Thursday, November 29, 2012

Why do we do it?

I've been thinking recently of my time on Layton High's debate team. This was a team with a history of winning. I think by my Senior year we had won Region 9 straight years, and District 8 straight years. This had engendered some resentment from other schools coaches, and I was witness more than once to an angry coach doing their best to try to torture the scoring rules to 'dethrone' Layton from our apparent strangle hold on the trophies.

This kind of dominance wasn't permanent, such 'dynasties' never are. But at the end of 9 straight years of loss, it may have seemed so to others, perhaps especially students who only measure their time in the competition to three short years in school. I submit that while I have my own immodest reasons for thinking we were so dominant, it is in great part because of the coach of Layton High's team. We won because we were the best, but we were the best because we were required to be better.

In debate there are, I believe, more than one level of victory. There is of course confounding your opponent with arguments they are unable to either understand or adequately defend against until your dominance is obvious. There is yelling louder then the other guy. There is winning on a technicality or by twisting someone elses position until they have to defend something other than what they actually stand for. And of course, there is being right.

I can only speak to my experiences, which were in the realm of L.D. debate (short for Lincoln-Douglas). Purporting to be patterned after the great debates for which they were named, this was considered 'value' debate. A proposition was given, such as "It is better to have an oppressive government then no government at all.", and all participants were required to argue either side, depending on the draw. The goal was to provide for the judge what you believed was the ultimate societal value, in relation to the proposition, and how you could only achieve such a value through affirmation or rejection of said proposition. An example of such values one might use in the proposition given might be: 'Freedom', or 'Security', or 'Justice'. As you can see, this is anything but an exact science. One must use their own persuasive abilities to attempt to persuade the listener to their point of view. Again, victory was possible through many different avenues.

Those of us on the L.D. team didn't win every debate, but we won a lot more then we lost. And, I like to think, we did it because while we could achieve victory through all the aforementioned ways, usually we won because we tried to be right. One can always find an opponent who can yell louder than you, is more skilled at twisting your words, but its hard to lose (not impossible, but difficult), if your position is right.

Now, there is probably some hyperbole, or remembering things the way I want to remember them involved in that telling, but I recount it not for its accuracy, but as an example of my bigger point.

Why do we, as a people, fight more to win then to be right? Of course if we hold an opinion, we must at least believe it to be correct, otherwise we wouldn't hold it. But why is it that we feel we must ascribe to our opinions the status of eternal and universal truth. And, why when discussing that opinion do we have the tendency to be more worried about winning the argument, then finding the truth. Such that we seem to use all of the avenues of victory I listed above.

I'm guilty of it. I know it, so it may seem hypocritical that I decry it. That's okay, I'm not perfect. I have come to truly abhor the way in which people will twist and torture someone else's position in an attempt to cast their stance in a negative light. It becomes very easy to defeat someone's stance that way. At least outwardly. But we don't change minds. We don't convince someone they may be wrong (if they in fact are). Nor do we allow for the explanation of their belief such that we may see more truth than we previously had.

Years ago I heard a talk in LDS General Conference that really impacted me. I think it did so because I was very guilty of the shortcomings it talked about. But it has, ever since, made me try a lot harder when I am involved in the realm of politics or debating ideas. The talk was entitled, "Instruments of the Lord's Peace" you can find the text here.

A couple of the most significant quotes, for me.

Have we who have taken upon us the name of Christ slipped unknowingly into patterns of slander, evil speaking, and bitter stereotyping? Have personal or partisan or business or religious differences been translated into a kind of demonizing of those of different views? Do we pause to understand the seemingly different positions of others and seek, where possible, common ground?

. . . we need to raise the level of private and public discourse. We should avoid caricaturing the positions of others, constructing “straw men,” if you will, and casting unwarranted aspersions on their motivations and character.

It is far too easy sometimes to fall into a spirit of mockery and cynicism in dealing with those of contrary views. We demoralize or demean so as to bring others or their ideas in contempt.

And he is right. It is far, far too easy. I think people who know me, and have been involved in political discussions with me long enough have seen a change since then, at least, I hope they do. This is an area that I admit I fall short in, but one in which I feel we as a people have a real need to pay attention to, and give heed to the words given in this talk.

Anyway, that is my rant for the day, hopefully more of a musing then a rant. I'll close it off with a quote that I wish were displayed more, especially during the unfortunately increasing 'political season'.

Whenever your politics cause you to speak unkindly of your brethren, know this, that you are upon dangerous ground.
-President George Albert Smith

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Catch-22 ***

Just finished Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. As I told Alisa to other night, I'm not 100% sure I know how I feel about this book, so I just went with my current opinion. Catch-22. I didn't know anything about this book before I got it from the library. Right before I read it, my brother told me it was the inspiration behind M*A*S*H*, which intrigued me. That was about all I had going into it. After having finished it, I'm not 100% sure I could tell you now what it was about. If you've seen MASH, then you'll probably understand when I say it was hilarious and tragic almost at the same time. There were incredibly deep, poignant moments in this book. But, this book (as books go) was nowhere near as good as MASH (as far as TV shows go). Here is my biggest critique of the book. The great parts were tied together with stuff that seemed like it was in a dream. And not a particularly good one. A lot of it made little to no sense, the timelines kept jumping in a ridiculous manner, and there was no really coherent flow to the narrative. Now, it is likely that all of that was purposeful, and in some aspects of the book it worked fine, and in some it really detracted in my opinion. Overall, I thought the book was quite good. It could have been so much more. And again I think that MASH provides a great juxtaposition. In early episodes of MASH, the humor came first, and if some plot or character development happened, okay. In later MASH, it was still very funny, but there was more of a connection to the characters, and a feeling of reality. This book didn't feel real, so when the tragic things happened, it still had that dreamy quality to it, as if it wasn't reality, and so it wasn't as impactful. Some of it just felt like the Stooges were trying to portray Schindler's List. (obviously hyperbole). Again, I'd probably recommend it, but with some caveats. As some of the others, I don't understand its prominence in literary circles/best of lists. But it was a good book. The next book on the list is Ulysess by James Joyce. I might end up skipping it, and coming back to it, or taking a bit of a break. Just looking at that book gives me shingles.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The Grapes of Wrath **** (out of five)

