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Labs & |
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Final |
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| Test ID |
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Hmwks |
Paper |
Grade |
|
| Numbers: |
Exam #1 |
Exam #2 |
Exam #3 |
Exam #4 |
grade |
grade |
w/ E. C. |
|
| 141 |
88 |
80 |
68 |
85 |
82 |
80% |
82% |
B |
| 06218 |
88 |
69 |
76 |
59 |
86 |
98% |
83% |
B |
| 07275 |
78 |
60 |
86 |
0 |
69 |
25% |
57% |
F |
| 07318 |
66 |
64 |
72 |
74 |
77 |
93% |
77% |
C |
| 11987 |
90 |
97 |
76 |
77 |
97 |
100% |
92% |
A |
| 12310 |
94 |
77 |
86 |
80 |
94 |
93% |
90% |
A |
| 12321 |
84 |
64 |
42 |
0 |
38 |
25% |
39% |
F |
| 12584 |
96 |
97 |
94 |
97 |
97 |
100% |
97% |
A |
| 13337 |
84 |
79 |
70 |
64 |
76 |
70% |
74% |
C |
| 15543 |
90 |
82 |
82 |
70 |
87 |
93% |
85% |
B |
| 28337 |
58 |
76 |
82 |
87 |
86 |
80% |
*79% |
B |
| 31082 |
74 |
92 |
86 |
87 |
92 |
98% |
90% |
A |
| 31398 |
82 |
67 |
68 |
0 |
57 |
20% |
46% |
F |
| 32485 |
89 |
94 |
90 |
87 |
89 |
95% |
91% |
A |
| 39377 |
88 |
77 |
76 |
65 |
85 |
98% |
84% |
B |
| 44252 |
90 |
69 |
82 |
76 |
83 |
88% |
82% |
B |
| 51105 |
90 |
90 |
82 |
86 |
89 |
90% |
*89% |
A |
| 52583 |
84 |
72 |
78 |
74 |
87 |
70% |
81% |
B |
| ME!!!63581 |
100 |
85 |
86 |
86 |
100 |
100% |
98% |
A |
|
68562 |
88 |
93 |
84 |
93 |
93 |
90% |
90% |
A |
| 72717 |
78 |
82 |
70 |
70 |
81 |
80% |
*79% |
B |
| 76056 |
62 |
67 |
82 |
68 |
84 |
90% |
*79% |
B |
| 81907 |
78 |
92 |
80 |
73 |
92 |
83% |
84% |
B |
| 91978 |
88 |
69 |
70 |
66 |
69 |
88% |
76% |
C |
| 92040 |
68 |
71 |
74 |
40 |
78 |
25% |
64% |
D |
| 92115 |
98 |
90 |
78 |
84 |
90 |
90% |
93% |
A |
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* All of these were bumped up 1 point to next letter grade - yeah!
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From those who continued the class: |
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| 9 - As |
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| 10 - Bs |
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| 3 - Cs |
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1 - D (didn't do paper!) |
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| 3 - Fs (people who stopped attended but didn't drop) |
this is my psychology class grading! i received an A...i m the top one !!! yeah!!! | | |
| Observations on how Vowell writes, what techniques does she uses? How does she show us the similarities while explaining the differences between herself and her father?
Vowell has a portrait of a father-daughter relationship. She uses her own voice to describe the overall mood in this essay. She uses irony throughout her essay, which is “a technique in which words express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning. In effect, irony highlights a deliberate contrast between a writer’s apparent and intended meaning” (236). Vowel and her father have different political affiliations, but they also agree on the Constitution. She has a gunsmith father. She uses all her experiences on shooting between her father and herself. While she was explaining the differences between herself and her father, she shows us the similarities on shooting the cannon and taking a photo of fireworks. They are also using the same category that both need practice to do very well at them. “One thing that my dad and I share is that we’re both a little hard of hearing – me from Aerosmith, him from gunsmith.” (234) because they also love noise. Vowell loves music to be very loud while her father loves the noise from the cannon and the sounds from the gun when it shots. She uses a lot of irony in the essay. “Dad shoots the cannon again so that they can see how it works. The other hiker says, ‘That’s quite the machine you got there.’ But he isn’t talking about the cannon. He’s talking about my tape recorder and my microphone – which is called a shotgun mike” (234) which said when the hiker said about the shoot, that is not about shooting cannon, that is talking about the machine that Vowell were using for shooting the record. They like shooting, Vowell uses the shotgun mike to shoot her tape recorder and her microphone, and her father uses the gun to shoot the cannon. There are the similarities about the shooting and their spirit while using the differences of the action that they do for comparison. | | |
| mag
http://www.fredericks.com/images/4/42742_69_thm_a_4600.jpg
<img src="http://www.fredericks.com/images/4/42742_69_thm_a_4600.jpg">
this is what i want
so check it out??
um...i m going to post some of the photos of me, so you can see it and let grandma to see it too =)
<img src=" http://photobucket.com/albums/y9/joanyirachel/th_767a9b4d.jpg"> <img src="http://photobucket.com/albums/y9/joanyirachel/th_j2.jpg"> <img src="http://photobucket.com/albums/y9/joanyirachel/th_meja.jpg"> <img src="http://photobucket.com/albums/y9/joanyirachel/th_DSC02663.jpg"> <img src="http://photobucket.com/albums/y9/joanyirachel/th_meverl2_edited.jpg"> <img src="http://photobucket.com/albums/y9/joanyirachel/th_Anza-Borrego5.jpg"> <img src="http://photobucket.com/albums/y9/joanyirachel/th_2005abBusTrip.gif"> <img src=" http://photobucket.com/albums/y9/joanyirachel/th_Anza-Borrego2.jpg"> <img src="http://photobucket.com/albums/y9/joanyirachel/th_newyearpic.bmp"> <img src="http://photobucket.com/albums/y9/joanyirachel/th_1.jpg"> <img src="http://photobucket.com/albums/y9/joanyirachel/cats/th_be.bmp"> <img src="http://photobucket.com/albums/y9/joanyirachel/cats/th_cat.jpg"> <img src="http://photobucket.com/albums/b148/lingbowman/th_PICT0049.jpg"> <img src="http://photobucket.com/albums/b148/lingbowman/th_PICT0019.jpg">
so tell me if you see it ok?
ling | | |
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Spring 2005 TextbookX.com Scholarship Question:
How has the technology of the past 20 years affected the relationship between the individual and society?
WINNER Erica Young, Boston College
Influential Book: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith ISBN: 0679424733
Over the past 20 years, technology has borne great advances upon society. Some of the most notable of these advances have been in the fields of industry, medicine, computers, and the environment. Some of the positive externalities of these technological advances include an augmentation in efficiency, in the quality and duration of human life, and in all of the benefits that stem from a society with increasingly free-flowing information. Essentially, by enhancing human life, efficiency, and open information, the effects of technology have infiltrated global politics and policy with an understanding that what is in the best interest of the individual is in the best interest for the society.
The efficiency gains of technology benefit states’ economies while simultaneously emphasizing the importance of the individual’s opportunity, thus increasing the importance of individual incentives. The result has been an often ground-breaking phenomenon, where it has become increasing evident that what is best for the individual is in fact best for the society. This conception has led to the breakdown of communism and the creation of regional and bi-lateral trade agreements, all seeking to enhance states’ economies through the proliferation of individuals’ rights and incentives. This proliferation has led to an increased emphasis on the humanities.
Because social turmoil only hinders national progress, societies have realized that there must be an end to discrimination, and they have consequently taken steps toward the implementation of guaranteed equal rights. It is now accepted that in order to maximize the gains from technology, societies must maximize the conditions and environment of the individuals within the society. This has initiated the breakdown of the caste system in India, the introduction of democracy to Eastern Europe, and the end to occupational discrimination in the United States.
