On Poetry and Argument

When former poet laureate Ted Kooser claimed that poetry serves to "freshen the world," he cited a poem about homeless people.

The poem, "Fire Burning in a Fifty-Five Gallon Drum" by Jared Carter, begins with these five words:

"Next time you'll notice them . . ."

That is, after reading the poem, you'll see the homeless.

"Next time you'll notice them on your way to work
or when you drive by that place near the river
where the stockyards used to stand, where everything

is gone now. They'll be leaning over the edge
of the barrel, getting it started. . ."

The rest of the poem is filled with conscientious descriptions of the homeless. It's not an argument—the author doesn't rebuke the reader for not giving money to the poor, nor does he assert that we should vote for a policy that will give the homeless some housing. He merely translates what he's seen with words the way a painter would illustrate the scene with paint.

But the poem (hopefully) makes us see the world again, causes us to "re-vise" the world. In other words, even though this poem doesn't accomplish the same specific purposes that a political speech or an op-ed piece on the homeless would, it may help us in a more general way.

Art may, as Kenneth Burke once claimed, "leave us with a desire for justice." Good art doesn't preach to the world about which specific actions readers should take on a particular issue. Art isn't practical in this sense. It is instead about shaping and refining our feelings. Practicality isn't the realm of art; it is the realm of rhetoric—of political debate. When art gets too practical, too specific, we write it off, or at least we should write it off, as propaganda or a cold sermon.

So there's rhetoric and there's poetics (rhetorology). Rhetoric is the realm of argument, poetics is the realm of beauty. And we have a use for both.

When politicians and citizens find themselves at a headlock about how, exactly, we should help the poor—whether we should initiate more government programs or promote private charities—what we might need is better art. In the wrangling debate, in the midst of specifics, we might need a piece of art that would shift our attitude and remind us to reverence bare humanity.

Demand Question Time

Sign the petition. A good idea for promoting civil discourse, question time.

(Hats off to Daine for the link.)

Thumbs Up Thursday: Jonsi

I discovered Jonsi's first release from his upcoming album about two weeks ago and still can't stop listening to the free download here (click play then click on the little cloud to download). It's likely my favorite song he's written, with brilliant layering and lyrics that conjure the same romping emotions of "Where the Wild Things Are." Awe-some.

If nothing else, just listen to how he uses the flute. Not overdone—just enough and no more.

Mormon Artist Publication

I wrote an essay in this issue of the fantastic mormonartist.

Thumbs Up Thusday: Against the Permanent Campaign

"What frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is Election Day. We can't wage a perpetual campaign where the only goal is to see who can get the most embarrassing headlines about the other side—a belief that if you lose, I win. Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can. I'm speaking to both parties now. The confirmation of well-qualified public servants shouldn't be held hostage to the pet projects or grudges of a few individual senators." - Obama, State of the Union 2010

Hear, hear. It's certain that every politician is motivated partly because they want to keep their job (who could blame them?), but when the permanent campaign becomes the central motive behind all actions, government is crippled; the net good of Congress is nullified.

What did you think of the State of the Union? Was it a sign that change is still viable?

Live Blogging on Apple iPad

Follow the news about the iPad as it comes in today. Here.

Presentation summary here.

(Kudos to Travis for the link.)

To Commune or Conquer

"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery." - The Road, last paragraph

No novel has haunted me for good and bad the way Cormac McCarthy's The Road has. I can't forget it, though at times I think I should in order to shake my fear that our world will darken to the one McCarthy imagines—a gray post-apocalyptic world of cutthroats.

What saves the book is that it ends in beauty, ends in reverence. "Hummed of mystery" is the essence of reverence, since reverence comes from awe for what we humans cannot fully comprehend. Awe for the incomprehensible mystery that is older than man, a grand Incomprehensibility that compels us to love.

If I cut straight to the heart of what I've learned so far from writing about reverence and rhetorology it's that I've learned I love sloppily. I've learned I don't love people I should love.

Well, that won't amount to much, will it?

It's a broken word—love—since in English we're unable to divorce it from romance, but it's the word we Christians use for the great commandments: love God, love each other. That is, strongly like.

Studying reverence has led me to believe that a person who is awed by the grandeur of Mystery (a grandeur that surfaces in things as commonplace as the intricate designs on the side of a fish) cannot help but love. You can't be filled with feelings of awe and scrawl vitriol on the wall of a YouTube discussion board.

