The Vocation Lectures - Max Weber

Sciences as a Vocation
I disagree with Weber that we must separate our public and private reasoning. There is no such thing as objectivity despite this abundant rhetoric in the social sciences.  All instructors teach from a certain perspective.  We all have our biases based on our historical memory, upbringing and influences.  In a world of corruption, propaganda and doublespeak, it is our duty to speak out, to speak the truth.  I repeat, there is no such thing as neutrality.  I can smell Weber's political agenda a mile away, he is imposing his beliefs and values in this lecture yet he advocates the exact opposite.

I agree that the use of 'faith'/passion and science can be skewed (e.g. the supposedly 'ethical' oil of Canada, appealing to patriotism, WTF?!) but at the same time, science and passion/values are not mutually exclusive realms either.  The world is not a dichotomy and neither is science and passion.  We like to split issues into black and white and to ignore the grey... yet we use the grey when it suits our human-animal needs...  I love this quote by philosophy and animal rights scholar, Charles R. Magel.

Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: " Because the animals are like us." Ask the experimenters why it is morally okay to experiment on animals the answer is:" Because the animals are not like us." Animals experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.

I encountered the problem of separating values from science in an ethnography for my methodology class a few years ago.  My TA had written that I must not show passion for the issue that I was writing about (how Olympics resistance narratives were constructed).  For a department that heavily emphasize the lack of objectivity in the social sciences and hard sciences alike, I was amazed and quite concerned with this remark on my paper and brought it up with my instructor since I did present facts/data and since this was not a position paper.. What I did do was to note my personal standpoint and biases right at the beginning of the paper as I felt this was important information to convey to my reader(s).  After my meeting with the instructor, the TA softened up his stance and allowed me to write with passion.  I felt that it was my duty to present resistance narratives that were not presented in mainstream media.  Why can this not be a duty in the academic realm to Weber?  Is it not after all, the students' duty to take in information and to critically think for themselves how to digest the information, whatever the position of the prof may be.  I read pro-animal rights and veganism literature but I also read anti-animal rights and veganism literature.  Each side is an ideology and agenda, although oddly enough, the anti side rarely acknowledges this.  I will not follow blindly to one side or another.  To have this dual knowledge allows me to critically examine my own values against each ideology.  Philosophy/science need not be separate realms.  The problem with academia is the breakdown of categories and the notion that somehow knowledge is objective and should be presented in a neutral manner.  When are we finally going to move into the 21st century?

Politics as a Vocation
Again, I disagree that the politician must have some distance from the people she governs.  I think we already have too much of this.  We are social creatures who live in communities.  The community's problem should also be the politician's problem even if that problem does not affect the politician directly/personally.  To do otherwise is to fall into a NIMBY mindset, in my humble opinion.  Harper doesn't care about the First Nations people getting poisoned in Fort McMurray.  He doesn't eat the fish from that region or breathe the toxic air there.  Perhaps Harper would give more of a damn if he did!

I do agree that passion alone is not enough.  There has to be a balance of duty, of ethics of responsibility, regardless of what the intent was.  Politicians have the power to implement policies that can harm or make lives better.  They must take responsibility for both the good and the bad that they do.  While we all, politicians or not all work within the constraints of the system/world we find ourselves in, we must not become the self-interested bureaucrats that Weber talks about.  I can easily just do my job and do it well or I can do my job well and fight for student rights, workers rights, etc. at the same time (within reason and in the right time and place for it).  There is nothing wrong with the mixing of private and public reasoning and to show interest in the realm that may not affect me directly (e.g. I was told that I am in Canada's 1% since I make more than $34,000/year but this doesn't mean I cannot fight with the 99%).  This is in part, a show of solidarity, so lacking in our modern society because we are all too busy "just doing our jobs" and we're just a little too cosy in our middle/upper class existence to give a damn...

