Paper Ideas

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I'm just mulling over ideas for a paper to give next May at the annual regional meeting of one of the societies I belong to, the American Academy of Religion, in part because I want to stay in the academic fray, in part part because it's in Waterloo this year, and in part because these conferences are among the rare times I get to see my friends and colleagues from around NA that I haven't seen in ages.

So, if you were to have to sit through a paper on the topic of

a) religion and popular culture,

religion and international affairs,

c) religion and public policy, or

d) religious diversity in North America,

... what could you tolerate someone going on about, or, better, what would you want to hear?

And, better still, if anyone's interested in getting in on this too, PT me and I can look into getting you hooked up. It's a great experience.

[Biggest Fan]

#1 Religion and Culture (popular) I was voluntering with this Gent. at a Christmas type thing and he traced the growth and evolution of Christs' Mass.

#2 Maybe Its just me but Religion and International Affairs is also 'good fun'. Possible topics Bin Laden 'the Crusades' only were over as far as We saw them.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Hmmm... maybe. It's got to be really specific, though, for these conferences - or, better still, idiosyncratic. What's the weirdest thing you can associate with religion?

[d_rawk]

I've been hoping a bit that you might end up revisiting this thread to give a couple more concrete ideas about how you might want to drill down into those larger topics in the first post.

All four could be really interesting (or not) depending on what you do with them. Surely you must have entertained at least a couple specifics by now?

So ... yeah ... *bump*

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Thanks for the bump, d .

I've always liked the idea of doing a paper that was a reprise of sorts of Gregory Bateson's reading of the epistemology of Alcoholics Anonymous, i.e. its take on addiction as a confluence of cybernetics (as recursive information processing) and religion. There's not much to add to it, though, near as I can tell; his original piece said pretty much everything that needed to be said, and I think I'd only want to be doing it to keep his name in the air.

I do, though, keep drifting back to the idea of working up a cybernetic analysis of jamband music in the same light - in terms both of addiction and transcendence (via recursive communication). It might make for an interesting bunch of interviews, even and especially of musicians on this board. What makes this approach to music particular or special in terms of the ways the musicians who do it communicate? And then, there's the question of the audiences as well, who I've always thought had a unique sense of appreciating what they hear, and influence the music in their own turn.

So there's that; I suppose I could always do a mini-study on religious radio too, I guess, like something on CHRI up here in Ottawa, or something on implicit religion on the Lowell Green show (which would have the distinct drawback of requiring me to listen to it). Truth be told, though, I'm at the point now where I'd rather be writing on something I actually enjoy, rather than something that gets me annoyed (having done that for so long).

And then there's the whole business of the place of religion in the Harper government.... I'd have to find something pretty specific to look at there, though.

[boiler]

From a scietific pov, would you not be a little too subjective to do a study on something you are so personally involved with? Wouldn't the fact that you (apparently) don't listen to religious radio shows allow you to study it more objectivley?

That being said, I took an epistimology course, a long time ago which focused heavily on Alcoholic Anonymous. For some reason, that course always stuck in my head... along my long path into alcoholism

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Good questions, br. I think re. the first that it is important to have insight into your material. Anyway, the way I've been thinking of it, I'd want impressions of what this style of music is to be framed by a wide scope of musicians who do it in their own ways and have differing opinions on what the genre consists of (if they'd be kind enough to add their piece); I'd hope, if nothing else, to highlight and compensate for my own biases that way (which I'd want to do for a variety of reasons anyway). Plus, having also lived in the evangelical world back in the day myself, I still want to avoid it for a while because I find I do still have such an axe to grind.

Interesting, the AA content in the epistemology course - do you remember much of how it was dealt with? I always figured alcoholism or any other palpable addiction would be a great guiding metaphor for much of the rest of how humanity organises itself. "Addiction", iirc, comes from the Latin term for "being given over as a slave", and Lord knows we're all creatures of habit. For every bit of domination and power we see, there's a necessary subordination (however conscious it be).

[boiler]

If I remember correctly the professor of this course was a one time heroin abuser, who came very close to death. Somewhere along the line he got into the whole 12 steps and really found his spirituality. He subsequently spent a lot of time thinking and writing about death and dying. A little ggogling I found his name again, Ken Bryson.

For every bit of domination and power we see, there's a necessary subordination (however conscious it be).

So the question is, are we a slave to the music, or is the music a slave to the audience?

[Biggest Fan]

I'm also glad this got the bump...

For the past week I've been trying to get out from under the mess that I created from the Oink fest. I was part of the 1%'s that downloaded a crazy amount of music. Now that the mess has been cleaned up I can get back to the things on my mind. I have been thinking about where your paper was headed.

[Biggest Fan]

The concept of addiction is an interesting one indeed. Funny enough I have a 6 month 'coin' in front of me now.