Experiencing good art is one way to garner feelings of awe, since good art reminds us to appreciate aspects of life we've grown overly accustomed to.

Communicating with others is another way. Communication reminds us that other humans are more mysterious and grand than we may have thought.

The trouble is that most people today are merely out to convince (coming from the Latin vincere: "to conquer") rather than to commune. This is why concepts like rhetorology and Rogerian argument are so powerful: they motivate reverence, which in turn motivates love.

Maxine Hairston, professor emerita of English at University of Texas at Austin, describes the process this way:

“In the several years since I first became interested in Rogerian argument it has had a growing influence on me. Not only do I teach it to help my students become better rhetoricians, but I have found that increasingly I am using Rogerian strategies myself when I really care about communicating with people. I have learned how to phrase questions neutrally in order to elicit genuine answers, and I have trained myself to become a better listener by adopting Rogers’ advice to withhold my response until people have had a chance to express their views.”

I've seen this too. I've created enemies before, by layering internal gossip about people I thought were detestable but hadn't really yet spoken to directly. Then when I finally confronted them, even if we argued and remained at odds with each other about a given topic ("enemies?") I found that I liked them more than I had prior to communicating. I could see, at least a grandeur I hadn't previously considered.

Sean Hannity and Rev. Wright Demonstrate Rogerian Rhetoric

Carl Rogers' seven principles of communication:

1. Highly structured and rule-governed situations tend to be threatening and to reduce communication.

2. Threat inhibits communication. When a person feels threatened by what another person is saying, he or she is apt to stop listening in order to reduce anxiety and protect the ego.

3. One reduces communication by anticipating answers and having preconceptions about what the other person is going to say.

4. One increases communication by establishing an atmosphere of trust and suspending judgment until another person has finished speaking.

5. One reduces threat and increases the chance of communication by demonstrating that one understands the other person’s point of view.

6. Strong statements of opinion often put people on the defensive and discourage real communication.

7. Biased language increases threat and reduces communication; neutral language decreases threat and increases communication.

An example here, from 2:30 to 3:30

Thumbs Up Thursday: Scott Brown with a Caveat

It's not that I'm particularly pleased with the candidate himself (or the bare centerfold I knew would surface when I searched for his picture on Google). But despite what a few Democrats have said after the election, Brown's win unquestionably signifies something larger than just a localized Senatorial race. There were other factors, certainly (Coakley's slip about baseball, her laziness, etc.), but it would be hard to argue that Brown still would have won had the same election taken place a year ago when a majority of Massachussets citizens voted for Obama.

This surprise victory (especially surprising because, of all people, Brown replaces Ted Kennedy) is at least in part a signal that loads of people dislike the current health care bill. After all, Brown campaigned unabashedly on the grounds that he would vote against it. And the citizens of Massachusetts know about health care reform.

I say thumbs up to the call to revise the current health care bill.

However—and here's the caveat—if Scott Brown's win means that no health care reform gets passed, then his win, in my mind, will be almost as bad as Coakley's would have been. Getting no health care reform passed will stifle American morale. It will make us feel more divisive than ever. If Brown's win results in merely stifling all the current bills, the American people will believe more strongly than ever that Congress is hopelessly divisive and that it's still just politics as usual in Washington. No hope, change, or unity.

A NYT conversation between Gail Collins and David Brooks puts it nicely. Brooks is right: to push the current bill through now, as Pelosi wants, would be an arrogantly stupid move, since it would signal that the Democrats don't give a blink about the public's view on the matter.

Here's my pitch: We need health care reform, but we need health care reform that focuses solely and doggedly on one criterion—reducing cost. Any line in any bill that doesn't unarguably reduce long-term cost should be cut. Since the nation is feeling the aftermath of the recession, lowering cost on health care is common ground for Republicans and Democrats.

When it comes to cutting costs, the current bill is a tad iffy. The CBO pdf says,

enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $130 billion over the 2010–2019 period . . . In the subsequent decade, the collective effect of its provisions would probably be small reductions in federal budget deficits if all of the provisions continued to be fully implemented. Those estimates are subject to substantial uncertainty. (italics mine)

Update (from an AP story today): "Obama urged lawmakers not to try to jam a bill through, but scale the proposal down to what he called 'those elements of the package that people agree on.'" Two thumbs up.