The Varieties of Religious Experience - William James

I am fascinated with the mystical/psychedelic experience and all the narratives in this text.  What exactly causes these states of mind?  I agree with a few of my classmates that it doesn't matter if the mystical experience is attained through the conception of a deity or not.  I would take this further by saying that it doesn't matter if this state of consciousness is attained through meditation, yoga, religion, psychoactive plants or synthetic psychoactive drugs, as long as you are not harming or putting yourself and/or others in danger in any way.  Just for the record, I will use the terms 'mystical experience' and 'psychedelic experience' interchangeably.  As Michael G. Kenny notes, context is very important in the mystical experience.  A spiritual guide is useful in helping one through a journey of a mystical experience.  In some cultures, the ceremonial and guided use of ayahuasca is normal and shamans are revered.  If the psychedelic state of mind is attained without any prior knowledge that this experience would be forthcoming, it could be a terrifying experience.  Too bad that the mainstream West fails to see the inherent value in guided psychedelic experiences!

Dr. Gabor Mate, a DTES physician who specializes in addiction used ayahuasca to help his addicted patients as he believes in a healthy-minded (and healty-body) approach to healing mental wounds, addictions and other harmful practices.  It is unfortunately that this practice has been stiffled by the RCMP and Canadian government alike.  Western drugs (medicine) retain legal status but there is no context to the current practice of western medicine and cures may not come by conventional western medicines.  Laws surrounding psychoactive drugs are archaic, causing more harm than good.  Perhaps we are putting too much faith in science.

The fact that ingesting certain plants ranging from mushrooms, herbs, cacti, etc. brings the human-animal into mystical states of consciousness must surely have some meaning that we do not understand, that cannot be put into words.  The main goal of our lives, happiness - in the sense of an inner bliss - is essentially a way for us to mitigate the sufferings, evils (for the lack of a better term) and absurdity of our lives, no?

I wished that William James would have had a personal mystical experience himself.  How would this text change, had he had one?  I like that he acknowledges that the experience is 'truth' only to the person who experienced the state of transcendence herself.  As an atheist, I view my mystical experiences through a secular lens.  The inner bliss that I attain through these experiences change the way I view plants, animals and human-animals around me.  It helped me to shift perspectives and to see the interconnectivity of live around us.  It helped to affirm my veganism, propelled through my experiental and sensory experiences.  I felt the pain, the abuse, the torture of animals for food, clothing and beyond - in a context in which we do not need to do this for our survival in a psychedelic experience last year...

artwork by Alex Grey

The talk of unity with the divided souls and the cosmic universe - I wonder if this is in part due to the fact that we are all relational.  By this, I mean that we are made of up DNA of our ancestors.  Are we not in essence a continuation of their thoughts, knowledge and emotions?  If we look at reincarnation in a metaphorical rather than literal sense, this now makes good sense.  We are all matter of this earth, and in a sense share much of our DNA with plants, birds, etc.  Since we are made up of the same materials as other beings, would it not make good sense that our mystical experience connects us to the all of nature and more generally the whole universe?  When we die, do we really die?  Our organic body may decay but perhaps there is an essence/soul that blends into the larger universe.  Energy cannot be created or destroyed makes sense here in a cosmic spiritually.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

A very faustian themed tale in which Dorian bargains his soul away for eternal youth and beauty.  Sadly, the unattainable ideal of perpetual youth and beauty still permeates our culture.  Some anti-wrinkle creams contain Ceramides, derived from cow's brains or pig's brains (yuck), botox a.k.a. botulinum toxin (doubly yuck).  What a sad state of affairs we, human-animals are in when we start slathering animal brains and botulism on ourselves in the name of vanity.  Worse still, plastic surgery.  I cringe when I hear about reality shows in which individuals 'sell their soul' to corporate TV in the name of mindless 'entertainment' and vanity.  Their 'prize' - free plastic surgery.  I love the title of the documentary, Forks Over Knives in which the scientists and medical professionals advocate a healthy plant based diet (forks) and lifestyle to prevent unnecessary surgery (knives) later (e.g. heart problems, diabetes, etc.).  Dorian's youth and beauty is something shallow and superficial.  Much has not changed, alas.  We are still shallow and superficial over our looks.  People scoff at those who keep healthy - which really is the serum to good health and beauty.  We cannnot reverse the effects of aging altough corporations will keep telling us that we can through their products!  I, instead opt to age gracefully (no dying of hair when it turns grey, etc.), live healthily and to accept that aging/decay as part of life.  I am not immune to vanity, of course, I am only human, all too-human!  I do try to be critical of my actions, to close the gap between the principles that I hold on to dearly and the person I want to be.  This means balancing vanity with minimizing consumeristic tendencies, lessening harm to the environment, etc.

