It’s been a while…

I realize that it has been a while since I posted. There are a few people who read the blog regularly so I know I’ve kinda disappointed you. The truth is, I’ve been rethinking things. I went back and read a lot of the stuff I wrote and wanted to do a major overhaul. Of course, then I realized it’s just a blog! Due to a few classes that I took in my last year of university (*sigh*), I started thinking about the nature of ‘art’ and it’s role in our culture. I started to think more about Christianity’s relationship to culture. Christianity has a bit of a PR issue (a term that only our culture could appreciate) in western culture. Gone are the glory days of western domination.

Long story short, I decided to start a new blog. Soundtrack to My Thoughts was an experiment in writing for me. Some friends and strangers seemed to enjoy the stuff that I was writing about, so I guess I passed the test. My new blog is basically an expansion of this one. I like to explore cultural themes, especially when these themes are discussed through ‘art.’

It’s officially up and running, so check out High Thoughts on Low Art.

Nesquik, arsenic: who are you to judge?

I found the title of this post floating around the Internet a few years ago. I hear the “who are you to judge” line so often that I thought I’d comment on it. I’m not just blowing off steam here, I think we really need to put some thought into this.

Who am I to judge? I’ll tell you who I am. I’m me. That’s who I am to judge! Look, I’ve got 24 hours a day to get through and want to make it out alive. This requires making a few judgments along the way, doesn’t it?

The Difference Between Things

The first step is to realize that there is a difference between things. Not all things are the same. What is the difference between Nesquik and arsenic? Well, for one thing, arsenic is not trademarked and Nesquik is. But there is an even more compelling difference. A couple scoops of Nesquik in your milk really tastes good. A little arsenic in your milk will kill you. That’s the difference.

Who are you?

We are all persons. Persons are effected by things. Persons make choices. Even though our decision making process is often quite shallow, we still have to do it. When we have a choice to make we weigh the possibilities.

Making a Judgment

Not to spoil the ending for you, but the process of deciding between two things is called making a judgment. We make judgments all the time. Should I walk or take the car? Eat in or take out? Drink arsenic or dri… wait a minute! Drink arsenic? Why would I do a thing like that? Drinking arsenic would kill me. Being dead would suck.

But still…

Okay, sure. I can make judgments concerning myself, but isn’t it a little difficult to judge other people? Actually it’s not that hard. We do it all the time. In fact, every time that we tell somebody that it is wrong to judge we are judging them. Right to their face! As persons, we are making a judgment and telling somebody that they are wrong.

A Judgment-less World

Judging people is uncomfortable (except when we do it without realizing it – like when we make the judgment that it is wrong to judge). When we tell people that it is wrong to judge we are refuting ourselves because we have to make a judgment in order to be able to say this.

But what if we all lived up to our “do not judge” attitudes. Do we really stop to think about this? What would the world look like if we stopped making judgments? “Hitler! Stop doing that! It’s wrong.” Ahh! But that’s judging. And who are you to judge? “I’m going to take you to court over this!” Well now, if courts don’t judge I don’t know who does. So shut down the courts because it is wrong to judge.

Try this one day; go through your whole day, from sun up to sun down, without making any judgments. Is this worth experimenting with?

But see, now I’ve forced you to make a judgment. And who are you to judge? You’re you!

Whenever you tell people not to judge you, you are inviting judgment. We are forced to evaluate your statement. You made us judge you. And that’s okay.

On Angels, Brutes and Dark Knights

“Man is neither angel nor brute, and the unfortunate thing is that he who would act the angel acts the brute.” Blaise Pascal

Why has western civilization fallen in love with a guy in a bat suit and a guy in a clown costume? I think it is because in some ways the story of Bruce Wayne and evil villains is our story. Batman tells us something about who we are. It tells what is good about us and reminds us of our great potential for evil. It also gives us hope. I don’t intend to spoil the plot but I do want to discuss some of the underlying philosophy of the movie.

I opened this post with a quote from Blaise Pascal who is a 17th century philosopher. His great philosophical work was not completed before his death but his writing survives in fragments and has been published under the title Pensees (French for “thoughts”).

In some of the fragments Pascal discusses the greatness and wretchedness of humankind. Who can deny that humans are capable of great acts of goodness? On the other hand, who can deny that humankind is capable of great acts of evil? Individual people do great things but we also do evil things. Societies and cultures as a whole do great things and they do evil things.

We know that we should do good things but instead, we do evil. We are not angles and we are not brutes yet, instead of acting like angels we choose to act like brutes.