Modern Dogma Illustrated

An illustration of my most recent post:

My wife Becca tells the story of meeting a young LDS liberal at an Institute social when she was a single adult living in Seattle. The 2008 presidential election was a little over a year away, and political tender spots slipped in and out of the conversation as the evening wore on. At one point, this young man came and sat at their table, an acquaintance of an acquaintance to Becca. The topic of immigration law had just bubbled up, and the young man immediately steamed:

"I have such strong feelings about that. It's so ridiculous how callous and closed-minded some people are. It really, really gets to me."

Surprised, Becca pushed him to explain. She didn't feel incredibly passionate about either leaning and wanted some tangibles. His response was passionately absurd: he said he "couldn't talk about it" because he "felt so strongly" about it. His gutsy "open-mindedness" left him emotionally overwhelmed and rhetorically paralyzed. He said nothing more. Becca left the conversation unchanged, unpersuaded, and slightly amused.

Modern Dogma and the Open Mind

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." - C.K. Chesterton

"There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people." - Buddha

As I noted previously, one of the best books I read last year was Wayne Booth's Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent. While Booth criticizes many modern dogmas throughout the book, the one he refutes most frequently is the dogma that "the job of thought is to doubt whatever can be doubted."

Booth argues that since the time of Descartes (who promoted unrelenting doubt with his claim "I think, therefore I am"), it has become increasingly fashionable to doubt everything.

We see this dogma today. It's frequently behind the now-hackneyed slogans "be true to yourself," "open your mind," "think for yourself," "question everything," "don't be so close-minded" and "stick it to The Man."

In Modern Dogma Booth doesn't argue that we should never doubt, never dissent, or never promote individualism, but he does question the limits of doubt. He asks us to consider when we should assent rather than doubt. Booth claims that to fall wholesale to this modern dogma (i.e. "doubt everything") is fantastically damaging to human communities and, in turn, to human beings.

He responds directly to the individualistic hippie thinking that was alive and well the year he wrote the book (1974). Booth says that he never hears such groups "admit to what a puny thing, what an imaginably subhuman thing one's precious self would be if one had not been surrounded by, embedded in, made through other selves in social institutions." He says

"we [Americans] all believe, passionately, in the right of every person to assert and defend his values; about such matters as freedom and equality and justice. We are indeed moral absolutists, even those of us who will in the same breath chant, 'There are no absolutes.' The whole country cries 'Freedom now!'—meaning my freedom now." (132)

In other words, modern dogma, or our attempt to stick it to The Man, has often led us from communal to self-centered thinking. (It's the story of James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as Young Man.)

That is why Booth thought the rhetoric of assent was such a key idea. The rhetoric of assent requires individuals to recognize that the best way to live life is in communities. Therefore, while the rhetoric of assent works against the indomitable faith and traditional thinking of religious fundamentalists, it also works against the indomitable doubt and "open-mindedness" of modern dogmatists, people who reject traditional communities simply because they find that those communities hold dubious beliefs.

What these dogmatists seldom admit is that there are no communities that are free of dubious beliefs. Because every community is made up of half-witted and measly-hearted humans, belonging to any community requires each individual within that community to put some doubts on hold, to practice hypocrisy upwards. No community, good or bad, ecumenical or exclusive, can withstand unrelenting doubt.

To illustrate, look at Roger Williams, founder of the first Baptist church in America. At one point in his life, according to a Williams biography by Emeritus Yale professor Edmund Morgan, Williams doubted every one of the local religious communities so strongly that he believed his version of Christianity was the only true version. The problem was that only he and possibly his wife agreed exactly with his version of Christianity. That's a lonely church.

This isn't to say that all doubt is damaging, or even that most of it is: Descartes's proclivity towards doubt has rid the modern world of myriad lame superstitions. Nor is it to say that individuals should never break from communities, since it cannot be true, as cultural relativists assert, that all communities are equally true and false. (Just compare the fruits of Jonestown to the fruits of the United Way.)

Booth's claim is merely that all communities require give and take. They require assent. They require us to play the believing game. Booth asks that rather than set out alone to discover "our truth," we set out to discover truth communally through mutual inquiry.

