Divine Plagiarism

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29 September 2006

Legends.

“Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends.” – Legends of the Fall.

This will be my legacy to my family and my children. I will take God’s promises as face value. We will see what God can do with one man totally sold out to Him. I will give Him that man. This is all I have to give.

Fasting is praying with your body. I have wanted to do the 40-day fast thing for some time now. Now I have both the reason and the time. With my test out of the way, I think I actually have a window for it now. I’m giving up solid food (but due to my professional commitments, I’m keeping milk and Slim-Fast for protein.) I lift up the prayer that started this thing, ‘Lord, change my heart or change hers.’ Perhaps the answer will arrive sooner, as with the prayer delayed by the Prince of Persia. Perhaps the answer will not arrive until the end of the fast, or afterwards. Either way, it seemed like the thing to do. I start today.

Some of my conversations I will not share. They are between me and God. This much I will share. It seems like so many stories are like the Legends of the Fall, tragic webs of broken dreams and unrequited hopes. I believe my Father is richer than this. There is some story under His skies for me. So I wait upon Him, and I place my hopes at His feet. I am still in love with C. Now more than ever. If this is not His story for me, then may He reforge my heart and reshape my desires so that all I want is the woman He has for me. Where the good things about C exist only as a foreshadow of His glory woven into that woman. Where the ways C has hurt me are simply the rocks along the broken path that leads me to that woman. If C is not that woman, I want to know that to the very depths of my being. If C is that woman, if this is my story, then I ask that He would move in a mighty way, breaking and healing her heart (and mine,) holding us both close to His chest. Where my love would not be considered an insult, where she would thank me for not giving up on her. Where He would redeem all of these hopes sent up into the skies, and both her and I would find ourselves and each other more amazing than we ever dreamt possible. A good author will write a good story. I know the Author of my story. I will not be satisfied until I find His good ending (even if it is not the ending I would write.)

This is, one way or another, my way of fighting for my wife. In The Last Battle, Aslan tells the Calormen warrior who seeks after Tash and finds Aslan that all good acts were acts unto Him. All the blood and tears I spill here in these prayers are an offering to God for the woman He will give me. Whether that is C or someone else. A friend told me early in this story that in following it to the end, my wife would get a better husband out of it. I believe this with all my heart. This much I know: after God, my wife will have my whole heart. Every nook and cranny, all of the hidden places, all of my deep dreams. She will have all of the places I my heart I am discovering even now. I will look her in the eyes, and I will mean it with all of my heart when I tell her that ‘over every other daughter of Eve, I choose you.’

This much will be true: there will be no fragments of lost hopes in my heart. Whoever she is, my wife is a beloved and cherished daughter of the Most High. I will serve her with my whole heart. There will not be even a whisper of settling, not in my words, not in my eyes, not in the very deepest wells of my heart. She will have no doubt that with every fiber of my being I believe that she is the only one for me. In order to be able to say that, I must see this story all the way through. The shards of Narsil are reforged into Anduril; my heart is broken so that it may be reforged into His image. I welcome the breaking, I welcome the fires of His forge. May only He remain.

Adam’s wife was made from His very being, made of the very same essence. There is a woman with fire in her veins, where the future is born behind her eyes. There is because there must be. When God made me, He spoke life into me with His words. Those words were the beginning of a sentence. There is a woman in which He completed that sentence. I will wait for her. I stand on the mountaintop, overlooking the battlefield, and I wait for a woman who dreams the same dreams I do. A woman who has the strength to follow them. A woman who loves the Lord her God more than life itself. I hold out my hand. I still hope that C will be the one who will take it. These are my desires. He tells us that He will meet the desires of our hearts. I believe Him. He will bring me this miracle, or He will reforge my desires and then meet them. I stake my heart on it. May those whose hope is the Lord not be put to shame.

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27 September 2006

On the Silmarillion and other topics.

Thanks to everyone who prayed for my test. I did well, a couple of dings, but good overall. So I’ve been reading the Silmarillion. Excellent book. I remember that someone critiqued me once (very directly) for thinking that they were a character in a book. When we cease believing that the stories happen is when they cease to happen. We confuse being grown-up with being cynical. The Professor of the Narnia stories would set us right, if he were here. The stories resound with us because they reflect to us of aspects of our own stories. These stories are written upon our hearts and hidden in our deepest dreams, but in the safety of fiction we allow them to bubble to the surface. Yet, there are still those who choose to dream while awake. They find themselves in the middle of stories worth living. There is a story here. And as painful at times as it is to be a character in this story of my Lord’s authorship, I have no doubt it will be a story worth living, however it ends. I want to see it through to the last pages. I believe He will give me the strength. Perhaps in the wake of a tragedy and the failure of all hope, He will vindicate me by giving me a new book. Perhaps this book will end with reconciliation and a real friendship before a new story is given to me. Perhaps the fool’s hope, and all that hinges upon it, comes to pass and everything will be made new again. I do not know. I am not the Author. But I will continue to turn the pages of this story.

