"Endings are Rubbish"

I've written about my love of narrative before, and I am sure I will again. My love of reading is genuinely no surprise.

My current 'favorite' book/series is Catherynne Valente's Fairyland series (I have written about them before). And they are wonderful. And I love them. They follow September through Fairyland. (Except for one book, which September eventually shows up in. And the prequel novella, which, chronologically, predates her.) And I shan't ruin them for you. Because I assume you will all go here to read the prequel, if I've not already forced you to.

There are some books that one can finish and move merrily along one's way. Then, there are books one finishes and must redirect one's course slightly. Then, there are books that make one stop and contemplate all of life and what one thought about it. And then, my friends, there are books that not only make one reevaluate life and what it means, but also force one to physically and mentally stop and come to terms with life After.

This doesn't just happen with books, but I find that it happens most often with them.

As you may have guessed, Fairyland is the last of those options. Prior to finishing the last book, Fairyland was in the third category. I wrote a term paper on the first book. And will recommend them to any one who will listen. As I am now doing. But, upon finishing the series, I had to sit almost completely still and my only reaction was "what. how. now what."

There is a Jamie Craig quote that I like: "That moment when you finish a book, look around, and realize that everyone is just carrying on with their lives as though you didn't just experience emotional trauma at the hands of a paperback." I've never read any of Craig's work and the book I finished was hardcover, but that phrase is apt.

The narrator tells us, near the end, that we all know is coming, after all, books run out of pages, that "Endings are rubbish. No such thing. Never has been, never will be. There is only the place where you choose to stop talking. Everything else goes on forever." Which, to be fair, is not a new concept. But it is so eloquently, achingly put that it is almost painful. And so, September's story is not over, I just won't hear the rest. There is always more, and none of us get to know every story.

The Possibility of an Ethical Life

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the possibility of living an ethical life. It is a question that occurs to me every so often, but over the break I decided to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, specifically One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, August 1914, The First Circle, and The Gulag Archipelago. (I read Ivan Denisovich in high school and I was only able to read the first volume of Gulag.) I had a few reasons to read Solzhenitsyn. One, my knowledge of Russian literature and history is truly abysmal (although, maybe if Russian literature was shorter, I would read more). Two, one of my classes this semester is on Socialism and Gender until 1949, so reading about the U.S.S.R. is not the worst idea I’ve ever had. Three, in the United States, socialism and communism are generally misunderstood and the picture of Soviet Russia is flat and shallow and a better understanding of the past leads to a better understanding of the present. This is all rather tangential to the question at hand.

So, how do I get to thinking about living an ethical life?

First, what does ethical mean? Ethics are defined as “moral principles that govern a person’s or group’s behavior.” So what, then, are morals? Morals are “concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.” What, then, is the difference? On the show NCIS, the difference is explained thusly: “The ethical man knows it is wrong to cheat on his wife, whereas the moral man actually wouldn’t.” The ethical life seems to be different from the moral life. Ethics are determined based on morals and morals are dependent on the individual. Ethics, at least in the general sense, are dependent on the situation (situational ethics) or, at least, ethics take the situation into account.

What happens when one’s morals do not match the ethics of the society within which they live? Is a moral life different from an ethical life? How do the ethics of a society influence ideology? Are they the same?

(I realize I am asking a lot of questions. And they do not necessarily have answers. They only complicate my thinking more.)

Prior to my Solzhenitsyn marathon, my thinking around these questions was based in two different topics: pacifism and capitalism. I’m going to start with pacifism, because I believe it is the easier of the two.

As a historian, I have thought about war and violence a lot, especially because of my focus on the First World War. During high school, I think, I learned about the Just War Doctrine in the Catholic Church. This Doctrine details the conditions for “legitimate defense by military force.” Defense. That means that there is no situation in which military force is justified as an aggressive action. The four conditions are: 1. “The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;” 2. “All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;” 3. “There must be serious prospects of success;” 4 “The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated (the power of modern means of destructions weights very heavily in evaluating this condition).” (This information came from the Wikipedia page, which site the 1992 Catechism.)

Now, there are plenty of things I dislike about the Catechism. This is not one of them. Essentially, these conditions, especially the fourth, mean that no modern military defense is just. Historically, the argument can be made that military defense has been justified. (The argument can be made that the First World War was a just war—although seriously mismanaged.) There are many other examples of refusing violence in the Abrahamic religions (and really all religions). We are all taught some version of “Thou shalt not kill.” Given all of this, there is no situation in which violence is acceptable.

