Here’s a meme.
What was the #1 U.S. Pop Song Hit on…
The Day You Were Born:
"Can’t Buy Me Love" by The Beatles
The Day You Were Married:
"My All" by Mariah Carey
The Day or Days Your Child/Children Were Born:
"Maria Maria" by Santana featuring The Product G&B
Do as many as you like – maybe you can think of other significant days…
Blog it and leave a comment!
(tip of the hat to Troy)
Jean Baudrillard, one of my all-time fave thinkers, has written a short piece on the torched cars and ransacked schools of France. "The Pyres of Autumn" argues that these events (among other things) call attention to the actual lack of a meanful social culture. He describes the ideological bankruptcy of the West as a "banalized, technized, upholstered way of life, carefully shielded from self-questioning." What does national belonging really mean, and how does one have a sense of it today?
All the excluded, the disaffiliated, whether from the banlieues, immigrants or ‘native-born’, at one point or another turn their disaffiliation into defiance and go onto the offensive. It is their only way to stop being humiliated, discarded or taken in hand. In the wake of the November fires, mainstream political sociology spoke of integration, employment, security. I am not so sure that the rioters want to be reintegrated on these lines. Perhaps they consider the French way of life with the same condescension or indifference with which it views theirs. Perhaps they prefer to see cars burning than to dream of one day driving them. Perhaps their reaction to an over-calculated solicitude would instinctively be the same as to exclusion and repression.
The superiority of Western culture is sustained only by the desire of the rest of the world to join it. When there is the least sign of refusal, the slightest ebbing of that desire, the West loses its seductive appeal in its own eyes. Today it is precisely the ‘best’ it has to offer — cars, schools, shopping centres — that are torched and ransacked. Even nursery schools: the very tools through which the car-burners were to be integrated and mothered. ‘Screw your mother’ might be their organizing slogan. And the more there are attempts to ‘mother’ them, the more they will. Of course, nothing will prevent our enlightened politicians and intellectuals from considering the autumn riots as minor incidents on the road to a democratic reconciliation of all cultures. Everything indicates that on the contrary, they are successive phases of a revolt whose end is not in sight.
It might be time for a cultural revolution. The counter-cultural revolution didn’t adhere – money beat love.
I see the horrible resurgence of the non-compassionate, non-christian Christian right as another symptom of this. The riots on the cartoons take hold for similar reasons. The need to hold onto the familiar, no matter how cruel, is a last-gasp measure. Does anyone really believe in rule by mob? Myself, I do not believe that Allah, Jehovah, or being-who-cannot-be-named would approve in the slightest.
I hope there is an alternative to all of this greed and hatred. I hope that we discover it (again?) soon.
Welcome to the 7th Carnival of Progressive Faith Bloggers! Join us if you would like to participate in future carnivals. Your host next week is Pearlbear’s Blog. Contact Michelle directly with a "Carnival Post" email or submit your blog link and description to ProgFaithCarnival – at – Yahoo.com with "Carnival Link" in the title.
I was planning on making this more of a narrative post, but the topics this week were very wide-ranging. The round-up is more concise than descriptive. I encourage you to go read the posts. Please feel free to comment with additional post links. Without further ado, then:
Baraka at Truth and Beauty questions whether revulsion is the best response with a witty, sweet defense of piglets and love hounds. Sometimes even the lowliest of animals can hold the key to Heaven or an explanation of our connection to God.
Eternal Peace outlines a two-tiered Tonglen meditative practice in which one breathes in the pain of others and breathes out a sending of relief and joy – but it’s the second level of the practice that got my attention.
Connecting with the voice of the infinite in our lives is pondered – with the aid Paul Tillich – at Even the Devils Believe (see also the top ten list of ikons for theologians).
Daniel at Radical Torah is also thinking about the singular Voice which arises in each individual – in a post on the radical, yet grounded, subjectivity of Judaism.
On grounding (in relation to rock/stone in particular), see an interesting instruction on alter construction from the book of Exodus, and take a look at photographs of the patient stones of Glendalough at Hoarded Ordinaries.
Think Buddha considers a challenging question of the relative ease or difficulty of ethics in a Western context.
Planet Grenada muses on Sunni-Shia tensions and hopes during Muharram (the first month of the Islamic lunar calendar), and Another Country interprets Lent as a time to establish new habits for spiritual growth.
Radical Hapa considers race in the context of the delusion of national innocence, and No More Apples expands on what it would mean to have "more of those apples" now that innocence is gone.
Semitism.net reports on Prime Minister Olmert’s annexation of the Jordan Valley, and comments on its injustice.
Richard at Tikun Olam comments on a recent political statement that compared stem cell research to the Holocaust, Nazi torture science, and slavery.
Xpatriated Texan considers heating costs and the politics of Citgo oil from Venezuela. At Blue Texas, he posts on the "Kinky" stalking horse hypothesis, and at the Progressive Populist he proposes the interresponsibility of ourselves with one another as the foundation of progressive values. Tammany on the Hudsom notes the low level of ethical understanding exhibited by pleading ignorance to an obvious conflict of interest.
LA Mom points out that the Bush administration can’t have it both ways for UN inspectors at Guantanamo.
Mainstream Baptist reports on proposed Oklahoma state legislation for state distribution of funding to faith-based organizations, despite strong prohibitions in its constitution.
At Cross Left Jo posts ten things that technology can help coordinate between progressive organizations, and ScottPaeth reflects on lessons from Bonhoeffer.
The Corner posts on subverting hierarchies and exploring the interpretational acts of a network nodal mode of power, and Pearlbear’s Blog connects the dots for a new conspiracy theory of entertainment media control and command technology.
Father Jake Stops the World takes a look at spiritual shifts and financial questions at the Episcopal Diocese of Albany.
Boy in the Bands wonders about the terms under which a new church might be welcomed under the Universalist Unitarian umbrella.
Velveteen Rabbi responds to the New Reform Response to intermarriage by questioning whether welcoming conversions of non-Jewish spouses may evolve into pressure and an expectation of eventual identity shift – thus undermining community acceptance and respect of interfaith couples as they are.
At the Feminary, Episcopalian Stasi is rebuffed by an Anglican kissin’ cousin, but welcomed by rabbis.
In a post that (unfortunately) resonates with my own experience, Reverend Mommy narrates a humerous, humbling moment of self-realization in the classroom.
And last, Grateful Bear quotes the Sufi mystic Ibn al-Arabi. I am particularly fond of this:
My heart has become capable of every form:
It is a pasture for gazelles,
And a monastery for Christian monks,
And a temple for idols,
And the Ka’aba of the pilgrims,
And the tablets of the Torah,
And the book of the Koran.
I follow the religion of Love:
Whatever path Love’s camel takes,
That is my religion and my faith.
…
Weekly Unconscious Mutterings Meme Week 159
I say:: you think
…
Weekly Unconscious Mutterings Meme Week 158
I say:: you think
"Hold On" – Sara McLaughlin
Hold on
Hold on to yourself
for this is gonna hurt like hell
Hold on
Hold on to yourself
you know that only time will tell
Come see this week’s Progressive Faith Bloggers Carnival at Truth and Beauty. There are some amazing reads, and the host’s own post is a breath of fresh air.
I’ll be hosting next week- join us if you’d like to participate. Send me those links at heidi (at) virushead (dot) net.
