posted
Some more thoughts about observance vs. meaning of traditions. We have two Christmas traditions we do each year -- we read Luke 2 and 3 Nephi 1 on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas morning we go out the the Lehi hot springs.
Both of these are observed, and both tie us together in some fashion. I would say that the one with meaning behind it (reading Luke 2 and 3 Nephi 1) bonds us together in a substantly different way than the merely fun tradition of the hot springs.
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posted
The other thing, AFR, is that people can disagree about the "substance" or purpose behind a tradition. Mormons, for example, would argue with you that the reason for specific gender roles is simply to get work done. Consequently, while they oppose the death of that tradition, they would NOT put themselves into group 3 because, from their perspective, the "substance" for that tradition is still meaningful. I would argue, in fact, that many of the people whom we WOULD have considered to be in group 3 would have been able to rationalize their membership in another group based on what they believed to be the reason behind the tradition.
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quote:The specifics of the event itself, as long as it still contained memes of persecution and identity, could be completely rewritten. (Try, say, the holidays of Easter and Christmas.)
If the purpose of the tradition was merely the effect in had on the believers, then you might be right. Of course, we don't believe that to be the case.
Vonnegut wrote a tale exploring that concept, however. I'm sure Bokonon will tell you all about it.
posted
Tom, you make a good point. Depending on what you view the substance of a tradition, it will put people in different quadrants.
With gender roles, I, as your stereotypical Mormon feel that there is more than one meaning/reason behind gender role traditions. One is division of work, and the purpose of it has died. Another one is that men and women are fundamentally different. So while I applaud the fact that part of the tradition has died, I would not support it dying completely.
posted
Mormons do have a reason for it beyond just "getting the work done". The belief is that men and women are different and are better suited to different tasks. I know this must seem shockingly sexist to many of you. Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
MPH, I would say that the substance of the hot springs tradition is to gather yearly with family at some place to appreciate God's gifts directly. So the particular form is not as important to the substance, although your community may began to attach a whole lot of importance to that particular form.
And there's nothing wrong with that - form is important, just not temporally permanant.
posted
See, if pressed, I'd bet most people would agree with that. But I also think most of them would say these are tendencies, not absolutes, and that individual exceptions don't represent a breakdown of human sexuality.
quote: "Although I would add that the central theme of Passover is not escape for its own sake, but release from the yoke of slavery, and choosing the yoke of God and Torah."
Good, I'm glad I wasn't totally off base. Thank you for clarifying that.
Tom:
quote:The other thing, AFR, is that people can disagree about the "substance" or purpose behind a tradition. Mormons, for example, would argue with you that the reason for specific gender roles is simply to get work done. Consequently, while they oppose the death of that tradition, they would NOT put themselves into group 3 because, from their perspective, the "substance" for that tradition is still meaningful. I would argue, in fact, that many of the people whom we WOULD have considered to be in group 3 would have been able to rationalize their membership in another group based on what they believed to be the reason behind the tradition.
I guess all I can say is that agreeing on the "substance" of the tradition is a very important part of a strong community. It's as much of a passkey as knowing the proper observance of the rituals. People who disagree on the substance of a tradition would tend not to feel like fully accepted members of a community based on that tradition because they do not share that community's beliefs about the past and goals for the future.
I would also say that communities are complex things, and that there are communities within communities within communities. Most of the time one must be inside the community and actively contributing to it to really recognize the subtle differences between like communities.
Edit: Also that forming communities is a very human thing and happens in the LDS church as well as everywhere else. I have a meeting now so I won't be able to respond.
[ June 25, 2004, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: advice for robots ]
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posted
Yeah, Dag, I think most of us who acknowledge the differences will gladly admit to exceptions to tendancies. I don't think that any of the Mormon gender role views are so tight that they don't allow for those variations, but I'm sure many would disagree with that. There is a definite emphasis on motherhood for women and the priesthood is only held by men--all men at that (assuming worthiness).