I think we see this theme played out in The Dark Night. Bruce Wayne is a man with a lot of money and he can do whatever he wants. He chooses to do good. He acts like an angel. Well, a bat at any rate (they both have wings).

And then there is the Joker. Contrary to Bruce Wayne’s courageous selflessness, the Joker chooses to act the brute; quite literally. Make no mistake, these are not two equal and opposite forces of good and evil battling it out on the streets of Gotham. These are men who are capable (to some degree) of being good. But one chooses to be evil and to wreak havoc. This is a choice that we all have to make.

There is more to the story of course. Bruce Wayne himself recognizes that he is in danger of making wrong choices and being guilty of evil. We know from Batman Begins that Bruce has a dark side and that doing good does not come naturally. Just like Spiderman, Batman must struggle to do good things with his great power rather than bad things. Though he may wish to escape his high role of responsibility, to the delight of movie goers everywhere the caped crusader won’t be hanging up the bat suit just yet. The more he struggles to restore Gotham to a place of justice and opportunity, the more he must struggle with himself.

I think the people of Gotham illustrate Pascal’s point. It is from Gotham that these super-criminals come. There are very few angels in Gotham but many brutes. We do not get many glimpses of the larger population, but the look we do get foretells us that Batman hasn’t battled his last criminal. Gotham is constantly churning out new thugs and while crime rates go down, they never stay down.

In my opinion, Bruce Wayne has a false sense of hope in the people of Gotham. He really thinks that they can change. It is interesting that he thinks that a city that churns out supercriminals and a city that hates their own superhero might actually one day choose to act like angles.

And this is where I think The Dark Night reminds us of ourselves. We all choose to act like brutes don’t we? We all like to blame the problems of the world on other people but let’s face it, we are the world. Every once in a while a great person comes along and gives us great hope for the future. But we don’t listen. Every once in a while a very evil person arises and threatens the things that we care most about. We rise up and make a few good choices (like the people on the two ferries) but then we settle back down to live life as brutes. I think a little honest reflection proves this true. If we expect nothing but hideous evil from people we’ll be pleasantly surprised every now and then. After all, we’re not really brutes we just play the part. However, if we expect too much from people we’re going to be disappointed every day. Bruce Wayne won’t be with us forever.

Who can save us from this mess?

Contradiction.

Our generation is weird. We hate labels, love contradictions and make little sense of our world. I learned something a few years back that helped to clarify my thinking in a generation where anything goes, especially the weird.

This thing I learned is called the principle of contradiction, or the law of non-contradiction. Basically it’s just a rule of thinking that says contradictory statements cannot both be true at the same time.

So we can’t say that God does and does not exist. Either he does or he doesn’t. Just putting an ounce of thought into this demonstrates that this is true. If God exists and he is sitting there right in front of you then he obviously doesn’t not exist. If he doesn’t exist anywhere out there in the universe or beyond then he obviously doesn’t also exist. Got it? Pretty simple.

So I plead with our generation, please stop saying that everything is true. It can’t be. Happy thinking!

I leave you with Walking Contradiction by Green Day

The kids aren’t alright… anymore.

When I was 17 I swore I’d never do it, but it happened. I grew up. I’ve been reflecting a lot in the last year or so on my childhood and teenage years. Thanks to Facebook, I now know everything that is going on in the lives of every person I’ve ever met. We didn’t all turn out the way we thought we would. Some turned out better, some worse, some didn’t turn out at all.

There is a tragedy in growing older isn’t there? When I was a child I couldn’t wait to grow. I loved the thought of unlimited freedom, late nights and cake for breakfast. But now that I’m an adult I’m not so sure I want to be here. Already, friends are dying. The pressures of life are too much for some. Unlimited freedom didn’t turn out to be all that it’s cracked up to be.

Growing up doesn’t have to be a tragedy but the 9-5 and growing debt doesn’t leave much room for meaning. Before you know it life has nearly passed by and you’re wondering what you’ve done and why things haven’t turned out the way you thought they would when you were a kid.

I don’t know, maybe I’m the only one that thinks about this kind of stuff. I don’t bring this up because I think my life sucks. On the contrary, I think my life is pretty great. I have a great family, amazing wife, and awesome friends. On top of this, I’ve had the privilege of studying philosophy and ancient Christian writings with some top notch scholars for the last few years. I’ve dug deeper into Christianity over the last few years than I ever thought possible. I’ve wrestled with the meaning of life and the meaning of everything else for that matter! I just wish other people had these opportunities.

My life has really changed since I was 17. Believe me, it’s been for the better. The videos that I posted below are about the crappy part of growing older. There is some hope in them though. For some reason, in spite of all the crappiness of life, people still hope for something good.

