I think you need a lot of context to seriously examine anything

“I think you need a lot of context to seriously examine anything.”
- Gus, The Wire, Season 5

Lately, I've been lucky to learn a bit about the politics and social justice struggles in Israel and Palestine. I admit, I know very little about this incredibly complicated subject. This past summer, I read Thomas Friedman's first book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, which was a good introduction to some aspects of the history and culture and politics that influences conflicts in this part of the world, but it was also a bit more about Friedman, his opinions and experiences. For example, one of Friedman's main cultural analyses of the roots of violent conflicts in places like Palestine, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq is that those places, and the people who live there, are inexorably shaped by long standing tribal relations and ingrained practices of blood feuding. For Friedman, those cultural practices and cultural histories explain, for example, the Hama massacre that occurred in Syria in 1982. Basically, Friedman's argument about the powerful influence of cultures of tribalism in this region of the world is that Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Arab peoples respond to threats and attacks with irrepressible violence. Friedman calls this "Hama rules." Any threat against people in this region must be met with crushing, total repression. As I read his chapters on "Hama rules" and his descriptions of how it seemed to be a widespread worldview in the region, I couldn't help think of when Sean Connery's character from the 1987 film, The Untouchables, describes "the Chicago Way," to Elliot Ness, played by Kevin Costner. To take down the ruthless gangster, Al Capone, Connery's character tells the fictional Ness, "He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone." Perhaps a culture and history of blood feuding and tribal identities is enough to explain some aspects of politics in a place like Syria, but I had a hard time reducing something as repressive and terrible as the Hama massacre to a cultural practice. All the while I read Friedman I kept wondering, where are these combatants in Lebenon, Syria, Israel, Iraq, and other regions he covers, attaining their weapons? Should that factor into our understanding of the root causes and effects of this violence? How much context do we need in order to understand complicated political and social events?

One of Friedman's strengths as a writer is that he takes incredibly complicated political and social phenomenon and distills explanations of them through understandable factors. Why did the leader of Syria murder tens of thousands of people in order to suppress a political uprising? Because that is their culture expressions of power; that is the historical practice of Bedouin tribalism. But while that makes for a good story, and explains some aspects of what is happening it seems like it is only one slice of the context in which those events occurred. Undoubtedly, wider geopolitical factors such as the Cold War, arms trading, oil interests, and regional politics influenced what happened in Syria in the 1980s. Friedman side-stepped those issues, which would have complicated his story.

The character, Gus, from Season 5 of The Wire, is correct: we need a lot of context, conflicting context, contradictory context to seriously understanding anything. Such context does not necessarily help make neat stories, but perhaps we should sacrifice our need for simple stories built around dichotomies of good and evil, right and wrong, in order to really try and understand what is happening in a given political and social situation.

That is my approach to trying to understand what is happening in Palestine and Israel. I want context, not ideology. I want peace for everyone there, especially children. And I want to understand fully the multiple factors that shape people's thoughts and actions.

In my mind, Palestinians should not have to suffer from a violent, repressive occupation and Israelis should not have to suffer from terrorism. Stating that does not make the politics behind each phenomenon equal, but it does equate the common humanity that, I think, is the proper context from which to try and build broad knowledge of what is happening, and ultimately to build and struggle for peace.   

 

   

  

Open letter to my students about Boston marathon bombing

Dear Students,

No doubt you've heard the news about the bombing in Boston, and perhaps even seen the terrible images. I've lived through two acts of violent terrorism, both at the former World Trade Center in Manhattan; and unfortunately, many of us can recall recent news events of mass shootings: at schools - Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook; at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin; the attempt on Congresswoman Giffords's life; the shooting in the Aurora, CO, movie theater. Moments of violence like the one that happened at the Boston marathon make me feel very afraid, sad, and angry. Lately, when things like this happen here in the US or around the world, the only way I feel comforted is when I hug and hold my small children tightly.

But, awake earlier than usual, and still numb from the news in Boston, my thoughts wandered to my work as a teacher, and what my students and I try to accomplish in the classroom.