D.

Desires and Dwarves. In the Silmarillion, Aule (the angel of earth) was present near the beginning of time. Eru Illuvatar’s (God) plan was to create the Children of Illuvatar (Elves and Men) to inherit the world that He made. As the foundations of the world were being laid, Aule desired along the same lines. He wanted someone to love, someone to teach. So he fashioned the dwarves out of Earth. Yet, in doing so, he oversteps the bounds Eru has set for him, and jumps the gun on His plan for Men and Elves. When Eru confronts Aule, Aule asks for forgiveness for his impatience, and to his great sorrow prepares to destroy the dwarves. Yet, he pleads with Eru, saying that he created the dwarves as a child emulates a father, from the same desire that led Eru to create Elves and Men. He offers the dwarves to Eru, as a gift of a child to a father. Eru accepts this, and tells Aule that He will weave the dwarves into His plan. Aule gratefully exclaims ‘May Eru accept my work and amend it.’ Eru tells Aule that He will not reward impatience, so the dwarves will not be allowed to awaken until after the Children of Illuvatar. Nonetheless, He chooses to honor the desires of Aule and give them life beyond Aule.

I could not help but feel that I had been in the shoes of Aule. I had desires, desires inherited from my Father. These were not evil desires, there was neither rebellion nor selfishness in them. But I was impatient. I wanted someone to love, someone to honor and fight for and care about. I should have been more willing to wait. I tried to bring these desires about through my own power, rather than bringing my desires to the throne of grace. Hence much of the heartache of the first two years of knowing C. Yet, through some set of circumstance not of my own creation, her and I would end up speaking again. God is merciful in His patience… it was as it He was bringing me back to this chapter of the story until I learned to lay it before His feet. Strangely, it is this time through that I actually feel at peace with this story, even in the midst of the storm. It feels more honest, more real, certainly more scary, but more intimate with Him.

Yet, in this is the hope of Aule. My desires were not set against His, they were just impatient. So I pray the same prayer: may God accept my work and amend it. And as Aule’s impatience was not rewarded even as his desire was woven into the grand story, I am sure that my impatience will not lead to a quicker end to the story. But I raise up my desires to Him, and I raise up the time, energy and heartache I have poured into these desires over the last three years. May God accept these works, and may He amend them. May He redeem my desires in His time.

Death to Life. So CSL is totally right that love requires vulnerability. If anyone has ever been vulnerable, surely Christ was. But here is the question. Once Christ passed through death to new life, He was no longer vulnerable to death’s sting. He suffered, He died, and He rose again victorious. We look for invulnerability in so many places. Perhaps it can be found here. Once you have passed through death and found new life in Christ, you are no longer vulnerable to death. This is true in physical death, but perhaps it is also true in the little deaths of heartbreak and loss that we endure. When we turn to face our pain, embrace it in grief, and pass through it to find new life in Christ, we are no longer able to be hurt by that pain. We gain an immunity, perhaps. Not an immunity through scars, but an immunity through rebirth. I cannot speak with authority here, but this occurred to me in two very different lines of thought.

The first is from the book Children of Dune. Leto Atreides (the younger) is made to eat spice essence until he is saturated with it. The essence causes him to have visions and hallucinations, and gives form to his fears. In that crucible, though, he gains an immunity to the spice. It is still part of him, but he can direct it to his will. In passing through suffering, he is no longer subject to that suffering. ‘Fear is the Mind-Killer…’ (There is a third line of thought born in the travails of Alia that will not be addressed yet.)

The second was a hypothetical I allowed to go too far before refocusing on Christ. I think I still learned something of value. It occurred to me that if there was another communication from her, there is not really anything that would prevent it from being as hurtful as her last one. And I wondered what my response would be. It occurred to me that I now care far less about what she thinks, and far more about what God thinks. This is not scar tissue. I have faced the death of my heart, and Christ has carried me strong through it. I do not doubt that He would do it a second time, so I no longer fear her words.

Gift of Mortality. Sorry for the macabre tone here. I recently wrote a precursor to a ‘just in case’ note, which I greatly hope will not need to be delivered anytime soon (given the logistical inconveniences for me upon which it would be predicated.) In the outside chance that I do not return home at some point, I do want her to know the story that is happening here. That would not be easy for her, I think, but it would be a thick blessing, not like the pleasantries that are thin like water. This is an unpleasant topic. I will reframe it in somewhat more positive terms. (I am not depressed or anything. Please don’t draw any very incorrect conclusions from my discussion of this serious and important topic.)