The Offspring – The Kids Aren’t Alright

Less Than Jake – For The Rest of My Life

Noxious Culture

Virtue, Character and Culture

I was listening to Os Guinness this morning. He was talking about truth and if you are interested you can find his talk here. He made an interesting comment a little more than half way through. He said that the world of culture is where the virtues are formed and character is shaped.

The statement isn’t all that controversial and assuming it’s true then I think we have some problems. I don’t hear people talk about virtue or character much. I’m pretty sure that the concept of virtue is largely ignored today for various reasons. The only place that I ever hear about virtue is in philosophy class. Surprisingly, I think the only time that I hear Christians talk about virtue is when they are bashing it. I don’t know why this is the case. It seems that many Christians are so convinced that salvation does not come by doing good things that they scoff when they hear somebody telling them to be virtuous. Being virtuous is thought to be being self righteous or holier-than-thou I suppose. The only Christians who talk seriously about virtue seem to be philosophers.

I do hear people talk about character. The problem is that talk often comes too late. When should we talk about the character of a political candidate? We should talk about their character before it comes time to vote. Unfortunately, we often wait until they are involved in some sort of scandal. Then we talk about their character, but by then it’s too late to make a difference. Of course, that’s the beauty of democracy. What is great about democracy is not that everybody gets a vote. The beauty of democracy is that it gives us the ability to keep corrupt people in check. When a politician proves that they have bad motives we vote in a new one in. Evil tyrants don’t last long in a democracy.

If virtues are formed and character is shaped in culture then it seems that by understanding our culture you can predict the formation and shape that virtue and character will take.

Let me finish with a point or two to ponder. Our culture is drifting away from the concept of truth. The idea that there is something true out there whether we believe it or not. It’s true even if we don’t know about it and it’s true even if we don’t like it. This has been replaced by the idea that everybody has their own truth. You have your truth and I have mine. Even when our truths blatantly contradict each other we still insist that they are both true for us. If we don’t hold to the idea that there is truth independent of our own “truth” then we are going to find ourselves in big trouble.

The second point is that our culture is obsessed with commercialism and consumerism. We buy stuff like it’s going out of style. Don’t get me wrong, buying stuff is fine. However, when our lives are consumed with buying stuff and this stuff is what brings us joy in life then we’ve got problems. Have you ever stopped to think about the people that have to slave away in factories to make that junk? Have you ever thought of the garbage collectors that have to haul your junk away when you get sick of it? And think about the poor archaeologists who are going to have to sift through all this crap some day.

Truthless, consumer culture; this is where virtue is being formed and character is being shaped.

I leave you with a song by Rancid called Born Frustrated. It’s about culture, enjoy.

Reach for the Sky

My wife and I went to a funeral a few days ago. Funerals always get me thinking a little more deeply about life. We didn’t know the lady who died very well because she has been sick for so long, but we do know her husband. He has been a big influence in our lives. The funeral was in our home town.

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While I was home I went down into my Dad’s basement and dug out a few books that I haven’t looked at in a while. One of them is a collection of writings called Pensees by a Christian philosopher named Blaise Pascal from the sixteen hundreds. I flipped through the book, stopping at pages that I had highlighted a few years ago when I first read it. I came across this quote.

“Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. Now, the order of thought is to begin with self, and with its Author and its end. Now, of what does the world think? Never of this, but of dancing, playing the lute, singing, making verses, running at the ring, etc., fighting, making oneself king, without thinking what it is to be a king and what to be a man.”

I realize that this quote sounds a little choppy. For one thing, it has been translated into English. But it is also just a fragment. Had Pascal finished his book it would have been a much smoother thought. But let’s think about it for a minute. Really, that is exactly what Pascal is prodding us to do; think. We’re made to think, says Pascal, but the problem is we don’t do it.

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Instead of thinking about ourselves and our God and our purpose for existing, we write songs and play games and seek power. Oh sure, these things are not bad in and of themselves, but the problem is that we don’t even think about them. We are human beings, but we don’t stop to think about what that means. We want to be kings of the world, but we don’t stop to think about what being king means.

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Thinking is a hard thing to do, and even harder to do well.

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I came across another interesting passage that I had highlighted.

“As men are not able to defeat death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.”

Perhaps this is really why we don’t stop to think. Because our thinking leads to the realization that we are doomed to die. This is enough to make anybody miserable. Not to mention the fact that when you start thinking about the situation of the world you quickly come to realize the horrible evils that happen everywhere. The other frustrating part about thinking is that as soon as you start doing it you realize that you know very little at all. Now, we have to understand that Pascal is making generalizations about his culture. Some people do like to think.

