First off, some words of warning: this has the danger of turning into quite a long entry, so if you're not up to reading at this moment, check out some other sites instead (ex. enter your name as a search word for Google. You never know what might come up). Another is that this entry is kind of hodge-podge in nature, so if you don't want to go and fill your mind with stuff coming from anywhere and everywhere, answer a crossword puzzle or solve some math problems instead of reading this.
Okay, now that you have been sufficiently warned, I'll forge on ahead with the stuff that has been in my mind these past few days (and in case you're wondering, I do have other stuff in my brain aside from doughnuts, bagels, dogs, hamsters, carpets, the color black, etc.) To make things a bit simpler, I'll separate these into sections again (the OC in me compels me to do it that way).
Happiness is Bliss
As I'm typing this, I am experiencing happiness for the first time after quite some time. Not the run-of-the-mill happiness that I get playing with my dog (hey, I said I have other things in my mind, but it doesn't mean that I've forgotten about all of those mentioned above!), or eating ice cream, or seeing goofy stuff happening. It's something deep-seated, and it started Wednesday last week, ironically before my midterms orals exam for one of the classes I dread the most. I was completely petrified to take the exam, especially since I haven't been doing that well. Yet on that day, God gave me peace. At the exact time when I was about to recite, He calmed my thoughts that I was actually coherent while I was giving my answer. Instead of relying on my own strength and intelligence, and I lifted it up to Him, and it's amazing. That night after the exams, I had my Quiet Time after a long period, and His Word was very powerful: every verse that I read speaks of confidence in Him, and that we can claim His strength, for He will provide. My life verse is in Psalm 27:1: "The Lord is my strength and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is my stronghold, my Redeemer, who shall I be afraid of?" yet sometimes, I don't take that to heart. What a difference it makes to actually claim it, and to live it. We had our written midterms exam yesterday for Criminal Law. I'll be honest: I didn't read all of the cases. Heck, I probably read only a tenth of them (entirety of which would probably make the Leaning Tower of Pisa proud), and I didn't memorize all of the provisions. Yet strangely (at least for me), I wasn't panicking. More strangely, I was calm and collected the entire time through, a completely different experience for me. His peace is amazing, and all He wants is for us to surrender things completely to Him. What's more is that He reinforces what He tells us. The day before the exams, I got a verse from House of Praise (for some reason, I became part of their SMS list), and it says
Set your faith and trust in God and watch to see how He will turn it around for your good (Gen 50:20).
No need to explain. What just blessed me is that I was able to share the verse to other people who also need God's Word in their lives. I shared it with a few blockmates of mine and to a Soul Sister. The thing is that ever since Wednesday last week, I truly now believe that I am a Christian before a student, and it's my path to go and share Him to people's lives, especially those who need Him the most. My inner peace is back, and I would like to call this happiness by its proper name - joy. Mt 6:33 couldn't have explained it better.
A Purist - Not!
I find it so cool that I found someone who shares almost the same perspective that I do - Marxism meeting postmodernism, yet a firm Christian. Essentially, we have agreed upon the main principle followed by postmodernism that life - as well as other things - cannot be viewed, explained, and interpreted in one exact perspective. The important thing is that you won't be so locked up in set concepts and constructs in your head that you fail to see that that's not the only way you can look at things. That's probably the main reason why I love philosophy so much, because it offers an endless supply of perspectives, and all of these are equally valid. We can't go and say that one viewpoint is superior to the other and stick to that alone. Sooner or later, we'll see a gaping hole in that perspective which will eventually grow into indescribable proportions (at least in our minds) and we'll end up disliking our former beliefs so much that we'll junk it and go for its other extreme, which we'll probably barf out also. Just about all views are valid. we can't go and hammer our ideas into the minds of people just because we have this megalomaniac thought that we alone are correct, that we alone can bring about enlightenment in the minds of people. I'm sorry, but that's simply not true. There is no single theory that can completely encompass everything. The only thing we can be sure of in this world is God's love for us. If someone goes and says that his view is correct and that all others should be junked, don't even believe in that person. There is no sure way except His way (Jn 14:6).