[boiler]

Addiction never seems to be something that is solved or fixed, whatever. It always seemed to be more about replacement. AA always seemed to me to be the replacment vice, ie. addicted to the 12 steps. (Not that there's anything wrong with that).

When I quit smoking cig's, my pot intake definately compenstaed for that loss.

I definatley believe that without habits, people would not function. I certainly couldn't. Without my addictions, I don't know, some I could live without, as long as they're replaced by something even better. I wonder what the difference is between a habit and an addiction. Which come first?

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Addiction... the best metaphor that keeps coming back to me is that fighting addiction is like arm-wrestling yourself. But yeah, when people convert from one addiction to the next, the energy and drive remain the same. I don't know how many times I've seen that with atheists going evangelical, or vice versa, or smokers to ex-smokers, etc., etc..

Is there a difference between habit and addiction, apart from intensity? Routine is good and comforting, but is it "necessary", in the strictest sense? And how many barriers do we throw up to preserve the habits we've got? If the barriers get noticeably high, is it that that means that the habit is an addiction, that we're in service more to these than to our better needs and to others'?

I just read a bunch of Mark Twain yesterday, and I got such a kick out of the speech he gave at his 70th birthday, especially one line, which he repeats throughout as an axiom: "We can't reach old age by another man's road. My habits protect my life, but they would assassinate you."

[jonyak]

what about religion and the military? look at how they coexist and how people deal with the inherent hypocratic truths of being a soldier and also deeply religious.

?

[timouse]

what about religion and the military? look at how they coexist and how people deal with the inherent hypocratic truths of being a soldier and also deeply religious.

?

ooh, good one.

wasn't there a top brass US soldier who was given the boot after it came out that he was evangelizing to his soldiers and generally being a bit of a nutbar?

[Biggest Fan]

Religion and addiction does'nt sound like a bad topic???

Anyways I'm not sure this has much this has to do about anything or if it will make much sense but that never stopped me in the past....

The word that came to me was unbalanced. In many different ways (with all of the above included) it seems like as we move forward into our technological society it seems like we are put off balance. If you look at the human race and consider how much we have changed in a short time and have moved away from what we had used to get us by for 'thousands' of years. I think back to the creativity 'we' used to get by as children and now I watch my son on the computer doing this and that but not getting 'lost' in his mind.

I'll stop this blog now but there was a story in the advice column in the paper about a father who son had recently been diagnosed with this or that. The advice was for him to do what he needed but make himself more available to his son. He later writes back about how the process has been in some ways a blessing.

I'll stop now but when the electricty goes off and after you have recovered and got the candles lit and everything, I'm always a little sad when the electricty comes back on.

It seems life is'nt usually as serious as we make it out to be???

[Biggest Fan]

-n- how does that tie into religion??? I guess I was going on a bit of a rant but... Native Americans (or the Canadian equal) or even the Amish are fascinating in their simplicity, honesty and seeming inner peace. I guess or whatever...

Edited January 10, 2007 by Guest

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Jonyak and timouse - thanks, I've been mulling over that possibility for a while (eek - six more days to decide and write something up!). I went looking after I saw your posts for that story about the Airborne chaplain and his Bibles he distributed (three years ago now?) with the skulls and bat wings on it (was that what you were thinking of?), but came up empty; it occurs to me now that maybe Christianity Today might have it in their archives, but I'm too tired to check. Note to self for the morning....

BF - good point about balance. We are creatures of habit, aren't we, and people can go off the tracks in pretty short order in this experiment of a society/culture that we've been running for the last couple of hundred years. Having made it a kind of cultural mandate to open everything up to question and subject to new forms of control (with varying degrees of success) means that there is less and less sure and given ground under the feet. That kind of loss of predictability and security is probably little different in important ways than that which occurs to the drinker wondering what he did with his case of beer, only to find out somebody's gone and dumped it all down the drain.

Ok, bad metaphor; your comment on our taken-for-grantedness about electricity is probably more to the point. There's nothing like having that pulled away and being forced to deal with the immediacy of material reality without that buffer.

You people rock . Now, stupid brain, get working.

[Biggest Fan]

Dr. ... I promise this is it. Your paper put a bug in my head, the ideas have all percolated up and out and with this last one they have hit the floor and dispersed out....

How much of a religious safety net is the idea of an 'act of contrition' (forgiveness of sins ). Being a Catholic (formely known as...) its easy enough and I believe Christians can do it on a as needed basis (). Sure makes life grand and easy and helps take away the worries does'nt it.

Edited January 11, 2007 by Guest

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Sho'nuff. Isn't it great to have a system that promises forgiveness whenever you ask for it?

It's sad how so many people look at it like it's some kind of magic.