I have the personal belief that in our society the ties between womanhood and motherhood are slowly being weakened to nudge women in a direction that is not compatable with motherhood. (The image of the "warrior woman" comes to mind.) I am also of the personal belief that without motherhood, womenhood just doesn't make sense outside of the sexual.
I am glad that motherhood has come back into "vogue" lately. But sometimes it seems to be put forth as a sort of "hobby" like having a pet, and that feels weird to me.
Edit: Just to clarify, I don't mean that I think all women must be mothers, but I feel that motherhood is a part of woman's nature and it is not healthy to deny it--whether they biologically bear children or not. I don't know if that makes any sense.
quote:"Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern!" The vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body of the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though changed in hue, it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. it is still colossal. slowly it floats more and more away, the water round it torn and splashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with rapacious flights of screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so many insulting poniards in the whale. The vast white headless phantom floats further and further from the ship, and every rod that it so floats, what seem square roods of sharks and cubic roods of fowls, augment the murderous din. For hours and hours from the almost stationary ship that hideous sight is seen. Beneath the unclouded and mild azure sky, upon the fair face of the pleasant sea, wafted by the joyous breezes, that great mass of death floats on and on, till lost in infinite perspectives.
There's a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The sea-vultures all in pious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously in black or speckled. In life but few of them would have helped the whale, I ween, if peradventure he had needed it; but upon the banquet of his funeral they most piously do pounce. Oh, horrible vultureism of earth! from which not the mightiest whale is free.
Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful ghost survives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some timid man-of-war or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it; straightway the whale's unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the log -- shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabouts: beware! And for years afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there when a stick was held. There's your law of precedents; there's your utility of traditions; there's the story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in the air! There's orthodoxy!
Thus, while in life the great whale's body may have been a real terror to his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a world.
posted
Tom’s description of the progress of motion in robotics reminded me of a related analogy. On of my colleagues was training neural nets to sample large parameter spaces in search of the best solution to a mathematical problem. He found that when he performed the search outright the n. nets would get stuck in a local maximum and stay there. By adding a little noise to the feedback that the n. nets received he induced the n. nets to sample search space around the local maximum and eventually work their way to a better solution. Additional ramping up of the noise received by the nets sped up their progress to a point, but adding to much noise made them start jumping all around and abandoning every solution that they came to, abandoning even the known global maximum. The moral my colleague gave to his story was that a scientist, in order to produce good work, must be slightly mad but not too mad.
posted
Do you ever wonder if perhaps the traditionalists and the "new idealist" types tend to create the wobble and therefore progress?
The idealist says "THIS IS GREAT", the traditionalist in turn says, "But the way it works now is fine, why change it?", and then as the two work against each other there is usually some kind of compromise along the way allows for progress without to big of a stumble.
We will never be able to see all of the consequences of our actions, and if we tried to figure out those consequences without taking at least some risk, nothing would ever get accomplished. So there will inevitably be stumbling points where we held on to our traditons too tightly or embraced new ideas but we missed a major consequence somewhere along the way.
So if you take that and look at it, what I am really wary of is a society that is leaned heavily towards embracing one way over another. It skews the balance, and allows for stagnation, and fear of new ideas, or it will lead to leaps of change that will eventually collapse due to the lack of quality testing.
It seems to me that both of the types of people you mentioned are a necessity in society as long as there is some sort of balance. Or you can just have tons of people who sit in the middle and ignore the extremists thus forcing the extremists to compromise at least a little to see part of the ideas come to fruition .
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posted
That has a ring of truth in it, Chaz. I think that some people have a natural desire for stability, while others have a natural desire for change. Neither is good in itself, neither is bad in itself.
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quote:beverly wrote: Mormons do have a reason for it beyond just "getting the work done". The belief is that men and women are different and are better suited to different tasks. I know this must seem shockingly sexist to many of you.
Yes, it does and I think I already responded about this in a different post. I also wanted to mention beverly's acknowledgement, "There is a definite emphasis on motherhood for women and the priesthood is only held by men--all men at that (assuming worthiness)."
quote:Dagonee responded to beverly: See, if pressed, I'd bet most people would agree with that [insert by JNSB: referring to the italicized portion above, I think] . But I also think most of them would say these are tendencies, not absolutes, and that individual exceptions don't represent a breakdown of human sexuality.