The Silmarillion describes mortality as a gift from the Creator to the race of men. It comes to be viewed in time as a curse, but was not originally meant as such. There is much truth in this, I think. I was talking to one of my friends regarding mortality and duty and the intersection of the two. Philippians 1:21 was the framing verse for the discussion. My best friend from college died a while back in a car wreck. I thought I would feel more grief, but in fact, I felt mostly peace about it. This I did not initially understand. Upon reflection, though, all my sorrow was for those left behind. I know for sure that my friend went home to Jesus. I felt as if God were saying ‘I loved him so much I could no longer bear to be without him.’ This made sense to me. Tolkien describes the gift of mortality as a respite from the wearing of years. I think it goes beyond that. Not only have we been given a life with which to serve God, we have been given a death as well. I intend to serve Him with mine. This is the prayer of a martyr, and I ask Him that He makes me fit to pray it, whether or not He ever invokes it. So this is the gift of mortality. May He invoke it whenever He pleases. I am at His service. To live is Christ…

Proxy Wars. I have been convicted of something recently. Even as I pray that He would heal her deep pain, I have found Him healing mine. I have been holding on to reservoir of pain from my time in Cantabrigia. Something in me resents deeply that school and the academe in general. There are surface reasons for this. Anyone who is remotely non-liberal at a liberal policy school will surely be familiar with the torrents of vitriol unleashed upon anyone who is considered ‘unauthorized different.’ (There are many categories of ’authorized different.’ I was not in these.) Whether that millwheel ground its own furrow, or found its way into ruts left over from other Junior High School type experiences, I cannot tell.

There are deeper reasons, though. If I am really, totally honest with myself, the real reason I do not like the academe is because I believe they made a promise they could not live up to. I had hoped, my whole life, to find a place where I was not unusual. Some place where I fit in. Somewhere I could be myself without having to downshift, where I could shed the layers of control I developed for the sake of being relevant. Somewhere I could be relevant just by being me. I believed the hype. I expected to find a town of geniuses. I expected it to be hard. I expected to be one of many. But I was not. And I think I never forgave them for this.

Perhaps this requires a bit more explanation. It is very difficult for a child who reads Hunt for Red October in the second grade to find peers. I do not say this with arrogance. I once wished it were not the case. I no longer do, for I have come to peace with the gifts God has given to me. Nonetheless, I have always desired a place where intellectually I would not be uncommon. I have hoped to find this in each new stage of education. And in each new stage, I have been disappointed. ‘When you get to [whatever the next stage is,] then it will be hard.’ But it never was. I saw the last best hope of finally finding such a place in my final educational stop north of Boston. Surely, all the propaganda said that was the place all the smart people went. That was the place where it would be safe to be brilliant. That school considered itself to be the center of the intellectual universe. And I took this as a promise that there I would finally not be alone in my gifts.

What I found was the trappings of privilege and a culture of pseudo-intellectualism. I did not find the brilliance I sought. In fact, I found a conspicuous lack thereof. And I resented them for it. To add to the depths of my resentment, I found many who believed that allegiance to a given set of ideas was the only true indicator of intelligence, hence anyone who disagreed with those ideas was clearly unintelligent. Yet many of those same people could not debate their way out of a paper bag or use an equation to save their lives. The same people who were terrified of Greek letters in economics formulae accused my friends of stupidity because they did not unquestioningly accept Chomsky. (I am being convicted of pride as we speak.) This same attitude informed the assumptions of Damon and Affleck (both Harvard undergrads) in their screenplay Good Will Hunting (naturally the genius would like Zinn and Chomsky, because someone that smart would be liberal, of course.) So I resented them doubly… first for their inability to keep their promise, and second for their blindness to their own failure. This is the depth of this wound.

There is a darker rumor here. A whisper of the enemy using the salients in my life to undermine my prayers. Perhaps the depth of my resentment toward that town and toward academia has to do with a more immediate story. I have forgiven her (C.) I pray for her freedom. Yet, I kept a tremendous amount of bitterness toward the two things I would have associated most strongly with her. My issues with that town are independent of her, as are my issues with academia, but it seems as if the enemy has used these as a way to undermine my prayers for her. How can I consciously pray for her when I subconsciously resent the things she stands for? I will no longer be a house divided against myself. I close this salient. May academia be redeemed, restored into a place where people proclaim the truth of the LORD. May the town of Cambridge become a place where His Name is spoken openly and loudly. May she be an instrument in both of these prayers. May the things she cares about be redeemed and blessed.

I renounce this brokenness. I yield it to God’s healing waters. I forgive and I seek forgiveness. I forgive anyone who has mocked me or insulted me for my beliefs. I forgive for the times when my classmates made Ethics class feel like an interrogation. I forgive for the times I was accused of racism by those who did not even know me, much less know who my friends were. I forgive anyone who has hurt me during my time in Cantabrigia. And I seek forgiveness. I seek forgiveness for my pride. I have been given what gifts I will require to fulfill God’s purpose for my life. I am sixpence none the richer (CSL) for those gifts. I seek forgiveness for demanding that the gifts of other be the same as my own, and for judging others when their gifts were not mine. I seek forgiveness, ultimately, for hiding in my gifts rather than running to God for protection. So thus I end my war with the academe. I’m pretty sure they won’t notice. (I suppose that is normally the case with these sorts of things.)