In sum, this is why the rhetoric of assent, or rhetorology, is so powerful: by requiring us to cooperate peaceably and humbly in and between communities, it simultaneously critiques traditional religious dogma and modern individualistic dogma. Rhetorology requires us to commit to some community somewhere rather than to remain alone. It requires us to open our minds and then, after we can articulate a more solid truth, to close them.

.

Thumbs Up Thursday: The Avett Brothers

I don't know what this has to do with reverence, but I watched this song on repeat so many times this past week I can't resist sharing. It resonates with me.

Mitt Romney's NO APOLOGY

Even though I believe America has been the greatest nation in world history, and even though we get little to no thanks for our unsurpassed efforts in keeping world peace, I'm disappointed in the title Mitt Romney chose for his upcoming book. No Apology? Such brashness will increase book sales, but the proposition that we shouldn't apologize for any of our mistakes (as relatively mild as they've been) will only drain our power in the long run.

I was hoping for a more nuanced argument.

Hyprocisy Upwards

Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.
-Ender's Game

Wayne Booth tells a story in an interview (I can't remember where the story originates, the interview is here) about a man with a sordid past. He meets a lovely woman and wants to marry her, but she rejects him because his vulgar life is so etched into his demeanor, so much that he is physically revolting.

Distraught, the man searches out a mask-maker. He asks for a new face to mask the sordid reality of his life of sin. The mask-maker crafts an angelic face for the man, who quickly dons his new disguise and seeks the woman's hand once more. This time he acts the part, playing into his angelic features in speech and action. Over time she accepts his proposal for marriage.

For years they live happily: the man continues to force his actions to fit his mask, putting on airs of chivalry and virtue.

After many years living under this pretense, a prostitute (and former lover) learns where the man is, finds him, and destroys his disguise. No longer able to rely on his mask, the man is heartbroken and afraid. He knows he must confront his wife with his old demeanor. He comes home and avoids his wife for hours. When he finally finds the courage to come out and greet his wife, she merely asks if he is ready for dinner, and shows no reaction to his unmasked face.

Over the years he had transformed. He lived the life of his mask so fully that it became his true face.

This is a beautiful parable for Wayne Booth's concept of hypocrisy upwards. The more I think about it, the more profound it seems. Is there any other way to acquire virtue than this? We're hypocrites whenever we try to better ourselves. This is what being "better" connotes, that we're trying to be something we're not (yet).

I see rhetorology as a way to acquire the virtue of reverence. Rhetorology is the practice, while reverence is the virtue. Rhetorology is the "act" we put on, the hypocrisy (upwards) we practice in order to acquire reverence. We spend time fully listening to the opposing viewpoint, and over time we acquire the ability to naturally feel genuine respect for those with whom we disagree.

Of course, hypocrisy upwards has to be coupled with sincere meditation and reflection in order to make sure it's not motivated by deceit or greed. Deceit is what deflates the potential of hypocrisy upwards, turning it into simple, wretched hypocrisy.

Thumbs Up Thursday: iSlate

Becca was kind enough to give me an iTouch for Christmas, and I've been quite delighted with it. Now rumors have it that Apple will announce the iSlate at the end of the month(?). If its interface is as smooth as the iTouch, it'll certainly be on a future wish list.

A Man of Sorrows

An addendum to my last post: compassion is tied to sorrow in a way I hadn't fully realized. Here's the definition, according to Webster's 1828 dictionary:

A suffering with another; painful sympathy; a sensation of sorrow excited by the distress or misfortunes of another; pity; commiseration. Compassion is a mixed passion, compounded of love and sorrow.

Perhaps Christ didn't show compassion for the Pharisees (Matthew 23) because they had no evident sorrow. They had exalted themselves to the point where they felt the sorrow of no one, and without sorrow, compassion is impossible.

Does Charity Ever Fail Us?

Last night I stumbled upon the Charter for Compassion, a movement that has a lot of overlap with reverence and rhetorology. (Except the Charter uses a more palatable key word: compassion rather than rhetorology.)

The movement launched on November 12, 2009, and was inspired by Karen Armstrong, author of, among other books, The Case for God.

She introduced the Charter in her brilliant TED video, wherein she claims that religion is essentially good, but that it's been hijacked in recent history. She quips, "we have a talent as a species for messing up wonderful things."