What connects postmodernism and Marxism for me is that about social structures. Granted, not all organizations/institutions are oppressive. Some actually bring about good to society. What makes me squeamish about structures is the fact that they go and teach you that you only have to follow this direction, you have to think only this way, you have to act only in this way, and nothing else. That's complete usurpation of freedom of choice. As you've probably noticed by now, I don't tire in saying that everyone has the right to choose, and everyone was given brains for a reason - for it to be used. If people go and impose their beliefs on you and expect you to live it to the letter without even thinking about what the ratio decidendi of it is, then you might as well go and take out your brain and replace it with a pair of batteries, because you have become a robot that is incapable of choosing for your own self.
The world may live in black and white, but I don't.
These structures should be changed, along with people's tendency to label people as they see fit. Yes, I can understand that it helps a person remember more easily and everything, since labelling involves putting people in tiny little boxes in our minds and stereotyping them as such, but come on. That just limits a person's humanity. If a person labels someone as something, ex. "nerd,""loser," ""jock," "ditz", or whatever, the tendency is for that label to stick to the mind of the person attaching the label to the point that s/he will not be able to see the other person as anything else. It would take a very major event for the other person to transcend the label that was foisted on him/her, and even then, a stigma will still remain. S/he's a (insert description here), and that's it. That's all that counts in a person's existence - a single, usually derogatory word. That's all s/he will be worth his/her entire life, unless s/he has managed to collect a lot of stereotypes. A person can't be explained by just a word or phrase. If that were the case, psychology and psychiatry wouldn't even be needed. Other schools of thought that I lean towards are in the humanities - especially psychology, philosophy, social sciences, and history. The reason behind all these is also what compelled me to enter law school. All of these point out to the same thing - that you can't go and look at things in only one perspective, no more, no less. Interpretation is relative. A person's being can't be explained by a mere word or phrase, because it's infinitely richer than that. It would be an insult not only to the person, but also to the entire human race and to the Maker, if we do that.
A verse in the Bible, I forget which exactly, says not to rely not on man's understanding, for it is worthless. Instead, rely on His Word, for it is there that we find security. It's true. Existentialism says that man can come up with so many different little boxes to help him in his daily goings-on, but in the end, that's just passing. Look at things not only from one perspective, because that won't hold for long. All of these structures that we make are temporal. It is worthless in the end. Purism is all well and good in theory, but real life is something else. The only thing that you shouldn't compromise with is your faith. One thing why I'm also not a purist Marxist and a purist postmodernist is that it also talks about atheism, of which I definitely do not follow. Put it this way: can you really rely on something that came from someone who will not last anyway (Ecclesiastes)? No. We have a Sure Foundation. Are we really going to rely on man's inventions when we can have the genuine thing?
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5 comments:
Because I love your entry, here's a very long one hehe.... :D
Perspectival thinking – that’s what Nietzsche, the source of postmodern thinking, always insisted on. Atheist that he is (along with good old Uncle Karl who said the famously quoted statement, “Religion is the opium of the people”), his writings greatly changed my way of thinking but not to the detriment of my faith. It has in fact helped me understand my humanity and in effect, my position before God
I’m glad you wrote this entry (hehe) and boldly express the points that truly need hearing. Can I just add that being fixated to a particular way of thinking, to the extent that judgment on everything else is based solely on that very framework, does not only mean one is being contemptuous and antagonistic towards the other, but is also self-destructive. It paralyses not only other people’s minds but one’s own as well. One becomes a victim of oneself – or to put it bluntly, one becomes a victim of one’s narrow-mindedness. That is a trap, a very deceiving one, because in letting someone else think for oneself, one might not realise the possibility of being complacent and afraid to stand up for what the Lord really wants.
