Feminist critiques of Freudian psychoanalysis tend to focus on the supposed role of the Oedipus/Electra complexs. Often the role of siblings is highlighted. Well, it looks like some research is favouring that approach. Siblings play formative, influential role as 'agents of socialization': "siblings are better role models of the more informal behaviors -- how to act at school or on the street, or, most important, how to act cool around friends -- that constitute the bulk of a child's everyday experiences.
'Siblings are closer to the social environments that children find themselves in during the majority of their day, which is why it's important not to overlook the contributions that they make on who we end up being,'"
20 January 2010
19 January 2010
POWER 2010
"What 5 reforms will bring real change to UK democracy? You can vote for as many reforms as you like, but just once for each reform.
The top 5 ideas become the POWER2010 Pledge - the backbone of our nationwide campaign for change at the next election. Vote now."
A version of my 'pet' idea is there: I do think that there should be a second chamber and I do think that it should be a democratic system. However, I think that Parliament should be more proportional and what I don't think we need is a second chamber with a democratic rivalry to it. Further, it seems clear to me that there is quite a lot of energy in some areas of civic society as well as expertise. It would be good to harness that in a scrutinising sort of way by having a different kind of constituency; non-geographical. So I'd love it, if you're a Brit, if you'd add your vote to that particular idea.
POWER 2010:
The top 5 ideas become the POWER2010 Pledge - the backbone of our nationwide campaign for change at the next election. Vote now."
A version of my 'pet' idea is there: I do think that there should be a second chamber and I do think that it should be a democratic system. However, I think that Parliament should be more proportional and what I don't think we need is a second chamber with a democratic rivalry to it. Further, it seems clear to me that there is quite a lot of energy in some areas of civic society as well as expertise. It would be good to harness that in a scrutinising sort of way by having a different kind of constituency; non-geographical. So I'd love it, if you're a Brit, if you'd add your vote to that particular idea.
POWER 2010:
12 January 2010
Cut the Cow, pass on the pork, leave the lamb ...
Christmas, as you might imagine, can be a testing time for vegetarians. All that ostentatious consumption of meat along with the mental picture it conjures up of mass-slaughter and factory-farm conditions for the vast majority of hapless victims. It is more particularly testing for those of us who are vegetarian for reasons of environmental impact and planetary justice. We don't have the fairly absolute inner prohibitions in place that our animal-welfare sibling-vegetarians and vegans have. We are merely 'tactically' vegetarian; that is we are not refraining from meat because we think that eating flesh is simply wrong. On the contrary we think that there may be a time for some meat-eating if the world were not so screwed up. So our difficulty is the treacherous sense that we could eat some meat, it's a special occasion, and it does look so nice, and everyone is enjoying it so, and just one little bit wouldn't hurt...
But of course, that would be the slippery slope to rejoining the overconsumption that is now normal in the global-North /West. I've been there and got the t-shirt. You see, I became vegetarian when I was about 22, mostly because I was convinced by Ron Sider's position in Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. Basically Sider pointed out that in a world where many died of hunger and malnutrition, it was scandalous that we made meat a regular part of our diet given that it was so expensive, in resource terms to produce. His figures were (if memory serves me aright) that it took roughly 8 units of vegetable protein to produce one unit of beef, 6 for lamb or mutton and 4 for poultry. Our mouthfuls of meat were taking the bread from the mouths of the global poor, as we could outbid them to feed our livestock..
Later on, I got fed up of the way that my diet seemed to inconvenience people in my parish; so I decided I'd eat meat from time to time mainly to not put others out. (It takes a re-vamping of the culinary imagination to be able to menu in vegetarian and a lot of people were clearly flummoxed when their invitation to a meal became a bit more of a drama than they had anticipated). The problem was 'occasionally' slipped into 'regularly' and before long the idea of being a lower meat-consumption body was away with the fairies. So a few years later, I realised what had happened, prompted partly by the keeping company with vegans and vegetarians and partly by my daughter's dislike of most meat, and I re-became vegetarian. It was good, also, to return to the major reason and renounce meat for the ecological footprint reasons.
These reasons are well-stated by Philip Sampson in a recently-published article in Third Way (December 2009, in fact). Let me quote some of his pithy summaries of the argument.
Industrial meat production is a profligate consumer of grain and water. One kilogram of beef requires 16 kilograms of feed and the same volume of water as 200 kilograms of potatoes. Worse, more than one third of the world's grain harvest is fed to livestock, and two thirds of cattle food in the industrial world is imported from countries where there is a shortage of grain. ...
