Anita and I are really excited because we now have a studio! We are planning on doing all our recording and mastering on our own, in our home. So, here was our first attempt at learning and using the software (Logic 9). It's a little jam we wrote as we went, inspired by a drum pattern I've had in my head for months. I'm glad to finally have done something with it so it could get out of my head and into the world where it belongs. We think it came out pretty well. Let us know what you think!
The Start of Something by tmhfband
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Heteronomy, Autonomy, and Ethics
Heteronomy, Autonomy, and Ethics
In his book, Nietzsche’s Epic of the Soul, T.K. Seung makes a distinction between what he refers to as the heteronomous and the autonomous will. The heteronomous will is the perspective by which human beings see themselves as subject to thoroughly causal, natural influences and are therefore without the ability to self-govern. It’s from this perspective that science takes off on its project to find causal explanations for the things we do and even think. The other perspective, the autonomous will, refers to the way in which a subject has the ability to shape her destiny. This perspective attends less to a scientific approach of understanding human beings, and attends more to a phenomenological understanding - that is, it attends to the way human beings experience their actions and thoughts. In relation to ethics, whereas a cognitive scientist may understand a human being’s ethical actions as they relate to the agent’s environment, situation, cognitive style, physiology, and so forth, a phenomenologist would want to look at the agent’s reasons for doing as they did, which, unless the agent is a cognitive scientist, will probably not resemble anything like a scientific causal explanation.
Seung is right to point out that the two wills, the heteronomous and the autonomous, are opposing wills. They seem to conflict with each other. Some type of synthesis seems necessary if we are not to settle on an incomplete description of human behavior. As oppositional, the heteronomous and the autonomous wills do not provide such a description in themselves. Regarding heteronomy, if we accept a materialist’s account of the world as well as a strong version of the theory of cause and effect, it’s difficult to see a way out of theorizing that, due to our growing up with particular psychological and physiological components alongside particular environmental conditions, our actions are fundamentally decided. But the idea that we are fated to be who we are and act as we do is deplorable to most people because we feel a sense of autonomy - an ability to break out of the causal chain, or a sensation that we were never in it. Our autonomous will defies the idea of fate. In Seung’s words, “The hatred of fate is the most natural response of the individual will to the world because it is bound to clash with the unlimited power of fate. As long as the individual self defiantly asserts its will against the world, it has no chance of coming to love the cosmic self,” which is the heteronomous will (Seung 353).
The opposition between the heteronomous and the autonomous wills has recently captivated the philosophical work being done in ethics. Thanks to the work of neuroscientists and experimental psychologists, serious questions have been raised about the supposed autonomy of our moral behavior. Studies suggest that we may not be in as much control over our moral actions as we once thought. This is an important subject for scientists because the relatively recent work done in cognitive science that persuasively articulates the heteronomous ethical will needs to find ground amidst the work philosophers have been doing in ethics for over 2,000 years. At the same time, the recent breakthroughs in cognitive science need to be accounted for by philosophers if their theories are not to become dogmatic. William D. Casebear notes, “As we cast about for a post-Enlightenment normative anchor, if we are to prevent backsliding into dogmatic supernatural and non-naturalistic conceptions of the moral life, it is imperative that we demonstrate the possibility of intelligent, useful interactions between the human sciences and human ethics” (Casebear 1). This paper aims to explore the heteronomous will of ethics as well as the autonomous, and offers an approach toward their synthesis. Let’s begin by discussing the heteronomous will in ethics.
The experiments being carried out in the relatively recent history of moral psychology have indicated that the ethical behavior exhibited by human beings is causally related to wildly mysterious factors. The argument posited by many studies indicates that what ultimately drives us to act morally or immorally seems irrelevant from the point of view of the agent in question. Just like the moon influences the ocean’s behavior, apparently a good-smelling fragrance influences our likelihood to offer a person change for their dollar (Appiah 41). According to a study by Robert Baron and Jill Thomley, the scent in the air influences most individuals’ willingness to make change for a dollar. According to such findings, if you need change for your dollar, your best bet is to situate yourself outside a bakery than, say, a “neutral-smelling dry-goods store”. In another study, Princeton seminary students who’d just attended a lecture on the Good Samaritan story from the Bible were less likely to help a visibly distressed person slumped in a doorway if they thought they were running late to an appointment (Appiah 41). It’s suggested that these seminarians were not necessarily bad people, nor uncaring. It seems the causal factors in the situation did not lend themselves to helping. It seems their autonomous will was not resilient.
Such findings by experimental psychologists comprise what Kwame Anthony Appiah deems “the situationist’s challenge”. They make questionable the theories developed by duty and virtue ethicists, who seem to attribute ethical behavior to rationality and context-independent dispositions. Appiah writes, “these psychologists are... ‘situationists’: they claim... that a lot of what people do is best explained not by traits of character but by systematic human tendencies to respond to features of their situations that nobody previously thought to be crucial at all” (Appiah 39). Such findings challenge assumptions made in the history of moral philosophizing because they favor heteronomy over human autonomy. They challenge us to consider what morality refers to if our everyday decisions have a grounding in a physical situation and not a free-thinking, rational decision procedure.
Marc Hauser, Liane Young, and Fiery Cushman have been rethinking the operative principles and the causal structure of our moral actions. By making an analogy with Noam Chomsky’s “Language Faculty,” they argue that “(A)ll humans are endowed with a moral faculty. The moral faculty enables us to produce moral judgments on the basis of the causes and consequences of actions” (Hauser e.t. 107). They argue that, much like humans are endowed with a language faculty, which refers to the idea that “human knowledge of language must be guided in part by an innate faculty of the mind - the faculty of language,” so too must they be endowed with a “mental organ” that produces moral judgments. This “mental organ” is not physical like a heart, but it draws from the many physical components of the human make-up, such as a human’s memory system, which is necessary in the outputting of moral judgments. It then perceives events and analyzes them in terms of component features such as intention, agent, recipient, and harm, and it cognizes a scenario and outputs a judgment. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of this theory is that the outputted judgment comes prior to feeling emotion and prior to conscious critical reasoning. Thus, according to Hauser, e.t., when the Princeton seminarians passed by the distressed person on the side of the road as they hurried off to their appointments, their moral faculty analyzed the event automatically (or, unconsciously) in terms of their commitments, the distressed person’s well-being, and the importance of both, and most made a judgment to move along. Their feeling bad and their rational commitment (or non-commitment) to the Good Samaritan’s model came after such a decision was made. This model was created in light of studies carried out by experimental psychologists and philosophers. It suggests that our biology tells us more about our moral life than does our free will.