That exemplifies the modernist – or if you like, purist – disease (i.e., letting someone think for oneself, which leads one to always mistrust his/hew own thoughts, judgments and decisions and which consequently leads to having a “divided self “– a schizo like Kiddo mentioned in his teaching last Saturday.
God gave us a mind to think for ourselves; that is not to say that I am advocating the left extreme which does not welcome suggestion. But if one always lets the thinking be done in his stead, one may also displease God. And I’m sure the ancient –Greeks, Romans and more importantly, the early Christian koinonia - are revolting in their graves (hehe sorry for the corny Nietzschean jokes)
Nietzsche may have criticised Uncle Karl for the whole Communist metanarrative, but I sill like Marx very much because he compels one to be critical and reflective of oneself, of society and the social structures/institutions we are embedded in. Revolutions always start in questioning all that are unquestioned and hailed as “canons”. When people become desensitised or perhaps, only scared to speak and question, things will crumble unto themselves. Institutions fail – and Christian ones aren’t spared – when they do not like to recognise and acknowledge their limits and only perpetually hail their potentials and possibilities.
Those who think differently and more, express their thoughts are always mistook for being audacious and unreasonable. They are criticised – sometimes “punished” – for shaking an existing order. Like those Latin American liberation theologians who were excommunicated by the Vatican for desiring change, when all along it was the same faith in Jesus Christ that moved them to think, speak and act.
I’m proud to say I’m a PoMo, a social constructivist, a Marxist and most of all a CHRISTIAN. But I am not a purist. I know that postmodernism, Marxism and all other isms are only perspectives that help me understand the world. They locate the problem somewhere, they analyse the terrain and propose solution to the unanswerable human question. I’m not an expert on each of them but I know enough and possess enough sense to junk what contradicts my faith.
I’m always criticised by a friend for not being “faithful to theory; to that, I always choose to keep quiet. I know I’m also criticised for not being “too Christian”, which I know I am in many ways. But to say that I am not on the basis of what I read, how I think – for simply being different – expect me to make noise.
That standard is not standard at all.
oops...correction: "...boldly expressED..." :D if there are other typos sorry hehe :D
Funnily, out of the things you've mentioned, one thing stuck to my mind in particular: the fact that you apologized for the Nietzsche jokes. It's ok, Nadine. You're the only one who gets those anyway. Haha!
Kidding aside, however, I agree with what you said. If we stick to purist thinking, following only one certain philosophy and nothing else, we'll end up having a completely warped outlook in life. Someone once mentioned to me that all philosophies/perspectives are simply ideals, because in our society, we can never have that. I'm not an advocate of communism or whatever. It's just looking at things is just relativistic, leaving a lot left to be desired. It's always, "take this and nothing else!" to the point that they shove it up people's noses without even giving them the chance to think for themselves whether it's good for them or not.
Let's take atheist existentialism as an example. I'm not a believer of the first word of the term (obviously) but the concept of it helped me understand my faith better. (As an aside, I really prefer Sartre over Nietzsche because he's just more rational.)
Hmph! Yes! Kahit si Leland magagalit sa mga ganoong people haha! :D
Yea, that's true...there's always a huge difference between theory and lived experience even if theory is also grounded in reality. Theory priviliges and marginalises certain things; they can never encompass everything that is happening around us
Yeah, dude. Philosophy is criticized by some people because they claim that it's self-defeating; that is, they say that it promotes free thinking and yet it sets parameters for people to think.
The thing with that is, these so-called parameters set the direction, but it doesn't limit the way you think. A person can't go and say "free thinking" and assume that it means that the person can think about just about everything that's going on in the world. If that were the case, a person would have gone insane in a fortnight. Philosophy involves free thinking in the sense that it sets your mind to look at things from a certain perspective, yet it doesn't mean that it upholds that it's the only true way of looking at things, for all looks (well, almost all anyway) are equally valid. To say that it only focuses on one perspective (and that's it) is what is truly self-defeating. In short, by letting one's self be trapped in a single POV, one will be described as completely narrow-minded. I love the Filipino version more though: "Ang kitid ng utak mo."
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