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But doesn’t this kind of ring true about our culture too? People don’t spend a lot of time in thought. Instead, we obsess over the latest bands, movies and sitcoms. We crave the latest fashions and the highest paying jobs. But we don’t stop to think seriously about the world that we live in. We don’t think about our own nature. And we don’t think about God.

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Well, maybe this will get you thinking. Let’s not let a 17th century philosopher put us to shame.

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Here is a video from a band called Social Distortion. The song is called Reach for the Sky. Give the lyrics some thought too. I’m not sure that I understand everything that he is singing about but there are some lines that show he wants to take a deeper look at life.

Just Another Point of View?

I saw Vantage Point a couple weeks ago with some friends. I think it was a pretty good movie. Actually, it got me thinking about something interesting. The idea that we all have a point of view is pretty popular. The plot of Vantage Point plays off of this concept and I think we could learn a valuable lesson from it. Check out the trailer for it and then I’ll make some comments. Even if you’re not interested in the movie it is still an interesting way to consider this concept.

What is a point of view?

When somebody says, “that’s my point of view,” what do they mean by it? Well, I figure there are at least two things that they might mean. It might mean that it is just the way they see things. Of course seeing is used figuratively. We could just as easily say, “well, that’s my opinion about it,” or “that’s how I feel about it.” You see, the statement (or point of view) is more about the person than the subject being discussed or the object being viewed.

The other possibility is that it refers to the person’s limited knowledge or experience with the subject or object being discussed. When a person says, “that’s my point of view,” they may just as well say, “that’s my limited knowledge about it,” or “all I can say on the subject is _____, because that’s all I’ve experienced of it.”

Eight strangers, each with a different vantage point. Each with a piece of the puzzle.

If I’ve left you a little confused I think I can use the movie to make the point more clear. I think the movie illustrates the second option. Vantage Point opens with a major catastrophe. Eight complete strangers witness the event, but here is the key. They don’t all see the same parts and none of them see the whole event. Actually, it is impossible for each of them to witness the entire event because it really occurs in more than one place.

Now let’s notice what is happening here. They are eight people with different vantage points (points of view). They aren’t eight people with eight different opinions (that’s the first option I mentioned) about what happened. They are eight people who each witnessed a little bit of the event.

Notice that the movie very clearly states that they each have a piece of the puzzle. If their point of view was merely their opinion about what happened then it wouldn’t make sense to say that they each had a piece of the puzzle. When they put all the pieces (their opinions) together there won’t likely be a coherent picture. However, if their vantage point (or point of view) is what they saw happen, then when they put all the pieces together there will be a coherent picture. That of course is what is implied by the phrase each with a piece of the puzzle.

Truth. Lies.

What might any of this have to do with real life? When we say that somebody is telling the truth, don’t we mean that they are accurately telling us about the way things really are? And if we accuse somebody of lying, are we not saying that they are deceiving us about what really happened? When we ask for the truth or accuse somebody of lying, we aren’t asking for opinions, rather we’re talking about the way things really are.

Good. Evil.

When we talk about good and evil are we asking for an opinion on the subject? Well, it’s my opinion that murder is evil. But if you think that murder is okay then that’s fine with me. After all, everybody has their point of view don’t they? This is ridiculous, we all know that some things are right and others are wrong regardless of our opinion right?

Life. Death.

When it comes to the way that we live our lives we ought to be living on more than opinion. Opinions are often a good way to start, but if you don’t move beyond opinion and look for what is really real then what good is it in the end? Most people have opinions about what happens after death. Wouldn’t it be nice to have some concrete answers?

Eight Strangers. Eight Points of View. One Truth.

I’ll wrap this up with one last thing to think about. We often hear people say that religion is nothing more than blind faith, or perhaps opinion. After all, nobody can know everything about God. The world is full of different religions and because of this people tell us that each religion has a different point of view about God. Nobody has the full picture. What we need to do is put all of the pieces together (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, New Age and all the rest) and see what it looks like. This actually sounds quite attractive at first glance. But I think there is a problem.

Let’s use the outline of the movie again. There are eight strangers, let’s say eight religions. Each person or religion has a different point of view. But here is where it breaks down. In the movie there is one event. Eight people see this event from different places. When you put all the stories together you get one coherent picture.

