It's a little scary to wrestle with this, but...

Today, we discussed how it is that we classify knowledge. Moving past our starting point, we broadened the discussion into how intelligence, specifically university-certified intelligence, can benefit individuals. Superficially, this seems to be fairly straightforward--of course a university degree is beneficial, requiring years of hard labor to produce a degree from an approved educational institution. This seems innocent enough, but what about the unspoken subtext? Operating within the framework of this course--where all of a sudden nothing makes sense--perhaps the most obvious explanation, the most sensible, is a farce. In other words, is our understanding of knowledge, degrees and achievement fundamentally biased, exclusive and unjust?

In the United States, not everyone can earn a fancy degree framed in an ornate placard featuring cursive calligraphy that very few people can actually read. The collegiate degree, the esteemed diploma, is in itself a status symbol. It represents power, drive and achievement, all honorable qualities. But what about luck?

To succeed in this society, an individual needs more than talent: they need a certain amount of luck, of "I was in the right place at the right time," of "I knew this person who really helped give me a chance." These connections are crucial yet we, the nation of individuals, often don't want to confront this unsettling truth. After all, why would we, the self-made individual, admit that that might is not the case?

Even in something as impersonal and "safe" as a blog post, these words are difficult to write. But lest my point should remain unclear, allow me to spell it out.

I am white. I am male. I am a heterosexual who is over 6 feet tall. My physical appearance is beneficial; I fit easily into the category of red-blooded American male that this country appears to prize. I was born with no abnormalities and with an average degree of aptitude. Both of my parents raised me growing up and I was surrounded by a support network of loving family and friends that pushed me to where I am today. I was born in the United States of America to a middle class family; I knew that college was always in my future. In essence, I won the lottery of life. I have had to do very little, comparably speaking, to achieve what I have achieved, due mostly to factors outside of my control. I'm incredibly lucky, incredibly lucky. The scary thing, though, is to ask myself: how much of my success is due to elements outside of my control?

My culture is telling me one thing--that I have earned what I have achieved and it is due to my tenacity as an individual. My heart might be telling me something different, though.

Again, let me repeat: how much of my success is due to elements outside of my control?

Maybe I don't want to know.

Youthful optimism & the eradication of order as defensive boundary maker. Maybe?

It is very rare for a statement, however general, to apply to all humanity. Any attempt to do so is usually met with harsh criticism, a quick rebuttal or an irrefutable objection. Despite the vast difficulties, philosophers have struggled for centuries to discern those undeniable truths applicable to all. Many intellectuals have proposed a universal truth of love, of justice, of beauty, but are quickly confronted with the subjectivity of their claims. Consequently, philosophy has acquired an air of whimsical futility from critics of this relativism. An inarguable truth, however, is often ignored; that is the truth of classification, or the inherent desire of humanity to classify.

Human beings are, by nature, social creatures. They are born into and shaped by communities dependent upon communication. As John Durham Peters describes in Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication, “To understand communication is to understand much more. An apparent answer to the painful divisions between self and other, private and public, and inner thought and outer word... it is a sink into which most of our hopes and fears seem to be poured.” (1) Peters argues understanding communication provides us a unique window into which humanity may be examined. If one’s “hopes and fears” are understood, a person’s unique perspective is discernible. The way one processes information and classifies objects becomes apparent through their communication, which Peters contends is the fundamental avenue to understand human beings. Communication also provides a valuable means to understand our collective longing for structure and order. What happens, though, when these self-imposed boundaries dissolve? 

When presented with a blurring of the lines, where is one to proceed? As history demonstrates, uncertainty leads easily to fear. This, in turn, leads to violence and the propagation of difference as a decisive boundary-maker. Typically, this comes at the expense of the less-powerful group, often with disastrous consequences. Perhaps with a greater awareness of each other’s communicative means, these boundaries need not be erected and need not propagate violence. But then again, maybe this is just wishful thinking. 

References

(1) John Durham Peters, Speaking into the Air: a History of the Idea of Communication, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 2. 