The Charter hopes to remedy the hijacking. Here's an outline from the website:

The Charter will proclaim a principle embraced by every faith, and by every moral code. It is often referred to as The Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule requires that we use empathy—moral imagination—to put ourselves in others' shoes. We should act toward them as we would want them to act toward us. We should refuse, under any circumstance, to carry out actions which would cause them harm.

It's a needed reminder, don't you think?

I signed my name to the Charter, but I had a slight hesitation as I did. I wondered whether compassion alone is enough to fix our problems. Can the Golden Rule alone really be the answer to every situation?

I don't know. What about justice?

It seems sometimes compassion can headbutt justice. Just ask Mike Huckabee, who, according to political pundits across the nation, has no chance of winning the presidential nomination in 2012 because he release prisoners who went on to murder innocent civilians.

Was he compassionate to a fault? He possibly thought, "well, I wouldn't want to be in prison, and I'm supposed to do to others what I would want done to me, so I'll let these people go." It seems to have been a breach of justice. (I still like the guy, mainly because he was the best debater in the Republican primaries—but I might be one of a handful of Mormons who likes him. Alas.) :)

So I'm left wondering whether compassion alone is enough. On the Charter's website Rabbi Jackie Tabick recounts a Jewish story about how God knew He'd need to give mankind two paradoxical virtues, compassion and justice, for mankind to succeed. Likewise, Paul Woodruff, in Reverence, recounts a Greek myth about how Zeus gave mankind two similar virtues, reverence and justice, to foster our success. If two major ancient cultures believed that these virtues should be coupled, it may very well be a truth.

Writing this has many filled me with questions, questions perhaps you know the answer to (and if you do I hope you'd share):

Is compassion enough?

When did Christ practice justice?

Do we as fallible beings ever know enough to rightfully practice justice?

Does "do not judge" mean "don't practice justice"?

What does "do not judge" mean? (I think there are few more puzzling scriptures than that one.)

What does "charity never faileth" mean?

Thumbs up Thursday

Sadly I don't have a picture, but I can't refrain from giving a shout-out to my freshman academy class last semester. That group was uniformly

smart
funny
dedicated
and
kind.

One student even told me that rhetoric (rhetoric!) was now one of her favorite subjects.

What else could a teacher ask for?

Thumbs up Thursday

Seattle in the winter.

Christmas tree

Boone dog

And last night we watched Home Alone

Climate Change after Copenhagen

It's a place where conservatives and liberal citizens might meet on common ground: energy solutions that foster business growth. Despite the fact that spend-happy celebrities do their best to paint businessmen as the bad guys, I believe that businesses have done and will likely do more than any other profession to solve the energy crisis. They have and will be the ones to invent and manufacture cost-effective fuels, lights, and rail systems. And they do it mostly without public praise. (Can you name the person who invented the LED light? The company that pushed to manufacture it?)

Despite all the pomp of Copenhagen, it will likely be a few brilliant businessmen and inventors who will really pull us through this crisis. Because of this, perhaps the best solution anyone can hope for is to encourage support of the right businesses.

Although, according to Google searches, we might not yet be precise enough in blaming the right demographic: "Is global warming man made?" yields 477,000 Google hits; "Is global warming woman made?" yields 0.

The first thing we do, Copenhagen should have said, let's kill all the men.

Rhombus Article

I wrote an article in the same theme as this blog for a local publication, Rhombus Magazine. Despite the tenor of the title, it's meant to be a call for all people to be more civil. (In my experience many non-Mormons and anti-Mormons are even more smug in debate than Mormons. It just surfaces in different ways—mostly in airing their professed superior intellect. i.e. "ye cannot know of things which ye do not see." It seems that once a person reads a few clever books, they're tempted to equate faith with nonsense.)

But that's not to say we Mormons couldn't also greatly improve our level of civility. That's what the Rhombus article is about.

Question

Why didn't I learn the Rogerian argument before today?

Thumbs Up Thursday

Five of my favorite 2009 reads:

Reverence - Paul Woodruff (wise!)

The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman (scary!)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon (masterpiece!)

Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent - Wayne Booth (revolutionary!)

Tess of the D'Ubervilles - Thomas Hardy (heartbreaking!)

Finding a Word to Transcend the Liberal/Conservative Split

The more I think about the word rhetorology, the more I realize that the chance that such an ugly word will spread into the public sphere is as slim as string beans.

