My inaugural post will be about an entirely different subject to what I'd intially planned, as well. Thanks for breaking the seal on that one, Gil.
I'm a former journalism major who has found himself growing more bitter and frustrated as time passes with the current state of the journalistic trade and its place in American culture. Yet, try as I might, I can't resist keeping up on it on a daily basis. Typically, I pick my poison/propaganda carefully. However, today I went to one of the most egregious purveyors of sensationalistic News-As-Entertainment and found this:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/03/31/zachry.ct.no.touching.WFSB
In short, East Shore Middle School in Connecticut has banned physical contact of every sort - for any reason - because two children were fighting and one injured the other right where it counts.
The parents in this video are protesting because the rule is an overreaction to the not-uncommon occurrence of two kids getting into a fight. They pointed out that it's unrealistic to expect their children to restrict their movements and expressions as the new rule calls for. However, I fear that the parents interviewed might be missing the most insidious of the problems with this decision.
Schools have policies against fighting, and I'm sure East Shore Middle School is no different. So why not respond to the individual behavior with the appropriate measures for that situation? Why resurrect Draco and unleash his pedantry on the innocent?
We're talking about kids between the ages of 11 and 14. The entire reason they're at school is because they lack the knowledge and experience to get along independently and successfully in the adult world. The school is our present culture's primary model of providing that knowledge and experience to our children (and becoming more so as holistic parenting skills die out with agrarian, extended family lifestyles). So what these institutions expect of our children should be important to us.
Kids will lose their tempers. They'll fight. They may even hurt each other, physically or emotionally. Every human has the capacity for this. It's part of being human. And regardless of the core reason the school is going to such measures, they are - instead of grasping the opportunity that the fight-in-question provided to teach kids about appropriate touch, respect for others, the need for order, and the regulation of the temper - teaching their students that perfectly natural and legitimate freedoms should be taken from everyone when someone makes a mess in their abuse of those freedoms.
The laws against cell phone use while driving and toenail clippers on 737s, and the laws making motorcycle helmets and lead testing for every single thrift store toy compulsory are smaller examples in our adult world. But it appears that we're passing this problem along in greater doses to our children, if East Shore Middle School is any indication.
We are creating for ourselves a Whiffle Life (thank you P.J. O'Rourke) culture, wherein we must make it illegal to be hurt or made sick or grieved or uncomfortable or inconvenienced by or fail at anything. It's happening.
How far will we go, quixotically insulating ourselves and everyone else from the consequences of our own flaws and everyone else's? How fast will the ever-improving conveniences of our age carry us there? And what will be left of us when we've done so until we can't be bothered with the efforts involved in that pursuit any longer?
If the word dehumanizing has a better definition, I do not know it. East Shore Middle School is certainly well on its way.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Freedom of Speech or Fæder úre
I had told my fellow collaborators that I planned to inaugurate my contribution to this blog with a discussion about Forbes Magazine, the Mexican drug war, and the shifting place of the billionaire in the American conscious. Forget that. Rather, with this first post, lets completely invalidate the whole basis for this blog thing. Nice idea, guys, but I am calling the thought police on you and taking your stuff.
In all seriousness, I have often wondered where we get the idea that free speech is a right. Of course, for us Americans, we have a legal permission for such a thing. I suspect that free speech has also become an assumed part of most western cultures, as well – the difference between them being how they define “free” and “speech.” In fact, the American understanding of free speech is different today than in our parents’ time, and certainly different than during the various times when our congress has imposed anti-sedition laws.
My problem with free speech begins with the fact that I have no idea what it is. I know that I am permitted to say just about anything that I want, but I don’t want to do that. I may want to tell you, gentle reader, where you should spend your afterlife, but I really don’t want to do that. The simple fact of conflicting desires restrains me. I am permitted, but I am not free, and I do not want to be free.
Last year, on Pascha(1) morning, I walked into church a little bit early. My priest and his daughter(2) giggled airily from the choir’s apse as they practiced the day’s songs presto. As I approached them, my priest asked me whether I had a copy of today’s gospel reading in Old English. We had been up until about 3:30am that morning, after having celebrated our Paschal liturgy and then concluded our Lenten fast with an amazing lamb shank dinner. We all arrived a bit punchy the next day for Agape Vespers (3), so I thought my priest had been kidding around. I wasn’t sure anything like that even existed (4).
I decided to learn Old English several years ago, and I am still working on the pursuit. Having nobody to teach me, and being something of an infant upon this stage of fools, I turned to the Internet for help. I had hoped to find something familiar to me in Modern English that had also been rendered in Old English. Beowulf being a bit too long, I came across The Lord’s Prayer:
Fæder úre, ðú ðe eart on heofonum,
Sí ðín nama gehálgod.
Tó becume ðín rice.
Gewurde ðín willa
On eorþan swá swá on heofonum.
Urne dægwhamlícan hlaf syle ús tódæg.