In addition to its success in the humanities, technology has led to significant environmental improvements. An outcome of the “meshing” of individuals’ and society’s interests has been the development of an accountable society that puts much emphasis on the creation of policies that cater to individuals’ well-being. This concept is proven through the increase in the government’s tendency to limit pollution through command-and-control, taxes, subsidies, permit programs, and other incentive-based strategies. At the same time, firms’ technological advances have allowed them to reduce their marginal pollution abatement curves, which has led to a decrease in the “efficient” level of pollution emissions into society. Thus, technology has provided for a way that firms’ and private interests coincide with those of society and the individual.
The technology of the past 20 years has proven Adam Smith’s theory of the “invisible hand,” as presented in The Wealth of Nations almost 200 years ago: When individuals are provided with free-market economic incentives, they will maximize their own welfare, which will in turn lead to the maximization of society’s welfare. Recent technological progress has made society open its eyes to this realization by presenting first-hand the social benefits of information, individual incentives, and increased social progress. The result has been the implementation of environmental and social policies that reflect the idea that what is best for the individual is also best for the society. Technology has thus led to an enhanced relationship between society and the individual, where policy objectives are catered to the latter, with the end-result of benefiting the former as well.
RUNNER UP Sebastian Kurian, University of Pennsylvania
Influential Book: Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam ISBN: 0743203046
Over the past 20 years we have seen tremendous change in technology. With changes in production techniques and costs, computers and cell phones have become so popular we forget what life was like before them. Households no longer watch network television to get caught up on what is happening in politics or the world, but rather turn to the Internet and the dozens of cable television networks. Today more information is made more readily available to us through more resources than ever before. All this change leads to an important question: What impact does this technology have on our society?
In his much-discussed and debated work Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert Putnam argues that changes in society have led to a decrease in social capital in the United States. He defines social capital as the connections individuals have with one another. While he places the blame for this collapse of social capital on many factors, two factors are of particular interest: television and the Internet. Television, particularly cable television, and the Internet have taken on a much greater role in our society over the past twenty years. Putnam believes that individuals who spend more time watching television spend less time on activities that create social bonds. With the rise of the Internet people now communicate more via instant messenger and email rather than face-to-face and by other traditional modes of communication. His statistics have shown that these and many other factors have led to a decline in individuals’ participation in the civic arena. Yet has cable television and the Internet really adversely affected the relationship between the individual and society to such great extent?
Unlike Robert Putnam, I would argue that technology has actually helped strengthen the relationship between the individual and society. The recent tsunami tragedy illustrates this point. With the presence of cable television millions of Americans saw footage and heard heartbreaking stories of the deadly waves that struck countries in the Indian Ocean. Former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton pleaded for donations on almost every cable channel. With cable television’s 24/7 coverage, the event was made more visible and Americans felt more in touch with those who were suffering. Internet websites made making donations to the victims a simple click away. In fact, private donations in the United States have gone well above $1 billion to date. Technology has brought tragedies and sufferings around the world closer to home and has led Americans to become more aware of what is happening in society.
Technology has also reshaped the very civic arena that Putnam argues has been hurt by its rise. The 2004 election was hotly contested, and voter turnout was very high by U.S. standards. This rise in voter turnout can in part be attributed to technology. The Internet allowed groups like MoveOn.Org to coax more and more Americans into donating money to political causes. Both the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee relied heavily on email to mobilize their voters and volunteers. Blogs entered the English lexicon as average Americans had the opportunity to share their political views and engage in meaningful debate. The Internet has fundamentally changed the way the American electoral system functions and perhaps it can be the key to resurrecting civic engagement and creating a more democratic society.
People may blame cable television for the decline in attention spans or the Internet for a lack of interest in writing actual letters. However, the fact remains that these technological mediums have brought individuals more in tune with society, and it is said that knowledge is power. Through the technologies of the past few decades, individuals have access to more knowledge than ever before, and that knowledge will give them the power to change society both here in America and around the world.
RUNNER UP Michael Wasserman, Columbia University
Influential Book: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs ISBN: 067974195X
Jane Jacobs analyzes the societal influence of various environments as part of her essay compilation, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Since this work was published in 1961, human ingenuity has devised a highly versatile medium of communication known as the Internet, which continuously influences the roles between the individual and society. Some real-time interactive environments of the Internet can be studied in Jacobs’ fashion to pin down their true effects on society as it exists in the digital realm.
Jacobs notes that properly-constructed communities have characteristic public spaces that provide a “sidewalk life.” An example is the typical city street filled with residential property and local businesses, where people perform their trivial daily tasks amidst strangers and acquaintances. The long-term experience in such surroundings is highly significant, as “the sum of such casual public contact at a local level… is a feeling for the public identity of people, a web of public respect and trust, and a resource in time of personal or neighborhood need.” According to Jacobs, this positive setting inevitably facilitates each resident to lead a vibrant private life, retain a comfortable public presence, and share in a communal sense of respectful decency.
Ingredients of this ‘public life’ can be found in several types of online communities. Excellent examples are the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) communities and its parallels such as Direct Connect, where millions of people use a text-based interface to connect to servers located around the globe, each of which varies in user capacity and traffic. The critical parallel to be drawn here is that these lines of communication, like city streets and their local enterprises, are open to anyone. Consequently, strangers and all types of familiars gather with no constraints on their amount of interaction. Each user is free to conduct their activities without a responsibility to speak upon personal terms, but with the simultaneous abilities to take part in the public chat or even engage in one-on-one exchanges with others. A similar example community is the world of online gaming, where players throughout the globe can compete and partake in recreation without any extensive responsibility to one another. One noticeable feature of these arenas is that users are not committed to divulge information to their peers. Hence people aren’t prone to judge others by appearance, race, religion, nationality, or any other trait, unless they are deliberately given due reason by another user. This is an idealization of what Jacobs considers a good community, which balances its individuals’ privacy and their simultaneous desire for “differing degrees of contact, enjoyment, or help from the people around.”
Jacobs looks beyond ideal communities and notes that in unsafe urban projects, people never develop the universal trust critical to public life; furthermore, planned suburban residential communities tend to formalize any instances of public life. She argues that such areas fail to promote the natural social development of its inhabitants, as there is no open forum for comfortably conducting the daily affairs of a public life.
These flawed communities are paralleled by those that exist within the World Wide Web. Here, many websites require individuals to register vital information to take part in rather limited environments. These communities also often fail to support open public communication between the users. Furthermore, trust amongst organizations and individuals on the Web has significantly diminished as devious organizations barrage users with advertisements, adware and spyware, and even sell their information to other equally horrendous establishments. Malevolent users spread viruses and spam, and Internet-based chat rooms have repeatedly been called out on the menacing nature of their users. Jacobs explains that families establish barriers for self-protection in such environments, and this is similarly the case with users on the Internet. Most users cower from interaction as they explore the Web, afraid of committing themselves to potentially dangerous or simply overbearing active participation. FTP communities and their counterparts provide strikingly similar environments.
Overall, the many varied realms of the Internet reflect those exhibited in reality, although properly constructed software can seemingly yield far more idealistic results than any neighborhood block. Without immediate physical presence, individuals are freer to publicly exhibit themselves within a community exactly as they see fit.
Fall 2004 TextbookX.com Scholarship Question:
What role, if any, do the media play in shaping American political opinion?
WINNER Stefan Kirk, Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis
Influential Book: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken ISBN: 0452285216
The current debate between both liberal and conservative pundits revolves around the media’s perceived bias toward either party’s agenda. Al Franken’s book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right highlights the argument and provides a rebutting opinion to the political Right’s argument that the American media are biased toward a liberal ideology. However, neither party truly seems to understand what the media machine’s real difficulty has become and therefore suffers a bias mostly promoted by self-interest or self-fulfilling prophecies. While fringe media outlets may use intentionally biased reporting, the mainstream media seem to suffer from a different malaise. Little by little the mainstream media have created a system of reporting which favors shock over substance. While the bias of the media’s coverage may be a question of the chicken and the egg, the beginning of a bias matters very little as it is the result which is destructive. Bias in media reporting fuels a political climate where the voting public increasingly turns to sources which confirm their pre-existing views and creates a spiral of inaccuracy and uninformed political dialogue.