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25 September 2006

The Economics of a Battlefield

I wrote this a while ago. It is still relevant. BTW, my prayer has changed again. It is now 'Lord, please bless C. and keep her safe. Sing to her of who she is in You.' I probably wont write for the first half of this week: big test coming up on Wed. I would treasure your prayers :)

All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. - Acts 2:44,45 (NIV)

The priorities in our wallets demonstrate strongly the priorities of our hearts. When Christ demands our all, He makes no exemption for our physical resources. We seem to forget about what belongs to Him, instead talking about what belongs to us 'by rights.' When we start laying down our rights and start picking up the Cross, victory comes into sight.

Acts 2:44 is one of those hard Bible verses. You know, the ones you don't know what to do with, the ones you kind of wish weren't there so you can pretend that you've got this whole Christian thing figured out. We certainly still haven't figured out this verse. It is cited as an example of Communism, even though that system made no room for a God. This doesn't seem to fit with the Early Church. Neither does the alternate explanation that the early church practiced total market capitalism, but they shared a few things. While making this verse much more comfortable to our culture, this interpretation seems to miss much of the meaning.

Luke was talking about more than just an occasional potluck. I don't even think he was really trying to talk about an economic system here. This verse is more about a mindset, and a method of distributing resources in keeping with that mindset. The early church understood themselves as united in Christ, tasked with the mission of spreading His gospel to the nations. They also understood that they were opposed in this mission by the powers and the principalities, which would use any means at their disposal to oppose them. They understood they were in a war. They weren't trying to make an economic theory; they were trying to fight that war. Theirs was an economy of a battlefield.

Resources are allocated on a battlefield much differently than in civilian life. Nobody sits down and thinks, 'who would it be more just to give the ammunition to?' or 'What does fairness tell us about fuel distribution?' The ammunition goes to whoever is out; the fuel goes to whoever needs it. The members of an army understand that they stand or fall as one. They are united in the pursuit of one goal: victory. They allocate resources to where they are needed in order to win the battle. Just as an army is united toward one goal, the Church is united in their mission to spread the Gospel and in the blood of Christ. The Church, just as an army, stands together or falls. The Church in Acts understood this, and they allocated resources accordingly. We can learn a few lessons from them.

Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. - 1 Corinthians 4:2 (NIV)

The first lesson the verse draws us to learn needs to be spoken in very direct terms. The Body of Christ as a whole does not practice Battlefield Economics to the degree it should. We certainly do not see the battlefield as a united front. There are churches on the front lines in the inner cities scraping to stay above water, while suburban churches worry about the latest building project. This is not to say that building projects are not important, but rather that we should have more of a grasp of the whole fight. Something would be wrong with an army where one unit was worried about getting the latest night vision goggles while another unit had no bullets. What is true inside our country is also true outside of it. American money goes a long way overseas. God has blessed the believers in this country with tremendous resources. We need to be sure we're investing our talents as effectively as possible, not burying them. We might consider further investing them in the huge stretch of the battlefront outside of our borders.

Sometimes, when we are not constantly under fire, we can forget we're part of God's army. In an army, the quartermaster usually has the most resources. They are entrusted with getting those resources to where they can be most efficiently used in the battle. They are rarely on the front lines. An army where the quartermasters hoard supplies is an army doomed to defeat. We, those entrusted with resources, can do much to get resources where they need to go. The more we realize that unity requires logistics as well as doctrine, the closer we come to finishing the unfinished task of the Great Commission. The more we understand that the battlefield extends beyond our local church, the stronger the Body of Christ becomes.

The second lesson of this verse is about fairness. If we are still worried about what's fair, we have forgotten the lesson of the Cross. Justice was nailed to the Cross with Christ when He took our sins upon Himself. In the transaction of salvation, we traded everything we had for the promise of new life. We owe our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone, and all the resources God has entrusted us with are to be used in His service.

The enemy uses the economic weapons of greed and jealousy to great effect against the church. Those who have hoard. Those who do not have covet. And the cycle of brokenness continues and sows strife and hatred in the body. We worry so much about keeping what is ours. We say that it is just to keep what one has earned. But yet, it is God who gave us the ability to earn. He owns the field, He provides us the tools and the seeds, and it is He who makes the seeds grow. Perhaps if one is more efficient at earning, their role in the Body of Christ may be to provide the resources to allow the other parts to function. This role should then be carried out with joy, not with resentment.