Current meat consumption in the UK requires six times more land than we have available. We therefore import feed, and fatten animals on other people's land. Cattle grazing and animal feed are the main drivers of deforestation worldwide. ...
The livestock industry generates some 18 per cent of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Reducing meat consumption is the most effective single thing a family can do to combat global warming. ...
Our abuse of animals is certainly unsustainable, and it would be foolish to continue a pattern of consumption that robs our children.
There you have it: these seem to me to be huge reasons to reduce, if not eliminate, meat from our diets. You may as well start and get in practice now because when peak oil hits and carbon trading effects kick in, we're going to notice quite big hikes in price of meat and of products which hiddenly rely on meat production. It is a matter of justice for the globally-marginal and precarious. It is a matter of creation care for the beleaguered ecosystem that God has let us have in trust for future generations and the dignity and beauty of what it has become.
Lord when did we see you hungry and fed you? ... When you forewent meat and helped to feed the hungry, you did it to me.
Lord, when did we see you naked and clothed you? ... When you ate only vegetables, you saved forest from the plough; then you clothed me in the verdancy of the planet.
In as far as you did this for one of these little ones and for my creation, you did it to me.
But of course, that would be the slippery slope to rejoining the overconsumption that is now normal in the global-North /West. I've been there and got the t-shirt. You see, I became vegetarian when I was about 22, mostly because I was convinced by Ron Sider's position in Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. Basically Sider pointed out that in a world where many died of hunger and malnutrition, it was scandalous that we made meat a regular part of our diet given that it was so expensive, in resource terms to produce. His figures were (if memory serves me aright) that it took roughly 8 units of vegetable protein to produce one unit of beef, 6 for lamb or mutton and 4 for poultry. Our mouthfuls of meat were taking the bread from the mouths of the global poor, as we could outbid them to feed our livestock..
Later on, I got fed up of the way that my diet seemed to inconvenience people in my parish; so I decided I'd eat meat from time to time mainly to not put others out. (It takes a re-vamping of the culinary imagination to be able to menu in vegetarian and a lot of people were clearly flummoxed when their invitation to a meal became a bit more of a drama than they had anticipated). The problem was 'occasionally' slipped into 'regularly' and before long the idea of being a lower meat-consumption body was away with the fairies. So a few years later, I realised what had happened, prompted partly by the keeping company with vegans and vegetarians and partly by my daughter's dislike of most meat, and I re-became vegetarian. It was good, also, to return to the major reason and renounce meat for the ecological footprint reasons.
These reasons are well-stated by Philip Sampson in a recently-published article in Third Way (December 2009, in fact). Let me quote some of his pithy summaries of the argument.
Industrial meat production is a profligate consumer of grain and water. One kilogram of beef requires 16 kilograms of feed and the same volume of water as 200 kilograms of potatoes. Worse, more than one third of the world's grain harvest is fed to livestock, and two thirds of cattle food in the industrial world is imported from countries where there is a shortage of grain. ...
Current meat consumption in the UK requires six times more land than we have available. We therefore import feed, and fatten animals on other people's land. Cattle grazing and animal feed are the main drivers of deforestation worldwide. ...
The livestock industry generates some 18 per cent of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Reducing meat consumption is the most effective single thing a family can do to combat global warming. ...
Our abuse of animals is certainly unsustainable, and it would be foolish to continue a pattern of consumption that robs our children.
There you have it: these seem to me to be huge reasons to reduce, if not eliminate, meat from our diets. You may as well start and get in practice now because when peak oil hits and carbon trading effects kick in, we're going to notice quite big hikes in price of meat and of products which hiddenly rely on meat production. It is a matter of justice for the globally-marginal and precarious. It is a matter of creation care for the beleaguered ecosystem that God has let us have in trust for future generations and the dignity and beauty of what it has become.
Lord when did we see you hungry and fed you? ... When you forewent meat and helped to feed the hungry, you did it to me.
Lord, when did we see you naked and clothed you? ... When you ate only vegetables, you saved forest from the plough; then you clothed me in the verdancy of the planet.
In as far as you did this for one of these little ones and for my creation, you did it to me.
Malaysian court: Christians can worship Allah
This seems to be the obverse of an attitude some of our students come with (and sometimes leave with): that 'Allah' is a Muslim God.