Yeah, rhetorology is an ugly and obscure word. But we need the concept, and if I could find a better word I'd take it. Here's what I'm looking for: a word that transcends the liberal/conservative split—a word that has the flavor of a new political party. As I wrote in a Facebook conversation today with my friend Anthony, I'm looking for a word that will say, "My commitment to arguing reverently trumps my commitment to my particular political ideology."

If we had the right word we could unite under the guidelines Anthony outlined on his blog (follow that link) or the guidelines Wayne Booth outlines in his Hippocratic Oath for the Pluralist.

With such a word (rhetorologists?), it would be easier to collectively oppose Internet flaming and the use of devil terms in trenchant political debates. A group that opposed flaming in favor of Booth's Hippocratic Oath could still disagree boldly and openly (indeed, Booth's oath calls for argument), but such a group would be able to churn out solutions after their disagreements.

Shock Pop and Sentimentality!

As always, Deseret Book has turned up the sentimentality just in time for Christmas. I was there shopping for gifts just today, scanning the titles. Christmas Jar Reunion! Christmas On Mill Street! A whole row full of Glenn Beck's fluffy Christmas yarns!

I shouldn't over-speak, though, since I haven't read these big sellers. I'll hold specific critiques till I do read them, and admit for now that I could be wrong altogether about the dearth of complexity and richness in these stories. But you'll understand, I hope, if taglines like "If you could change your life by reversing your biggest regrets, sorrows, and mistakes . . . would you?" pull at my vomit strings.

And I'm no full-blown Deseret Book cynic. Even though I hope they'll kindly drop most of their current artists and start selling J. Kirk Richards, and even though I wish they wouldn't stock Glenn Beck's angry Arguing With Idiots near C. Terry Warner's introspective Bonds That Set Us Free, I still think 15-20% of the products at Deseret Book are worthwhile. I'm going to keep shopping there.

My brush with sentimentality today made me reflect more deeply about what I said earlier this week about shock pop. I wrote about spectacle, but I didn't mean spectacle exactly, since Sufjan Stevens, whose Christmas album I'm listen to now, is all about spectacle.

What I was complaining about in that earlier post was predictability ("expectacle?") and staged sexual innuendo ("sexpectable?"): the easy and manipulative stuff.

Easy and manipulative. That's the rub. In both the sentimental and the shocking, that's the rub.

The conservatively religious, it seems, are generally prone to sentimentality to a fault, while the liberal-leaning are generally more prone to shockimentality (to a fault). I've read myriad shock stories in undergraduate creative writing journals, the angsty stuff.

I went to an academic writing conference once, for instance, where a student read a fiction piece about a girl who hated her dad, and her mom, and her brother, and her friends, and her school, and probably rainbows and bubble gum too. It ended with the girl screaming at her dad and grabbing his gun and yelling, "eff you!," and shooting herself in the head.

The whole thing was read in a cool somberness, as though the shock alone would carry the story. Amatuer literary writers think sentimentality is the great sin, it seems. It's true, I wouldn't call the student's story sentimental, but that didn't stop it from likewise pulling at my vomit strings. It missed the heart and the head, just like all art that banks on shock or sentimentality.

Thumbs Up Thursday: Obama's Nobel Speech

"I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

I raise this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter the cause. At times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower.

Yet the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions – not just treaties and declarations – that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms."

Adam Lambert, Katy Perry, and Other Soft-Core Puppets

"The music suffers / the music business thrives." - Paul Simon

A post on Rhombus Magazine about Adam Lambert's antics at the American Music Awards reminded me how little patience I have for rock spectacle.

While rock has graced us with some of the best music in world history, too many chart-toppers in the 2000s were predictably shocking. It's been the same script for years: "Guess what (new sexual innuendo) (new artist) did last night at (new music award ceremony)?"

Let's be honest: these "music awards ceremonies" are nothing more than fashion shows accompanied by manufactured songs from hack songwriters. Shock pop, soft porn for tweens, is about as genuine as an infomercial.

And yet, for some reason it's difficult to argue publicly against staged sexual deviancy like this—you're dismissed as a loony prude if you do, even if you're just pointing out how many tweens recite Katy Perry lyrics in mantra. One can only hope to unveil the spectacle, to call these musicians out for who they are: puppets for the music industry. Behind every one of these "daring" performers is a slew of songwriters, costume designers, and music moguls manufacturing a pretty dollar. If one of the puppets gets chewed up in the cogs (hello, Madonna), no matter—there'll be more.