We say that it isn't fair that we don't have what our neighbors have. On a battlefield, there are times when it makes sense to concentrate resources. If one has broken through the enemy lines, then they should concentrate their resources on that point. It takes more resources to advance against certain defenses. Therefore, more resources need to be spent at those points. The difference is whether we focus on ourselves or on God. When we take our eyes off ourselves and look up to Christ, we can see our brothers and sisters around us. The point is not what is just, nor is it what is fair. The just penalty for our sins is death. Fairness would have us spending eternity separated from God's love. If the God of the Universe died for us, the least we can do is lay the resources He has blessed us with back at His feet. And since He has bound us together into one Body, with one mission, we need to use those resources together to accomplish that mission.

The Church in Acts remembered that they were at war. They used their resources accordingly. We remain at war. Sometimes we act like we have forgotten. We need to take our eyes off of ourselves and look to Christ, and it is then that we will see our brothers and sisters and the fights they are engaged in. We need to worry less about what should be ours, and realize it all belongs to God. We need to place victory above our rights. We need to fight to win. The powers of darkness will run in fear when the Church begins to act as one. Our pocketbooks are a good place to start.

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22 September 2006

As Christ Loves the Church.

Jesus taught me something astonishingly beautiful while praying last night. In order to share it, I am going to have to shed some layers of defenses. I will open up here the raw feed of my prayers, unfiltered and real. I think it will be worth it. [This was originally a much longer post. Most of it became a journal entry.]

This is the last email I sent to her, more than two months ago. I do not know if she read it.

I will comply with your wishes. This does not change my prayer. Which is as follows: 'Lord, please change my heart, or change hers.' I eagerly anticipate the latter answer, and should that answer arrive, I invite you to communicate with me through any avenue you see as appropriate. And if the answer arrives as the former, then I expect that my anticipation will be forgotten. Perhaps, if what I have said is so disgusting to you, you might pray the same, that my heart would be turned from you. You are free to resent my actions, but it is enitrely inappropriate to resent my heart. And I will continue to pray that prayer as long as He gives me the faith, hope and love to do so. But I would hardly tell you what to do. And my prayers go with you nonetheless.

I ask no forgiveness for this.

In Equal Sincerity,
The Real D.

I do not know if the person I was then would have believed that I could have persevered this long in that prayer. At that point, it seemed as if it would take a miracle to keep praying it for three days. It did. I am still praying with a faith, hope and love that is far beyond my own. ‘The assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen…’ I have had to rely totally upon God in this prayer, for I have been beyond the limits of my own strength for quite some time now (even past the limits of my monumental stubbornness.) Because of this, I have been changed, and I am being changed. I am becoming the man who I only heard in the echoes of daydreams. God has used this crucible to fashion me more and more into His likeness. I will continue to pray these prayers as long as He gives me the strength to do so. He has so far.

I want to make this clear. I do not want to talk to her until she finds the strength and courage to face me. When and if she does, I think she may find a very different man from the one she remembers. Until then, I do not want to see her through any other eyes than those of her Father. Because of this, I have made a conscious decision not to ask any of our mutual friends about her current status, nor have I read her blog or anything like that. With that said, I feel very strongly that she is currently facing some trials and defining decisions. I feel as if she is on the edge of a precipice, and that there is a war for her heart. As if she is in a crucible, where she is faced with some pretty scary choices about the woman she is going to become.

Jesus romances her now. I will not compete with Him. In the light of promises I have made, I pursue her the only remaining honorable way: in my prayers. I intercede for her. I fight for her still, but I do not struggle against flesh and blood. I pray that Jesus would win the entire heart of this woman, whom he loves more than I can imagine. I pray that all powers of darkness that make any claim over this woman would be cast down, that all the strongholds in her life would be demolished. I pray that that Jesus would tell her who she is, that He would cast down her pride in all things that are not Him so that she could finally see how absolutely breathtakingly astonishing she is in Him. I will pray this until He relieves me of this burden, or until He allows me the role that I have asked of Him in her life. If He answers that latter prayer, I will pray that He would teach me to love her the way He does.

In my prayers about her last night, I encountered something tremendous, something worth sharing. The following is a transcript of my prayers last night, to the best of my recollection. (I take a bit of artistic license, something of a necessity when ascribing words to feelings.) This isn’t cleaned up or filtered. Because of that, I ask that you suspend judgment and read it with a degree of understanding.

Me: ‘What would You ask from me?’
God: ‘Everything.’
Me: ‘I give You all of me.
Part of me is this desire for her, and I raise that to You.’
God: ‘Why do you want her?’
Me: ‘I want to make her rich in love…
I want to lavish love upon her…
I want to tell her how amazing she is and how much You love her.
But I want her to be Yours first.
I won’t fight you for her.’
God:‘This is a hard path you ask for.
Do you think that if you got what you wanted,
that loving her then would be any easier or less scary than loving her now?‘
Me: ‘You have given me the strength to love her so far.
And I do love her, Jesus, with all my heart.
I would fight through hell for her if You would give me the strength…’
God: ‘How much would you give up for her?’
Me: ‘Lord, I would die for her…
Jesus, I’m afraid that she will be lost to her fears…
I would rather die than see her lost…’
[long pause as it occurs to me what I just said]
God: ‘Now you understand how I feel about you.”