At least, I hope they would.
I have a problem here with using the argument "most people would agree with that" because the agreement of those people does not indicate what is true. At one time most people believed the Earth was the center of the universe. At one time most people believed the Earth was flat. Because we live in what we consider a "modern age" and are somewhat educated, we seem to think our intuitions indicate correct notions of reality.
The tendencies are not necessarily indicative of human sexuality, but social gender roles that have been invented by humans and have changed over time. American men, at one time, were in charge of raising children after women had given birth to the kids (see Past, Present and Personal: The Family and the Life Course in American History by John Demos, 1986). There have been many female priestesses in different religions who were competent enough to lead their congregations.
I don't know of any irrefutable evidence that says that biologically men or women are superior in certain mental tasks. For any study that has evidence of this, I'm sure I can come up with a respected study that counters it. Social gender roles, on the other hand, have definitely played a part in tendencies for women to be overrepresented in some areas and men in others. An obvious example of this is the lack of women in science and engineering.
In physical tasks that require strength, men have a slight advantage in that their hormones allow them to build muscle faster. A woman can still be very strong, and stronger than a majority of men, but she would have to work harder than a man would to become so . Women have an obvious physical advantage of being able to give birth; it's an advantage because it gives them an extra option that men don't have.
quote:beverly wrote: I have the personal belief that in our society the ties between womanhood and motherhood are slowly being weakened to nudge women in a direction that is not compatable with motherhood. (The image of the "warrior woman" comes to mind.) I am also of the personal belief that without motherhood, womenhood just doesn't make sense outside of the sexual.
and she also wrote:Edit: Just to clarify, I don't mean that I think all women must be mothers, but I feel that motherhood is a part of woman's nature and it is not healthy to deny it--whether they biologically bear children or not. I don't know if that makes any sense.
Shoot! It's really hard to argue this because you inserted that "personal belief" part in there. I just want to comment that fatherhood has also been weakened over time and that these things tend to cycle between times of strength and weakness. Also, that there are many women who don't want to be defined greatly by their sex or limited in their options by their sex.
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posted
Look at the Jewish people...Their traditions have changed little over the passage of time.
Quite contrary to tradition, militant Zionists have taken over the American Orthodox branch. Even has a new doctrine -- AntiZionism is antiSemiticism -- which is an unoriginal takeoff on a UNResolution condemning Israeli racism. At the time, not only were Israel-born Muslims discriminated against, but Semitic Jews were allowed neither the vote nor decent education, nor even decent healthcare and the normal social services available to EuropeanJews in Israel.
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posted
Yeah, by most people's standards, I'm pretty sexist. Heck, I not only believe in the biological differences between men and women (the different effects that testosterone and female hormones have on the brain) I actually believe that our eternal *spirits* have gender. Can't get much more sexist than that.
Oh, about the comment on priestesses being competent, I don't want to suggest that I don't think women would be competent in leading a group. *looks around for Dana* Being better suited to a task does not necessarily equal competency. I am thinking more along the lines of it bringing out the best in that person's nature, bringing them the most satisfaction and fulfillment and other hard to define "touchy feely" sort of things.
And BTW, I am all for equal pay and work opportunities for men and women. But I reject the idea that women have to be "just like men" to be taken seriously or be fulfilled.
posted
aspectre, you are showing your ignorance. There does not exist a cohesive group, "the American Orthodox branch." American Orthodoxy is a loose conglomeration of many smaller groups. Some are indeed strongly Zionist, some moderately so, some fairly neutral, and some are against the existence of a secular Israeli state altogether. (And within each group, there are many many opinions as well.)
Moreover, whether being staunchly Zionist is in line with tradition and the Law is debated within Orthodox Judaism -- nice that YOU have the answer.
Also, your representations of the positions of so-called "militant Zionists" are inaccurate propaganda.