Some art idealizes youth and beauty.  I don't see anything wrong with this but of course, art isn't just about the beautiful and the sublime. Art doesn't have to be serious.  Art can be anything and is everything.  There is art that captures the sublime (beautiful scenery paintings) but there is also crossovers in which art can be many things at once: beautiful, sublime and educational.  Sometimes, art is just entertaining.  There is no ideal in art, in my humble opinion.  Art is subjective and one man's art is another man's junk.  Of course, not all art is create equal either - my point is that art is personal to the creator but as Jerry Zaslove mentioned, art can be interpreted in different ways that the creator did not intend and the art sort of takes on a life of its own.  I think this is what we have been doing in the GLS program all along.  We have been interpreting Job, etc. and other texts from a mainly secular viewpoint when it was written in a religious sense.  I confess that I have a hard time ploughing through many of the Christian texts we have been reading but once I interpret their contexts in a secular manner, new doors open up for me.

Influence seems to be portrayed as something negative in this text.  I think influence goes both ways - good and bad.  We cannot escape influence.  We are all relational in the sense that we are all made up from DNA, emotions, etc. of our ancestors.  We like to think that we have original ideas and we take pride in claiming writings, etc. as ours.  They are but they are also heavily borrowed from peoples past and present.  We need to acknowledge this collective consciousness and instead of focusing on the individual.  I have had bad influence and good influence.  Hopefully, we have more agency than Dorian Gray to live our lives out with human-animals, non-human-animals and all of nature in a respectful and ethical manner.  Ethics ≠ beauty!  Ethics is tied very much to the concept of conscience (at least to me) - being able to live with one's own actions (or inactions).

Hedda Gabbler (version by Brian Friel)

Wow, what a play!  I think my mouth was left gaping at the end of the book (play).  A few random thoughts:

• I see parallels between Hedda and Eilert.  They both seem to want so much in life but do not seem able to get too far beyond their stagnation and paradoxes in life and especially with their inability to fully connect with others on a meaningful level.  A product of their nature or nurture?  Or both?  Can Eilert not become the man he wants to be but seemed unable to towards the end of his life?  And Hedda, is she really trapped?  How much of it is self-inflicted?  Or is the responsibility just to much to bear?  Human, all too human seems apt here.
• I see parallels between Judge Brack and Hedda.  They are both predatory and manipulative individuals.  Each showed no care at the suffering the caused in others. e.g. Hedda and the death of Eilert as well as that of Aunt Rena and Judge Brack's indifference/coldness to Hedda's death.
• George Tesman reminds me of a cross between Charles Bovary and Ivan Ilych.  He is wilfully blind to Hedda's rudeness, arrogance to him and to others.  He does all the "right" things in life.  He has one of the most desirable women.  He is in awe and Hedda can do no wrong - her power over him and others is both disastrous and magnificent.
• Eilert's vices and brilliance evoke many other such geniuses with tormented lives - Syd Barrett, Amy Winehouse, Skip James, etc.
• The theme of women trapped in the unhappy institution of marriage intrigues me.  In this story, Hedda did not marry out of love.  Would marriage would have seem so appalling had she married out of love?  Or would her expectations never be met, set too high like Emma Bovary's?  
• Women still take on their husband's surname after marrying in today's age!!  And yes, in death, Hedda Tesman reverts back to Hedda Gabbler.  Did she think that she had regained her freedom by giving up (hope) on life?
• Hedda seems preoccupied with the beauty (of the lack thereof) in Eilert's death.  Madame Bovary'ish?  Needs everything to be perfect and beautiful - unable to accept life as 'human, all too-human'?
• Hedda yields enormous power over others - she takes pleasure in her influence on them.  She controls others since nothing else seems to matter to her.  But when the tables are turn and Judge Brack blackmails her, there is no pleasure.
• George seems to be on the middle fence, ready to jump to any side that suits him.  Thinks Hedda immoral for burning Eilert's manuscript one minute, the next minute, think her moral and fabulous when he thinks she did it out of love for him. 
• A lot of co-dependency within the story.  Thea and Eilert, Eilert and George, Hedda and George - each person seems wrong for the other, yet they stay together - kind of like Didi and Gogo in Waiting for Godot.