As Christ loves the Church. I think I finally understand.

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21 September 2006

On Fears, Fasting and Purity. (Ill tie them together somehow…I promise.)

My ‘faith’ posts have become more or less compilations. Accordingly, I’m sending less of them. As God teaches me more, I am keeping more and more of the real-time interaction simply between Him and I (and between myself and the friends to whom I am accountable.) This should not be interpreted as this story meaning less to me, or having become less important. In fact, the opposite is quite true. This is what this post is about. [The last part, about purity, is pretty direct. I don’t really mince words.]

I had said in my first post that ‘I am not afraid anymore.’ This turned out to be a more complicated statement than I realized, and a more true one. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to turn and face it. When I said this, I meant that I am no longer afraid to confront my fears. This did not then, nor does it now mean that I am without fears. One might think that fears would lessen after having done something for a while. They don’t. In fact, they grow. CSL tells us that only in confronting temptation do we understand its true nature. Only in fighting it do we see the nemesis that it truly is, and only in resisting fiercely do we force it to show its full strength. This is the same for fears. They do not go away when you turn to face them. But when you face them, you find that you are stronger than they are. In this sense, it is like weightlifting. The workout sessions don’t get easier, they get harder. But it becomes infinitely easier to lift a weight that once was heavy after fighting with the weights for months.

Our enemy is wily… he adapts, continually probing for weaknesses. He doesn’t give up. So as our fears grow, we can do one of two things: we can run away, or we can run to Christ. There is not another option; we cannot face our fears through our own strength. Will or inertia or cleverness or whatever else simply cannot stand up to our enemy. The enemy will try to convince us to fight in this way, but he simply invests in future victory when he goads us to use our strength to fight him. In turning us to our own devices, our adversary turns us away from our only real hope. Only the Spirit of the Lord can overcome him. Fears will either drive us into the arms of our Lord or away from Him.

It is not that my fears have surrendered, only that I have learned to rebuke them. They are as active as ever, trying to show me the many ways in which my hopes will fail, all the ends where I will have been a fool for even trying. (Although there is something to be said for having ’the guts to try,’ but that is a very different topic. Google it.) My fears tell me stories about running into her miraculously, the way I hoped, but with her having a different last name, like some twisted ironic joke. They whisper in my ear that I am all the things that she called me. They tell me I am a fool not to run, not to hedge my bets. They say ’of course you cannot walk on water. Better start looking for a life-preserver now.’ They taunt me to answer them. This is their tactic: to provoke a response, and inhabit the consequences of the response.

Professor Guzman of Sendero Luminoso fame borrowed a page out of the enemy’s playbook. (Shining Path incidentally used a university to train and equip all of its terrorists, sheltering them under the guise of ‘academic freedom.’ Christians in the academe are placed by God in a critical center of gravity, one eagerly sought after the enemy. `May they be salt and light.) Shining Path committed terrorist acts in order to provoke an over-reaction by the government, which they would in turn use as propaganda and a recruiting tool. (Fortunately Guzman was foolish and spent more time learning about Chinese culture than his own. Hence the incomprehensibly stupid ‘hanging dogs’ stunt. Now he’s in jail.) Our fears are like this, goading us to act to keep ourselves safe, while simultaneously undermining those safety mechanisms. When they collapse, we run away. Our strength will not keep us safe from fear. We must seek the strength of the Most High, for He is our only real shelter.

I think this is why fasting is such an effective exercise. Your hunger doesn’t go away as you fast. In fact, it gets worse. Yet in facing your growing hunger, you learn that you are stronger than it. You don’t fast your hunger away. You fast so that your growing hunger drives you to discover a strength you did not know you had. Fasting teaches us that our structural failure point is farther than we had realized. If you fast for long enough, you discover that your own strength is inadequate, and you must seek a Higher strength. And this is the whole point: the Strength that lies beyond the failure of our own, the Strength that is just waiting for us to ask to be filled. You must die to really live. Your strength must completely fail in order to find true Strength. In fasting, our hunger drives us toward Him, as we yield our desires to Him. We look to Him to meet our needs, to fill our desires. The need drives us to Him. Here is the answer to our fears: we wrest this weapon from the hands of our enemy when we use our adversary’s attacks as a means of refocusing on God. When our fears rear their head, we should run to the foot of the cross.