Collections or Hoarders or Museums (Can we just make up our minds!?)

To begin this post, I'd like to establish a situational framework. After I establish the foundation, I will proceed to subtlety alter the contents. I expect that your reaction will change as I add and alter the variables; if so, my point will become clear.

Basic: Gunther owns books.

Variation 1: Gunther owns many books. (Sounds good, right? Gunther seems very nice; we'd get along, easily.)

Variation 2: Gunther owns many books and instructional manuals. (At this point, Gunther seems like a technician. He seems to keep abreast of his trade and the latest techniques and practices.)

Variation 3: Gunther owns enough books and instructional manuals to fill multiple rooms in his house. (At this point, you may be thinking: "okay, Gunther might own too many books, but there isn't anything necessarily deviant about that.)

Variation 4: Gunther owns enough books and instructional manuals to fill multiple rooms in his house on how to practice human taxidermy. (You're judging, right? Gunther obviously should be considered insane, locked up, committed. He clearly is a threat to society and a horrible influence on the youth of this proud nation.)

So, clearly, Gunther is deviant. He reads thousands of books on human taxidermy--he must be crazy! But, wait:

http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html

If you follow the above link, you will visit the website of the international exhibition, Body Worlds, curated/founded by Gunther von Hagens. Does your opinion of the Gunther (based on the previous four sentence variations now change?) Why? After all: taxidermy is taxidermy... period. The ethics of human taxidermy should not change from the individual to the organization.

(Here's a link to images of exhibits within Body Worlds: https://www.google.com/search?q=body+worlds&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=CKhdUaTLOYas8AS9ooCgAw&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1501&bih=794)

It seems, however, that the institutional backing of Body Worlds--it is an international museum, after all--provides the exhibition some sense of legitimacy. Why is this so?

Here, we see an example of lines blurred, boundaries crossed and order violated. If an action is corrupt by the individual but not by the institution, then our understanding of collections, hoarders and museums must be reevaluated.

Hoarding has a negative connotation, collections seem neutral and museums are inherently positive. In order to better understand these three, we need to reevaluate our biases and reconsider the way we previously ordered and assigned items into these three categories.

The beginning of a prolonged diatribe on order & chaos

To speak generally, this class has evoked many responses from its participants. Some have been eager to challenge their inclination towards structure--the most basic aspect of their worldview--while others have been a bit hesitant. I'm not here to say that either choice (or any perspective on the continuum in between) is correct or incorrect--that's not my job. I am here, however, to reflect a little on my own progress throughout this course. 

I've changed, to say the least, and this is my attempt to begin to capture some of that change. I intend to do this over several consecutive posts (which I will generate in a so-far uncharacteristic regularity), but before I do so, allow me to briefly explain what could be considered my only real frustration with this course. 

I'm a fairly easy-going person, in general. When it comes to anything academic, however, I'd prefer to have a grasp of the material before making my opinions public. I suppose it's an intense need for some sort of conceptual grasp, backed by extensive textual evidence, to support my position. 

You may be saying: "Wait, Kevin, stop one second. This course wasn't designed to memorize material. It was meant to unravel a thought train, to illustrate an inherently biased perspective " Yes, I understand, and that is the primary impetus for my blogging delay. 

I entered this class knowing that I would change. I expected the way that I process sensory information to change. I expected the way I perceive events to change. I expected the way I understand my surroundings to change. That it did, that it did.

So what is the grand purpose of this short narrative? Basically, I intend to say as follows: I didn't want to blog, I didn't want to espouse my views, until I felt that I had experienced enough of a perspective change to voice them. I wanted to say something truly of substance, something that I knew would be a worthy contribution. Personally, this is the research-based style that I prefer to operate in. It works for me. Sometimes I wish it weren't that way, but it is, and I have to embrace it. And now that I have this newfound perspective, I feel that I am capable of speaking and of being heard. 

