One of the critical points of disagreement in the abortion divide is notions of personhood. So it seems one interesting thing to examine might be what comprises notions and ideas of personhood and on what basis these ideas are founded.
There are role based notions of personhood. I’m told that in Bali for example, your personality (and in fact your name) is dictated by the order of birth. You are “first son”, or “third daughter” a name which indicates who you are. In Rome the notions of personhood and identification of a person was primarily a legal concept. Your status of citizenship, your membership in guilds and other associations defined your legal notions of personhood. But legal and definitions of personhood based on birthplace or occupation are foreign to members of the modern western world.
One of the common notions of self is based on memory, that is you are the sum of your memories and that your memory is the basis of your continuing notion of self. But this is incomplete and insufficient. If, in some speculative fiction, a persons memories are erased we still think of them as the same person, just that they being the person whom they are is now that person sans memory. That is, the memory did not define self. Similarly if, one person’s “memories” in a scenario such as the Total Recall movie were taken and transplanted into another person … that other person would not thereby “be” identified as the original person. We have a common notion that these to persons are in fact distinct. Memory it seems does not define person. Another example that comes to mind is Latro in the Gene Wolf novels whom awakes each and every morning with no memory of his past. How is “self” or concept of ego considered for someone like him.
Organic identity as well does not define person. Again in speculative fiction not just modern science fiction, there are ideas of a person being transformed into something else. He becomes the ghost in a machine (modern computer or whatnot) or earlier works in which his self is moved to another person, animal, or magical animate object. If the ego, the “I”, can be radically transmuted and that memory of whom I am is not self either … what is the constituent thing which identifies self?
One suggestion, given by the early 4th and 5th century Eastern church, expanded by the 8th century theologian St. Maximus, and put into modern context by and John Zizioulas is that personhood and self are defined relationally. That your continuity of self and in fact your very notions of self are defined only in relation to “Other”. If we refer to the above identification of self through radical transformations, we recall from those stories that the validation of self past the transforming event is that one recovers and is recognized via re-establishing and restoration of those connections with those others with whom one was formerly connected.
This feature, due to work requirements today will be delayed until later tonight or tomorrow morning.
It seems there is another connection for the “Mr Obama is a socialist” notion. He was a socialist is a factual statement. He was a member of the Alaskan separatist “A New Party” political party at one time. Wiki defines their political orientation taxonomically as following the ideas of “social democracy” which might be summarized as:
The nature of social democracy has changed throughout the decades since its inception. Historically, social democratic parties advocated socialism in the strict sense, achieved by class struggle. In the early 20th century, however, a number of socialist and labor parties rejected revolution and other traditional forms of Marxism and went on to take more moderate positions, which came to form modern social democracy. These positions often include support for a democratic welfare state which incorporates elements of both socialism and capitalism, sometimes termed the mixed economy or the social market economy.[2] This differs from traditional socialism, which aims to end the predominance of capitalism and replace it with a worker-controlled economic system. Social democrats aim to reform capitalism democratically through state regulation and the creation of programs that work to counteract or remove the social injustice and inefficiencies they see as inherent in capitalism.
So it may be that he is not today a socialist, he however certainly has been one in the past.
Mrs Palin’s $150k wardrobe (a reasonable explanation here btw) or Mr Obama’s $150k faux-Greek stage setting for his acceptance speech? Both? Neither?
Update: Actuallly, the $150k for the stage was low. Apparently of the $14 million spent on the Denver stadium acceptance speech event $4.3 million was for lighting and stage settings. It is unclear how much went in to the actual stage setting.
Ok, Democrats. Explain this:
There’s more, so read the whole thing. Now consider this excerpt from the official Democrat party platform:
we oppose laws that require identification in order to vote or register to vote
That’s on page number 56 of the plaform document, at the linked site it is p. 58 of the total document because the first two pages are not numbered.
Makes no sense to me. Vote once, vote often, vote a zillion times. Let the foreign visitors vote. Let the kids vote. Pay them to vote. Help them vote for the “right guy.”
Why? Why is this a “good thing?”
David Schraub objects to classifying Mr Obama as a socialist … and he is right and wrong at the same time.
Well, that is, of course, because it all depends on what is “is”. Oops. Sorry wrong word. Actually, it really depends more strongly on what you mean by socialist. By a strict definitional standpoint, a socialist is
Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and the creation of an egalitarian society. Modern socialism originated in the late nineteenth-century working class political movement. Karl Marx posited that socialism would be achieved via class struggle and a proletarian revolution which represents the transitional stage between capitalism and communism.
So, by that definition, strictly speaking Mr Obama is not a socialist. He doesn’t want a “transition” to a Marxist regime and doesn’t want the government to fully control have collective ownership of corporations (that is except for the banks). So in a strict sense, he is not a socialist. So, Mr Obama is not a socialist.
However, by a more casual usage of the term “socialist”, there is a continuum between those (precious few) who believe in a completely unregulated economy and a strict Marxist/socialist. In that sense, the notion that Mr Obama is pressing policies that would engage more government’s distribution of goods, such as “spreading the wealth” than are currently in place, it is perfectly true that he is trending toward socialism and at the same time his critics would prefer the reverse. Their claim that from their point on the spectrum, “he is a socialist” is true in that sense. Liberal and conservative are fuzzy terms, which honestly really mean “more liberal than me, and more conservative than me” for a lot of people who commonly view themselves as somewhere near the center (one might replace “me” with “my perception of where the ‘center’ lies) . Socialist in this sense, would mean “more tending to socialism” than either me (or my perception of the “middle”). In that sense, Mr Obama is arguably a socialist. So, Mr Obama is a socialist.
See.
One thing that people forget as they get older, is that more and more people (often called “those who are younger than you”) get to be more and more common and that those people don’t remember things that happened that you do in quite the same way.
On the climate change and global warming front, we are told today in a oft reposted graphic that this last year is looking to be as cold (or if the trend continues) colder than 1979. 1979 was cold in Chicago as were 1980 and 81. For the last 20 years or so December ice and snow didn’t stick around, but would normally melt in a week or so. But in the 70s and 80s snow frequently lasted though until sometime in March, although there was sometimes one week in which temperatures rose above freezing. Sometimes weeks (more than one) passed with continuous sub-zero temperatures, wind chills hit -100 in Chicago, not Minnesota or Alaska. It did in the early 80s and although 1980 was my first year in Chicago, it was at University and there were at that time students who had weathered winters of 77 through 79, who could recount 6 foot and higher snow drifts.
So, if the trend continues this winter, expect the whole global warming kerfuffle to end this winter. Should we place bets on how long the “global cooling” warnings will start to be heard?
I might add that as a first year undergrad, I went ice skating once at midnight on a clear cold night with the mercury at -28 and the wind chill below -80 … just to say I’d done it. Perhaps I’ll be able to do that again with the kids. 😉
In Genesis, 18:22-33 the Lord and Abraham have a conversation of a political nature:
So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.
One of the things which the author of this passage is relating, succinctly, is that political ethics are not exactly the same as personal ethics. The dialogue does not run down to “Suppose there is one there”, the reason for that is that in politics there it is not possible ethics are a muddier thing than in personal interactions. War, for example, can be just, justly executed, and be necessary that is “a fighting of the good fight” and at the same time innocents will as with any other war, die. It is not that the deaths of those innocent is “good”, but that in execution of one thing, which is necessary and good (the war), innocents will die, which in an of itself does not make the war “not good” or necessary.
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