And forgyf ús úre gyltas,
Swá swá wé forgyfaþ úrum gyltendum.
And ne gelæd ðu ús on costnunge,
Ac álýs ús of yfele. Sóþlice.
The version that I found at the time included an audio recording. It may not look like English, but it reads like English, or at least reads in a way that struck me as hauntingly familiar.
I could not have anticipated how this prayer would strike me. Once the recording stopped, I realized that my ancestors had recited this very prayer a thousand years ago, and longer. Until I was an adult, though I knew this prayer, it was not a part of my prayers. Now it had become a central figure, and now I had something to share with my forebears. My family was no longer just the relatives that I knew in my lifetime, but also all those people who shared this prayer with me all the way back to the first convert among my ancestors, whoever he or she may be. Our Father. Give us our daily bread. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The connection in faith provided by language stuns me.
Freedom of speech is meaningful to me when speech is needed, with or without permission. Whatever laws or restrictions impose privation on free speech are nothing compared to the freedom provided by a long tradition of people who can say, “our Father” in any language.
(1)The globally more common word for Easter
(2)Orthodox priests, unlike Roman Catholic priests, may be married and have children
(3)Agape Vespers is often observed during the early afternoon following the Paschal liturgy. No communion is offered at this service, thus making it atypical for a Sunday. It is also significantly briefer than an average Sunday liturgy. Also, and importantly for this story, the laity are invited to read the gospel reading in as many languages as the members of the church can provide. Thus, at our church, we may read it eight or nine times. The gospel reading appointed for the day is John 20:19-25.
(4)I have since found a copy.
In all seriousness, I have often wondered where we get the idea that free speech is a right. Of course, for us Americans, we have a legal permission for such a thing. I suspect that free speech has also become an assumed part of most western cultures, as well – the difference between them being how they define “free” and “speech.” In fact, the American understanding of free speech is different today than in our parents’ time, and certainly different than during the various times when our congress has imposed anti-sedition laws.
My problem with free speech begins with the fact that I have no idea what it is. I know that I am permitted to say just about anything that I want, but I don’t want to do that. I may want to tell you, gentle reader, where you should spend your afterlife, but I really don’t want to do that. The simple fact of conflicting desires restrains me. I am permitted, but I am not free, and I do not want to be free.
Last year, on Pascha(1) morning, I walked into church a little bit early. My priest and his daughter(2) giggled airily from the choir’s apse as they practiced the day’s songs presto. As I approached them, my priest asked me whether I had a copy of today’s gospel reading in Old English. We had been up until about 3:30am that morning, after having celebrated our Paschal liturgy and then concluded our Lenten fast with an amazing lamb shank dinner. We all arrived a bit punchy the next day for Agape Vespers (3), so I thought my priest had been kidding around. I wasn’t sure anything like that even existed (4).
I decided to learn Old English several years ago, and I am still working on the pursuit. Having nobody to teach me, and being something of an infant upon this stage of fools, I turned to the Internet for help. I had hoped to find something familiar to me in Modern English that had also been rendered in Old English. Beowulf being a bit too long, I came across The Lord’s Prayer:
Fæder úre, ðú ðe eart on heofonum,
Sí ðín nama gehálgod.
Tó becume ðín rice.
Gewurde ðín willa
On eorþan swá swá on heofonum.
Urne dægwhamlícan hlaf syle ús tódæg.
And forgyf ús úre gyltas,
Swá swá wé forgyfaþ úrum gyltendum.
And ne gelæd ðu ús on costnunge,
Ac álýs ús of yfele. Sóþlice.
The version that I found at the time included an audio recording. It may not look like English, but it reads like English, or at least reads in a way that struck me as hauntingly familiar.
I could not have anticipated how this prayer would strike me. Once the recording stopped, I realized that my ancestors had recited this very prayer a thousand years ago, and longer. Until I was an adult, though I knew this prayer, it was not a part of my prayers. Now it had become a central figure, and now I had something to share with my forebears. My family was no longer just the relatives that I knew in my lifetime, but also all those people who shared this prayer with me all the way back to the first convert among my ancestors, whoever he or she may be. Our Father. Give us our daily bread. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The connection in faith provided by language stuns me.
Freedom of speech is meaningful to me when speech is needed, with or without permission. Whatever laws or restrictions impose privation on free speech are nothing compared to the freedom provided by a long tradition of people who can say, “our Father” in any language.
(1)The globally more common word for Easter
(2)Orthodox priests, unlike Roman Catholic priests, may be married and have children
(3)Agape Vespers is often observed during the early afternoon following the Paschal liturgy. No communion is offered at this service, thus making it atypical for a Sunday. It is also significantly briefer than an average Sunday liturgy. Also, and importantly for this story, the laity are invited to read the gospel reading in as many languages as the members of the church can provide. Thus, at our church, we may read it eight or nine times. The gospel reading appointed for the day is John 20:19-25.
(4)I have since found a copy.
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