We look to Him not only to carry us through, but also to fill our desires. The desires part is very important. Fasting is not an exercise in asceticism. Ascetics scorn the flesh. The flesh is simply a tool. After the fall, though, it is a broken tool in need of refashioning. An unwieldy sword is as likely to cut you as any adversary, but the brokenness of the sword should cause you to reforge it, not cast it away. This is what fasting does… it is a reforging of our desires. We are not trying to lose our desires, but rather to reshape them in accordance with God’s desires. Because of this, feasting was as important as fasting in the early Christian universe. Hunger is the best sauce, and food consumed after a fast tastes very good. (Binging and purging is a twisted and backwards form of this concept.) In fasting, we are asking God to meet our desires, abandoning our own ability to do so. When He does, it is a cause for rejoicing. Only in His timing can we really dive fully into the realization of our desires. We are not teaching ourselves to be content with less. We are letting God teach us how to ask for more than we can yet imagine. We fast so that we may later feast with Him.

And this, in case you haven’t guessed, brings us to purity. This has been on my mind of late. I am a proud 27 year old virgin who fully plans on waiting until marriage (and then making up for lost time.) I do not feel called to celibacy, something I have raised up to God, but Augustine’s path did not seem in line with some very strong desires that I feel He has given me (although I find it regretful that the church does not seem to find his path legitimate or normal anymore.) I’ve been reading a bit, and it is always helpful to hear of other’s journeys. I have to say, though, there is something frustrating about the books, a question of relevance. They seemed to address two very opposite situations, neither of which were much like my own. Some addressed the question as if to a college group, all of which were planning on getting married in the near future. The answers given seemed a bit too simplistic, ones that would hold a 20 year old true to their beliefs. And when I was 20, they did. But I have not been 20 for quite some time. The others were more of a recovery manual for purity, a journey back toward chastity for a early thirty-something recently saved. I have a hard time relating to this one as well. I have noticed that my friends who got saved after being sexually active generally have gravitated toward marriage rather quickly, so the ’get married right now’ answer seemed to be point of those books as well (unless, of course, someone was willing to follow Augustine‘s path.) Both journeys are deeply true in their own way, but neither of them were mine.

I rejoice for my friends who are married, and for those who are getting married. Yet I must confess a twinge of jealousy… I feel a bit like the prodigal son’s older brother when I talk about that my friends who took the latter journey (saved later after having been sexually active.) (This is not good, which is why I am confessing it rather than defending it.) But I think about Paul’s advice against married couples abstaining from sex for extended periods… a prohibition not placed on any other sort of fast. Sex is, I think, a bottle of wine that is very difficult to recork once opened. So if God provides a someone who has already uncorked that bottle a spouse in short order, then it is an act of mercy and I rejoice for my friends. I am blessed with an extended period of singleness where I can get to know God better. I think of how much I have changed… I don’t think I would have been able to grow as much had I been in relationships during that time. I also see only shadows of the pain and heartache I have avoided by waiting. Still, these answers aren’t enough. They once were, but seeing years tick by while all my friends get married, I need something deeper than ‘it’s a growing time.’ Why isn’t it a growing time for all those friends? There has to be something better than ‘you‘re saving yourself from a lot of pain.’ Why do I only hear that from friends who are happily engaged or married? I can run the statistics. I know how few people my age have waited. Numbers don’t look so good, so why wait? Odds are, she won’t have. (Pardon the honesty, but I think more of us think this than will admit it. This vulnerability and honesty here is an intentional choice.) I truly and deeply want to tell my wife that she was worth waiting 27 years for, but I need something thicker than catchphrases to keep that promise.

Christ taught through stories, so I’ll give it a shot. So I’m in grad school, a couple years back. And I feel my hope start to slip away, I feel my reasons for waiting slipping through my hands. The words start to sound like catchphrases, the dreams seemed more and more like fairy-tales. I start to realize that it was only inertia holding me back at that point, the simple desire keep doing something just to prove to myself that I hadn‘t wasted ten years for nothing. This is a very dangerous position to be in, especially when the opportunity is presented to you to ‘revise’ your boundaries. So my walls started to fall. I began to find myself in dangerous situations, playing with fire but still being the one to call ‘stop.‘ I wasn’t doing anything crazy, nothing most other people hadn’t already done in high school (probably junior high… I am a bit naïve.) Still, the fact remained that my boundaries were moving further and further, and I was not rebuilding any of those walls once they fell. I remember it feeling like a countdown timer, as if a second hand was counting down time until my inertia ran out. And I cried out to God for help. He did help. He saved me. He reminded me of love, of what it was, what it meant. He reminded me that it was worth fighting for, and worth waiting for. Praise be to Him, over the course of the last two and a half years, I have rebuilt my walls. There is no timer anymore. (As an aside, it was a few months after I prayed that prayer that I met C. Very strangely given the course of events, she ended up being instrumental, albeit very unknowingly, in my fight to guard my heart for my future wife. Perhaps I was not supposed to meet her until her and I were both more ready, and meeting her early was a providential act of mercy. All conjecture.)

