All posts tagged discourse
I'm not always wearing my full habit...
ilovecharts: How to Have a Rational Discussion
Some rules got left out.
- Do not commit logical fallacies.
- Do not descend into ad hominem attack.
- Remember that the discussion is not about you; the discussion is about ideas. Don’t take it personally.
It's about damned time!
The University of Arizona is creating a new National Institute for Civil Discourse. Undercover Nun finds it profoundly sad that her beloved nation needs such a center, and I hope that it will be effective in demonstrating how people who disagree with each other, who hold passionate positions, and who work in our government can work together for the good of our people without descending into the cesspit of rhetoric that passes for political discourse today.
The National Institute for Civil Discourse - a nonpartisan center for debate, research, education and policy about civility in public discourse - will open Monday in Tucson. It was created in the aftermath of the Jan. 8 shootings in the city where six people were killed and 13 injured, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). …
One of the institute’s first events will be a conference with members of the media, foundations, academic institutions, government and corporations to discuss advancing the national conversation about civil discourse, said Meredith Hay, provost of the University of Arizona.
Although the Tucson shootings were not linked to public discourse, she said, they “created a space for us to think about civil discourse.”
I am still appalled at our Congress members’ complete lack of response to the Civility Pledge. And I hope that we won’t give up on the discussion of civil discourse. All lawmakers who identify as Christians should recognize that maintaining civility in public discourse is very basic to the love Jesus commands us to give to all persons. This same love is revealed throughout the Hebrew scriptures as well, so Jewish lawmakers have no excuse, either. Civility is a bare minimum, and yet our elected leaders cannot promise this to each other or to us.
Undercover Nun prays each day for our government, by name for those elected to represent her. I will pray also for the work of this new Institute.
Screwing the Poor | Mother Jones
It should come as no surprise that Republican budget cutting fever focuses pretty heavily on programs for poor people. Republicans don’t care much about poor people, after all, and Exhibit 1 is their preferred focus for cost cutting in the healthcare arena. Suzy Khimm reports on this, for example:
Leading Republicans in Washington and in the states have set their sights on the federal health care program for the poor, aiming to slash funding and roll back Medicaid, just as Democrats are preparing to expand it to millions more Americans….”I’m sure that’s what [Republicans] are going to do,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La), “and they won’t be the first group that, when first the sign of trouble appears, they want to gut programs for the sick, the elderly and the children.”
Medicare is for old people, and old people vote Republican. Medicaid is for poor people, and poor people don’t vote Republican. So naturally Medicaid is in the crosshairs.
Undercover Nun knows it isn’t true that conservatives hate our most vulnerable groups. The truth of the matter is that conservatives believe that private citizens and organizations should be responsible for helping these people, and that government should stay out of it. Progressives believe that the government can leverage economies of scale and scope to support our vulnerable citizens, and that this strengthens the entire nation. Progressives don’t deny that we should all participate in this very important work, but believe that the government is in a good position to set up a nationwide framework for delivering important services.
I believe that the progressive approach is the more practical approach, which makes it superior. The conservative approach is a wonderful ideal, to be sure, but we aren’t very faithful about taking care of our poor, our sick, our children, and our elderly. Poor people threaten our sense of comfort. The mentally ill frighten our security within our own minds. Elderly men and women scare us, because we know that we’re headed in that direction and we don’t want to. So we try to throw guilt-money at crises, but we don’t get our hands dirty with the quotidian work of caring for those who most need help.
Undercover Nun also believes that it damages the progressive agenda to say such absurd things as Republicans don’t care about the poor. We know it’s untrue, so all it does is build misdirected anger and frustration. There are so many things we should be angry about, so many injustices, so many assaults on the well-being of all people. But angering politicians because we unfairly slander them is not a good use of our time, money, and resources.
Progressives are better than this. Progressives stand up for the poor not because we believe conservatives don’t care about them, but because we recognize that the conservative approach is insufficient to care for the poor.
Political confrontations don’t, by and large, involve clear contests between pure good and pure evil. On the whole, both sides, even in the most heated debates, believe their end is good, and don’t proceed with evil intent or malice. Politics requires rational, moral, and informed decisions, but prejudiced presumptions of concealed malevolence in political adversaries cripples communication and excludes meaningful debate.