Human, All-Too-Human - Nietzsche

To be honest, I am not sure what to write about this text.  The lecture by Jerry Zaslove was amazing and the in-person and e-mail discussions about the text crossed over with Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, etc. were fantastic.  My partner asked me what I thought about the text - I said, I see why Nietzsche is considered one of the finest thinkers who ever lived.  He was obviously wise beyond his years and time.  I am not too sure what else to say...  I appreciate the points that Jerry brought up in readings to how to read a text and the 'secrets' encoded within it.  I was also intrigued by Jerry questioning if Nietzsche and/or Tolstoy can also be considered anarchists.  I remember anarchist-like ideas that were in Mencius from last term.  Ideas intertwine across time and cultures...  Since I am a little lost for words, I will instead comment on a few of the segments in Human, All-Too-Human instead.

2. "There are no eternal facts, as there are likewise no absolute truths." (p. 22)
This is very much in line with the self-reflexivity encouraged in my education in anthropology here at SFU.  There are multiple storytellers to an event, to a history.  Each writes from their own biases.  There is no objectivity.  We must use our own critical thinking skills to make our own judgements or conclusions to the multiple stories presented to us.

32. "We are from the beginning illogical, and therefore unjust beings, and can recognise this; it is one of the greatest and most inexplicable discords of existence." (p. 41)
- This speaks to the paradoxes and inconsistencies between philosophy and action that I feel in life.
- I used to think that activists and social justice fighters would all be kind, compassionate and nice people - that is, until I started to hang out with them...  This is not to say that they are not kind, compassionate and nice people, rather they burst my bubble of what was to me the idea of the ideal human being.  Instead, I discovered that they are as Nietzsche says, "human, all-too human."

70. Execution - Legalized murders - appalling indeed, the manner in which we ethically justify murders - in the name of the law.  Void of emotions.  Business as usual.  Is this our humanity?  Nietzsche lays blame on both the nature and nurture components, rather than the individual.  Who is the individual anyway without a memory of 'nature and nurture'?

94. "He lives and acts as a collective individual" (p. 70) This while segment shows like an anarchist idea now that the idea has been put into my heads my Jerry Zaslove.

The Death of Ivan Ilych - Leo Tolstoy

What constitutes a meaningful life?  Certainly not a 'great' job and all the steps that we are told to take in life in the case of Ivan Ilych.  Get an education, get a job, get a spouse, have kids and a white picket fence.  While these may not be bad in itself, relationships with people have to be meaningful.  The job must bring some meaning to one's self and not merely doing a job well.  Materialism, prestige and wealth will not bring happiness or comfort in one's impending death.  For Ivan Ilych, his impending death brings no sorrow to his colleagues.  Instead, they are vying for his position.  There is little care for him from his colleagues.  Everyone acts in self-interest, including his wife.  Gerasim is the only person who showed any compassion towards Ivan and this in turn, makes Ivan feel bad.

His relationship with his wife was mainly of courtesy but of little meaning.  Although she appears to show empathy towards him as he became ill, this did not seem to console her.  Her empathy seems to really be for herself and this is made evident by her greed to get more money after he dies.  Perhaps she is just being strategic in her limited ability to support herself after Ivan's death.

I often hear people talk about working hard, saving up for retirement so they can truly enjoy life then.  But why?  Why wait until you're not as physically strong as in one's younger days to enjoy life?  This seems to be an ill logic to me.  And then you have the other extreme, of people without a care in the world in regards to their actual ability to pay for vacations, nice clothes, restaurant meals, etc.  "You only live once".  This may be a little too careless... like Madame Bovary.  Perhaps a meaningful life needs to strike a balance between the material needs (rather than wants) of being human and the intangibles that we cherish so much - love, friendship, respect, etc.