Fortunately there are still hundreds of songwriters who really care about the craft. They don't get the attention from most tweens, though, because they don't have the sex appeal or the big-businesses backing them.

A sampling: Sufjan Stevens, Chris Rice, Fleet Foxes, George Winston, Bonnie Prince Billy, Deb Talan, Yusuf Islam, Sigur Ros, and, of course, Paul Simon and Paul Simon.

Faith Vs. Reverence (continued)

How do we grow reverence?

I'm testing the idea that we grow reverence through rhetorology. Reverence is the virture. Rhetorology is the practice.

The concept is so foreign to me, and so foreign to the common strategy contemporary pundits use, that it's taking me a long time to learn it. Rhetorology—what Wayne Booth calls "the systematic probing for common ground"—is reverence in practice.

Whereas faith puts its guards up in order to protect itself from cynicism, reverence is ecumenical—guards down. Reverence is open to conversion.

Here's what rhetorology—reverence in practice—might look like:

A Republican sits down with a Democrat friend and says, "listen, I'm tired of this constant back-and-forth. If you're up to it, I'm willing to hear you out—really hear you out. Tell me why you believe this stuff, and for the next half hour I won't interrupt you."

A Muslim sits down with a Christian friend and says, "I don't think our conversation has gotten us anywhere. How about if for the next twenty minutes we just brainstorm all the things we've got in common?"

A wife invites her husband to stop blogging and the husband says, "okay, just let me add one more thing:

It's obvious we can't practice rhetorology alone (we need the friction of argument in order to see progress in communities), but more rhetorology could help us get through some of the "vain jangling" (St. Paul's coinage) we so frequently hear today."

Faith Vs. Reverence in Mormonism

A freshly returned missionary belittles her roommate for watching TV on the Sabbath, a man in Sunday School claims that God endorses government welfare, a woman condones a political candidate over the pulpit because "he supports our values."

In each of these instances an indomitable faith has eclipsed reverence—an occurrence Paul Woodruff, a professor of philosophy at University of Texas, talks about at length in his book Reverence.

Reverence—what Woodruff calls "the virtue which keeps human beings from trying to act like gods"—shrivels up under an indomitable faith. Because knowledge that comes directly from God is internal (that is, grounded in faith), we act irreverently when we claim that others should adhere to our personal revelations. We assume, in these cases, the job of God.

I've been questioning what this conflict between faith and reverence means for a religion that believes in modern prophets. Does our belief in modern revelation make us anti-reverence, since we trust strongly in internal evidence? Is faith always irreverent?

I'm still working through the ideas, but I think faithful reverence is the marrow of true Mormonism:

Joseph Smith admitted that he was a "rough stone rolling," that he was fallible. We believe that God's revelations, His scriptures, are fallible. We leave room for human error. And when Moroni invites us to ask God directly about whether the Book of Mormon is true he's asking us to find a personal witness. This witness can be reverent when we remember that internal evidences are strictly internal, when we remember that just because God tells us one thing doesn't mean God has or will tell another person that same thing. (This probably isn't news to you, but I'm a bit slow, and it's news to me.)

If an investigator asks God for internal evidence about modern prophets and God is silent, I suppose we can only assume God knows what He's doing in His silence.

If an investigator asks God for internal evidence about modern prophets and God answers, that investigator now has faith in modern prophets. It's a reverent faith as far as the believer only uses the faith to invite others to ask God for their own witness.

In sum, perhaps we can balance the "I knows" of testimony meeting with the "I don't knows" of reverence.

A story of irreverence: Alma 31

A story of reverence: Alma 32

P.S. For those who may say that all internal evidences are false and that we should place trust only in external evidences (I've met several agnostics who believe this), I'll point to the internal evidence of romance. Falling in love is something you know internally, something you cannot prove externally. But if you don't believe "falling in love" is a real thing, there's nothing more to say.

Thumbs Up Thursday: Obama and Afghanistan

I don't know enough yet to say anything conclusive about whether Obama's updated policy on Afghanistan (sending 30,000 new troops) will hurt or harm the world, but I like very much that he didn't merely tote his own party line. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come, a sign that he'll match his assertion that "the stakes are too high and the challenges too great to play the same old Washington games with the same old Washington players."