The theory makes the claim that the traditional models of moral judgment are incorrect, or at least highly suspect. Traditional models state that we perceive an event, we feel emotions and/or we reason, and then we make a judgment. Traditional models all assume a sense of autonomy - that we are free agents who determine, in one way or another, our moral judgments and actions, and are thereby responsible for those judgments and actions. It stands out as one theory among others that warrants a “situation” with moral judgment and action, not an agent’s free-will.
Of course, this tells only part of the story. Pertaining to ethics, we must recognize that these studies can’t provide the whole story of our moral lives. For one thing, it doesn’t do justice to the phenomenological characteristics of acting morally. As Appiah says, “(A)sk people why they do something and they’ll expect that you want not a causal explanation of what they did, but their reason for doing it - that is, what it was about the choice that made it seem a good thing to do” (Appiah 43). It should be noted that the situationist’s research focuses primarily on the majorities. Studies in moral psychology don’t tell us much at all about the 10% of Princeton seminarians who, despite being late for their appointment, did stop and help. Appiah comments, “perhaps that subpopulation really did have a stable tendency to be helpful” (Appiah 49). That is, perhaps there are times in which the traditional models of moral judgment and action tell the more persuasive story of our moral lives. Perhaps one’s character or ethical reasoning, adequately developed over time, can trump a situation’s influence. Of course, Appiah also notes, “or, for all we know, (the seminarians were) heedless of time and careless about appointments” (49-50). The point is that work in moral philosophy still seems important. It’s unsatisfactory to attribute all developments in moral thinking to a mere situation. We can take a note from Husserl on this issue - that the physical sciences will reveal certain phenomena, but they will also conceal certain phenomena. What seems indubitable is that moral philosophy cannot ignore the work being done in experimental moral psychology. The future project of ethics will be to take account of the research being done in psychology while also taking into account the phenomenology of our moral lives. We cannot afford to treat the two as unrelated. We need to carve out a program for their integration.
Just what kind of a program this will be remains an open problem in modern moral philosophy. It might be valuable for westerners to study Buddhist ethics to help rethink an approach. Buddhist philosophy is generally grounded in theories of cause and effect. In describing sentient life, Buddhists will refer to the Padicca-Samuppada, or the “Chain of Causation,” which describes twelve causal states of individual consciousness, each one determining the next. The first state is ignorance and it is the first of a chain of causation. From ignorance arises activities. These activities can be either moral or immoral and the agent performs them in ignorance, and so does not consider them in light of rationality or moral theory. Still, these acts will be causes of future unfoldings of self-consciousness. Arising from such activities is what Buddhists refer to as “rebirth-consciousness”. Roughly, it is an awareness of the past, and therefore refers to time as it’s linearly experienced. This causes a sense of body and mind to take shape. With the body and mind, we become aware of our senses. We could say that at this point the aestheses arise and make contact with an external world. Such contact leads to feeling - whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. All these states described arise naturally and, importantly, passively. They are effects of prior mental/physical events. Our robust sense of autonomy comes as the next link in the causal chain, although, as noted, this sense of autonomy is itself conditioned by prior causes. We start to crave the satisfaction of pleasant feelings and the avoidance of unpleasant feelings. We, for instance, enjoy the feeling of tasting chocolate. This feeling causes in us a craving for more chocolate. This craving causes a grasping, and Buddhists identify this act of grasping as the source of human suffering. We crave chocolate and so we grasp at it, mentally and/or physically. We become attached to the satisfaction of our craving for chocolate. Such grasping is also part of a causal chain, and so conditions the way by which we then engage with the world. A cognitive psychologist would find resonance in this idea because our grasping or clinging can effectively shape our cognitive styles of thinking and experiencing the world. Cognitive style refers to “a recurring pattern of perceptual and intellectual activity” (Lavenda). Significant work has already been done to show that a person’s cognitive style is in part causally determined. One’s going to school, for instance, can affect the range of cognitive styles employed in various tasks (Lavenda). That is to say, one’s experiences affect the variety of cognitive styles employed for different tasks. There seems to be a commonality that can be drawn here between these scientific studies and the Buddhist insight that grasping essentially conditions and causes future mental states. The final link in the chain of causation is old age and death. We can think of this “old age” and “death” as unwholesome mental states such as despair, lamentation, and grief. That is to say, cognitive styles conditioned by craving and grasping will themselves cause mental anguish (all this, see Williams 71).
The importance of the Padicca-Samuppada, in light of our discussion on ethics, is that it grounds human activity in a rich causal theory. However, the Buddhist concept of cause and effect is not to be understood according to linear causality, which refers to a one-way relationship between a cause and an effect (such as the following example is to be understood: cue ball A is struck by B, thus leading it to strike C which goes into the corner pocket). It should rather lay the groundwork for a type of compatibilism, where causal determination exists in the form of conditions that effectively shape mental and physical states. Should certain conditions be present, certain mental and physical states will naturally follow. However, through the act of mindfulness, or a conscious sifting through such conditions and a bringing to rise certain conditioning factors rather than others, these mental and physical states won’t necessarily follow. For this reason, the Buddhist causal theory can not be considered to involve a one-to-one relationship between causes and effects, but rather a mutual causality in which causes and effects are co-present and effectively influence each other. There is therefore a degree to which, in Buddhist ethics, the heteronomous and the autonomous will can be said to co-exist. While we are not in control of the conditioning factors (the causes) that shape our present experience, these conditioning factors are multiple, and we do have control, through mindfulness, to bring rise to healthy conditioning factors over unhealthy conditioning factors. Thus causes and effects are co-present, and they influence each other.
Let’s now deepen our analysis of how exactly this is possible. Buddhist ethics is woven within the Noble Eightfold Path, known as the magga, which outlines a way by which we can, through effort, attain freedom from unwholesome mental states. The magga includes eight interdependent steps, which are mutually supportive and followed simultaneously, that should (hopefully) aid in a subject’s release from unhealthy mental states as they are conditioned via the Paddica-Samupada. The first two are related to wisdom - that is, understanding the root causes of unwholesome mental states. In relation to this discussion, these two steps, “Right View” and “Right Thought” refer to a respect for the Padicca-Samuppada, and thereby the heteronomous will. The following three steps, “Right speech”, “Right Action”, and “Right Livelihood”, ground Buddhist morality. Phra Rajavaramuni notes that “Buddhist ethics is rooted in knowledge and effort based on knowledge” (knowledge of the “impermanent, conflicting, and not-self nature of things, and the dependent origination of all phenomena, that is, that all changes are subject to causes and conditions”), “not accidentalism or fatalism” (47). The last three steps, “Right effort”, “Right mindfulness”, and “Right concentration” refer to mental discipline. These steps, which involve the various meditation practices developed over thousands of years, effectively promote a state of mindfulness, thus developing one’s ability to bring rise to certain conditioning factors rather than others. All eight steps are incredibly important in Buddhist ethics, because they clear the space and methodology by which we can affect the causal chain and bring rise to healthy mental states as well as wholesome moral action.