— Justin Paulette
This observation is strikingly true. Often, I think, we ascribe the worst motives to those who disagree with us. Mr. Paulette is correct in observing that this prevents us from reaching any sort of common ground.
Undercover Nun keeps ending up back to what Jesus says: Love your enemies. Pray for your enemies. When we do this, we come to see them as real people rather than caricatures, and we recognize that they aren’t being malicious.
Now, to remember to do this online. That’s more difficult than it sounds.
(Source: firstthings.com)
In the year ahead, for example, America will continue the discussion on whether all of our citizens are to be granted, as a matter of right, access to a reasonable level of health care.
The leading voices of talk radio will not be constrained by considerations of civility; neither will those who remain indifferent to the plight of the uninsured or whose concern is the protection of privilege.
When the case is made for assuring that health insurance is extended to every American, I want it to be made with conviction and “without restraint.” Such is the American way.
Our political system is constructed on the assumption that it will involve an intense exchange of political views. And as a religious liberal, I attach special importance to impassioned debate. Precisely because I am a religious liberal, I know that I am inclined — as are others who share my religious outlook — to avoid absolutes, to reject fundamentalism in all its forms, to be open to subtlety and nuance and to see the other side of issues. These are generally good things, but they can also mean that when I advocate for what I believe, I do so in a tepid way.
The challenge for religious liberals is to argue passionately for their beliefs, even as they recognize that they might not always be right. It is to be certain, but not about everything. It is to champion their values with conviction, even as they know that good people may have conflicting values on the same matter.
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie (via azspot)
YES! YES! Undercover Nun approves of Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie.
PREACH IT, Rabbi!
(via azspot)
A day in the life of an undercover nun (probably tl, ok if you dr)
I didn’t wear my full formal habit today. I didn’t even have the energy to put on our informal “street” habit of black pants, white shirt, and black vest or sweater. No, it was a day for a long-sleeved t-shirt and comfy knit pants. Today was day 11 or 12 in an intense flare for me, in my chronic conditions.
Yesterday, my pain level had actually reached 10 out of 10. No chronic pain patient ever says this lightly. We know that our pain can always get worse, even when the number 10 on the pain chart hanging on the doctor’s wall is labeled “The worst pain you can imagine.”
See, I know the pain can always be just a little bit worse than I’m feeling right now. I can imagine that. Yesterday, though, I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t lie down. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk, couldn’t be still, couldn’t move — not without sobbing. The tears ran down my cheeks on their own. When I could gather myself together enough to try deep breathing, the tears would run until a spasm hit and a sob choked its way through my throat.
No, I needed a pain chart much more like Allie-the-Super-Genius has at Hyperbole and a Half:
Go ahead. Click through to read her descriptions for each number. They’re absolutely hilarious… and spot on. I’ll wait for you.
Okay, so my husband got me up to the urgent care center that is attached to my primary doctor’s office, and they did some examining, took some labs, gave me a steroid injection, gave me a scrip for 6 days of prednisone, and sent me home with instructions to see my primary doc today or tomorrow. All of this by way of setting up for today.
I woke up at about 9:15 this morning. I wasn’t sure that my brain was fully conscious yet, and I knew my body wasn’t ready for the challenge of verticality. But my husband heard me stir, and he checked in on me, so I had to pretend to be conscious and gracious. He bought me a chocolate crunch doughnut at Wawa, though, so that was all right. (Truly: if you don’t know the epic awesomeness that is the Wawa chocolate crunch doughnut, then you have yet to fully experience life.) He also took me to pick up my prescription at the pharmacy.
When we got back home, I was wiped. I needed a nap already, and I hadn’t been out of bed for 45 minutes yet. The pain really wasn’t bad, though. I felt almost normal… for someone with chronic pain and chronic fatigue. So Instead, I sat at my computer with my doughnut. I logged in to work, read email, and noticed the voice-mail message on the phone. Two messages. One my boss, asking for confirmation on something before he takes it to the customer. The other my doctor’s assistant, asking for a call back. I called the doctor’s office first: an opening at 12:45. I accepted, then looked at the clock and sighed: no nap for you this morning, Sister! Called my boss back, got that straightened out.