Although Ivan was not able to change his life towards the end, he regains his humanity and begins to let go of his grudges towards his family and he feels empathy for them too, realizing that they are stuck in their own human "in the moment" self-interests.

I am reminded of two characters in the manga, Buddha by Osamu Tezuka.  They are given the knowledge of their deaths, the how and when (with no exact date or time given however).  Asaji lives his life to his fullest ability, with meaning and accepts his gruesome death when the time arrives but Bimbisara agonizes over the knowledge that in the future, he will be murdered by his son.  He is consumed by this knowledge and does not live life to its fullest.

I suppose that we all have a choice, at least for those of us privileged enough to have a choice on how we want to live our lives..  and I have always thought that relationships with my partner, my family and close friends and my passion for animals supersede those of 'moving up the ladder'.  I have never been a careerist and never will be.  There has to be more meaning that a job - no matter how much I love that job.  It is the relationship with living beings (humans and non-humans) that make life worth living and the sharing of material things with others.  It's no fun having lots of stuff just to myself or to dine alone.  Meaning is now, not some afterlife.  I will sign off with one of my favourite comic strip from Bloom County, Naked in the Periwinkle.

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

What a fantastic story!  So many themes in this book... Who can blame Emma Bovary for her impossible and ridiculous dreams?  Sadly, her impossible dreams still ring true today.  Females are taught/brainwashed to believe in romantic notions of relationships with men, that Prince Charming exists, that we must be beautiful and have shiny objects to wear, to have beautiful things in one's house.  Of course, we all want to look good, males included but women in particular are subjected to gendered roles and expectations.  After all, what do fairy tales like Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast teach us?  In our modern consumerist society, we are taught that "diamonds are a girl's best friend", etc.

Female musicians and even athletes use their sexuality to get noticed (or industries use their sexuality to promote their agenda - think Anna Kournikova who wasn't even all that good of a tennis player yet rose to stardom based solely on her looks).  How would the intelligent but naive dreamer, Emma Bovary be different in using the only tool she has, her sexuality to advance herself in society?

1949 Vincente Minnelli's film production

Granted, her 'advancement' and dreams are misguided - but we cannot just lay the blame solely on her.  Societal gendered values play a large role in her impossible dreams.  She longs for Rodolphe, the rich playboy, blind to the reality of the good hearted man that is her husband, Charles Bovary. Rodolphe who is also morally corrupt like Emma would likely not have been chastised by society, in the way that Emma would have been.  This rings true today.  If a man is a playboy, he is called a "stud" (generally, a positive connotation) but if a woman acts in a similar manner, she is labelled a "slut" (a very negative connotation). How things have changed but yet not in many ways.

Emma is stuck in a gendered role in which her only tool to 'advance' herself in society is by flaunting her sexuality.  Perhaps this is why, she wished for a male child, who in her eyes has the ability to advance in society, at least more so that a female can - even if the male advancement is limited due to his class, as is the case of Léon Dupuis.

Ironic that Emma Bovary is never really happy despite all the material things she owns (plus living beyond her means).

Monsieur Lheureux who is also morally corrupt would likely have still been more respected in society in his status as a merchant than Emma Bovary.  What does that say about professions and industries that value profits over people and the environment?

Random thoughts:
1. Women often base their self worth on the amount of attention (or lack thereof) they receive from men - completely misguided but understandable.  I, too, have been misguided this way and used to think that overt sexual comments about my body parts are some sort of compliment that propelled my self-confidence.  No longer, thank goodness!
2. Women flaunting their sexuality as empowerment - I used to think this but don't anymore.  I don't believe in moral conservatism, rather I think that women who use sexuality to advance themselves (a.k.a. to gain money) is not a form of female empowerment or feminism.  I do think that women have a right not to be judged on a double standard when it comes to sexuality but to make money from say.. stripping is absolutely not my idea of feminism or empowerment.  Ultimately, this action is mainly for the male gaze in which women are mere sexual objects.
3. There is an assumption that all women are maternal but I have talked to many women who tell me otherwise.  Another socially constructed gender norm?