In lectures, documentary viewings, research projects, debates, questions, and discussions, we try to wrestle with ideas. Sometimes, those ideas are hard. Sometimes, the material we study is difficult and unsettling, but we do our best to strive for analyses based on honesty and integrity. We don't have to agree with each other, or like each others' arguments. It behooves us to challenge one another - to ask questions and seek clarity. I used to think this type of work was the luxury of working in higher education, but the Boston bombing and a great deal of other violence that rocks people around the world reminds me that intellectual exchange, debate, and thinking clearly on hard matters are not luxuries that should only exit in the halls of academia. We need those practices to exist everywhere, all the time, amongst all strata of people, especially in dark hours when violence and suffering befall human existence and explanations about why this happens, and what to do next, do not come easy, if they come at all. 

So this is a thank you letter to my students - thank you for asking hard questions about difficult topics; for debating one another; for pushing me to be clear in my thoughts and words and arguments; for reading and working and struggling with your thoughts; for valuing ideas. Please bring these practices with you wherever life takes you - military service; corporate work and business; artistic work; politics; technology development; law; medicine; theater; dance; social work; religious ministry; accounting; engineering; science research; education; parenthood; citizenship - global and domestic. 

Terrorist violence, war and human suffering occur when fear, narcissism, avarice, hateful and bigoted insecurity, or sheer insanity subvert intellectual exchange and bold leadership directed towards the widest possible peace and prosperity.

Intellectual exchange and deep thought on difficult questions has so far not eliminated war and terrorism. Perhaps, in the day-to-day course of events, what we do in the classroom - thinking, debating, listening, asking questions, reading, discussing, writing, researching - may not seem important.

But I shudder to think of our world without it. 

Sincerely,


Professor Purnell

Response to claim that Christians can love gay people but not support homosexuality

People certainly have a right to say what they believe; but you cannot say you "do not support homosexuality" and that you love gay people because, in fact, the first statement negates the second one insofar as it does not support a part of gay people's humanity, and therefore denies that person love. Christians who are not gay need to realize that a person can be straight, love gay people in all of their humanity, including their sexuality, and still be Christian.

In fact, to not support an element of other people's expression of love is, in fact, to deny them a part of their humanity and to not live as Jesus did which, in my mind, is to not be a Christian.

Writers Diet Test

Schoolyards buzzed with activity. Boys gathered in camps and plotted raids onto courts and fields. They ran and burst across the concrete, and wreaked havoc everywhere. Girls formed tight circles of conspiracy. They laughed and shrieked, danced over jump ropes and hop scotch. Boys and girls formed separate armies. Traitors crossed battle lines to flirt, pull hair, and blow kisses, but the hardcore troops forgot them, like the names of soldiers dead in battles.

Handball courts possessed speed, danger and power. The game was not for people with weak arms or hearts. One warrior could challenge another, and the two gladiators entered the arena with one goal: crush the opponent. When teams formed, the contest evolved into a fast dance of four bodies, one ball, and one wall.

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I wrote the above passage after reading two NY Times blogs on grammar and writing style and then clicking onto this website that had a "writers diet test." First, I entered two passages from my forthcoming book, and the test told me that my writing needed to go on life support. The prose was bloated, the verbs vague and clunky. This is a paragraph from my book that I entered into the test, one I thought was a great piece of writing:

On February 3, 1964, one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in United States history occurred. Nearly half a million students boycotted a racially segregated municipal public school system as parents and activists demanded a plan for comprehensive desegregation. Ten years after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision had declared racially segregated public schools unconstitutional, this city’s government had failed to desegregate the school system. The integration movement rallied behind a Christian minister, a man known for his eloquent, trenchant sermons against racial discrimination and poverty. He transformed his church into a movement headquarters, which organized racially integrated “freedom schools” throughout the city. The man and the movement made history.

The diagnostic test said the passage was about to die from overuse of vague subjects and weak nouns.

It just goes to show - never trust writers or parents to be objective about what they create.  

Was my writing really horrible? 

Yes.

Addicts must admit their problems before they recover.

Hello. my name is Brian, and I am addicted to academic verbiage. 

I pecked across the keyboard and wrote that memory about mornings in the St. Mark's schoolyard. Thankfully, that short passage passed the test. The computer considered the prose and verbs and adjectives "lean." When I wrote that passage I concentrated on clear nouns and active verbs. 

What a great devise, and habit!