Here I make two points. One relates to self-defense, because I have never been in the position in which I would need to violently defend myself or some one else, I cannot completely rule out the need for violent action in this case. Two, pacifism relates only to violence, not anger. Anger can be justified and righteous: remember, there is Biblical precedence for flipping tables (Matthew 21:12). Non-violent action does not necessarily mean peaceful.

Pacifism is therefore a moral stance and it guides my life, which, I think, makes pacifism part of my ethical life. Decision-making based on pacifism is easy in my life. I do not have to make the decisions that would force me to think about compromising my morals.

My thoughts on capitalism and the society in which I live are more complicated. (I know, that shouldn’t be possible given how mixed up I feel about this all at this point.) In a capitalist consumerist culture, almost every decision is an ethical decision.

As a consumer, where I shop includes ethical decisions. I refuse to shop at Hobby Lobby because of their stance on having their employees claim insurance benefits for contraception. It is morally wrong to prevent individuals from choosing how best to live their lives. Acting on that moral belief, I make the ethical decision not to shop there. I won’t eat at Chick-fil-A for many of the same reasons.

Those are easy ethical decisions for me to make—there are other stores at which to buy craft supplies and fast food. There are harder decisions: I dislike the way the government structures subsidies for farms—heavily favoring corn production that make buying heavily processed foods with high amounts of corn syrup cheap and other produce expensive. But I have to eat and I am living on a part-time, barely-above-minimum wage job while paying tuition and rent (even with a government student loan). I would like to support small local farms, to eat in a way that is, at least, not as harmful to the environment as single-crop farming can be. So, while my morals tell me one thing, when I am confronted with specific situations, I must make ethical compromises.

It seems, then, that sometimes, one’s morals and ethics do not match the society in which one lives. How does one act in that situation? I find that depends on the society in which one lives. I can live my version of an ethical life, or at least try to, when the society in which I live allows me to act contrarily to the prevailing ethical code. But, when society does not, is it still possible?

I would like to say yes. But, perhaps not. Or at least, maybe it is possible if only one posses a strength of mind and conviction that I am unable to fathom.

And that brings us to Solzhenitsyn. I really started thinking about the problem of trying to live an ethical life shortly after starting The Gulag Archipelago. Clearly the U.S.S.R. was an authoritarian dictatorship. The concept of “law and order” had nothing to do with justice. One could be arrested for not speaking against someone even though the second person had done nothing wrong. Standing too long at a street corner with the wrong person, whether you talked to them or not—or even knew them—could land you in the Gulag. With millions being imprisoned or just disappearing, how can one live an ethical life? Is not every choice not to protest or resist complicity? Admittedly, there were those who did speak out. But, like in Nazi Germany, they were silenced. So, then, is not merely surviving enough? Is it acceptable to compromise one’s ethics or morals in order to stay alive?

And, again, I am left with more questions.

The best answer I have to all my questions is that it is impossible to know. Despite how it seems, this is not a Yes/No question and accepting a simple answer is unsatisfying. But there is value in trying to live ethically. There is greatness in questioning one’s actions and choices and trying to make the decisions that benefit society as a whole. There is beauty in the struggle.

And in the end, it’s the journey that matters.

A Brief Preface

Hello all! I hope your holidays went well. I know I haven't blogged in a while. I have two reasons for writing this.

One, a brief update. This week I started my spring semester. Things have been going well, but I have only had one class. This upcoming week I have both classes, work, and I am starting my research assistantship. Coincidentally, this week also marks one year since I graduated from York. Last year, when I was in York, I couldn't possibly have imagined I'd be in another graduate program. It helps me remember how it is impossible to know where you are going to be in a year. (However, I know I'll be in Boston next year.) What I do know is that I miss York and my friends dearly.

Two, the preface bit. Over break, I was thinking about ethics and morals and living. So I thought I'd blog about it. Rather than just write it and post it, I felt I should write an update and a warning. This part is the warning. The blog I post in the next few days is rather long (roughly 1,400 words). It is mostly questions and explanations of how I've been thinking. I'm not apologizing. I have learned that most of the time there are not answers to questions, because there really is not Truth, and quite often there are only complications.

For those of you who read the upcoming blog, thanks. And if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

The Place of Empathy

Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of others.

Sympathy: feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune.

In light of recent events (within the last week or the last decade, depending on your definition), the place of empathy in American/Western society needs to be explored. I'm sure many people more qualified than I have addressed this, but I'm going to any way.