I didn't want to talk into the wind, I wanted to talk with it. This is my attempt to do so. 

The dog didn't eat my homework; no, my harddrive failed.

The past two weeks have been interesting, to say the least. It all began on a dark and stormy night (translation: an overcast Friday afternoon around 3:30) when my hard-drive failed, or at least the Mac portion did. (I have a dual-boot Mac with both an Apple and Windows partition.) And thus it all begins...

After the Mac portion of my computer died, I didn't think too much of it. I brought it to be examined under warranty and was suggested to take my computer back over the weekend, complete an additional file backup, and bring in my PC on Monday to have it examined. I did just that and, Sunday night, received a pleasant surprise: the most disruptive, sinister, malicious computer virus I have ever seen, the "FBI" computer virus.

Apparently, because I rarely use my Windows side, the anti-virus software was horribly out of date and, consequently, I contracted a horrible computer virus. After an impromptu five hour visit with my father (who received a degree in computer engineering), neither of us could figure a way around the corrupted programming. We called in the towel--the Windows portion had failed, too. My dual-boot computer had lost both its boots and was left barefoot on a cold, wet Sunday night. I had no computer, a very bad thing.

It has been said that things are never appreciated until they're gone and I believe that that can be the case. I have a different perspective, though, and actually somewhat relished the experience.

I suppose that what I'm trying to say is that, while the temporary loss of a computer might seem devastating--"how will I check my email?" "How will I use a word processor to conduct research?" "How will I stay connected?" "How will I _____ or _____ or _____?" "What will happen to the order and structure that my computer has provided my otherwise mortal life, fraught with insecurity, confusion and (you guessed it) chaos?"The temporary loss of my computer allowed me to reflect upon its intrusion into my life, a fact that quickly became something that I was not necessarily happy with.

I now have a computer again, although it's still missing some key software. I don't exactly know how I feel about it. While the convenience and utility is wonderful, there was something to be said about being completely out of touch and reliant only upon public computers in public places to allow "order" to intrude into my other wise chaotic life. In essence, I think I might like chaos a little bit more than I had originally intended. It's somewhat nice and I somewhat miss it.

"Philosophers as Warriors?" Pardon?

It has long been said that "the pen is mightier than the sword," but I'm not exactly sure just how many people believe that to be the case. For example, if I posed the following question--are philosophers warriors(?)--to a random sample of one hundred people, what would my response be? Agreement, laughter, confusion? (I predict laughter.) While this question may sound ridiculously silly, I believe that there is a shred of truth in such a question, albeit a potentially undesirable truth.

In this post, I will briefly discuss an essay by Edwin Burtt, a Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University. Burtt's essay is entitled "Philosophers as Warriors" and, besides having a rather laughable title, offers insight into modern education and philosophical discourse. Burtt proposes (and I agree) that education, as well as philosophy, have been compromised with a violent demeanor and, consequently have become disenfranchised from their original intentions.

Burtt explains the modern climate as such: "Consequently, the significant ideal underlying the dialectic has been almost lost from sight: the ideal of a free discusion among seekers for truth, in which all take part and which leads, step by step, to a conclusion wholly convincing to each participant." (1) In other words, the open-minded acceptance of divergent viewpoints--characteristic of successful educational or philosophical discussion--has been lost. The Socratic dialogue is no more. Philosophy isn't philosophy anymore; it has been replaced with verbal battle, transforming educational discourse into verbal conquest. But wait: isn't that what philosophy is all about?

Not quite. Philosophical discussion, as well as education, is not (and was never intended) to be a successive chain of verbal victories. Nothing can be learned from such actions; mutual understanding is lost at the request of individual triumph. How is this so? Why the selfish desire for victory at all costs? Why sacrifice mutual understanding in favor of a solitary victory?

Perhaps in order to "better" order our world?

We all are confronted with a dizzying array of information daily. The world is a very scary, confusing and chaotic place and all we hope for is a tiny bit of understanding. We want to fit in, to comprehend, to overcome the confusion inherent in the world around us. In pursuing this goal, we have unfortunately compromised one of the most useful tool towards understanding our surroundings: educational, philosophical discussion.