On Sunday I finished the second book in my book list challenge. As you can see from my rating, this one went much better than the last. "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. I had of course heard of this book, and the resultant movie, and had always had the impression that it was supposed to be quite good. Though I don't think I had ever actually talked with anyone about the book who had actually read it. I have previously read "Of Mice and Men" by Steinbeck so I had an overall favorable impression of his writing. This book is set during the dust bowl era of American History, beginning with the mass migration of tenant farmers from the plains states as corporate/banking farming begins to be the norm. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to uproot and move West, where the dream and hope of jobs and plenty had been advertised purposely to bring in many migrant workers and thus drive down the cost of labor.
This book was amazing. First, the writing is so good. Steinbeck filled this book with the same great prose that made me love "Of Mice and Men". So descriptive, not overly flowery, but enough to really pull you in to the world he is describing. Unfortunately, the world he usually describes is quite depressing. In more than one part of the book, tears came to my eyes as I read. It is hard to not imagine what it would be like to literally be unable to feed your children, and be helpless as they actually starved to death. That was the reality for some of these people, brought out through this book. I found Steinbeck's style in this book to be very interesting. He would intersperse short chapters that were descriptive of the time period generally, with the longer chapters that followed the main characters of the story. It kind of set up the world as it was, that you then followed the Joad family through as they attempted to find someplace to stay where they could work and feed themselves. As I read the book, and thought about the time period that it came out in, I was surprised that Steinbeck wasn't black listed. There would definitely be people who would read the book, and think Steinbeck was a communist (which incidentally, he kind of was personally). But I found one passage in the book particularly telling. As a land owner is shouting at a bunch of migrant workers, screaming about the *expletive* dirty reds, one of them stops him and asks what a red is. The land owner answers angrily that a red is someone who wants 30 cents, when they are paying 25. Befuddled, the man says, I guess I'm a red. That may be what makes it so that this book doesn't feel like a political propaganda piece. These people aren't interested in politics, they haven't read Das Kapital, or The Communist Manifesto, let alone espouse Marx. They just want to be able to find a job, work a full day and get paid a price, literally, that will be enough to buy food for that nights dinner. And many of them can't. This book came at an interesting time for me personally, as I just finished going to the Republican State Convention as a delegate. I couldn't help but see similarities between this book, and some extreme views in our day. The most obvious being the angry and sometimes violent reaction to migrant labor today (coming from south of the border). But interestingly enough, just two days ago I had an argument with some other State delegates about food stamps. They argued that the program should be ended in its entirety, immediately. That it was just not right to take 'my' money, and give it to my neighbor. I thought back to "The Grapes of Wrath", and the utter helplessness of the people who watched as their children died. Anyway. I loved this book, and would recommend it to everyone. The next book on the list is "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

The Catcher in the Rye (No Rating)

So, before I picked up The Catcher in the Rye, my only real knowledge of the book is that it is one of the most banned books of all time. It is also often a required book in High School, however, I wasn't ever asked to read it through school.

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger. 1945. This book follows the life of a young man from prep school, to a trip to New York to....oh wait, I can't tell you where it goes because I chose not to finish the book. Now, it wasn't that I couldn't find the will to continue, it wasn't that bad. In fact, there were a couple of bright spots, particularly when the boy reminisces about his younger brother who has passed away. I got a little more than 100 pages into the book, and while I have to say I found the story uninteresting, the main character completely uncompelling, and the writing more than a bit lazy, every character was almost the exact same person, my real problem was the gratuitous use of profanity. No, not just the swearing, for good or ill I am fairly calloused to just bad language, I mean the actual definition of profanity. If you pop this book open, and two facing pages, I would bet that you will find at the very least 15 uses of the Lords name, minimum. Not only did I find this incredibly lazy writing, again every single character talked this way, but I couldn't continue, it grated so badly that I had to put the book down. I won't be finishing it.

Now, someone may say I have missed out on some grand conclusion, some wonderful character development, or brilliant insight into the American Experience. My only answer to that is, maybe Salinger should have done a dang sight better. While I clearly would not support the book banning, I can definitely see why so many people would rather their children not read this book.

I give it no rating, I can't truly judge the work in its entirety when I haven't read it.

New book challenge.

So, I have decided to try a challenge to read all of the novels on a top 100 list sent to me by a friend. I will be reading the ones that I haven't previously read, and then rating all of the books after I finish them. The promise I've made to myself is that I will finish all of them, even if I would rather dig my own eyes out with a melon baller. I will, however, reserve the right to skip a book for content. As such, I'm already planning on skipping #6 on the list, "Lolita". I plan on writing a quick review for each book, including what my thoughts, opinions of it were prior to reading, if I had any, and what I thought afterwards.

Feel free to disagree, or post your own thoughts on the book if you've read it.

#1 on the list is The Great Gatsby, I've already read it, so my first book would be the #2 on the list, The Catcher in the Rye.