As stated above, empathy and sympathy are very different. Sympathizing with someone is very different than empathizing with them. Sympathizing with or for someone allows one to maintain distance. Empathy demands closeness. It demands one to step into a situation. Of course, we can never know what an exact situation may feel like, but we all know something of loss, of fear, of anger. You can sympathize from a distance. You cannot empathize without getting right up next to the experiences of others. Sympathy is clean. Empathy is messy.

After telling my mother about a customer at work yesterday, she said, "We tend to lack empathy." And we do. Otherwise people would not get snippy at service industry workers. We, as a collective, tend to see ourselves as the center of the universe and cannot imagine others having bad days too. Too often we forget, when we have bad days, other people have them too. It is difficult to imagine others complexly. But it is vital that we do.

Given the tragedies in Syria, Beirut, Brazil, and Paris, empathy is exceedingly important. In the wake of disaster, the only response is empathy, compassion, love. There is no place for fear in the face of terror. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said,

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie. Nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.*

There is no choice. In the face of hate, the only answer is love. To see people as people. Further, the response of some Americans is distressing. That governors want to refuse admitting refugees is disgusting. What happened to "give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to be free"? What happened to the shining city on a hill? What happened to "we are a Christian nation"?

I make references to the supposed Christianity of America for a purpose. I do not believe America was founded on Christian principles (other than those that influenced English Common law). But some people believe it was and it guides their actions. (Thank you pragmatism.) If the United States wants to truly claim its place as a paragon of Christian virtue, than we accept all refugees. Full stop. 

Other than Dr. King, who was a minister, do you know who else called for love? Jesus. So, in denying to love in the face of fear, there exists no Christianity. In response to hate and violence, love is the only answer. There is no second choice. "Love your neighbor as yourself" is a call to empathy. Understand that your neighbor, wherever she may live, is just as important and complex as yourself.**

It may sound crazy, but people are people. And the place of empathy is central to that. What one person feels, we all feel. Any violence done to one body is violence done to all bodies.*** We all lose in systems of oppression and fear.

I fear I may have gotten off topic. But, alas, I cannot help it. So, if you lost the plot: Empathy is necessary when dealing with fear. As Fred Rogers reminds us: "Look for the helpers." And, I would add, help. Empathy spurs action. It is impossible to see people as people and then abandon them. But we need to act out of love, not fear, not hate. Americans, and the West more broadly, can afford, in every sense of the word, to help. And we are morally obligated to do so.

*Dr. King is often quoted out of context, and, although I attempt not to do that, I apologize if I have. Also, there is a time and place for action, possibly violent, but in this instance, I think that would be a poor first choice.

**This does not apply only to international issues. Domestically, we must see the killing and violence done to African Americans in the same light as violence done in other parts of the world, although the response must be different. In response to police brutality, love demands opposing power structures and believing, and fighting for, black communities (without appropriating or speaking over their voices). As all things are, this is complicated. But love and empathy first.

***This is an idea I have shamelessly appropriated and expanded upon. I first started thinking about it when one of my friends was giving a homily on processions in Catholicism. He said, "You can't have a procession of one. Either everyone goes, or no one goes," paraphrased. "No man an island" and all that.

The Ravished Cannot Leave

As often happens here on "The Journey that Matters," I have forgotten things I have blogged about. So, my apologies, dear friends, if I am repeating myself.

For one of my term papers this semester, I am using one of my favorite books/series as a case study. (I love being in programs where studying something you love is OK and you don't have to pick a specific topic.) For those of you who don't know, Catherynne Valente's Fairyland series is my most recent favorite. Four of the five books have been published, and a prologue online. They are published as middle range children's books--although no stories are only applicable to a specific age range. I am looking at fairy tales and the construction of definitions of "woman." (This may or may not change in the next 8 weeks. We'll see.)

But, on a completely unrelated note, the reasons I love this series are numerous. Valente approaches storytelling in a very postmodern way--stories are embedded in stories; the narrator speaks to the reader; nothing is really as it seems; foreshadowing exists, but mostly in literary allusions; the hero and the villain are not opposites but very similar--the list goes on and on. Like all good stories, it is, like Shrek, an onion. Layers upon layers. Story within story. One that you can return to time and again and learn more and have more adventures. Like September, the reader is in Fairyland on a Persephone visa.