Increasingly dependant upon advertising dollars, the media have favored stories which may have little substance, or are patently biased but draw big audiences. This fuels debates over a single point of a particular topic, but may overlook the origins of the problems, the actions which produced the debate, or the history of the competing interests. If the American public is only given a brief overview of either the history or the competing interests for any problem, the public develops a myopic view of the event. This becomes a significant problem when people discount factual evidence which is counter to their current beliefs or knowledge (as is the common tendency), and demand more of the news or knowledge which fulfills their pre-existing beliefs. This is the spiral of inaccuracy which results from the public demand and an attempt to meet the demand in order to generate profit. The resulting news coverage is inaccurate and results in a world view that may be inaccurate.
As a recent example, during coverage before the Iraq war, the mainstream media covered much of the Bush Administration’s attempts to convince the world that military action was necessary. By highlighting the weapons of mass destruction argument and in many cases adopting the phraseology of the administration in an effort to provide coverage which would draw a majority of viewers, the American public was given a pro-war message by the media whether or not such a message was intended. Counter to the pro-war argument were many sources in both the world body and academia who openly questioned the outcome and the basis of the war, but media coverage of these competing ideas was rarely introduced, and was routinely ignored. By favoring coverage which the American public preferred, the media helped ensure that the normal bias for favoring self-confirming information overcame what little objections were reported. The result formed an inaccurate view of the Iraq situation which was later proven to be false and continues to be of great political and societal consequence.
Additional examples are prevalent everywhere as Americans turn more and more to specific news outlets for information which support their ideological or political ideas. Instead of striving for a journalism standard of unbiased reporting, many media sources have attempted to gain market share by promoting and reporting information in a biased manner. This is both economically beneficial to the media interests which follow such a path and currently popular with much of the American public; again, a cycle which is self-perpetuating. As a result, by controlling what information is available to the American public, the media control the American political climate. While the influence of which entity is responsible for spiral of inaccuracy may be debatable, the results are not in doubt, as media focus continues to drive much of the current political debate.
RUNNER UP Jason Fulmore, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Influential Book: A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn ISBN: 0060528370
In an interview earlier this year with NBC’s Tim Russert, President George W. Bush pointedly reminded Americans that he is a “war president.” In fact, he used the phrase “war on terror” 14 times. And it’s no wonder, because politicians have become quite adept at using the national media to frame political events to their advantage. Some critics argue that the media are just helpless pawns, stuck in commercial machinery that discourages the investigative spirit of Woodward and Bernstein. Other, more cynical observers assert that media outlets are abusing their freedom of speech and history of objective storytelling to craft messages aimed at swaying voters to one political persuasion or another. I believe the truth lies somewhere in the murky middle. What is clear, though, is the media play a very influential role in shaping American political opinion.
I am reminded of one of my favorite books - Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Zinn makes the case that much of what young people are taught about our history is removed, if not absent from, the truth of these events. Take, for instance, one history book currently approved for use in Georgia high schools. It skips from American colonization to Reconstruction with scant reference to slavery. History, it seems, is subject to interpretation and the interpretation usually comes from the victor – or at least the majority rulers.
In the same way that this textbook shapes young students’ minds about their “history,” the media shape Americans’ opinions about political issues. Studies show that most voters get the bulk of their information from one or two sources. For younger voters, that source is increasingly the entertainment media – i.e. Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central – a fact decried by many observers, including Stewart. Even older and presumably more sophisticated consumers of political coverage are challenged by choices as divergent as FOX News and Air America. Compare the presidential campaign coverage on these two networks and one might assume they’re covering completely different events.
I would assert, though, that this is not necessarily a bad thing. In the pre-cable, pre-Internet days of three major television networks, voters had a limited choice of sources for information about their political candidates and issues. But cable and the Internet are increasingly democratizing the media, giving voice to divergent views that might have been hushed before. It is true that large radio and televisions networks still command the resources to be a major force in shaping public opinion; but it is also true that the near abandonment of quality local news coverage handicaps voters seeking to form opinions about local political issues. Still, in much the same way that Zinn turns American history on its head, new media have opened a door to greater understanding of the political process. It’s there for the taking and, as with any democracy, it requires a certain level of personal responsibility.
RUNNER UP Claudia Leung, Macalester College
Influential Book: The Problem of the Media by Robert W. McChesney ISBN: 1583671056
The First Amendment has been debated in the legal and media production systems throughout American history. In the media today, the debates over the intention and interpretation of the free press clause are especially prevalent, as progressives claim that the quality of journalism erodes as it attempts to appeal to larger and larger audiences by claiming to be objective. The role of the media in America has regressed from a highly politicized, diverse informative system in the 1700’s to the provider of an abundance of useless "infotainment" today. Robert W. McChesney in The Problem of the Media links this change to the shift from a progressive interpretation of the First Amendment's press clause to a commercialist one, and shows that the most democratic approach to the production and distribution of political information lies in the hands of the American public.
The free press clause of the First Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." In the commercialist interpretation, leaders of the corporate media are left to form the structure and content of the news based on only one source of input: the demands of consumers. This is not sufficient to produce viewpoints in the media that accurately reflect the full range of public political opinion since the market sees its consumers as "moronic citizens who demand such fare and reward those who provide it." This cycle is arguably exacerbated by the media's tendency to promote poor quality material.
Although education has the potential to cultivate the intellect of the next generation, many of the proponents of the commercial interpretation are opposed to the improvement of the education system. This antagonism towards the development of public interest in quality media demonstrates the presence of corporate hegemony over the production of media. Commercial media advocates might argue against this claim, reasoning that government is just as unfit a determinant of media production as is the free market. Although the press system was once benefited by government support through subsidies, the overarching politics of the incumbent administration have the potential to shut differing opinions out.
This sets up a basis for understanding the progressive interpretation of the free press clause in the First Amendment, and for the argument for the implementation of a third agent of media production, separate from the government and corporate media. As McChesney states, "According to the progressive perspective… the right to a free press is a social right to a diverse and effective press system enjoyed by all Americans." This can be accomplished through two steps. The first is sheer pluralism of perspectives in the press. The other would be for individual presses to openly announce their political position within the spectrum, so that the diversity of opinion is clear to the public. The first press "was highly partisan and integrally linked to the political process," and editors were treated as the political figures they were, so that politically-minded literate Americans were aware of the agendas behind every piece of news they ingested.
However, such blatant admission of partiality and openness to new perspectives is not conducive to the way that a partisan government or commercial media would like to exert its influence. By retaining the façade that the media are not biased, and that the government and commercial media have no relation, the media ensure that the general populace is not aware of the diversity within American politics, which leads to the disintegration of the democratic process. The inadequacy of either government or commercialist forces in forming a more perfect media suggests the need for a third, publicly-driven method of media regulation and production. This is arguably the view that is most aligned with Constitutional framers James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who both understood and wrote about the "distinct social function of the free press."
With the understanding that such thought influenced the framers of the Constitution, it is easy to conclude that the political and ideological foundations of the First Amendment are progressive. As the parallels between the situation in the mid-1800’s and the climate of today emerge, it becomes clear that the precedent for social change has been set for us: a progressive interpretation of the media's role in our society, and establishing the means and motive in the American public to take the fight for a truly free press into their own hands.
Spring 2004 TextbookX.com Scholarship Question:
What is a Nation?
WINNER Anne Chmilewski, UC Berkeley
Influential Book: Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge ISBN: 0812533429
A nation was once a race of people, bound by blood, drawing its boundaries and proving its honor by warfare, and reporting to a leader directly empowered by a god. Today, many nations would be loath to define themselves by these criteria. Nations who consider themselves “progressive” have adopted increasingly vague definitions of “nationhood” to accommodate the ever-broadening diversity of both their citizens and their functions as states.