Preceding the magga are two prerequisites, known as the pre-magga factors, “which indicate the conditions for the arising and the support for the development of all the magga factors” (Rajavaramuni 47). They include “Association with good people,” and “Systematic attention or reflection” (47). Rajavaramuni notes, “The two pre-magga factors... deal with the influence and effect the world and society can have on the individual. They stress what one can get from one’s environment, natural and social, through one’s dealing and relations with it” (47). The lesson to be learned here is that, so long as we accept a compatibilist causal theory, we admit that we have a certain amount of autonomy with regard to the kind of community we can become involved in and also co-create, which will help to bring rise to healthy conditioning factors. If the situationist is correct, our only chance to autonomously promote wholesome moral judgments and actions is by altering our situation. We can work to surround ourselves with “good people” and we can also develop mental attention and stability using techniques developed by Buddhist contemplatives, which would alter our cognitive styles, which in turn would alter the situation. In this way, we might find Buddhist ethics to be a source of inspiration to westerners struggling to relate the heteronomous and the autonomous will. The seminarians would have certainly been more likely to help the distressed person if they weren’t grasping at being on time to the appointment they were hurrying off to. Studying Buddhist philosophy could assist in relieving such craving, thereby altering the situation itself which, according to situationists, was at the root of the immoral action of leaving behind a person in need in order to be on time to an appointment.
I hope to have shown that if we are to synthesize the heteronomous and autonomous ethical wills, we will have to approach it such as I’m suggesting here - in affecting the situation itself, in virtue of the physical environment and also the cognitive styles employed by an agent. Buddhist ethics, with its grounding in a rich theory of cause and effect, and also its rich grounding in approaching ethics through wisdom, can provide valuable insight as to the methods by which we might do so.
Works Cited
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Experiments in Ethics. Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Casebear, William D. Natural Ethical Facts; Evolution, Connectionism, and Moral Cognition. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.
Hauser, Marc, Liane Young, and Fiery Cushman. “Reviving Rawls’s Linguistic Analogy: Operative Principles and the Causal Structure of Moral Actions”. Moral Psychology, Volume 2: The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity. Ed. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. MIT Press, 2008.
Lavenda, Robert H. and Emily Schultz. “Cognitive Style.” Oxford University Press, Higher Education Group. <http://www.oup.com/us/companion.websites/ 9780195189766/student_resources/Supp_chap_mats/Chap10/ Cognitive_Style/? view=usa>.
Rajavaramuni, Phra. “Foundations of Buddhist Social Ethics.” Ethics, Wealth, and Salvation, A Study in Buddhist Social Ethics. Ed. Russell Sizemore & Donald Swearer. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina, 1990.
Seung, T.K. Nietzsche’s Epic of the Soul, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2005.
Williams, Paul and Anthony Tribe. Buddhist Thought, A Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition. New York: Routledge, 2000.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
A Potential Strike by the California Faculty Association
As many of you know, I'm a lecturer at Humboldt State University, teaching logic. While my position is temporary, and I will likely be working elsewhere in the spring, I am proud of my position and my line of work. I am passionate about teaching - I do not count the hours I put in and I devote a lot of care when working with my students and planning my lectures. As many of you do not know, there is great potential of a massive strike by all faculty in the California State University system, including tenured professors, assistant professors, lecturers, librarians, etc. etc. I am in support of this action if things don't change from the way they are right now.
What is going on?
First and foremost, the Chancellor of the CSU system, Charles B. Reed, has not been managing the CSU budget appropriately. The average salary of a CSU President has gone from roughly $173,000 a year in 1998 to 300,000 in 2011. Also, the number of administrators for the CSU has increased by a lot since Reed became Chancellor. Administrators, as increasingly different from the faculty, do not participate in educating, but are rather responsible for the corporatization of the University: finding funding from businesses, privatizing classes through the increased offering of 'extended education classes,' cutting costs which usually means hiring more part-time faculty and not extending tenure to professors, enhancing higher education's utility to businesses, gaining control over the intellectual property of professors in order to generate revenue for the University, and the lessening of department control in hiring faculty. The focus of administrators is to increase revenues and decrease costs. Administrators have been hired in abundance since Reed's becoming Chancellor. Additionally, students have been asked over the last five years to pay more for less. Student class-sizes have gotten larger and there have been less offerings. In short, the CSU is being run more and more like a for-profit business, with no benefits extended to students or faculty.
The CSU faculty had to forego a wage increase in 2008/2009 and are being asked to do so again now. The reason being used is that California's budget is in crisis, and the money is simply not there. The California Faculty Association is fighting against this, and as part of the bargaining process, hired two different independent fact-finding commissions, both of which recommended that the Chancellor settles with their modest proposals (a 1% increase in pay for all CSU Faculty). The Chancellor is not obligated to take those recommendations, and he exercised his right in refusing them. A strike is therefore imminent.
Example of a Double-Standard
In July of this year, Reed approved the salary of new San Diego State University President Elliot Hirshman with a 12-3 vote from the board of trustees. It is $350,000 a year plus housing and $1,000 per month for a car allowance. He'll also get $50,000 a year from the university's foundation. The President before him, Stephen Weber, made $300,000, so this is a substantial increase. It comes at the same time that students are asked to pay more tuition as, according to Reed, "The enormous reduction to our state funding has left us with no other choice if we are to maintain quality and access to CSU." Reed also noted that, according to studies, CSU presidents, even given Hirshman's salary, are paid less than comparable institutions. This only indicates to me that there is a more systemic problem - other institutions have likely mimicked the incredible increase in average salary for administrators over the last ten years. It does NOT indicate to me that $400,000 a year in salary is reasonable.
Presumably, Hirshman has been hired to increase the quality of education at San Diego State University. That has to be in the rhetoric of hiring him at such a price. A great double-standard unearths at that point. As faculty (those who interact personally with students, who supply the content and the feedback, who grade the performance, who design the curriculum) are asked to go years without a pay increase, a high level administrator is given 25% more than his predecessor, in an effort to maintain high standards of excellence at the university. At the same time, students are asked to pay more for less. We must remain very critical of such attention to quality given the increasing struggle teachers and students face to perform.