And that's just it. Stories occupy a special place in human culture, as I'm sure I've mentioned. We return to stories all the time. We cannot help it. Like Persephone, we are bound to return. We can spend time away, but eventually we return. We all want to be stories--to be the heroes we read about. To have adventures. Storytelling is central to humanity. Stories tell us who we are, who we want to be, who we can be. They tell us what waits in the woods, and what is in space, and how to slay the dragon, and what is in the wardrobe or down the rabbit hole.

As the Doctor says, "we're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?"

The Long Durée

I've been thinking about my training in history lately, especially the idea of the long durée. For most of the last six years, I have been surrounded by students of history--or at least, on some level, in the general vicinity of them. This is the first time in my post-high school education when I have not been in a history program. And I'm starting to see how that has affected my way of thinking.

Students of history learn how to see processes, causation, correlation. We learn how to read and synthesize information quickly and accurately. We learn to see more that names, dates, and places. History is more than memorization of facts. Many of these aspects are only possible because most historians, now, have an understanding of history from a perspective of the long durée (or the long term, in English).

The long durée originated in the interwar period in economic history. The idea is that history cannot be studied as simply events in the short term. In order to understand how and why things happen, it is necessary to look at more than just the immediate causes. Imagine a picture: you only see what is happening in frame. You miss what led to those events and what is happening outside of the frame. The same is true of history. A picture of events doesn't show more than the immediate causes.

For example, a friend once asked me about the causes of the First World War. I told her that it was more complicated than she realized. The causes of the First World War, if you look at the short term, are mostly concerned with the politics around the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. But, in the long term, really go back to Napoleon, at least.

Coming back to the present, this idea affects how I think about the events we discuss in class. I know most of the other students think about things in some form of "long term" but I think it might mean something different to non-historians. In my race theory class, we talk about the socio-historical context. And everyone agrees that it is important when discussing current topics of race. But sometimes, my socio-historical context feels like it is much longer and deeper than others'. This is not a bad thing--we need diversity in experience or life would be boring. It's just that, sometimes, it's hard to remember that what I think of obvious context, or related ideas, is not that obvious. And by the time I remember and find a way to explain myself, the moment has passed. And I've been misinterpreted.

I'm not sure I had a point to this. It's just been something I've been thinking about. Studying history prepares you for so much, but it does not prepare you for changing disciplines. I can write and debate and explain ideas and draw connections and conclusions. But I cannot share the interconnected web of the past that I see as I am doing those things. And it's isolating.

[Other than this, life is going well. I really like my new job--a sign that things to tend to turn out for the best. Classes, overall, are going well. I'm working on my term papers now, so I'm sure I'll blog about them at some point. Thanks for reading what turned out to be more serious than I'd anticipated.]

Boston Pics!

Here it is folks! Pictures of the past 6 weeks or so! Finally.

This one is from late July when my dad and I came out to find me an apartment. This is Boston Harbor from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

My dad and I outside the Faneuil Hall Marketplace. It was 90+ degrees out and we'd walked a lot that day.

My dad and I again. This time, it was late August, when I moved out here. I forget where we were.

 The inside of the Old North Church. The door to the steeple is behind the organ.

Inside the Museum of Fine Arts is a room in the salon style--where all the paintings are hung without curator remarks. This one is a recent acquisition and it is possible to stand almost where the painter's perspective is from. It was my favorite piece in the half we saw.

Selfie time! There was a fire alarm while we were at the MFA, so we all had to go outside.

The outside of the Museum of Fine Arts.

This is probably my second favorite painting we saw at the MFA (excluding Georgia O'Keefe). The donkey is the best.

My mom was there too! The three of us took a picture while killing some time on one of the piers at Boston Harbor. We all look pretty good!

The people I'm subletting from have two cats. The cats and I have an odd relationship. I still have the box on my floor. When it was hot, cat A (this one) would come in and sleep for hours at a time.

The "Make Way For Ducklings" statues in the Public Garden. The book takes place in Boston. Apparently, I have read this book.

The Swan Boats in the Public Garden. They've been owned and operated by the same family for like 100 years or something. They go around the pond and you can see geese and ducks and swans and stuff. It was a nice day when I went with the people I'm living with.

This last one I took the other day after working a 630a-1230p shift at Peet's Coffee (my new job). I really enjoy it. Although I look tired here. My fashion sense is a little more hipster than I would prefer, but it's comfortable and coffeeshop-esque.

That was quite a few pictures! I'll be taking more as the year goes on! I hope all of you are doing well!