Accompanying the loss of a clear definition for “nation” seems to be a loss of faith that such a definition even exists. Postmodernism rears its ugly head like another cell phone tower in the middle of a field. If we can’t define “nation,” does it even exist? When we define nations, we invariably relapse into applying definitions that painfully exclude people, distinguishing among races, religions, or incomes. Because “nation” is such a complex abstraction, no amount of purely academic exercise can discover a conclusive, helpful definition. Data may be collected by thousands of researchers from millions of citizens, but the only result will be an overwhelming mess of contrary opinions. Every dictionary, from those written in hieroglyphics to those written in html, may be consulted and studied in detail, but efforts will be to no avail.
We need to look elsewhere for an answer. I suggest that the deepest understanding of “nation” comes from an abstract feeling- a dream, a wish, longing, or mourning. A nation, present in the feelings and actions of its people, is illustrated by Mary Dodge in her portrayal of nineteenth-century Holland called Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates. Dodge paints a picture of a nation united not only by picturesque frozen canals carrying citizens on skates from one end of the country to the other, but also by a confidence in mankind’s abilities that comes from a centuries-long victory over the waters pushing against the dikes of a land that would, without them, be ocean floor.
The strength of the characters’ belief in their nation is apparent in three actions, the first of which is the characters’ storytelling of Holland’s history. Instead of making fun of historical figures in cartoons, older generations know these figures like family and younger generations look up to them as role models. Some stories are not of war heroes, but of persons of extraordinary generosity or talent in the arts or science. The children in the novel share stories about famous Dutch artists in their leisure time.
Secondly, the nation values certain ideals that span across boundaries. Poor and wealthy alike pride themselves on frugality, innovation, and cleanliness. In the story, the most popular children are the ones who most exhibit these traits, breaking from the stereotypical popular children, who are cruel and spoiled.
Thirdly, the Dutch believe strongly in meritocracy, yet maintain a strong unity. This results from a belief that contribution to society should be rewarded as the highest accomplishment, no matter what a person’s background. The great prize of the silver skates is awarded to the race winner, without regard to other criteria. A wealthy boy and a poor girl win the prize, and the community envelopes both winners in congratulations.
For contemporary nations to model themselves after tiny and homogenous nineteenth-century Holland is no solution to our dilemma. Contemporary readers can find truth in the willingness of each person, even a small child, to save the nation from destruction by the wilderness, as in the legend of the small boy who plugged a hole in the dike with his finger. And perhaps this is the closest we will come to an answer—what most defines a “nation” is the alliance of humans against natural and sometimes supernatural challenges. Across the world we stand, from amber waves of grain to the Great Wall of China, one unified human nation.
RUNNER UP Matthew Greenblatt, Yale University
Influential Book: The Persian Wars by Herodotus ISBN: 0140446389
For Herodotus, national identity was inexorably linked with language and culture, as described in his history The Persian Wars. In this work, Herodotus recounts that the Athenians cited common language and associated cultural elements that sewed the scattered Greek city-states into a common nation as rationale that precluded an alliance with Xerxes and his invading Persian army.
However, this conception of language as a common bond is problematic, as Greek at the time of Herodotus was fragmented by local variations in both spoken and written usage. As a modern analogy, China hides a vast heterogeneity beneath a unified national identity. Chinese has hundreds to thousands of dialects, and China is home to approximately 60 ethnic minorities possessing cultures and traditions distinct from the Han majority. In both the Chinese and Greek examples, then, the question is, “How can language and culture be the mainstays of national identity when they are so heterogeneous?”
The answer lies in the distinction between oneself and the national self - between personal and national identity. National identity is a game of persuasion in which we are constantly being convinced to participate. Nations woo us with strength of culture, tradition, and history, and flatter us that our participation enriches the whole. A common language is the medium and culture is the content of this courtship. A nation appeals to us through strength of its own character, not through its similarity to ourselves. Without this appeal, the increasing pluralism of our own country would be impossible.
The nature of this relationship between the individual and the state means that national identity is in constant flux. Events, both political and cultural, can strengthen or weaken the argument for unity. History and culture not only speak to us on behalf of a national identity, but they speak to that identity itself, persuading it to shift and struggle to contain their contradictions and ambiguities. When local culture and politics change so rapidly that national identity cannot shift to accommodate them, the local identity escapes the national body and begins a separate dialogue with local peoples, a dialogue that, if persuasive enough, leads to secession, either politically or culturally. Such was the case during the series of secessions leading to the American Civil War, or the shift in Spartan identity that lead to the Peloponnesian Wars.
Thus, a successful national identity must be malleable enough to be reshaped and bent to cover the whole of its people, constantly re-incorporating new cultural and political growth into that identity to maintain its relevance. Pertinence, not similarity to ourselves, is the primary allure of a nation. If the tradition and language used as the avenues of persuasion lose their impact, then we become liable to substitute and nurture local character to replace an absent national one.
Perhaps for Herodotus' Athenians, a simple claim of linguistic and cultural similarity was enough to convince the Spartans of their good intentions through a common identity. However, the rise of nations that encompass a mix of ethnicities and cultures undermines similarity as the foundation for nationhood. Instead, what emerges is a dialogue, in which a nation appeals to us through language and culture, struggling to keep its appeal by continually redefining itself through that culture. In such a system, diversity itself can become a key point to persuasion, and difference can replace similarity as a common ground.
RUNNER UP Leah Miller, AIU Online
Influential Book: Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages by Mark Abley ISBN: 061823649x
A nation – the word and concept may not seem to be as meaningful to us today as it has been in the past. Previously, a nation defined everything about an individual: where they lived, what language they spoke, what clothes they wore, and what food they ate. Now these lines are blurred with the world becoming increasingly global and immigration and emigration occurring in every country. One can be ethnically from one nation, reside in another, and hold citizenship in yet a third.
In order to achieve identity within a group, at least two out of three commonalities of territory, language, and history must exist, according to Mark Abley in his study, Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages. Many constituents of nations no longer can claim more than one or two of those identifiers, resulting in a loosening of a person’s identification with any group, especially if it is political and not ethnic. Political divisions of nations have been and are almost always artificial delineations; people consider themselves a member of whatever group they share the most basic of human experiences with, and language is a large component of that.
As English becomes the global language of business, other nationalities and ethnicities face a weakening in their traditional national ties. Language is so basic and so influential on culture that its loss can cause confusion and rootlessness. Language influences the very way that people think, and as more and more people speak the same language as their first or second tongue, the more they assimilate into a more homogenous mélange.
All of the various political, ethnic, and commercial influences tying countries together today into ever-shifting partnerships make the concept of nationhood very nebulous. I think we can only define a nation as the participants themselves intend; we cannot truly identify a nation from our textbook notions, and political descriptions are too arbitrary. Only the nation itself can identify its parameters, and its constituents determine that validity.
Fall 2003 TextbookX.com Scholarship Question:
Is America's role in the world contributing to the enhancement of general human welfare?
WINNER Jennifer Uhlich, Mills College, (CA)
Influential Book: The Use and Abuse of History by Friedrich Nietzsche ISBN: 0452006996
One of the United States’ largest exports is a peculiar form of memory, and considering how it has shaped American culture, it will prove most harmful to the world. As Nietzsche states in his The Use and Abuse of History, a culture needs a balance of history in order to evolve. For Nietzsche, German culture was overwhelmed by history, able to see it only as a static record of what had been done. Instead, German culture needed an awareness of the past that informed and inspired, encouraging men to greater achievement.
In the United States, we suffer from the opposite problem. It was for Nietzsche a scenario he only touched upon, as if it were so extreme it did not warrant exploration. We are a culture that is excessively monumental: we forego context and fact in favor of a cinematic gloss that distorts what little historical awareness we have. Polls of large cross-sections of the population show that few Americans can say when the Civil War occurred, name more than a handful of presidents, or even recall the events of the Gulf War. In American culture, George Washington sells cars at your local dealership, and Civil War soldiers sport the healthy glow and capped teeth of popular actors. We remember that we put a man on the moon, but we do not remember why, and we see no reason to go back.