I logged into my favorite social network and saw that the brother of a dear friend had died overnight. This man had been struggling with cancer, and our community had rallied around the brother for months, supporting him and his family with love and gifts and prayers. Just last week, something new popped up on the radar, and he decided that while continuing the chemo would prolong his life, it sure wouldn’t make that longer time worth living in. He chose to stop the chemo, and the next day was transferred into a hospice facility. Our online community was there, filling the brother’s feed with warm thoughts, well wishes, love, words of support, and prayer. We’re all grieving with him. It’s hard.
I got to my appointment, and my doctor was her normal wonderful self. She explained the flare experience, and it made sense to me. One of the really frightening parts of the sudden increase in pain and exhaustion was that it didn’t make sense. I don’t usually get dull achey pain, but sharp acute pain. I don’t usually feel like I was run over by a truck after a 20-minute trip to the supermarket. I don’t usually feel like my body is under attack from the inside. But now it made some strange sort of sense. We had lunch on the way home, and I was nodding off in my seat during the five-minute ride home from the restaurant. I was exhausted. Again. I needed to rest. Again.
But I had phone calls to make and wanted to check my emails, so I sat down at my desk and logged back in.
There are two people I know only online, to whom I’ve become a sort of spiritual companion. One is an abuse survivor, struggling with depression as she recovers from abuse and tries to get her life back, and she’s finding it terribly hard. I tried finding pastoral counseling in her area, knowing that talk-therapy is needed but that it has to fully incorporate her spiritual life. I tried to reach out to the pastor at the only local church I could find where pastoral counseling is offered, but got no answer. I don’t know how to offer hope to her, when everything seems so dark.
I was able to get offline from work at about 4pm. I didn’t get in my full six-hour day (reduced hours for disability leave), but I wasn’t capable of any more. I lay down on the couch and watched some television with my husband. I was so tired, and the pain was rebuilding.
When we started to get ready for bed, I had to grab something from my desk and I realized two things. We hadn’t heard yet on the funeral plans for our friend’s brother. And we hadn’t yet responded to the church that needed an organist for a funeral here this weekend. So I quickly logged on to find that the funeral plans were there, and were not in conflict. I emailed the local church to accept on my husband’s behalf, and we sat down to make travel arrangements to attend the funeral next week.
My other companion is also an abuse survivor, and may be in the throes of a dying marriage. I received a direct-message on twitter saying that the break may be happening right now, today. I prayed. Sent immediate condolences, and a while later, offered some counsel on immediate and very-near-term realities of separating. It’s not easy. In fact, it sucks. But it’s survivable.
I also made the mistake of poking around the social networks I frequent. On twitter, I ended up in two overlapping debates. One was a debate with an interfaith minister, in which I argued that any worship service in a church must be open to anyone… including weddings and funerals. Receptions and parties can be invitation-only. But if it’s a service of worship in a church, then it’s God’s building, not the mourners’ or the bride’s or anyone else’s. The Church (universally speaking, not any one denomination or sect) is one of a very few organizations in the world that does not exist to serve its members. The one purpose of the Church is to reach all those outside its doors. So if you want to get married and you want to tightly control who comes to the wedding service itself? Then have your wedding somewhere else. Anyway, she disagreed with me, saying that for weddings and funerals, the families get to decide to whom the doors of the church are opened. I got snarkier and bitchier than I want to be, and I am ashamed of my behavior. No matter how much I try, I’m not always a nice person. God forgive me!
The second… discussion, I’m not sure can really take the name debate. A young woman who is not merely an atheist but an anti-theist wanted to convince me that my life and vocation are based on delusions, to convert me to the conviction that faith is a bad word and that all faithful people are selling false hope for cash, and are therefore perpetrating criminal fraud. This discussion — this discussion brought me to tears. I wanted to find common ground with her. I tried to seek out places where we agreed about something. She did not respond to these, other than to mock them or use them as evidence that I was lying. She did let one thing slip, though, that she lives with an Anglican priest. I’m fairly convinced that this is not her spouse. On further reflection, I suspect that this is one of her parents, and that she is profoundly hurt by their relationship with God. This young woman cried out with such pain, such anger, such hurt. I wished so much that I could gather her in my arms and let her cry and rage and scream until she could work it out of her system, until we could actually converse.