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posted
Dag... Well Vonnegut's take is a bit more layered in earnestness (or more likely irony).
Yes, Bokononism is from the first page of it's "scripture" professed to be false (but the strict definition of "foma" is "harmless half-truths", and the exhortation is "Live by the foma that makes you strong and happy and free!"). Bokononism is based on the idea that involving people of a community in a system larger than themselves creates happiness out of togetherness. It doesn't matter if the community is based on blatant falsehoods; by providing a structure, particularly with conflicting Good and Evil ("Dynamic Tension", as it's put in the novel), the people will take on the necessary roles, and will be happier for it, even if it doesn't provide tangible benefit to themselves.
After all, after Bokonon and McCabe (Bokonon's cohort/eventual enemy) the people of San Lorenzo were no better off in any visible way than before. They were still a poor, uneducated, disease-ridden lot, stuck on an island with no exploitable resources, and controlled by forces much stronger than they were. But with a backdrop of the "battle" of religion (GOOD) vs. government (EVIL), they were provided a structure within which they were able to have small joys, triumphs and happiness.
So where is the real irony in all this? Well, in the book, every prediction in those books of "foma" called the Books of Bokonon turned out to be true!
I think the analogy works much more simply if you think of one camp as a pull to the left and one as a pull to the right, without the robotics element.
In particular, you lost me with extenting the analogy to those who try to steer society basically pulling it off balance. You say you're laissez-faire about the future of the human race, but if this game is a metaphor, without guidance the guy only makes it about 3 meters. In any case, I'm not sure I really believe that about you. You advocate for directions you believe society should move inl isn't that guidance? Or do you feel that you are not advocating for any particular direction, but simply against some attempt at guidance or holding back. If so, I'm not sure I agree . . . it presupposes that the direction you favor is the direction society would naturally follow if left unbound and unguided, and not simply one choice from among many.
(I don't think I'm adding anything here, though . . . just rambling.)
-o-
FWIW, I agree with JNSB regarding gender roles, but not with the words Bev puts in our mouths. I don't find it sexist that you believe souls have genders. I simply think these areas you believe different genders are intrinsically more often suited for are societally constructed.
-o-
I apologize for what I am about to do . . .
quote: Think of the move "Whale Rider". The girl kept the traditions as best as she could. The only way she could do that was by breaking them. She broke one of the traditions (women cannot lead) in order to keep the rest of them alive.
The breaking of individual traditions can be a fine thing, but I think something is really lost when you try to abandon all tradition.
This sounds to me like an excellent rationale for favoring legal recognition of homosexual marriage.
quote:Dagonee wrote: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't know of any irrefutable evidence that says that biologically men or women are superior in certain mental tasks. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't think anyone asserted these differences were strictly biological.
Dagonee
Sorry, Dag. This was asserted by beverly in a different thread. Perhaps I shouldn't have let my feelings on that drift over into this thread. She made allusions to that in this thread when she said, "Heck, I not only believe in the biological differences between men and women (the different effects that testosterone and female hormones have on the brain)..."
BTW, beverly, I don't think believing souls have gender is sexist. I think it's a reasonable extension of beliefs about "soul mates" here on Earth. My personal belief is that sexism is more about the subordination of one sex to another in one or more categories. And I definitely give you props for sticking by your "sexism" even though it's not politically correct and what I personally and scientifically believe to be untrue.
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Oh, yeah. I knew I was simplifying it, but I knew you couldn't resist. What I found most interesting was that Bokonon (in the book) wanted his religion banned, and he wanted McCabe to be a villian, with the idea that both these would benefit the practicioners.
posted
JNSB, I wish that were everyone's definition of sexism. I think that is what it should be. But there have been so many times when I or someone else says something suggesting that men and women are different or have different strengths and weaknesses and instead of saying, "I disagree," they say, "That is so sexist!"
I can totally understand people believing that all or most of those differences are results of our society. I think that to some extent they are. But I honestly do think that there is a biological and spiritual difference between men and women.