Without historical awareness, we have become a culture immersed in a static present. We want our food right away, we throw away our clothing at the slightest tear or fading, we carry phones and computers with us to prevent even a moment’s isolation. Our technological development produces fewer and fewer innovative designs; most of what we consider innovative is simply altering an existing design so that newer materials can be incorporated. Our arts are little more than products, items to be purchased to ally their owner with a specific trend and thrown away once a new variant has been produced; the phrase “critically acclaimed,” which earmarks a cultural product as having struck a high note of achievement, is in most cases a death knell for the financial success of that product and its artist.
This culture of amnesia has turned the U.S. into a political bully and an environmental threat, a wealthy 8-year-old prone to tantrums and utterly selfish. As the world’s only superpower, the United States is also the world’s only late capitalist economy, chipping away at the vestiges of its socialist underpinnings to become a purely market-driven society. In such abundance, with no want left untended to, the only thing American culture has left to sell is itself. We export ourselves to the world as the model of freedom, success, and happiness, but it is an empty image, and the people who buy the image buy the emptiness as well. The rest of the world should take note, lest their cultures too be reduced to re-enactments and labels. Too much has already been lost.
RUNNER UP Lisa Knox, Berkley (CA)
Influential Book: Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr. ISBN: 0451527534
Until I started college, all I knew about Martin Luther King, Jr. was that he had a dream. Every February, without fail, my history teachers would trot out that famous March on Washington speech. As they told it,(and as I believed it,) King represented the great American Dream; he believed in the American ideals of freedom and democracy, and made the country live up to them.
My first semester of college, that image changed. Reading his "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" in his book Why We Can't Wait, I was shocked to discover a different King; one who was disillusioned with the failure of America to live up to its promises, and who felt that Americans could not be depended upon to support a just and moral cause.
Moreover, I learned that he was right. In my American History textbook, I read about Jefferson's slave ownership, Jackson's crusade against Native Americans, and Reagan's funding of Nicaraguan terrorists. In a class on Latin America, I heard about US support for Pinochet's 1973 coup against Chile's democratically elected president. My Comparative Politics professor detailed US complicity in South African apartheid, Palestinian repression and sweatshops in Southeast Asia. Time and time again, I saw, America has failed to live up to the ideals of democracy, freedom and egalitarianism it espouses; from Chile to Vietnam(and, most recently, the 2002 Venezuelan coup,) America has too often used its rhetoric of morality to mask self-interest.
Yet, in that same Letter, King also expresses a conviction that these very ideals that America has failed to realize will in the end be triumphant. "We will win our freedom," he writes, "because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands." When the Founding Fathers wrote that "all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights," they may have been speaking metaphorically, but the doctrine of equality and liberty they created has become accepted around the world.
That ideology, ultimately, is America's greatest contribution to humanity. America will be a purveyor of democracy and justice not by its own design, but because the rest of the world is demanding we live up to the moral code we have so long ignored. They demanded it in the
United Nations, and they demanded it in the streets when millions marched against an American invasion of Iraq. And, like King, they will continue to demand it until America lives up to its sacred heritage.
RUNNER UP Wesley Bishop, City College, Gainesville (FL)
Influential Book: THE NEW REALITIES by Peter F. Drucker ISBN: 0066210879
Must the peoples of the world be reliant on the beneficence of nations? Prior to the advent of a world economy and all that entails, the answer would be yes. But increasingly, as pointed out in The New Realities by Peter Drucker, the answer is becoming no. As new paradigms in government, society, economics, and business develop, emphasis will shift from the nation-state society to the individual as citizen of the world society. The newly developing paradigm challenges the relevance of the question, "Is America's role in the world contributing to the enhancement of general human welfare?"
Salvation by society has increasingly proven to be a dismal failure everywhere it has been attempted. Utopia by legislation is counter-productive, and too often becomes anathema to its prescribed goals. Government as benefactor is by nature unwieldy and misguided by virtue of competing political interests and experiential ineptitude. The trend in the United States and other developed countries is towards privatization and localization, problem solving at the cause. Ultimately, these solutions rest upon the individual citizen. As it turns out, we really are our "brothers' (and sisters') keepers," and have been all along. No longer can we expect government to provide heaven on earth for us; each and every one of us is responsible for creating a little slice of heaven for the sake of every living creature on the planet.
This new reality manifests in the world community at large, much like the proverbial flap of a butterfly's wings that creates a storm thousands of miles away. It is not "America", or "Germany" or "Arabia" or "Egypt" or "China" that enhances human welfare. It is the accomplishments of individual people of talent, grace and mercy, wherever they may live, that enhance the general human welfare of the world. Nations might stake claim on such achievements as national treasures, but in the final analysis those treasures are the gift of the artist, and the citizens of the world are the recipients.
The new paradigm of the sovereign individual is here. Nations and governments will not disappear, but they are fast losing their potency and predominance. Business already must deal with the new reality, and where business, trade and money go, governments are sure to follow.
Spring 2003 TextbookX.com Scholarship Question:
When is war justified?
WINNER Nicole Sta. Maria, Middlebury College
Influential Book: War Without Mercy: Race and by John W. Dower ISBN: 0394751728
The countless innovations we have seen in the twentieth century--new technology, new weaponry, and new ways of thinking--have been profoundly influenced by our experiences with large-scale armed conflict. Indeed, war has been a stark presence and a persistent companion for humanity, avidly recorded and carefully scrutinized. Its complexities are evident in the various revisions made on historical accounts; the causes involved have been endlessly debated, and the totality of its consequences remains in dispute. What seems certain, however, is that in war, justification is a powerful motivation for everyone concerned. Whenever nations enter into armed conflict, they convince themselves that they are in the right: that the death and destruction visited upon the enemy is deserved. To think otherwise is to undermine the effort--no soldiers would willingly step onto the battlefield, nor would ordinary citizens condone war, if the reasons for which they fight appear groundless. The question, then, is: when is war justified?
John Dower’s detailed book, “War Without Mercy”, suggests that the answer is never. Dower focused on the issue of race and its effects on the prosecution of the Pacific War. The seemingly fundamental, but ultimately ambiguous, disparity between the opposing sides was manipulated in order to stimulate enthusiastic support for the war effort. The division of race distorted and dehumanized the enemy, creating a propaganda machine that was embraced for its apparent justification of the war: the very identity of the nation was threatened and had to be defended. Moreover, racially-charged propaganda provided exculpation for the atrocities committed on and off the battleground, and even for attacks on non-military targets. But Dower, surprisingly, further asserted that race could be credited for improving the process of peace and reconstruction that followed the war’s devastation. The ambiguity of the perceived difference between both sides allowed the propaganda machine to shift according to the demands of peacetime. The immediate postwar period saw messages of optimism and collaboration, where before there were only virulent attacks on the enemy. In both cases, race was a central theme. But how can the very thing that justified the war be turned around so easily for the cause of war’s antithesis? Simply put, there was no such justification.
An act is not justified if it is founded upon ignorance, and Dower showed that during the Pacific War, both sides knew little about the other aside from what propaganda fed them. Yet the themes presented in Dower’s book extend beyond any single war. We have seen, time and again, that war means death, disease, and deprivation--only the magnitude changes. We have seen that during war, the potential for depravity is highest, amplified by corrosive emotions and a rigid separation of “us” versus “them”. Ultimately, war is an expression of division, and for division to exist at all, we must first be willing to set aside our common humanity. We must create labels for what we see as our differences: race, nationality, religion, ideology, ethnicity, and more. When we think of our “enemies”, we must overlook the fact that they, like us, have families, friends, and lives of their own. When we destroy their homes, we must turn a blind eye to the reality that it could just as easily have been the opposite, that we could have been the ones deprived of shelter. Thus, when we support war, we sacrifice truth and exchange it for convenient oversights and rationalizations. The measures to which we are driven by war can only be described as heinous. As an act that is sustained by ignorance and is to blame for the loss of millions of lives, war should be condemned, not justified.
