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WWW www.habermas.org

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: October 20 2006
Latest Update: October 20, 2006
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Topic of the Week:

Years ago, when I was in college in the 50's, we had a gym teacher who was, well, a classic. She was a proper Southern Lady whose job was to teach us about SEX in our freshman gym class. She had a book, though she blushed when she read it. She assigned chapters, but she preferred not to discuss them, and we sure didn't care. My friend, Janie, who had trained before college as a ballet dancer, was a very proper Southern Belle from Texas. She was sweet and conscientious, so when Ms. Last Generation announced a test, Janie dutifully studied, which, I fear, most of us did not. After the test, we laughed at the questions, until Janie asked us what "promiscuous" meant. "Why, what did you answer?" we laughed, as poor Janie told us that she had guessed "promiscuous."

Promiscuity describes:

1. A tendency to listen to one's elders and do what you're told.
2. An inclination to experiment with many boyfriends.
3. A good way to choose a boyfriend.
4. A resolve to go out only with other couples.

Yep, Janie chose c. We always wondered if Ms. Last Generation would have a stroke when she corrected the papers.

There was a saying at Newcomb that Newcomb girls (we were girls in the fifties) had wonderful sparks of creativity, and that it was Ms. Last Generation's hope to thoroughly water those sparks. We could never decide if it was a mixed metaphor or the truth. But that was half a century ago.

But I did want to call this topic: Relationships Need to be Watered, Just Like Sparks of Creativity. Unfortunately it required the story first. jeanne

Now to the point. How do I water my husband's sparks of creativity? I have wondered how often we do that to each other. Victor, a student many years ago, once spoke of his dearest friend as "trampling on the crystal palace of his dreams." So very much like watering sparks of creativity. We do it all the time to each other.

So I wanted to tell you today about how long it took me to give up watering Arnold's sparks and help them grow into wonderful fireworks. I had to learn that even though I was married to him, I didn't "know" him. There's that humility of knowledge again. I needed to stop assuming that I understood every metaphor he used, and listen in good faith to what he was trying to express. Sometimes that's hard, because he's not sure what he means, just as I'm not always sure what I mean, and he's growing and changing all the time.

It's so hard to understand that wanting the other person to understand you is as much about understanding them as it is about you. We are interdependent. We all share answerability. Not accountability. We share that, too, but it's different. Answerability means that we all have opinions, feelings, hopes, frustrations, and that they can be discerned if one pays the attention of good faith. But many times we're timid at voicing our needs hope and dreams, and many times they are not acceptable to the other. If the Other has power over us, our answerability is often denied. Not good. It will out. (Frantz Fanon.) Fanon, who lived before the area of postcolonialism, was among the first to express the black man's anger in terms of dominance, injustice, and the will to take back what had been stolen. He was involved in the Algerian struggle for self-determination, but dies early in 1961 of leukemia. He still has great influence today. Colonialism was a way of collectively watering the sparks of the indigenous. Fanon was one of the sparks who refused to sputter out when watered.

References:

• Frantz Fanon: Introduction By Benjamin Graves '98. Brown University.
• humility of knowledge. On avoiding the mistake of "knowing" the Other who is as complex as we are ourselves, and who is interdependent with us and with our shared context.

NEWS, Announcements, and

Current Events Discussion Topics:

• Plans for Wednesday, October 24, 2006.

• Critiques of Work from Week 6, Wednesday, October 4, 2006.

• Community Building Preparations:

  Consider how art work in progress can be used to stimulate conversation on current events of major importance to you. Remember that you don't want to use the academic language of theories with friends and neighbors who are unlikely to have encountered them. Instead, our goal is simply to make people aware of current issues in plain English. You might want to look at the list of topics on the syllabus for ideas.

