tempted to take a quick poll of all my philosophy classes to see what other answers come back…

As a complete tangent, I also found it a bit amusing that the lawyer and philosopher are seen as opposites in the piece, as I am a Philosophy major who will be attending law school in the fall. I sincerely hope I won’t become a “pettifogger” as a result of my legal education.

TED on Coral Destruction

Poem for 4/29

This has all happened before
but nothing here is obsolete.
Everything here is possible.

For everyone frolicking around in the perfect spring weather, Anne Sexton has something to say!

IT IS A SPRING AFTERNOON

Everything here is yellow and green.
Listen to its throat, its earthskin,
the bone dry voices of the peepers
as they throb like advertisements.
The small animals of the woods
are carrying their deathmasks
into a narrow winter cave.
The scarecrow has plucked out
his two eyes like diamonds
and walked to the village.
The general and the postman
have taken off their packs.
This has all happened before
but nothing here is obsolete.
Everything here is possible.

Because of this
perhaps a young girl has laid down
her winter clothes and has casually
placed herself upon a tree limb
that hangs over a pool in the river.
She has been poured out onto the limb,
low above the houses of the fishes
as they swim in and out of her reflection
and up and down the stairs of her legs.
Her body carries clouds all the way home.
She is overlooking her watery face
in the river where blind men
come to bathe at midday.

Because of this
the ground, that winter nightmare,
has cursed its sores and burst
with green birds and vitamins.
Because of this
the trees turn in their trenches
and hold up little rain cups
by their slender fingers.
Because of this
a woman stands by her stove
singing and cooking flowers.
Everything here is green and yellow.

Surely spring will allow
a girl without a stitch on
to turn softly in her sunlight
and not be afraid of her bed.
She had already counted seven
blossoms in her green green mirror.
Two rivers combine beneath her.
The face of the child wrinkles
in the water and is gone forever.
The woman is all that can be seen
in her animal loveliness.
Her cherished and obstinate skin
lies deeply under the watery tree.
Everything is altogether possible
and the blind men can also see.

Writers Roll-Call!

Hey all,

As I am now finally back in the U.S. and have too much time on my hands, anticipate a rash of new posts on the horizon. Europe was fantastic and I intend to write a piece about the social identities of the U.S. and our older, more historically aware companion across the Atlantic. Hope all readers and contributors are well and I hope to hear from everyone soon!

Caitlin

Romantic Love and the Problem of Unrelenting Self-definition

Ah, the paradox of love: the dialectical tension between union and individuality

In this long overdue posting, I offer my thoughts on another somewhat unconventional topic of philosophical reflection: romantic love.  I am going to structure my discussion around a work by Robert Solomon, “About Love.” (Is he becoming a theme in my posts? I do read other philosophers, I swear…) On the topic of love, I have found his theories/thoughts/reflections, as they are articulated in “About Love,” to be accessible, plausible, and true-to-my-own-experience. I’d like to offer a brief sketch of his philosophical theory of romantic love and then offer some personal reflections on the potential obstacles that modernity poses to his definition of love–namely, how does one cultivate an openness to romantic love against cultural messages of independence and self-sufficiency?

SXSW Plans

For all you readers looking to catch contributor Matt Hines during SXSW, his band, The Eastern Sea, will be playing a number of shows. Hope you can check them out!

Whither Darwin? The way of discarded gods

“Darwinian evolution is the last of the nineteenth century pseudo-scientific religions to fall along with Marxism and Freudian psychology, and I am quite sure that Darwin, Marx and Freud are all commiserating, one with the other, in the hell where discarded gods lie.”  David Berlinski, a philosopher who received his PhD from Princeton University nonetheless, and has achieved little aside from being fired from any job he has ever held, has long been a voice for the nonreligious opposition to Darwinian evolution (I refuse to use the horrid terms “Darwinism” and “evolutionism” because I am not so deluded as to think Darwin is my god and evolution my creed).  Berlinski was the philosopher who sat opposed to Michael Ruse, a proclaimed evolutionist and the philosopher who wrote this article recently for The Chronicle of Higher Education.  If you aren’t in the habit of reading philosophy of science, I can summarize the stance: “Even respectable theists cannot propose a mechanism of evolution without appealing to a directed process such as ‘intelligent design.’  Though a paradigm shift may be in the works, no intelligent design proponent has even scratched at the veneer of Darwinian evolution.  Moreover, the most they have said has been debunked and shows the worst attention to current biological research.”

I am inclined to agree with Dr. Ruse, so far as no idea about intelligent design has managed to leave the creationist camp without the awful smell of those who dwell there.  And yet, I am far from convinced by Darwinian evolution.  I posed to Caitlin a question raised by Berlinski in his Commentary article, “The Deniable Darwin”: Why is it that cats, and not women, are born with the sleek tails that would make them all the more alluring?  I pose the question to any readers now.

The idea is not cheap, although it has a difficult time distinguishing itself from intelligent design.  Those of us who think the evidence for evolution is strong–nothing is more convincing about common ancestry than molecular and genetic similarities between ourselves and bugs (think of this term loosely)–and who have distanced ourselves from the Darwinian school, still have a hard time making sure we are not misconstrued as “IDers.”  Perhaps this is because, as Richard Dawkins laments, we see purpose everywhere.  E.O. Wilson echoes this sad state of affairs, “We evolved to believe in religion [read: purpose].”