Instead of learning about those other beliefs far from our own, we attempt to associate with those that agree the most with us. Anyone that suggests something outside of this hypothetical box is consequently met with a calculated philosophical, argumentative attack in which we try to prove the correct-ness of our own position. We refuse to see the opposition unless that admit defeat, in which case we refuse to let them forget. While we attribute such battle to the "triumph of the truth," the "conquering of the correct" or any other analogous phrase, it seems that we cling to whatever understanding we may possess, despite contradictory evidence.

The world is messy, confusing and sometimes doesn't make sense. Maybe we use verbal debates, "wars of philosophy" to disguise the fact that we really don't know what's going on, we really just want to embrace whatever understanding we may have to the fullest extent. And in doing so, we only complicate matters even more.

Just a thought.

References

(1) Edwin A. Burtt, "Philosophers as Warriors," in The Critique of War: Philosophical Explorations, ed. Robert Ginsberg (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1969), 31.

Pardon the hiatus...

I haven't posted in a while. Life intervened and extenuating circumstances got in the way. In hindsight, though, this experience illuminated an entirely new realm of questions that this blog seeks to explore.

I should probably clarify a bit. That might be useful. 

About a week ago a tragic hospitalization brought many people together. Details aren't really necessary, but I will touch on the most significant recollection from that very trying week spent in close proximity to modern medical practices. 

My overall reflections on hospitals, stability and the inherence of chaos: 

Hospitals are shining bastions of stability in a turbulent sea of sorrow, confusion and anger (substitute these three terms with "chaos.") I have never experienced a more well-run, fine-tuned machine than a modern hospital; every possible need one may have has been thought of and pre-planned for. This structure, in contrast to the human emotions that run rampant through a hospital's halls, provide a comfort, an almost homely feel, that is priceless during a time of struggle. In a sense, it seems that hospitals thrive by recognizing and addressing the human need for the continued presence of order. 

With that understanding, though, and in combination with my inability to understand the past week's circumstance, I think I have come to another recognition, perhaps one that is more profound. There truly is so much that I will never be able to understand. Matthew McIntosh echoes this sentiment in this novel, Well: 

"The trick, he said, is to refuse to believe that any of this makes sense. Because when it does--when the world and life and the way things are make sense--then you know there's really something wrong with you...This world should be incomprehensible to us. Rape shouldn't make sense and murder shouldn't make sense and neither should car wrecks and bombings and loneliness and cancer and diabetes and television."(1)

I think I agree. No amount of rationalization can explain tragedy which, of course, begs the question: why do we try to explain it? Attempts to fathom the unfathomable only frustrate us further.

Sometimes, it seems, inevitable chaos is best accepted allowing us to be thankful for the opportunities we were given. Namely, the opportunity for modern medical care.

References

(1) Matthew McIntosh, Well (Grove Press: New York, 2003), 102.

Pardon the expression, but this project is going to seriously mess with my head.

Since embarking on this project, I have become much more attune to paying attention to the various (and uncountable) instances around me. So far, I thought that I had been doing fairly well... I really did. I reasoned with myself that, although I was new to the game I was still playing the game.

... And then the metaphorical pitcher threw a massive curveball. I swung, I missed... It was then that I was confronted with the most startling realization of all.

A little more context might prove beneficial. Upon the first day of Ordering the World, students were given the "task" of maintaining a blog throughout the duration of this course. I promptly created a blog and began posting; as you may have noticed, though, there aren't many posts. How come? It might simply be explained as "I imposed order."

I did as Mr. Travel Ferret is trying to do. Unfortunately for him, his efforts at imposing order seem rather strained. 

I began this blog on an alternative server, a different website. Quickly, though, I became frustrated by how many controls and commands were afforded on this site and, quite frankly, I was overwhelmed. Matters weren't helped by the fact that I was familiar with Blogspot (and not the other website) and I continually grew frustrated. After about a week of continual resentment, I deleted the other site and created an alternative, a "second-draft," so to speak, on Blogspot.