The Challenge for the California Faculty Association
The CFA is in a bad position - they are asking for more money at a time of economic crisis. Public perception will surely be critical. Therefore, it is crucial that the CFA pays attention to the narrative they are creating. The corporatocracy we live in has perfected a line of approaching goals that is hyper-attentive to the narrative. Before progressive arguments are even made, they are already in a losing battle of defending their principles because of the media framing of the issues. This will be the case with CSU faculty here. The narrative is already being established by the Chancellor that teachers are being unreasonable - "in an environment of economic hardship, they are asking for more money from unemployed tax payers." CSU will fall right into this line of thinking if they continually reference a 'raise'.
Teachers are not asking for a raise. They are asking for a cost of living adjustment. As not receiving any additional compensation since 2008, and as the cost of living has increased since then, teachers are making less money now. Additionally, with budget cuts, the slashing of tenure tracks, the hiring of part-time workers, the increase in class size, and the additional administrative responsibilities for departments, they are making less money and working more. Even as the Chancellor's narrative will attempt to simply reduce the terminology of a "cost of living readjustment," the CSU faculty needs to resist such a reduction and fight vehemently. In actuality, a 1% increase in pay is not a raise. It's also less than the 3% increase in pay UC faculty receive every year. Also, CSU faculty are the only state workers who do not have a cost-of-living adjustment built into their contract. That needs to be made clear to the public. Whether in economic hardship or not, state workers receive this adjustment in salary, but CSU faculty do not.
It's imperative that, in the event of a strike, or in the case of demonstrations, all CSU faculty get involved, from tenured faculty to lecturers. A variety of ages need representation and there needs to be a mass of people. The success of a demonstration relies on making the Chancellor look bad. He needs to be embarrassed. That will bring him to the bargaining table.
As professors are ridiculed in the media, think critically of the narrative that will come out. Think critically about available CSU funds and budgeting. It's the faculty that delivers the education, that helps develop the critical thinking capacity of students, that help in the development of America's future. They need to be paid respectfully and with attention to quality and retention.
What is going on?
First and foremost, the Chancellor of the CSU system, Charles B. Reed, has not been managing the CSU budget appropriately. The average salary of a CSU President has gone from roughly $173,000 a year in 1998 to 300,000 in 2011. Also, the number of administrators for the CSU has increased by a lot since Reed became Chancellor. Administrators, as increasingly different from the faculty, do not participate in educating, but are rather responsible for the corporatization of the University: finding funding from businesses, privatizing classes through the increased offering of 'extended education classes,' cutting costs which usually means hiring more part-time faculty and not extending tenure to professors, enhancing higher education's utility to businesses, gaining control over the intellectual property of professors in order to generate revenue for the University, and the lessening of department control in hiring faculty. The focus of administrators is to increase revenues and decrease costs. Administrators have been hired in abundance since Reed's becoming Chancellor. Additionally, students have been asked over the last five years to pay more for less. Student class-sizes have gotten larger and there have been less offerings. In short, the CSU is being run more and more like a for-profit business, with no benefits extended to students or faculty.
The CSU faculty had to forego a wage increase in 2008/2009 and are being asked to do so again now. The reason being used is that California's budget is in crisis, and the money is simply not there. The California Faculty Association is fighting against this, and as part of the bargaining process, hired two different independent fact-finding commissions, both of which recommended that the Chancellor settles with their modest proposals (a 1% increase in pay for all CSU Faculty). The Chancellor is not obligated to take those recommendations, and he exercised his right in refusing them. A strike is therefore imminent.
Example of a Double-Standard
In July of this year, Reed approved the salary of new San Diego State University President Elliot Hirshman with a 12-3 vote from the board of trustees. It is $350,000 a year plus housing and $1,000 per month for a car allowance. He'll also get $50,000 a year from the university's foundation. The President before him, Stephen Weber, made $300,000, so this is a substantial increase. It comes at the same time that students are asked to pay more tuition as, according to Reed, "The enormous reduction to our state funding has left us with no other choice if we are to maintain quality and access to CSU." Reed also noted that, according to studies, CSU presidents, even given Hirshman's salary, are paid less than comparable institutions. This only indicates to me that there is a more systemic problem - other institutions have likely mimicked the incredible increase in average salary for administrators over the last ten years. It does NOT indicate to me that $400,000 a year in salary is reasonable.
Presumably, Hirshman has been hired to increase the quality of education at San Diego State University. That has to be in the rhetoric of hiring him at such a price. A great double-standard unearths at that point. As faculty (those who interact personally with students, who supply the content and the feedback, who grade the performance, who design the curriculum) are asked to go years without a pay increase, a high level administrator is given 25% more than his predecessor, in an effort to maintain high standards of excellence at the university. At the same time, students are asked to pay more for less. We must remain very critical of such attention to quality given the increasing struggle teachers and students face to perform.
The Challenge for the California Faculty Association
The CFA is in a bad position - they are asking for more money at a time of economic crisis. Public perception will surely be critical. Therefore, it is crucial that the CFA pays attention to the narrative they are creating. The corporatocracy we live in has perfected a line of approaching goals that is hyper-attentive to the narrative. Before progressive arguments are even made, they are already in a losing battle of defending their principles because of the media framing of the issues. This will be the case with CSU faculty here. The narrative is already being established by the Chancellor that teachers are being unreasonable - "in an environment of economic hardship, they are asking for more money from unemployed tax payers." CSU will fall right into this line of thinking if they continually reference a 'raise'.
Teachers are not asking for a raise. They are asking for a cost of living adjustment. As not receiving any additional compensation since 2008, and as the cost of living has increased since then, teachers are making less money now. Additionally, with budget cuts, the slashing of tenure tracks, the hiring of part-time workers, the increase in class size, and the additional administrative responsibilities for departments, they are making less money and working more. Even as the Chancellor's narrative will attempt to simply reduce the terminology of a "cost of living readjustment," the CSU faculty needs to resist such a reduction and fight vehemently. In actuality, a 1% increase in pay is not a raise. It's also less than the 3% increase in pay UC faculty receive every year. Also, CSU faculty are the only state workers who do not have a cost-of-living adjustment built into their contract. That needs to be made clear to the public. Whether in economic hardship or not, state workers receive this adjustment in salary, but CSU faculty do not.
It's imperative that, in the event of a strike, or in the case of demonstrations, all CSU faculty get involved, from tenured faculty to lecturers. A variety of ages need representation and there needs to be a mass of people. The success of a demonstration relies on making the Chancellor look bad. He needs to be embarrassed. That will bring him to the bargaining table.