We are the species most conscious of its role in the world; therefore, we have a responsibility to learn from our past in order to build a good future. That means we must be aware of the nuances within our history--we must read between the lines. Beyond Dower’s insights and descriptions is a call for making the right choices. Let us forsake ignorance, and know each other. Let us reconcile our disparities rather than create conflict. Let us contain our tendencies for aggression and confrontation, and instead develop the values of negotiation and cooperation. Let us cultivate our potential for peace, not our capacity for war. Let us search for solutions, not justifications. When we have learned the right lessons and made the right decisions, then the whole of humanity will have gained a victory.
RUNNER UP Amanda Tait, ASUMH
Influential Book: The Trial and Death of Socrates by Plato ISBN: 0486270661
Know Thyself
"Know thyself" was a precept advocated by the philosopher Socrates. Since Socrates was a teacher and not a writer, one must look to his contemporaries for further enlightenment. The Trial and Death of Socrates, by Plato, discusses in part Socrates’ philosophy about knowing oneself.
In ancient Greece, the principle of self-knowledge was essential in one’s scholarly pursuit of an ideal life. Socrates’ profound admonition was inscribed at the site of the Oracle at Delphi. Delphi was considered the omphalos or the center of the world. Statesmen and other prominent citizens would travel extraordinary distances to seek prophetic guidance pertaining to the affairs of state or personal matters. Unfortunately the Oracle was known to give somewhat cryptic advice that was often tragically misinterpreted.
Today the civilized leaders of the world make similar pilgrimages to the United Nations under the pretext of seeking peaceful solutions to world conflict. These statesmen seek approval from a higher authority as the universally accepted prerequisite to making a formal declaration of war. Modern advances in communication make it possible for most of the world’s citizens to listen to each nation's appointed representative give cryptic justification for the prudence of war as a solution to world turmoil.
Educated members of society throughout the centuries have learned that history repeats itself and humankind seldom learns from its mistakes. Ritualistically, nations still engage in wars and seek validation for their actions. The prevalent belief is that The Creator supports his chosen people in times of war as well as in times of peace. The “chosen ones” take up arms in defense of their beliefs, their families and their countries. If validation does not come from mortal authorities vindication ultimately will come from divine authority.
Both ancient philosophers and modern theologians have addressed humanity’s need to justify war. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), an Italian politician and political thinker of his time, perceived war as part of the human experience. Man, he stipulated, has always been inclined to go to war and the reason for this behavior was that man has always been weak and somewhat stupid in these matters. Machiavelli believed that “malign fate” was always forcing man to arm himself against the adversary even in times of peace.
Mahatma Gandhi astutely identified seven deadly sins that plague the modern world. The fatal formula for man’s inhumanity to man includes wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, business without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice and politics without principle. As long as such practices are condoned by the prosperous nations of the world it should be no mystery why there is no world peace and there is always justification for war.
When is war justified? Since men are historically stupid in such matters, as Machiavelli stipulates, a “green light” by the majority of voters in any nation could never be a mandate for war. Heads of States, motivated by “politics without principle,” as Gandhi decrees, are discredited by their spurious motives. How can a judge scrutinize another’s actions when that judge is incapable of scrutinizing his own actions? The thought of justifying war is preposterous.
I believe there is hope. Today, if the majority of the citizens of the world are ignorant, they are ignorant by choice. We can awaken to the fact that war is the statesman’s panacea to internal criticism. We can awaken to the fact that the electorate can be convinced that war is justified when that electorate focuses solely on foreign policy rather than domestic policy. Due to the recent war in Iraq the Iraqis are free from the treacheries of the “Butcher of Baghdad”. Therefore it is inconsequential that eighteen desperate illegal immigrants were abandoned along a Texas highway and consequently suffocated in the back of a truck trailer driven by a United States citizen.
Yes, justification is easily camouflaged if mankind continues to choose ignorance instead of knowledge or pleasure without conscience. When any individual condones any evil practice within the boundaries of one’s conscience or one’s country, that individual personally sanctions war. Knowledge of oneself requires knowledge with character rather than knowledge devoid of character. The simple admonition inscribed at the oracle continues to elude us. We continue to be perplexed by the obvious.
RUNNER UP Celena Janton, University of Arizona
Influential Book: NIV Study Bible by Kenneth L. Barker ISBN: 0310927099
I stood gazing at the bright restaurant menu on the wall, trying to decide between a Big Mac and a double cheeseburger, when I noticed her stare.
The woman didn't turn away when I met her eyes. Instead, she glared at me. What I had done to cause her to look at me with such hatred? As I continued to compare the two sandwiches, the woman continued to stare. I smoothed my camouflaged pants (a nervous habit) and asked, "Can I help you, ma'am?"
Her grin seemed to drip of sarcasm but she didn't say anything right away. She finally stopped staring at me and paid the cashier for her sandwich. As she walked past me she said, "You're nothing but baby killers, all of you."
I could feel the mixed tears of sadness and anger rise in my throat. "Sometimes," I said, "war is justified."
The woman stopped and turned to ask me, "When is war ever justified?"
Before I could begin to form an answer, she was gone.
I sat and ate my cheeseburger alone, hardly noticing which sandwich I had ended up with, wondering with each bite if what I had said was true. I wore the uniform, I believed in my president, I loved my country, but did I really agree with what I had told that woman? Was war ever really justified?
I thought of the Bible, the Book I can't help turning to when I'm faced with deep questions. Obviously, God viewed war as justifiable. After all, He led His chosen people into battle time and again as displayed in the words of the Old Testament. In the end, thousands of years later, all of the good to come would outweigh all of the devastation; many people would be saved. Sometimes, though, it is hard to justify something as sad as war when the final conclusion and knowledge of success will take so long in coming.
I glanced out the window at the RV store across the street. I always notice their flag which is probably the largest in all of Tucson, Arizona. It was then that I realized how much I loved my flag and my country, so much that it tore me apart to know that there were those who believed I was disgracing that flag by my support of the military as an airman. My flag...
There were those who hated it as much as I loved it. I thought of the suicide bombers who were willing to sacrifice their lives in an effort to destroy everything I believed in. How could my eyes not mist? America was a land of freedom and liberty, a place of deliverance from oppression. I thought of the millions of people who were desperately trying to come here to live. They wanted a visa, perhaps, more than they wanted food and water. I thought of the people, and the children among them, in the Middle East who lived daily among war and terror. Why couldn't everyone know the freedom and peace that I knew?
Later that day, I watched the news and added many pictures to the photo album in my memory. I think of them today:
An Army soldier in Basra is giving candy to children and letting them look through his binoculars.
Iraqi people are lining the streets, cheering and smiling, rushing to the first soldier they see to hug and kiss him.
They are waving American flags.
An Iraqi man is pulling down a poster of Saddam Hussein as others applaud.
I think of these and other images like them that remain in my mind's eye. What would it be like to be one of the Allied soldiers who helped to liberate the Iraqi people? Some will argue that we didn't go to Iraq with that goal in mind. But, does that matter? Not to me. I almost wish I were there to begin to feel what those soldiers must have… I wouldn’t complain if I were told I had an assignment to the Middle East to go and help repair Iraq. Maybe I even want to go, to support my flag and what it stands for, to stand by my President and my nation. Sometimes, I know, war is justified. There is a bigger picture. Sometimes, just as revealed in the Book I always turn to, a nation and many people can be saved. And others, too, can begin to taste freedom where there was once only famine.
Fall 2002 TextbookX.com Scholarship Question:
Does science leave room for faith? Does faith leave room for science?
WINNER Ramy Arnaout, Harvard Medical School
Influential Book: The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod ISBN: 0140124950
Over the years we have set up a zero-sum rivalry between science and faith. We have cast them as competing empires, vying for the fealty of hearts and minds like Cold War adversaries. When we ask whether or not one leaves room for the other, we are implying as much. It is as if we were debating the merits of rollback or the domino theory, asking if the presence of the one is tolerable within the other’s sovereign sphere. It is quite a martial view to hold, bleak with portents of struggle and strife. But is there any other choice?