Seems simple enough, right? One site was more user-friendly; the other wasn't. No big deal. Perhaps not, but the philosophical ramifications of such an action are extreme. Apparently I naturally attempt to impose order; I crave it and become upset in situations (or websites) that lack it. All of this comes at a time when I deemed myself fairly attuned to the persistence of order to the degree that I comfortable in such an assertion.

In conclusion, while I thought that I had been busy playing the game (with a comfortable level of experience), apparently I'm still very new to it. Very new to it, the rookie indeed.

I felt like this. Very much the rookie indeed. 

Ordering this blog: Part II.

Before delving into the innermost essence of humanity, an explanation for why this blog came to be is in order.*

This project is inspired by National Endowment for the Humanities “Enduring Questions” grant awarded to Dr. Joanne Robinson, a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The “Enduring Questions” grant ”supports faculty members in the teaching and development of a new course that will foster intellectual community through the study of an enduring question. This question-driven course will encourage undergraduates and teachers to grapple with a fundamental concern of human life addressed by the humanities, and to join together in a deep and sustained program of reading in order to encounter influential thinkers over the centuries and into the present day.” The aforementioned prompt inspired the development of a course on human attempts to organize the world as it is.

The course description for this course and the major impetus for this blog is as follows:

What is order? Is order inherent in nature or is it a human construct (or a mix of both?) When is order appropriate and when is it restrictive or even oppressive? What assumptions form the foundations for classifying and categorizing things, people and ideas? This class will examine theoretical foundational cosmological myths alongside various historical approaches toclassification.Students will have ample opportunity to delve into classification and order schemes outside the classroom.

Human beings are constantly involved in making, unmaking and maintaining order, yet we rarely have time to reflect on what order is and why it matters. We unthinkingly accept many ordering schemes (such as age-based grouping of children in traditional classrooms) and consider others the concern of specialists (such as botanical nomenclature.) Yet concerns about order and the threat of disorder have pervaded Western thought and practice. Many humanities courses explore specific ordering systems related to race, gender, religion and social class; consequently, students tend to have asensitivity to how race and class are "ordered," but they rarely have a chance to explore other ordering systems. This course will examine order as an abstract concept with very tangible and pervasive results. Above all, student in this course will examine how the orders we posit or acknowledge shape our understanding of ourselves in the world.

Using these questions to begin, I attempt to question order, structure and the human need for understanding, utilizing this blog as a means to present my thoughts. (Or, rather, order my thoughts…)

Over the course of this blog, I will attempt to ferret out my thoughts, ideally in the Talkeetna Mountain Range of Alaska. 

* Author's note: the almost unnoticeable compulsion to explain why I created this blog illustrates the very reason that this blog exist. 

Ordering this blog: Part 1.

Greetings! Salutations! Welcome one and all to “Order and the World,” a blog intended to examine the most widely accepted phenomenon in human society—the existence of order.

"Order in the world..." basically, why does this bother us? 

Call it whatever you would like—order, structure, organization, et. cetera—the premise remains the same. Whether or not we readily accept it, human beings crave a sense of order; we like to know that things have a predictable structure that we in turn utilize to understand the world around us. What happens, though, when we take a step back and question the very structure that allows us to question? In other words, if we investigate the very existence of order, something very shocking may happen: we may discover that order, as we know it, does not exist.

Structure or chaos? The Hewes St. Metro Station in Williamsburg, a borough of New York City. 

While I don’t yet intend to claim such a statement, I do intend to utilize this blog to investigate the thing so obvious that it is often left unacknowledged: you guessed it, order. Come along for the ride and join me in my attempt to question the most quintessential facets of human existence.

As mentioned, this blog seeks"...to question the most quintessential facets of human existence," namely, the purpose of the above contraption in Louisville, Kentucky.