As professors are ridiculed in the media, think critically of the narrative that will come out. Think critically about available CSU funds and budgeting. It's the faculty that delivers the education, that helps develop the critical thinking capacity of students, that help in the development of America's future. They need to be paid respectfully and with attention to quality and retention.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Matt the Electrician: Great Music Coming Out of Austin, Texas
The 'legend' of Matt Sever is that, living in Austin, Texas, he worked as an electrician. He busted his ass in the intense sun, sweating bullets. When he got off work, he had just enough time to head straight over to the plethora of open mics in town, strap on his guitar, and play. Grimy and dirty, he excused himself by explaining that he was an electrician. He became known as Matt the Electrician.
I saw Matt play a set at Humboldt State University, which is fitting because back in the 90s, he was a student there. He actually wrote a song about it, and if you read through the lyrics, you can get a sense of his humor. Check them out:
I owe thirty-five dollars to the library
At Humboldt State University
But I dropped out fifteen years ago
And I never paid it and I'm still not gonna
I never got my report card
But I didn't go to class and I didn't work hard
So I didn't wanna know how bad I did
But I know I never made the dean's list
And college is a waste of time
If you wanna be a baker or a candlestick maker
You still have to wait in line
At the bank drive through and the train tracks too
Behind people like me with no degree
'Cause I know the conductor and he knows me
You might have a nicer car, but I've traveled pretty far
And all I have is an old guitar
Forty bucks for a bag of weed
In the summer nineteen ninety three
Forty dollars is all I have
And it isn't mine, it belongs to my parents
Oh, five hundred points for a roll of cookie dough
In the cafeteria they got sloppy joes
And the sloppy joes cost three points
I won't eat in the spring but hey, cookie dough
And college is a waste of time
If you wanna be a diver or a big rig driver
You still have to go to the store
And share the road with a wide load
Who's taking up all three lanes
And you can't get around him it's a big pain
And the driver hasn't slept in three whole days
But he knows one thing and that's freeways
He's got a Gatorade bottle where he goes pee
And you're behind him with your college degree
I owe thirty-five dollars to the library
At Humboldt State University
But I dropped out fifteen years ago
So I never paid it and I'm still not gonna..
I saw Matt play a set at Humboldt State University, which is fitting because back in the 90s, he was a student there. He actually wrote a song about it, and if you read through the lyrics, you can get a sense of his humor. Check them out:
I owe thirty-five dollars to the library
At Humboldt State University
But I dropped out fifteen years ago
And I never paid it and I'm still not gonna
I never got my report card
But I didn't go to class and I didn't work hard
So I didn't wanna know how bad I did
But I know I never made the dean's list
And college is a waste of time
If you wanna be a baker or a candlestick maker
You still have to wait in line
At the bank drive through and the train tracks too
Behind people like me with no degree
'Cause I know the conductor and he knows me
You might have a nicer car, but I've traveled pretty far
And all I have is an old guitar
Forty bucks for a bag of weed
In the summer nineteen ninety three
Forty dollars is all I have
And it isn't mine, it belongs to my parents
Oh, five hundred points for a roll of cookie dough
In the cafeteria they got sloppy joes
And the sloppy joes cost three points
I won't eat in the spring but hey, cookie dough
And college is a waste of time
If you wanna be a diver or a big rig driver
You still have to go to the store
And share the road with a wide load
Who's taking up all three lanes
And you can't get around him it's a big pain
And the driver hasn't slept in three whole days
But he knows one thing and that's freeways
He's got a Gatorade bottle where he goes pee
And you're behind him with your college degree
I owe thirty-five dollars to the library
At Humboldt State University
But I dropped out fifteen years ago
So I never paid it and I'm still not gonna..
Matt expressed concern that Humboldt State would take that $35 right out of his paycheck, but that remains to be seen.
Matt described the difference between folk music and pop music as this: in pop music, you sing songs for yourself. In folk music, you sing songs for other people. Following that explanation, he divulged that he's really only written one true folk song, a song called "For Angela", which is a song addressed to Walmart customer service, thanking the kindness and helpfulness of a car repairwoman named Angela. Despite company policy, she hooked Matt up with a battery installation for his broken down car in time for him to make his gig. At the end of the song he advised Walmart to #1, give her a raise; #2, allow her to unionize; and #3, allow her to claim sexual harassment when appropriate.
My favorite song of Matt's is "Osaka in the Rain", which captures the sweetness and the nostalgic sentiment of his music. It's gorgeous, and I included a video of it below. Another highlight was "Ghost Story", a song co-written by Matt with a Danish lady in a 16th century haunted castle in Denmark set aside for co-writing music. Yes, Matt participated in a project where musicians from Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and Texas all come together to live in this castle, trading places and intensely co-writing songs together night and day. A documentary has been made about it - click here to see a preview for it. In my mind, the idea is a beautiful example of collaboration, music, and art, and it produced a great piece of work on Matt's new album, Accidental Thief.
I can't say enough about Matt the Electrician. His three piece band is solid and they harmonize perfectly, he exudes sentimentality in his music and in the way he talks about it and talks about being a working musician, and his songs are quirky and interesting with great lyrical play. Check out his website and his tunes. Below are some videos. And if he comes to your town, go see him. You won't regret it!
Monday, September 19, 2011
More Pictures from the Great Outdoors!
I posted some pictures a while ago here. This is the second installment, all pictures from along the John Muir Trail. Enjoy!
King's Canyon, California
King's Canyon
Tuolomne Meadows, Yosemite
King's Canyon
King's Canyon
Rae Lakes, King's Canyon
Mather Pass, King's Canyon
Leconte Canyon, King's Canyon
Muir Pass, King's Canyon
Muir Pass, King's Canyon
John Muir Wilderness
Devil's Postpile, Ansel Adams Wilderness
Virginia Lake, John Muir Wilderness
Perfection
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Where is the Real in the Housing Crisis?
What can we make of Alain Badiou's "This Crisis is the Spectacle: Where is the Real?"? Well, let's see...
When we turn on our TV's to find out about the global financial crisis, what do we see? Bailouts of hundreds of millions of dollars, European countries aiding Greece with hundreds of billions of dollars, the battle cry: "Save the banks!", and stimulus packages of hundreds of billions of dollars to help us get back on track. We hear politicians, listen to economic analysts, and we read the articles accompanying our crumbling stocks. Badiou calls this the spectacle, meaning these are the symbolic representations our media has to offer us to help us understand our crisis. But what does a hundred billion dollars mean? Can we really comprehend that kind of volume? Badiou says, "I have to admit it: when I see all these figures circulating - and like almost everyone else, I have no idea what they represent (just what does 400 billion euros look like?) - I trust them. I have every confidence in the fire-fighters. If they all act together, they can do it, I know they can, I can feel it. The banks will be even bigger than before, and a few small and medium-sized banks that initially survived only because they were saved by the benevolence of states will be given to the bigger ones for next to nothing, The collapse of capitalism? You must be joking" (92).