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posted
Icky kinda opened this up a bit already, so I'll be nitpicky ('cuz it also rerails the thread) and talk about one of Tom's comments...
quote:TomDavidson wrote: I'm laissez-faire about the human race in general.
I dislike this statement. But maybe I'm not sure what it means. Here's what I think it means: "I don't need to be involved with anything concerning the fate of the human race - it will self-correct itself."
Here's why I think that's the wrong approach. I think there's certain things just about everyone can agree on. A few of these are the sanctity of human life (excluding abortion and euthanasia which are controversial), education for all, and medical care for all. These things will not happen without the dedication and perserverance of people who are deeply concerned about the human race in general, regardless of race, ethnicity, age and gender. I think there are plenty of good, smart people who are born into bad situations through no fault of their own. If I can help them, or steer the human race in a direction that can do that without causing unwanted side effects, should I really be "hands off" about it?
Two areas in the US that I can think of are women's rights and civil rights. Not much would have been accomplished if certain people, those involved in causing the dramatic changes in these areas, had been laissez-faire about it. We would have a much greater problem with AIDS if concerned people didn't do something about it in countries that are far away and have little or nothing to do with us. I think these changes can affect the human race.
I understand the feeling of there being so many self-correcting mechanisms (the gyroscopes Tom referred to, I believe) that you don't have to do anything. I just think that humans who care about the human race are part of the self-correcting mechanisms that keep the robot upright. We're already part of the human race. It's our obligation to guide it in a direction that will benefit the lives of humans, especially in those areas we can all agree upon but haven't yet had the political will to accomplish.
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posted
I grok where you are coming from, bev. I can agree to disagree on gender roles and not consider you sexist because you hold a different belief on that point. On the other hand, there have been so many times when somebody says something suggesting that men and women are different or have different strengths and weaknesses . . . and that therefore, women or men are not fit to perform a given role, or should be prevented for performing that role, on the basis of what appears to be a general truism.
And I realize that I'm on thin ice here, because this is precisely what your Church does--as did my former Church. But, on an institutional level at least, that's where I believe the hazy line between different beliefs held in mutual respect and sexism lies. (Do you have to believe something because you belong to religion X, or do you belong to religion X because you believe something? I wonder what anne kate's beliefs are on women and the priesthood.)
And so, while I think I share JNSB's definition of sexist, I can see where conflict may be inevitable . . . I don't consider your belief to be sexist, but the inevitable conclusion of it . . . so, um, can I love the sinner but hate the sin, here?
posted
Huh, I guess I can see where you are coming from on that. People look at my claim that men and women are fundamentally different as limiting factors and therefore claiming that they are in some way inferior to the other. Interesting.
Well, here is an example of my point of view: I think that men are naturally more aggressive than women, due to the effects of testosterone. I think that women are not so naturally aggressive and that that is not a bad thing. In fact, I think it is a good thing--but that gets into spiritual matters.
Now, men tend to enjoy the idea of "aggressive women". How often do I hear men talk about how cool it is when some chick could kick their butt? So because it is enjoyed, we see a fair amount of the "aggressive woman" image being portrayed in the media or whatnot. I think that more and more of the rising generation of girls are buying into that image and trying to mold themselves to it. I don't think that is a good thing, personally.
It is not that I don't think women would be "good at" being aggressive that way, but I think it in general detracts from what comes more naturally to females and will bring more lasting satisfaction. I don't know if that is perceived as being sexist or not.
As for my church being sexist.... I'm not sure that I really think it is. There is a definite sense of gender role, but I don't think it is to the point of being sexist. I guess other people look at it that way though. I know it bothers some, even within the church membership. It has never bothered me though.
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In any case, I'm not sure I really believe that about you. You advocate for directions you believe society should move inl isn't that guidance? Or do you feel that you are not advocating for any particular direction, but simply against some attempt at guidance or holding back. If so, I'm not sure I agree . . . it presupposes that the direction you favor is the direction society would naturally follow if left unbound and unguided, and not simply one choice from among many. 