See, the truth of the matter is, I’m probably a terrible Dominican. I really don’t care about converting her or anyone else to Christianity. I want the world to know that not all of us Christians are Jerry Falwells or Jim Bakkers or Fred Phelpses or Pat Robertsons or Terry Joneses. I want it to be known that there are so many of us quietly going about our faith, trying our best to love one another and to bring some comfort to those who are in need. I want it to be known that there really are Christians who read the Sermon on the Mount and the other words of Jesus, and who do our best to live these ideas out in our daily lives.
At the root of my personal theology is healing. All of my work in ministry comes down to God’s healing — call it reconciliation, redemption, whatever — bringing God’s healing into this world. Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. I’ve long been pulled toward people who have been harmed by the very human (and therefore, very flawed) institution of the Church. This is a place where I know I can give some comfort, because I have been there too. I, too, have walked apart from the Church when I’ve been powerfully hurt. And I keep finding my way back, because I know that God’s healing can heal even the most painful hurts inflicted by imperfect people. It isn’t my church or their church or anybody’s church. It’s God’s church.
God help me, I could not communicate any of this to the young woman in pain. As I wept, I wasn’t entirely sure I could communicate it to myself any more. I shared some prayers to center and calm myself, and then I went to bed.
I forgot something, though.
Prednisone causes insomnia. And despite taking enough downers to stop a herd of stampeding wildebeest, I’ve already had enough sleeplessness issues from my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Damnit.
What do I have to show for a day in the life?
- A strip of 6 empty slots of Prednisone pills.
- A referral to a rheumatologist.
- Pain at about a 5 out of 10.
- Plans for two funerals in the next five days.
- More work hours than I can handle right now.
- A priest leaving one beloved church, and a new priest starting at the church where my husband serves as organist… both on the same day.
- A companion in depression, a companion in distress, a clergyperson I angered, and a young woman in great pain for whom I could not offer help.
- A class starting next week that I need to order books for.
- No sleep, and 5 hours until my next workday begins.
Come, Holy Spirit, who breathes life into each one of us. Come and breathe your peace into my heart, and the hearts of all who are troubled this night.
Come, beloved Jesus, who promised that all we who labor and carry heavy burdens could find rest and refreshment with you. Come and give rest to your brothers and sisters who lie awake through the dark hours.
Come, almighty Abba, father and mother of all persons. Sustain us all with your love and grace, and at the last day, gather us under your wings where we know we are safe and loved.
Amen.
Threats of violence have no place in American politics.
Threats of violence have no place in ANY politics.
Threats of violence have no place in America.
Threats of violence have no appropriate place anywhere.
If you agree, follow the link and click Like.
No person is a piece of sh*t
Nothing makes me angrier than to see one person call another (or a group of others) a piece of shit. Let me make this very clear: no person is a piece of shit, and no person deserves to be called this.
To equate a person with excrement is an insult beyond the pale in ordinary discourse. It is dishonorable. It is reprehensible. It is hate speech. And no person should ever be called this, not even people I disagree with.
That’s right. I mean it. Not you, not me. Not Glenn Beck, not George W. Bush, not Barack Obama, not Al Franken, not Nancy Pelosi. Not the Marquis de Sade, not Benito Mussolini, not Josef Stalin. Not a single person who has ever lived, who lives now, or who will ever live. Ever.
Even if you are not a Christian, I hope you agree with me that all persons should be treated with dignity and respect. Yes, even Osama bin Laden. Even that seditious leader of guerrillas and terrorists — what’s his name? oh, yeah! — George Washington.
Undercover Nun does not tolerate this language in her physical presence. I am not sure I can tolerate it in my online presence any more, either. When I see this language pop up in public discourse online, I’m going to say something about it publicly. I’m not afraid to use shame: if you equate a person — a beautiful and unique child of God, your brother or sister in this world — to a pile of stinking poop, then you should be ashamed!
You’ve been warned. Undercover Nun is on the rampage.
Love one another. And act like it, for heaven’s sake!
I think it’s very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country. Socialism had Eugene Debs. It had Clarence Darrow. It had Mother Jones. It had Emma Goldman. It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country. Socialism basically said, hey, let’s have a kinder, gentler society. Let’s share things. Let’s have an economic system that produces things not because they’re profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. People should not be retreating from the word socialism because you have to go beyond capitalism.
Howard Zinn, writer, 2009
Alas, we’d probably have to name it something different, so that the s-word doesn’t scare folks away.