This is the common reaction to the spectacle. But what happens when we turn our attention to the everyday people perceiving the spectacle? It is there, Badiou contends, that we find the Real. The Real is a term stemming from the tradition of Lacanian psychoanalysis. It refers to life prior to its being carved up into a symbolic order, prior to the spectacle - the experience. It conditions the spectacle. It makes possible the media representation. It's the other side of the coin. As we watch 400 billion euros stream across the screen, it's in the comparison of that figure to the resources owned by the common family or person. For instance, the spectacle presents us with the housing market crash: thousands of people agreeing to contracts too big for them to chew, irresponsible families taking on a mortgage they couldn't afford, people defaulting on their debts, people walking away from a promise, banks and their risk flying back in their poor faces - Bail them out! Prior to the spectacle, we have a mass of people who cannot afford to live anywhere. Badiou writes, "Ultimately, all this came about because tens of millions of people are on such low incomes - or non-incomes - that they cannot afford anywhere to live. The real essence of the financial crisis is a housing crisis. And the people who cannot afford anywhere to live are certainly not bankers. We have to go back to the lives of ordinary people" (98).
After inspecting the startling statistics displayed on progressive channels marking the increasing disparity between the rich and the poor, we get back to the people's lives: it's getting harder and harder to afford a house, to conceive of retiring, to raise a family. The spectacle continues: "Reform Social Security", which means to get rid of it or seriously cut it back. A leading candidate in the presidential race describes social security as a ponzi scheme. So, the spectacle tells us the banks are more important than providing care to senior citizens. Imagine a call for 400 billion dollars to bail out social security. What a political risk - maybe political suicide. But we live in a world where it's politically safe to call for 400 billion to bail out the banks.
And then we turn again to the real: masses of people who, without social security, would be living below the poverty line. Women fair far worse than men in that category. We live in a world where social security is keeping 14 million seniors above the poverty line, and it's politically safe to call for its abolishment or its "reform", which means major cutbacks, or to call it a "bad investment".
Badiou argues that we need to think beyond the spectacle and get to the Real. Examine the lived experience of the people (the proletariat). He says, "We must, as many experiments have tried to do over the past 20 years, organize a very different kind of politics... It begins with the real, with a practical alliance with those people who are in the best position to invent it in the immediate: the new proletarians who have come from Africa and elsewhere, and the intellectuals who are the heirs to the political battles of recent decades... It will not have any organic relationship with existing parties of the electoral and institutional system that sustains them. It will invent the new discipline of those who have nothing, their political capabilities, and a new idea of what their victory might mean" (99). So, for those who, caught int he spectacle, argue that bailing out the banks was necessary, and saved the multitudes, the answer is: what sort of saving was this? The number of people living in poverty in the United States is the highest it's been in 51 years? Bankers are ok. They weren't the ones who couldn't afford a house, and they are the ones who came out of this ahead. The answer is not to react, but to invent.
Badiou, with Zizek, argues that a big hurdle to overcome is the bias that we live in a post-ideological era. The call to save the banks is Capitalist ideology in its purest form. The political safety of that call reveals the ideological grasp Capitalism has on the populace: even as the worker slides deeper and deeper into poverty, he will defend the Capitalism that offers him his opportunities. In contrast to this, "We will contrast the wicked spectacle of capitalism with the real of peoples, with the lives of people and the movement of ideas" (100). And with that, a grassroots politics will begin, far different from the current ideology, and this will be our redemption - not a bailing out of banks and certainly not a reform of social security.
Badiou, Alain. The Communist Hypothesis. Trans. David Macey and Steve Corcoran. New York: Verso, 2010.
When we turn on our TV's to find out about the global financial crisis, what do we see? Bailouts of hundreds of millions of dollars, European countries aiding Greece with hundreds of billions of dollars, the battle cry: "Save the banks!", and stimulus packages of hundreds of billions of dollars to help us get back on track. We hear politicians, listen to economic analysts, and we read the articles accompanying our crumbling stocks. Badiou calls this the spectacle, meaning these are the symbolic representations our media has to offer us to help us understand our crisis. But what does a hundred billion dollars mean? Can we really comprehend that kind of volume? Badiou says, "I have to admit it: when I see all these figures circulating - and like almost everyone else, I have no idea what they represent (just what does 400 billion euros look like?) - I trust them. I have every confidence in the fire-fighters. If they all act together, they can do it, I know they can, I can feel it. The banks will be even bigger than before, and a few small and medium-sized banks that initially survived only because they were saved by the benevolence of states will be given to the bigger ones for next to nothing, The collapse of capitalism? You must be joking" (92).
This is the common reaction to the spectacle. But what happens when we turn our attention to the everyday people perceiving the spectacle? It is there, Badiou contends, that we find the Real. The Real is a term stemming from the tradition of Lacanian psychoanalysis. It refers to life prior to its being carved up into a symbolic order, prior to the spectacle - the experience. It conditions the spectacle. It makes possible the media representation. It's the other side of the coin. As we watch 400 billion euros stream across the screen, it's in the comparison of that figure to the resources owned by the common family or person. For instance, the spectacle presents us with the housing market crash: thousands of people agreeing to contracts too big for them to chew, irresponsible families taking on a mortgage they couldn't afford, people defaulting on their debts, people walking away from a promise, banks and their risk flying back in their poor faces - Bail them out! Prior to the spectacle, we have a mass of people who cannot afford to live anywhere. Badiou writes, "Ultimately, all this came about because tens of millions of people are on such low incomes - or non-incomes - that they cannot afford anywhere to live. The real essence of the financial crisis is a housing crisis. And the people who cannot afford anywhere to live are certainly not bankers. We have to go back to the lives of ordinary people" (98).
After inspecting the startling statistics displayed on progressive channels marking the increasing disparity between the rich and the poor, we get back to the people's lives: it's getting harder and harder to afford a house, to conceive of retiring, to raise a family. The spectacle continues: "Reform Social Security", which means to get rid of it or seriously cut it back. A leading candidate in the presidential race describes social security as a ponzi scheme. So, the spectacle tells us the banks are more important than providing care to senior citizens. Imagine a call for 400 billion dollars to bail out social security. What a political risk - maybe political suicide. But we live in a world where it's politically safe to call for 400 billion to bail out the banks.