Attacks after Malaysian court rules Christians can worship Allah - Times Online: "many Malaysian Muslims, who make up 60 per cent of the population, say that Allah should be reserved to refer exclusively to the Muslim deity and that use of it in a Biblical context encourages conversion to Christianity, a crime under the country’s Islamic laws."
The attitude by both some Muslims in Malaysia and some Christians in the UK and USA ignores the fact that Arabic-speaking Christians have no other 'ordinary' word for God. We should note that both sides are doing their theology in a language other than the original language concerned and have imported the word into their own languages.
I could say more but I'll leave it for now. It is, however, an interesting study in sociolinguistics as well as theology and interfaith dialogue.
Attacks after Malaysian court rules Christians can worship Allah - Times Online: "many Malaysian Muslims, who make up 60 per cent of the population, say that Allah should be reserved to refer exclusively to the Muslim deity and that use of it in a Biblical context encourages conversion to Christianity, a crime under the country’s Islamic laws."
The attitude by both some Muslims in Malaysia and some Christians in the UK and USA ignores the fact that Arabic-speaking Christians have no other 'ordinary' word for God. We should note that both sides are doing their theology in a language other than the original language concerned and have imported the word into their own languages.
I could say more but I'll leave it for now. It is, however, an interesting study in sociolinguistics as well as theology and interfaith dialogue.
11 January 2010
In defence of lists
Lots of intriguing stuff here. I'm a bit of on Eco fan; he does semiotics in a way I enjoy. Here's an interview related to his latest book The Vertigo of Lists.
SPIEGEL Interview with Umberto Eco: 'We Like Lists Because We Don't Want to Die' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International. What attracted my attention particularly was this: "The list is the origin of culture. It's part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order -- not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries."
This is one of the things I've been wrestling with in the theological reflection on language and culture based in Adam's naming the animals. It felt validating to see Eco saying something pretty much on the same wavelength.
SPIEGEL Interview with Umberto Eco: 'We Like Lists Because We Don't Want to Die' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International. What attracted my attention particularly was this: "The list is the origin of culture. It's part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order -- not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries."
This is one of the things I've been wrestling with in the theological reflection on language and culture based in Adam's naming the animals. It felt validating to see Eco saying something pretty much on the same wavelength.
Heaven and virtual worlds
At university, a friend articulated the unattractiveness of Christian faith for him by saying that heaven seemed pretty boring. My riposte at the time was that if it was boring then it could hardly be heaven. In fact, since then I've come across some who argue that Hell would be very boring (perhaps it was CS Lewis in the Great Divorce?).
And I was reminded of this when I saw this article:
Why playing in the virtual world has an awful lot to teach children | Society | The Observer:
One of the paragraphs mentions an early virtual world which was a paeon to virtual plenty:
Now I'll admit that the attractive thing about these kinds of traditional images is that if you are feeling that life is frantic, full of oughts and musts, full of oppression, poverty, pain, then images of rest are good. But there really does come a point where boredom presents itself in life after rest. It's a good job there are also images of feasting and of fellowship. I'd like to suggest too that the image of a heavenly Jerusalem, a city, seems to hint at a life with activity, creation, interchange. Is it too much to suggest that 'heaven' (and here I signal that I'm aware of the dangers of that word, especially post Tom Wright) would be a world of growth, development and expansion? Is that part of the deal underlying the notion of disciples being given responsibilities to rule? Because if so, then the lesson of the virtual world that we appear to need limits to push against, can be applied to the Eschaton. Work doesn't cease, but the curse of Genesis 3 is removed from it. I note too that much creativity thrives on dealing with limitations: managing to convey the effect with paint; managing to do something beautiful with a voice of only 12 tones (in Startrek Voyager there's an episode exploring just that issue when that limit is transgressed), managing to convey beauty and emotion with 17 words and a metre scheme ... it's the limits that drive the cleverness, the creativity, the charm ...
Heaven with limits? Of course: wouldn't we remain finite? Of course there are all sorts of caveats with this: there could be (are likely to be) things that we don't, perhaps can't, imagine which would make these questions and ideas seem laughable. And yet, we have to note that some of the ideas and imagery already do seem self-defeating and oxymoronic. Just remind ourselves that it's 'through a glass darkly' stuff; that all we can 'know' is that we will be recognisable, fulfilled, and together with God. Still, it's worth reflecting that we should be able to cross 'boring' off the list of possible attributes, though.