The Cold War allusions are meant to honor Robert Axelrod, the Michigan sociologist whose work from the 1970s suggests that the answer is yes. Axelrod was interested in politics, not philosophy; it was the era of mutually assured destruction, and the problem of zero-sum games was made more immediate by the threat of nuclear annihilation. Using game theory, he asked if there were realistic alternatives to the superpowers’ hell-bent competition. Was it possible for two players, both acting on their own selfish interests and without central authority, to cooperate instead of compete? His conclusions--distilled into a winsome little book called "The Evolution of Cooperation"--were a revelation to me, and not just for the hope they inspired. First, they reconciled the "soft" and "hard" sciences by showing that even behavior could be studied analytically. And second, they introduced with a flourish the paradigms of competition and cooperation, which apply far beyond his book to problems of philosophy.
We treat science and faith as rivals, but in truth more unites than divides them, and what divides them is mostly preconception. To start with, both refer to modes of thought as well as bodies of knowledge. Science as a mode of thought depends on standard rules of reasoning and proof; science the body of knowledge is the hierarchy these rules let us build. To its adherents, this hierarchy is a tower of smooth lines, clean angles, and solid architecture, a beacon that radiates credibility and confidence. But this bright vision is a illusion at its shimmering foundations, where the cornerstone credits Euclid. In 1931 Goedel showed that there are things in science that can never be proven from within it; hence Euclid’s tower, for all its glory, to the limits of today’s crude understanding, is built on faith. Second, the tower is too big to see in its entirety, and it will never be finished. Accordingly, we each see only part of it and take its full glory on hearsay, and we assume scientific explanations even when we have no evidence of them. The reverse we would call superstition, but this too is faith.
For its part faith shares much with science. Like science, faith the mode of thought is an explanatory model that attempts to explain truth: in history, nature, and behavior and morals, as well as the divine. Like the unfinished tower, it allows for the existence of something more than what is known or seen. The body of knowledge of faith constitutes a set of laws, limited in number, from which we use reason, however unsuccessfully, to derive codes of behavior. This is true for Talmudic writ, Catholic canon, or Sharia law. Hence both faith and science are born of unproven laws and reasoned consequences. Is there room for science in faith, or faith in science? If, stripped down and washed up, the two look awfully similar, it is because at heart they are eternally and inextricably intertwined. According to Axelrod, these similarities are sufficient for the natural evolution cooperation. All that lacks is time.
Of course, this argument begs the question of why rivalry between science and faith exists in the first place. It seems to me the answer is in part semantic, and in part a disparity of strength. It is not actually a rivalry between science and faith, but rather between the hard and the soft sciences, and the former, being more developed, are the stronger. For when we cheer science, we are really cheering physics and engineering; and when we laud faith, we are really singing the praises of values and social behavior. Most of us would look askance at the suggestion that there is the same kind of science in behavior as there is in engineering, but nevertheless there is; the proof is in Axelrod’s book. It is just a new science, waiting to be discovered.
RUNNER UP Samantha Katz, Brandeis University
Influential Book: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco ISBN: 0156001314
The aims of both science and faith are so opposed that to reconcile them would require almost impossible concessions from the two sides. The pursuit of science does not seem to leave room for the pursuit of faith; rather it seems to hold a constant war of attrition with the mystical and spiritual aspects of the world. Science can be viewed and defined as a search for knowledge in any form, a determination to strip away any veils that may obscure our quest for certainty and understanding. It is not confined merely to the tactile discoveries of the laboratory, or to the abstract realm of mathematical formulas and logic. It is instead a yearning for knowledge which may arise within any discipline, to further the sum of human wisdom and annihilate any lasting mysteries or illusions.
In contrast, the existence and survival of faith depends on those same mysteries and uncertainties. By shedding light into all the myriad twists of the world and of human consciousness, science would at the same time destroy the capacity of humans to trust in something for which they have no proof. At its most essential, faith is the belief in something for which you lack knowledge, an acceptance of the limitations of humans to understand and explain everything. This goes beyond the boundaries of individual religions or doctrines into something elemental within each person. Faith is our ability to trust in our own ignorance, to trust in the existence of something beyond our conception, a universal inextinguishable mystery. To preserve faith, one must also preserve this uncertainty.
These conflicting themes are clearly presented in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. The setting is that of a medieval monastery, containing a famous library of books which have the power to challenge the existing beliefs of the church. To protect the spiritual mysteries of the world from being exposed and doubted, monks are driven to murder and the destruction of scholarly knowledge and discovery. The most important and potentially influential work is that of a lost book of Aristotle; to prevent the spread of the book’s scientific argument, the library is burned and all the knowledge is destroyed. Science is bound by its very nature to present an opposition to faith, to try to contest and eradicate with cold reason the very things that belief depends on. Eco shows sympathy for neither side, viewing one as a “lust for knowledge. Knowledge for its own sake…it is sterile and has nothing to do with love” (Eco, 395). Yet those who descend into evil to keep these mysteries shrouded safe from the clinical destroying light of logic offend as well by “loving their truth so lewdly” (Eco, 491). In the ongoing controversy between science and faith, evil is committed and viewed as an essential course of action.
This is perhaps the substantial consequence of the attrition between the supporters of two camps. Every scientific discovery pushes back human faith, by presenting a proven truth in the place of a believed one. The search for knowledge above all things leads inevitably to a refusal to accept the human limitations so crucial to maintaining faith. The ultimate goal of science is to achieve complete knowledge and understanding, but to do so is to deny the existence of mysticism in the universe. To claim all knowledge is to refuse to accept any mystery or allow it to remain veiled to our eyes. As Eco demonstrates, to protect the pursuit of certainty or the lack thereof, men will regress to their darkest recesses, intuitively sensing that for one to prevail is for the other to surrender completely to obliteration.
RUNNER UP Cynthia Gragnani, Howard University
Influential Book: Christianity and Evolution by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ISBN: 0156177404
Historically, science and religion have been opposed to one another, and the opposition has been both political and conceptual. Very early in its history Christianity was preoccupied with maintaining the purity of its traditions. Those early Christian communities soon recognized the need to control and limit the proliferation of sects if their doctrines were not to be contaminated. This effort to control eventually led to the rejections of differing viewpoints as heresies, which were vigorously denounced and persecuted.
While much of the concern with heresy had to do with doctrinal differences among groups of self-professed Christians, anyone who claimed to represent another "truth" shortly became suspect. The word science comes from a Latin word meaning to know. The Church's authority depended upon its monopoly of knowledge. As long as scientists confined their interest to matters of the physical universe, they were free, for the most part, to go about their business without interference from ecclesiastical authority.
Both science and religion sought the same aim, namely, the expansion of knowledge, but differed in how they sought to go about it. Religious authorities initially took a limiting position that everything worth knowing was accessible through the Scriptures, while science came to rely on controlled observation, or empirical study, as its method.
Initially, the position of the Church was simply an extension of the original concern with preserving purity of doctrine. Scientists saw this as a sacrifice of truth in the interests of authority, and as soon as scientists were politically strong enough, they took a stand against what they saw as ignorance and superstition, and the battle was joined.
The authority of the Church was weakened by factional disputes that first produced the schism between the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches and eventually led to the Protestant Reformation. Science meanwhile continued to flourish. Radical new insights into nature did not come from organized religion but from the vigorous new methods of inquiry. Eventually a pragmatic society came, if not to discount the Church entirely, at least to relegate it to the sidelines as a significant player in the continuing march of material progress.
Despite the powerful inroads that science has made by virtue of its very real material accomplishments, organized religion seems almost miraculously to have survived. This survival is attributed to the persistence of ignorance by its detractors, but the most devoted Darwinian must raise the question as to whether its survival may not be based on legitimate social function. Although Christianity as an institution has survived only two thousand years, it is an extension of a belief system that extends additional millennia backward in time. Despite incredible technological advance, we are still confronted with the great and terrible fact of personal death. Religion offers a hope of survival, and science does not.