And then we turn again to the real: masses of people who, without social security, would be living below the poverty line. Women fair far worse than men in that category. We live in a world where social security is keeping 14 million seniors above the poverty line, and it's politically safe to call for its abolishment or its "reform", which means major cutbacks, or to call it a "bad investment".
Badiou argues that we need to think beyond the spectacle and get to the Real. Examine the lived experience of the people (the proletariat). He says, "We must, as many experiments have tried to do over the past 20 years, organize a very different kind of politics... It begins with the real, with a practical alliance with those people who are in the best position to invent it in the immediate: the new proletarians who have come from Africa and elsewhere, and the intellectuals who are the heirs to the political battles of recent decades... It will not have any organic relationship with existing parties of the electoral and institutional system that sustains them. It will invent the new discipline of those who have nothing, their political capabilities, and a new idea of what their victory might mean" (99). So, for those who, caught int he spectacle, argue that bailing out the banks was necessary, and saved the multitudes, the answer is: what sort of saving was this? The number of people living in poverty in the United States is the highest it's been in 51 years? Bankers are ok. They weren't the ones who couldn't afford a house, and they are the ones who came out of this ahead. The answer is not to react, but to invent.
Badiou, with Zizek, argues that a big hurdle to overcome is the bias that we live in a post-ideological era. The call to save the banks is Capitalist ideology in its purest form. The political safety of that call reveals the ideological grasp Capitalism has on the populace: even as the worker slides deeper and deeper into poverty, he will defend the Capitalism that offers him his opportunities. In contrast to this, "We will contrast the wicked spectacle of capitalism with the real of peoples, with the lives of people and the movement of ideas" (100). And with that, a grassroots politics will begin, far different from the current ideology, and this will be our redemption - not a bailing out of banks and certainly not a reform of social security.
Badiou, Alain. The Communist Hypothesis. Trans. David Macey and Steve Corcoran. New York: Verso, 2010.
Friday, September 2, 2011
The Israel/Palestine Conflict
Not too long ago, I posted an article about Israel. I've come to see it as expressing "The Israeli Narrative." That is, my musings were based on Israeli scholarship and a story that makes sense in a lot of ways, but doesn't ever come from the point of view of the 'other' - that is, the Palestinians who were pushed out of modern day Israel and currently live under, for all intensive purposes, Israeli-controlled territorial islands. According to the Israeli Narrative, their plight is the result of having willfully left when Israel claimed statehood, followed by a year of war. But it's hard to imagine, from the perspective of the other, that 300,000 Arabs would have fled Israel with a clear conscience. And this is where the Israel Narrative breaks down. I have outlined here three major inconsistencies with the Israeli Narrative, and you can draw from it what you will.
1) According to the Israeli Narrative, land was acquired for Zionist Jews both peacefully and lawfully. This is true, but only from a Western-European paradigm (a colonialist and capitalist thought-process with particularly western ideas of land ownership). That is, in colonialism, a differing culture exerts its rules and standards on another culture. That is the case with the "peaceful and lawful" acquisition of land for Zionists. Palestinians have historically lived a rural life where peasant laborers grew crops as a means of feeding their families. The land was run like a cooperative. It was "owned" communally. But as the Ottoman Empire was starting its disintegration, a foreign concept of individual land ownership was imposed on the Palestinian people in an effort to raise more revenues for the Ottoman Empire (with individual ownership of land, you can easily impose property taxes). So, Palestinians now needed a clear title or deed of ownership to farm the land they'd been farming for centuries. The peasants, unable to afford this, registered their lands with wealthy investors who would pay the property tax. With no paper trail, this also insured the Palestinians that their children wouldn't be conscripted by the army. Most of these landowners were absentee landlords. The peasants continued to work the land as they'd done for centuries, but as a motivated Zionist population set its sites on the Holy Land, land was easily purchased and inhabited. Was this lawful? Absolutely. But by who's laws? The indigenous population did not agree to it, and they suffered terribly from it as they were cast off the land their families cultivated for generations because new Zionist owners did not want them living on it. Was it peaceful? Absolutely not. With the influx of tens of thousands of Jews upon an indigenous population, the seed of a Palestinian nationalist movement was planted, and displacing a people is never a peaceful affair.
2) The Israeli Narrative blames the Palestinian refugee problem on anti-semitism and a willful exodus on the part of the Palestinians. This has been a recurring issue because Hamas has in its platform the requirement that Palestinians have the right to return to their homeland, while Israel claims they were never forced out but lost that right by willfully leaving. The Palestinian exodus has to be understood with regard to the war between Israel and the Palestinians starting right after the UN declared the state of Israel. The Palestinians went on the offensive and Israel defended itself. Little outside Arab resistance came to support the Palestinians, and due to Israel's superiority in military training and organization, the virtually leader-less Palestinians did not stand much of a chance. There were tragedies and extreme brutality coming from both sides. Israel eventually went on the offensive and made an extreme and notorious attack at Deir Yassin. Between 100-200 men, women, and children died despite the village's non-aggression pact with the Jewish Defense Force, Haganah. What followed was a propaganda campaign terrorizing Palestinian communities. Scholar Gregory Harms writes, "As Arab radio stations broadcast news of Deir Yassin, Zionist forces in trucks with loudspeakers further terrorized Arab peasants and villagers with threats of similar violence" (94). Shortly thereafter, 300,000 Arabs had fled their homes and Israel had a refugee problem still causing strife today.
3) According to the Israeli Narrative, the international war following the Civil War was like the story of David and Goliath, where a united and bellicose Arab league fought a vastly outnumbered 650,000 Jews, and the Jews came out victorious. What actually happened was that the invading countries - Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon - sent around 23,000 troops and met Israel's 30,000-40,000 troops (96). We should not downplay the anti-semitism pouring out of these Arab countries at the time (and today), but these countries were not all united, and they were locked in rivalries of power themselves. Suffering from struggling economies, political instability, and competition for being the leading Arab nation, they were reluctant to fight Israel, and put in a half-hearted effort. Harms writes, "As one might predict, with a lack of cohesion, no plans, and insufficient troops, the Arab countries did not fare well in the conflict" (98). When the Israelis won, approximately 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes into Arab-held Palestine or surrounding Arab countries. Thousands and thousands of these Palestinians fled to Arab-held Gaza and the West Bank. In the 1967 war, opposing numerous cease-fire orders issued by the UN, including Security Council Resolution 233, Israel tripled its size and acquired for its own both Gaza and the West Bank, coming to control 1.1 million Palestinians. According to the Israeli narrative, this was all justified with respect to their need for defense, which finds its footing on the David and Goliath analogy. So long as the surrounding Arab nations are seen as equipped, trained, thirsty for blood and revenge, and united in its desire to destroy Israel, the David and Goliath story stands, and the acquisition of these territories seems justifiable. But the surrounding Arab nations have not had this united front, and as a whole, they've been more respectful of UN resolutions than the Israelis have. They've been far more open-minded in negotiating with Israel than Israel's been, but, in fairness, that's perhaps because they have more to gain from it and less to lose. But even that is not altogether clear. What does Israel have to gain by separatist policies? Palestine and Israel have been in a state of conflict since Zionism began its work in Palestine, and so long as Israel imposes heavy-handed restrictions on a Palestinian state, no end of the violence is in sight, which begs the question: is Israel safer with the wall they've constructed? Is it really in their best interest to (not) negotiate peace treaties with as much arrogance and lack of diplomacy as they have? Does it make the lives of Israelis better? Or safer?
