Sober thoughts The other night, I made Vivi watch the movie Ordinary People with me. This movie never fails to make me cry (and those who know me must know how rare that is). Yet, as we watched, I began to realize the movie just wasn't approachable for Vivi. When the big scene appeared and I was choking up, she was completely unfazed. She couldn't relate.I realized it was analogous to me watching the Spanish movies that she loves. I've watched them, tried to read the books, but the problem is the characters make no sense to me. They do ridiculous things, or engage in activity that is, to me, clearly immoral and/or repugnant. To her, they are familiar and heart-wrenching. Likewise, the characters in Ordinary People were equally repellant - being, from her point of view, cold, hateful, cowardly. How can one feel sympathy for such characters?One might think Vivi and I have a huge cultural gulf between us as a result, but actually we talk about it all the time and we each can understand exactly what it is about our differences that the other can't understand. I understand why she finds the distance in American families difficult to understand, and she understands why I think 40-year-old men marrying 12-year-old girls is a little creepy. Some might call it cultural relativism, but from my point of view, it's just recognizing that all cultures get things wrong - badly wrong at that.Declining AmericaIt saddens me to watch the whole Intelligent Design attack on science gaining apparent momentum. It seems like American culture is committing a kind of suicide or out-of-control immunilogical reaction by attacking such things as science, intellectualism, education, and critical discourse. We seem to avoid electing people who seem too smart. Could Al Gore have won the popular vote if he'd written this well-thought-out article in 1999?It's crazy watching our society implode like this. The consequences of dumbing ourselves down, of turning our backs on science and intellectual progress are frightening. It gets confused because there are scary things going on out there in the name of scientific progress, though, from my point of view, they are scary because a large impersonal corporation is wedging themselves into a position of power by creating a dependence on their existence - things like genetic manipulation of seeds and plants, drugs that solve problems created by the modern lifestyle, etc. Liberals and Religious Fundamentalists can often have some interesting common complaints about our current lifestyles, but the cure can't be just to go backward in time - that way leads simply to decline and eventually to economic subjugation by others who continued moving forward.I'm not happy about the environment in which I'm bringing a new life into the world, but I don't know where I can find a better environment. I suppose I should fight it harder, but I don't have a lot of fight in me.

The other night, I made Vivi watch the movie Ordinary People with me. This movie never fails to make me cry (and those who know me must know how rare that is). Yet, as we watched, I began to realize the movie just wasn't approachable for Vivi. When the big scene appeared and I was choking up, she was completely unfazed. She couldn't relate.

I realized it was analogous to me watching the Spanish movies that she loves. I've watched them, tried to read the books, but the problem is the characters make no sense to me. They do ridiculous things, or engage in activity that is, to me, clearly immoral and/or repugnant. To her, they are familiar and heart-wrenching. Likewise, the characters in Ordinary People were equally repellant - being, from her point of view, cold, hateful, cowardly. How can one feel sympathy for such characters?

One might think Vivi and I have a huge cultural gulf between us as a result, but actually we talk about it all the time and we each can understand exactly what it is about our differences that the other can't understand. I understand why she finds the distance in American families difficult to understand, and she understands why I think 40-year-old men marrying 12-year-old girls is a little creepy. Some might call it cultural relativism, but from my point of view, it's just recognizing that all cultures get things wrong - badly wrong at that.

Declining America

It saddens me to watch the whole Intelligent Design attack on science gaining apparent momentum. It seems like American culture is committing a kind of suicide or out-of-control immunilogical reaction by attacking such things as science, intellectualism, education, and critical discourse. We seem to avoid electing people who seem too smart. Could Al Gore have won the popular vote if he'd written this well-thought-out article in 1999?

It's crazy watching our society implode like this. The consequences of dumbing ourselves down, of turning our backs on science and intellectual progress are frightening. It gets confused because there are scary things going on out there in the name of scientific progress, though, from my point of view, they are scary because a large impersonal corporation is wedging themselves into a position of power by creating a dependence on their existence - things like genetic manipulation of seeds and plants, drugs that solve problems created by the modern lifestyle, etc. Liberals and Religious Fundamentalists can often have some interesting common complaints about our current lifestyles, but the cure can't be just to go backward in time - that way leads simply to decline and eventually to economic subjugation by others who continued moving forward.

I'm not happy about the environment in which I'm bringing a new life into the world, but I don't know where I can find a better environment. I suppose I should fight it harder, but I don't have a lot of fight in me.