One of the reasons that science has not addressed these issues is the basic model it has followed. The early contributions of scientists were in terms of a deterministic model of the universe strongly influence by Newtonian physics. Physics itself has moved beyond this model while other fields have not. Physics has advanced to conceptualize objects more subtle than those things that we immediately experience.
Certain branches of science still base their rejection of religion on antiquated concepts that have now been supplanted by newer concepts and models. Theoretical physics now possesses the framework to test certain theological concepts empirically. When concepts become testable, they become verifiable. If they are not verified, they at least become susceptible of modification to the point at which they can be fitted into the corpus of science. In brief, the great opponent of religion, science, is now in a position to verify some of the very ideas that it once dismissed as superstitious. Regrettably, the branch of science that is most antagonistic to religion, psychology, is largely unaware of changes presently taking place in the theory of knowledge from which science proceeds.
The theoretical base from which experiments might follow is in place. Confirmation will be in terms of physical events, so the implications for theology will probably remain essentially out of the grasp of laymen for some time to come. It is probably fair to say that the great proofs of theological arguments are more likely to come from physicists than from theologians. Theologians may actually have to become scientifically literate to follow these developments, but it will be worth it.
RUNNER UP Colleen Keating, Covenant Theological Seminary
Influential Book: Personal Knowledge by Michael Polanyi ISBN: 0226672883
The idea that science and faith are competing spheres of human activity is a false dichotomy, rooted in the presupposition that the two involve separate and exclusive kinds of knowing. For years, as a Christian who is the daughter of an engineer, I struggled to reconcile the two, or to uncover which one is dependent upon the other. It was only recently, after reading Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge, that I began to understand more clearly how faith and science are aspects of the whole project of human knowing. To segment them is to misunderstand both, and handicap the possibility of deeper knowing.
The typical understanding of science is that it is “objective,” in comparison to the “subjective” experience of faith. However, neither blanket statement is entirely true. All human knowing enjoys the ambiguity of personal skill and intuition. In order to recognize pattern and to extrapolate possibility from a set of particulars, there must be a human subject who draws upon past experience and other intangible assumptions to make an assertion about truth. Whether that person is doing spectral analysis or reading the Torah, they are involved in an attempt to get closer to reality. The way we move towards reality is through standing upon ideas and experiences which we assimilate and lean upon unconsciously. Einstein and Newton’s theories, as well as Calvin and Luther’s theologies, form frameworks for our approach to life.
What does this have to do with science and faith? Both are entirely human projects, whether we use complicated tools such as supercomputers, or crumbling parchment. Both require personal judgments from morally responsible participants. Both are driving at reality, from different perspectives, perhaps, but with the same tools.
Considering the fact that all knowing requires human manipulation of tools should cause us to rethink our definition of “hard” and “soft” sciences, and perhaps even the term “science” itself. The distinguishing factor between religion and science is the breaking in of revelation into our perception of reality, through holy writ. Yet traditional Christianity has affirmed the concept of “natural revelation,” God’s self-revelation in the physical world. In this sense, the line between religion and science blurs further: knowing in this sense is like worship.
We are still left with the question of what we are to do when the perspectives on the same reality seem to contradict. Can we legitimately use one to jettison the other? How can they sharpen each other and guide us to a truer picture of our world? I can only speak to the nexus of Christianity and scholarship; other religions with very different assumptions about God’s revelation and human life may still have overlapping concerns, but I cannot responsibly speak to those. Christian scholars have the duty to be consistent with their religious commitments, but simultaneously to be aware that what constitutes the crux of their commitment may need to be modified by their scholarship. Their beliefs will regulate their search for theories, in the same way that the Catholic Church at first rejected the Copernican revolution. But unlike the Catholic Church’s opposition to Copernicus, a Christian scholar should be aware that the Bible is not a scientific textbook. In the same way that the myth of complete objectivity cripples scientific research, a naïve biblicism cripples theological growth. If the Bible is truly God’s word, it still is not necessarily an objective, self-interpreting set of beliefs. As in every human attempt to know, biblical interpretation is fraught with difficulty and growth.
And that is the realization that will allow science and faith to live together peaceably in this world: that human knowledge is difficult and always has room for growth. If we can step back from our false assumption that science is objective and faith is subjective, and if we can examine the way that our variously held beliefs interact, we can enter into a dialogue with each other (and with our own self) that brings us closer to reality.
RUNNER UP Durant Abernethy, Vanderbilt University
Influential Book: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn ISBN: 0226458083
Soon after the introduction of Darwin’s natural selection theory in 1859, evolutionary theory was applied to the human race. This landmark theory is commonly misinterpreted as a refutation of the “creation” doctrines of many religions. Some religious people believe science is trying to supplant their deity. However, science does not bar the existence of faith-based religious beliefs. The historical interaction of science and religion illustrates their complementary relationship, but faith must adapt to prevailing scientific theory that strongly challenges current religious doctrines.
Faith, science and reason are three interconnected, spheres of thought which embody all ideas throughout human existence. Faith is an exercise of our will to believe. Science is attempted understanding through acceptance of theories that best explain phenomena. Reason is the pursuit of explanations through logic.
The conflict between faith and science is most conspicuous using a religious interpretation of the word \"faith;” therefore, I will focus on the interaction between western religions and science. Science and religion conflict when a premise that religion has espoused is later invalidated or made obsolete by science.
One of the landmark conflicts between religion and science was in 1613 when Galileo corroborated and proved Copernicus’ theory of a heliocentric system, which was contrary to religious beliefs of the time. For centuries, humanity believed itself and earth to be the center of the universe, so this large and divisive paradigm shift in the scientific realm (Kuhn) had significant effects in the religious realm. The scientific realm quickly adopted heliocentric theory. As evidence mounted, religions realized they could no longer recognize the obsolete and discarded geocentric theory, so they reconciled themselves with science by shifting to heliocentric theory.
Darwin’s natural selection theory fueled another conflict between science and religion. In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas introduced his natural law theory, which argued that the universe was ordered teleologically, or that every action in the universe has a purpose or goal. The application of evolutionary theory to the human race strongly challenged the natural law theory because evolution is the result of natural selection’s preference for beneficial random mutations. According to natural law theory, there can be no random occurrences because everything is the result of teleological natural processes. However, natural law theory was not completely abandoned. Some religions compromised by narrowing and generalizing natural law theory to reconcile it with evolutionary theory.
The origin of the universe is another battleground between science and religion. Many religions use the "uncaused cause” to argue for the existence of a supernatural deity that created the universe. If the history of the human race were traced to the first humans, reason necessitates the existence of an uncaused supernatural being that acted as the first cause. This "uncaused cause" is the supernatural being to which most religions attribute the creation of the universe. Recent discoveries about the structure of the universe have engendered scientific explanations for the origin of the universe, such as the Big Bang Theory, that make no reference to a supernatural deity. However, as the scientific understanding of our universe improves, it has become increasingly difficult for scientists to claim that the structure of the universe is simply the result of chance, such as Big Bang theory. The supposition of an intelligent designer is a growing sentiment among scientists because the universe is so ordered it almost necessitates creation by a divine mathematician.
Shifts to new paradigms and theories can always be expected to be slow and controversial (Kuhn), so we should not expect religions to abandon time-honored doctrines immediately following challenging scientific discoveries. Religions’ history of adapting to prevailing scientific theory does not imply inferiority or incompatibility; instead it affirms the complementary relationship between faith and science. Science can explain the processes of our physical reality, but only faith can provide and explain an intangible force driving these processes. However, rational religions’ ability to explain this driving force depends heavily on science’s ability to understand nature. Therefore, a belief about reality will be most common and strongest when faith, science and reason are in agreement about that belief. However, that agreement does not establish infallibility because an accepted theory is nothing more than our choice to believe in that theory. Religions risk invalidation or obsolescence of any adopted theory or doctrine that may become subject to inquiry, as scientific capabilities improve. Therefore, religions must remain willing to compromise with science as it continues to develop its understanding of our physical reality.
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Chicago UP, 11/1996.
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