For peace in the Palestine-Israeli conflict, it seems that the Israeli Narrative needs to be critically examined. Its ideas are consistent and reasonable, but only from within the colonialist perspective. The indigenous perspective needs to be given much more respect and attention in the peace process for the good of both parties.
Harms, Gregory and Todd M. Ferry. The Palestine Israel Conflict, a Basic Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Pluto Press, 2008.
1) According to the Israeli Narrative, land was acquired for Zionist Jews both peacefully and lawfully. This is true, but only from a Western-European paradigm (a colonialist and capitalist thought-process with particularly western ideas of land ownership). That is, in colonialism, a differing culture exerts its rules and standards on another culture. That is the case with the "peaceful and lawful" acquisition of land for Zionists. Palestinians have historically lived a rural life where peasant laborers grew crops as a means of feeding their families. The land was run like a cooperative. It was "owned" communally. But as the Ottoman Empire was starting its disintegration, a foreign concept of individual land ownership was imposed on the Palestinian people in an effort to raise more revenues for the Ottoman Empire (with individual ownership of land, you can easily impose property taxes). So, Palestinians now needed a clear title or deed of ownership to farm the land they'd been farming for centuries. The peasants, unable to afford this, registered their lands with wealthy investors who would pay the property tax. With no paper trail, this also insured the Palestinians that their children wouldn't be conscripted by the army. Most of these landowners were absentee landlords. The peasants continued to work the land as they'd done for centuries, but as a motivated Zionist population set its sites on the Holy Land, land was easily purchased and inhabited. Was this lawful? Absolutely. But by who's laws? The indigenous population did not agree to it, and they suffered terribly from it as they were cast off the land their families cultivated for generations because new Zionist owners did not want them living on it. Was it peaceful? Absolutely not. With the influx of tens of thousands of Jews upon an indigenous population, the seed of a Palestinian nationalist movement was planted, and displacing a people is never a peaceful affair.
2) The Israeli Narrative blames the Palestinian refugee problem on anti-semitism and a willful exodus on the part of the Palestinians. This has been a recurring issue because Hamas has in its platform the requirement that Palestinians have the right to return to their homeland, while Israel claims they were never forced out but lost that right by willfully leaving. The Palestinian exodus has to be understood with regard to the war between Israel and the Palestinians starting right after the UN declared the state of Israel. The Palestinians went on the offensive and Israel defended itself. Little outside Arab resistance came to support the Palestinians, and due to Israel's superiority in military training and organization, the virtually leader-less Palestinians did not stand much of a chance. There were tragedies and extreme brutality coming from both sides. Israel eventually went on the offensive and made an extreme and notorious attack at Deir Yassin. Between 100-200 men, women, and children died despite the village's non-aggression pact with the Jewish Defense Force, Haganah. What followed was a propaganda campaign terrorizing Palestinian communities. Scholar Gregory Harms writes, "As Arab radio stations broadcast news of Deir Yassin, Zionist forces in trucks with loudspeakers further terrorized Arab peasants and villagers with threats of similar violence" (94). Shortly thereafter, 300,000 Arabs had fled their homes and Israel had a refugee problem still causing strife today.
3) According to the Israeli Narrative, the international war following the Civil War was like the story of David and Goliath, where a united and bellicose Arab league fought a vastly outnumbered 650,000 Jews, and the Jews came out victorious. What actually happened was that the invading countries - Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon - sent around 23,000 troops and met Israel's 30,000-40,000 troops (96). We should not downplay the anti-semitism pouring out of these Arab countries at the time (and today), but these countries were not all united, and they were locked in rivalries of power themselves. Suffering from struggling economies, political instability, and competition for being the leading Arab nation, they were reluctant to fight Israel, and put in a half-hearted effort. Harms writes, "As one might predict, with a lack of cohesion, no plans, and insufficient troops, the Arab countries did not fare well in the conflict" (98). When the Israelis won, approximately 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes into Arab-held Palestine or surrounding Arab countries. Thousands and thousands of these Palestinians fled to Arab-held Gaza and the West Bank. In the 1967 war, opposing numerous cease-fire orders issued by the UN, including Security Council Resolution 233, Israel tripled its size and acquired for its own both Gaza and the West Bank, coming to control 1.1 million Palestinians. According to the Israeli narrative, this was all justified with respect to their need for defense, which finds its footing on the David and Goliath analogy. So long as the surrounding Arab nations are seen as equipped, trained, thirsty for blood and revenge, and united in its desire to destroy Israel, the David and Goliath story stands, and the acquisition of these territories seems justifiable. But the surrounding Arab nations have not had this united front, and as a whole, they've been more respectful of UN resolutions than the Israelis have. They've been far more open-minded in negotiating with Israel than Israel's been, but, in fairness, that's perhaps because they have more to gain from it and less to lose. But even that is not altogether clear. What does Israel have to gain by separatist policies? Palestine and Israel have been in a state of conflict since Zionism began its work in Palestine, and so long as Israel imposes heavy-handed restrictions on a Palestinian state, no end of the violence is in sight, which begs the question: is Israel safer with the wall they've constructed? Is it really in their best interest to (not) negotiate peace treaties with as much arrogance and lack of diplomacy as they have? Does it make the lives of Israelis better? Or safer?
For peace in the Palestine-Israeli conflict, it seems that the Israeli Narrative needs to be critically examined. Its ideas are consistent and reasonable, but only from within the colonialist perspective. The indigenous perspective needs to be given much more respect and attention in the peace process for the good of both parties.
Harms, Gregory and Todd M. Ferry. The Palestine Israel Conflict, a Basic Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Pluto Press, 2008.
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