  Remember that these are conversations, not classes. Find simple, brief messages. Things likely to stick in your head, like Juliette's "opium of the mases." When possible make a simple card you're willing to part with. Little pockets with words that will bring the dialog up in memory are a great idea. For example, Tony, I'd love to see you make a simple little card you could leave with those you talk to, on which there's a little pocket out of which you could pull the word, "Taliban." It's not on TV enough for most folks to remember how it's spelled. But seeing it on your card, by interactively pulling it out, could help people recognize it when they see it. Since Afghanistan is heating up again, that seems like a good idea.

• Index of Art Project Instructions

  Things That Matter This

  
  Neil Jones/Reuters

  In Blackburn, England, where these women were Friday,
  Jack Straw says he first thought Muslim veils work against cohesion in society.

  Veiled Women

• Assimilation of cultures with crisis displacement of whole groups of people. British Official Criticizes Muslim Veil By Alan Cowell, NY Times. Published: October 7, 2006. Backup . . . Discussion Questions.

  All Praise Prof. Alan Dershowitz By Tony Blankley. February 22, 2006. On Dershowitz' book on Preemption.

  Topics that Matter with Sources and Analyses

  • Juürgen Habermas, Religion and the Public Sphere Posted on the Internet by Jurgen Habermas. Link sent to me by Beau.

    Reference:

    • Religion in the Public Sphere By Stuart Jeffries. Monday October 3, 2005. The Guardian. A liberal British newspaper. A quick summary of Habermas' article and its meaning. Readable. jeanne

  • Richard A. Posner, Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency (Inalienable Rights) A U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, who made popular cost-benefit analysis in the law, speaks strongly in favor of narrowing our constitutional rights and placing more power in the hands of the government.

    "Saying we must balance the harm new security measures inflict on personal liberty against the increased security those measures provide, Posner comes down, in most but not quite all respects, on the side of increased government power. He advocates that coercive and even brutal forms of interrogation should be allowed in proper circumstances, that all communications within the United States should be subject to interception, and that government should have authority to enjoin publication of classified information." From Publisher's Weekly Review on Amazon.com.

  Stories

  Check out the story-telling we are beginning to do. Some of the stories will work with kids; some with friends; some with family. Stories are great ways to begin conversations about things that matter.

  • My Theory of Everything - jeanne's serial novel. Three stories in the works, in concjunction with my conceptual drawing and painting. Link to the Table of Contents for recent stories. jeanne

Visual Sociology

• Pat's concerns over the Bush Administration led to this etching on Wednesday, October 4, 2006:
  

  Application of triangles to issues involving President Bush
  by Patricia Acone

  Here's the copper plate, the etching, the print.

• Our first collaborative class etching:.

• Using s simple Paint Program:
  

• Arnold, my favorite model, drawn in Paint with simple tools. Try. The software helps you. And there is great and important satisfaction to making even a small piece of art yourself. So many of us give up our childhood delights, believing those serious people who tell us that we are not talented and must not make art. Compare that to the extreme concern being expressed over the professionalization of sports that leaves most of us ineligible and out of luck for just playing for fun and health.

  

A Range of Sources on Global Info

Left/Right Perspectives - Cursor - New York Times - The National Review
Arts and Letters Daily - The Economist - The Sierra Club - The Guardian
Wall Street Journal - The Weekly Standard - The Nation - The Cato Institute (Libertarian)
BBC NEWS | Americas - truthout - Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles
Los Angeles Times - Chicago Tribune - La Opinion - The Washington Post
Cursor's Al Jazeera Archive - Ha'aretz - Palestine Monitor - Palestine Report
The American Prospect

Memorandum, Political Web - Diggs - College Network of New York Times - New York Times Learning Network

The American Enterprise Institute

Indymedia - Mother Jones - BBC News - New Profile - KPFK Progressive Radio
Progressive Sociologists Network Environmental Working Group - Mirror of Justice

Theory, Policy, Practice of a Career by jeanne and Susan.
Digital Dissertations, with abstracts online. Has search mechanism with keywords, author, etc.
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Online articles.
Evangelical Philosophical Society
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)

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