Are you a phoney liberal?

Very engaging and thought provoking article about liberalism, feminism and Islam...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2701379.ece

contemplating academia

It occurs to me this morning that when I am really honest, I don’t want to leave academia. I have contemplated many possibilities that would allow me access to academia, but afford me the “real” world status I crave. I’ve tried to align myself in such a way that I can have access to the benefits of academia without the privileged and elitist trappings. However, I know that I need the academic community to push my thinking and my own personal development.

This is the first time that I am experiencing a partial cutting off. I am away from my mentors. I am away from the stream of ideas that nourished me. And I am devoid of inspiration and creativity. I wanted this challenge. I wanted this because I wanted to separate the chaff from the wheat. I wanted to experiment – to test myself in an environment where I was not receiving constant feeding and constant praise. I imagined exhilarating freedom – “space” to read, write, think according to my own tastes. But I find it increasingly difficult to find meaning in the texts and ideas I love, when I have no one to converse with, no way to see them in particle application, no controversy, no debate, no collaboration.

In Seattle, it is possible to create and access this community outside of its established walls. There are friends, book groups, coffee shops etc. The post-college community was a nice nesting place. And because of my job, I still had access to professors, mentors, lectures. Beyond that, I had integration of theory and practice: I was involved in learning, student support, justice, activism, and cross-cultural interactions in a way that felt just as meaningful as what went on inside the classroom. It was delightful experimentation. But perhaps that was because I was still intimately connected to the classroom.

Now, I glean what I can through my husband. I live by proxy. I enjoy this, but I know that I will never be satisfied until I take responsibility for myself, take myself seriously. This gap or divide I feel between us will only grow with the years, unless I am feeling as if I am equally pursuing what I feel called to do, exercising to their fullest my gifts, abilities, and skills and confronting/challenging my limits. I know that living vicariously through Than will only result in long-term resentment, especially if it is a result of my own fear, ambivalence, and laziness.

Do I feel ready, then, to work, to take a chance, to discipline myself? Do I feel ready to sacrifice? Do I feel ready to engage in passionate pursuit? I would be a fool to squander this opportunity. I have the opportunity to trade in possibility for a concrete choice; I have the opportunity to pursue graduate school (though whether I make it in is a different story). Still, while I am caught in this internal struggle, I realize that I am moving closer to taking the first concrete step: conquering the GRE.

I recognize that there may be no right path, but when asked a year ago if I would rather be an academic or an activist, I answered a resounding and immediate “academic.” I already see myself as an academic. I see myself devoting my life to teaching and study. I love what happens in the classroom. I love the unique opportunity for transformation, for learning both on the part of student and teacher. I love the freedom that comes through the conversation of ideas. And I know that to arrive at this point of freedom requires limit and labor. As much as I resist the limitations of the academic life, I also crave its freedom.

I am closer to accepting that freedom and limitation, vocation and work, come together. It’s similar to the choice of marriage. One can’t rush the decision making process, but at the same time one cannot avoid being confronted with the existential choice to step into the unknown and risk for the sake of love. Making this choice (and living it out) is not always the romantic process one envisions: it is full of confrontation and struggle as one trades in hypothetical possibilities and fantasies for the concrete joys and risks, tensions and limitations of one relationship, one discipline, one love.

Mathematics

Six years later, I remember why I used to like numbers. Not really numbers, I guess, but the process. Equations are about discovering the unknown, and I loved this mystery: x. y. z. The symbol never represents what is behind it – an unknown value that controls everything – it only holds the space. The variable (x, y, z, b…) only signals substance, but what substance it is has yet to be discovered and named. And sometimes when arrive at the end of the process you realize it cannot and will not be uncovered.

I enjoy the process even when I get it wrong; experimentation is satisfying in itself, and who is to say that there is one right answer. It seems valid enough to come to a conclusion by process. Even if it is not the “right” conclusion, it is one conclusion, one possibility. Besides, the numbers all feel arbitrary anyway: defined only by the relations created as my pen moves across the page. Line relates to line, number to crossed out scratches. It makes sense in the moment, but when I look back, it can hardly be deciphered. The above probably explains why I didn’t go into the sciences: precision is beyond me. But I never saw numbers as facts.

I have the most trouble when dealing with cold hard rules. Lines and angles. Parameters and squares. Circumference and angles. Velocity and density. There’s no room for approximation or substitution here. I enjoy equations and fractions that require flipping, erasing, substituting, moving – forming a mental and literal dance as it moves down the page. Of course, lines and angles require equations too, but it’s all too concrete for me.

I miss the old days when I had to turn in a proof. Then, at least, I was forced to be logical, to follow step after step. To trace every shift, every line, every substitution, ever addition, every side multiplication. To get it right. For now, I still have a ways to go. My left brain hasn’t had to work this hard in years.

Desmond Tutu banned from American University

funny and sad

"I'm an evangelical with a capital E. I hesitate to make such a confession, for I am painfully aware of the baggage the label carries. Without wanting to blame Americans for all the problems of the world, it is, well, largely their fault."Joel Edwards, president of the Evangelical Alliance U.K.(Source: The Times)