And I was reminded of this when I saw this article:
Why playing in the virtual world has an awful lot to teach children | Society | The Observer:
One of the paragraphs mentions an early virtual world which was a paeon to virtual plenty:
It was a utopia, and it was boring. Not only did people prefer virtual worlds in which there were brutally strict limits on available resources, and where vast amounts of effort had to be expended to obtain these resources; they were actually prepared to pay money to spend time in these scarce worlds.And there is the difficulty really: a lot of imagery about heaven talks about rest and seems to paint a rather static picture (a carol sung at Christmas has the line: "Where like stars, His children crowned/All in White shall wait around" -like some waiting room? -No thanks).
Now I'll admit that the attractive thing about these kinds of traditional images is that if you are feeling that life is frantic, full of oughts and musts, full of oppression, poverty, pain, then images of rest are good. But there really does come a point where boredom presents itself in life after rest. It's a good job there are also images of feasting and of fellowship. I'd like to suggest too that the image of a heavenly Jerusalem, a city, seems to hint at a life with activity, creation, interchange. Is it too much to suggest that 'heaven' (and here I signal that I'm aware of the dangers of that word, especially post Tom Wright) would be a world of growth, development and expansion? Is that part of the deal underlying the notion of disciples being given responsibilities to rule? Because if so, then the lesson of the virtual world that we appear to need limits to push against, can be applied to the Eschaton. Work doesn't cease, but the curse of Genesis 3 is removed from it. I note too that much creativity thrives on dealing with limitations: managing to convey the effect with paint; managing to do something beautiful with a voice of only 12 tones (in Startrek Voyager there's an episode exploring just that issue when that limit is transgressed), managing to convey beauty and emotion with 17 words and a metre scheme ... it's the limits that drive the cleverness, the creativity, the charm ...
Heaven with limits? Of course: wouldn't we remain finite? Of course there are all sorts of caveats with this: there could be (are likely to be) things that we don't, perhaps can't, imagine which would make these questions and ideas seem laughable. And yet, we have to note that some of the ideas and imagery already do seem self-defeating and oxymoronic. Just remind ourselves that it's 'through a glass darkly' stuff; that all we can 'know' is that we will be recognisable, fulfilled, and together with God. Still, it's worth reflecting that we should be able to cross 'boring' off the list of possible attributes, though.
03 January 2010
Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire:
I have just posted a review of this book (see link at the end). One of the things that arises from it for me which is beyond anything that the book even hints at is this:
Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire: Amazon.co.uk: Rita Nakashima Brock, Rebecca Ann Parker: Books"
I was also taken by the linkage of paradisal imagery with what seems to have been early Christian experience of nature and beauty as partaking in paradise in some way. This is intriguing because, for me and I suspect many coming into Christian faith, part of the experience of entry into faith is of a greater subjective sense of the aliveness and blessedness of the world of nature (including human beings). I find CS Lewis making a similar observation in his account of conversion. I'm intrigued doubly because this seems to have been part of the experience of many people of early Charismatic renewal in the 1970's. For example, much material used in worship by Anglican Churches touched deeply by Renewal at that time seems to have quite a lot of appreciation for nature and reveling in the glory of God as experienced in Creation. In addition the churches of Christ the Redeemer (?) in Texas where Betty Pulkingham worshipped, St Michael-le-Belfry in York (under David Watson, then) and groups such as the Post Green Community in Dorset also developed quite a folk arts emphasis in their common life and mission as well as a social-change (justice and integrity of creation) edge to their life.
I'd be interested to know if anyone else sufficiently long-memoried or with salient recent experience or research can add, confirm, nuance or better-inform that? It seems worthy of further research, though I'm not sure I'm the one to do it ...What happened to all of that? Have we, in the last 30 years seen a compressed-time reprise of the loss of paradise to a sacred-violence, somewhat neo-platonic (?) account of Christian faith? I suspect that there may be something in this: the Evangelical fear of illuminism along with an unreflective and sometimes (often?) too-simplified proclamation of a particular kind of atonement theory may well have severed or de-emphasised a Spiritual experience of the Spirit of God in creation in favour of something more ecclesiocentric, more culturally churchy. I think we may have lost some important mission opportunities in so doing
Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire: Amazon.co.uk: Rita Nakashima Brock, Rebecca Ann Parker: Books"
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