But what happens when you put all the different religions together? You end up with only one God, yet many gods. You end up with God and with no God. You end up with a guy named Jesus who says you only get salvation through me and you also get a guy named Muhammad who says that salvation only comes through Allah. In short, you end up with a big mess! All of these religions can’t possibly be true because they all contradict each other. They aren’t all describing the same God and just coming up with little pieces that make senses when they are all put together. They are all describing very different gods (or no gods at all).

If we have eight pieces of a puzzle that don’t match when we cram them together then let’s face it, we are using pieces from very different puzzles. It’s only when the pieces fit that things make sense.

Healthy Body Sick Mind

My doctor wants me to eat healthy. My government wants me to eat healthy. The grocery store wants me to eat healthy. The factory I used to work in wanted me to eat healthy. Even McDonald’s wants me to eat healthy! But nobody seems to care about my mind.

Well, that’s not quite true. I have some professors who care about my mind. Some other people too. But our culture at large doesn’t seem to care a whole lot about our minds. Health crazes and health scams abound, but I never feel pressured to give my mind a good work out. Why doesn’t our culture care more about our minds? We’re bombarded every day with offers and advertisements, yet we’re not taught how to think through them. Why is that?

Upon entering class a few weeks ago one of my professors asked, “Do you ever think that the world has been set up in such a way as to keep you from concentrating?” That question kept me from concentrating on his class. But seriously, even when we are encouraged to think it’s usually just superficial. What most people mean by thinking is taking a few seconds (or perhaps a whopping five minutes) to make a decision on an issue and then moving on to the more important things in life like blogging random thoughts.

As a teenager, I liked to think but I wasn’t the best at it. One of the bands that encouraged me to think was Operation Ivy. They’re a legendary punk/ska band from the days before punk rock was as trendy and fashionable as it is now. Their lyrics are though provoking – unlike most of what our culture has to offer.

The song, Healthy Body Sick Mind has become somewhat of a theme song to me. I suppose you could say a soundtrack to my thoughts about thoughts.

Expensive vitamin pills and
Wheat germ on your windowsill
Schedule’s hectic and you got no time to kill
Earning money and you’re spending it the right way
Just in such a rush
You don’t know if it’s night or day

5:30 get up, run run run
Then you work eight hours slaving under the gun
Your little world’s based on lies lies lies
Always rushing but you’re never ever satisfied…
Healthy body sick mind
Working overtime
Healthy body sick mind
Too hectic, too hectic
Healthy body sick mind
Why don’t you justify
It’s just a matter of time
Sick body sick mind

The money you spend on running shoes could feed me for a week
Your plans are laid so well you can’t even sleep
Pursuit of happiness got your life locked under martial law
You got everything to lose so you’re paranoid about some fatal flaw

5:30 get up, run run run
Then you work eight hours slaving underneath the gun
Your little world’s based on lieslieslieslieslieslies
Always rushing but you’re never ever satisfied…
Healthy body sick mind
Working overtime
Healthy body sick mind
Too hectic, too hectic
Healthy body sick mind
Why don’t you justify
It’s just a matter of time
Sick body sick mind

Lyrics from some lyrics website.

Fashionably Late

It’s a Boy!

Every once in a while it hits me. I exist. I actually exist. I could just as easily have never existed, but I do. I know it sounds kinda stupid but I really appreciate existing. I like to try and think about what the world would be like without me. It’s kinda tough though because as long as I’m here thinking, I’m not not here thinking, which is what I’d be doing if I wasn’t here thinking about not being here. You follow me?

Isn’t it awesome that we exist? I mean, think about it. You could not exist but you do. Our existence isn’t necessary and yet here we are. I often wonder what it would be like to go out of existence. Yet again it’s difficult to think about because you can’t really imagine not existing. I mean, you can try but a non-existing person cannot think or imagine so whatever you think it would be like to not exist isn’t actually what it would be like because non-existence has no what it would be like-ness. See what I mean? You have to be in order to be like.

Better Late Than Never

Unfortunately, I started existing pretty late in the grand scheme of things. I missed the founding of all the great empires. I missed out on the flood (actually that’s probably a good thing!). I missed the discovery of my “home and native land.” There are quite a number of impressive astronomical events that have come and gone and won’t be happening again for the next million years. But all in all, I’m still happy that I exist.

Late, Yes. But Fashionably Late!

Actually it turns out that quite a number of people looked ahead to my time (give or take a few centuries) and waited in anticipation for it. Who? The Prophets from the BC era.

In 1 Peter 1:10-12 Peter says – “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.”

So I guess maybe I was born in a good era.

Fans of MXPX can check out the video below for the song called Late Again. It’s actually performed by Mike’s side project band called Tumbledown.

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