This brings us back to fasting. We fast that we might feast with God afterwards. There is no point to the fast without the feast. God had to remind me of the feast so that I would continue in the fast. Sex is awesome (I presume.) Like any other gift, it has context. I love to fly. Flying is awesome. Flying visually into a cloud near mountains is stupid. There is a context to flying, not to take the fun out of it, but to take the danger out of it. In its proper context, you can enjoy it most completely. I think we get this wrong in the church. We seem to say ‘sex goes from bad to good once you get married.’ Because of this, we walk right up to the line marked ‘bad,’ and tiptoe on it while trying not to cross it. We set ourselves up to fail. It’s not about a magic sexual transformation from ‘bad’ to ‘good’ at the altar. It’s about entering in to the context for the gift. Sex is always good. In marriage, we enter into its context, and can safely enjoy it to its fullest. Imagine a gourmet dinner. The dinner is never ‘bad.’ It simply may not be ready yet. If you try to eat the chicken before it is cooked, you may sate your hunger, but you’ll probably get salmonella. If you try to eat the food while it is cooking, you’ll burn your mouth. But if you wait until the dinner is ready, you’ll enjoy it at the pinnacle of its taste. The dinner has not gone from ‘bad’ to ‘good,‘ only from ‘good, but still cooking,‘ to ‘good, and ready to eat.‘ And here is the hope of the late-twenty-early-thirty-something virgin… that a meal that takes a very long time to cook is a meal that tastes very, very good.

There is another relevant story here. I remember one of a dozen parties at grad school, all of which were about the same. Everyone got drunk and stupid and hooked up. Standard. It sucks walking home alone, when everyone else is hanging on to someone, stumbling back to each other’s apartments to spend the night. I thought, ‘You never feel more alone than when nobody else you see is alone.’ God showed me I was wrong. Tragically wrong. My classmates, even while sharing a bed with someone else, were very, very alone. I realized that this is what waiting is about. ‘You may be sleeping in someone’s bed tonight, but you will still be alone in their bed. I may be sleeping alone tonight, but in my bed, one day, I will not be alone.’ I also remember talking to one of my flight school buddies. He was talking smack, making fun of me for being a virgin. I talked smack back, because that’s what you do at flight school, but good smack. He said something to the effect of being more of a man because of all the girls he had slept with. I asked him how his inability to control himself made him more of a man. The point of this is that I believe that God designed sex, and I ask Him to vindicate me. God designed bodies as well. He can teach my wife and I how to play each other’s bodies like a fine musical instrument. I want the sexual relationship within my marriage to be so awesome that it makes a mockery of the illegitimate sex that my friend was so proud of.

We are mind, body, and spirit. Sex is an act of union. Union of mind, where the other person is so deep inside your head that you can’t tell which thoughts are theirs and which are yours. Union of body, where you cannot tell where you end and the other person begins. Union of spirit, where your very essence becomes mixed with the essence of the other person. In the mixing of essences, sex images the Trinity. God is three persons of one essence. Sex is about two people becoming of one essence, an act that can yield a child, an third person of the same essence. It only makes sense, a God who exists in relationship would represent Himself most completely in the most intimate act of human relationship. Within a marriage, we are meant to give ourselves to each other completely, holding nothing back. Mind, body and spirit are to be like three notes in harmony. This world has lessened sex. It tries to pull just the note of the body out of that harmony, and creates dissonance. The frictional quid-pro-quo that this world calls sex is about taking, about holding back and keeping what is yours. This world thinks it knows sex, but it is unable to dive both feet in. (Hence the whole stupid five-year-engagement thing. The desire to have sex should be a natural force propelling the two people together toward marriage. Meeting that desire out of context may stall that natural progression.) This world knows in shadows and echoes something that God wishes to give us in fullness. I will wait for that fullness.

Because of this, I set boundaries even now, before I meet my future wife. Like the gourmet meal, I don’t want to spoil my appetite by eating the ingredients. I want to have a full appetite, for I intend to bring my wife to my banqueting table, and I intend to dine with her there. In the light of this, I plan on waiting to kiss my future wife on the lips until I have proposed to her. (This is a personal boundary, not necessarily normative. Lines that are fuzzier tend to get moved, and never moved back, and I know my own vulnerability to temptation.) I want to honor her with my body, both before our wedding (by waiting) and after our wedding (through more aerobic means.) I am my beloved’s and she is mine.

I said at the beginning of this purity discussion that I needed more than a catchphrase. That isn’t to say that there aren’t good catchphrases. A friend told me once, ‘I intend on waiting until marriage, and then I plan on making up for lost time.’ Well said. I have my own variation. ‘The marriage bed is undefiled, and I intend to max-perform it.’ Sex is awesome, and I greatly look forward to enjoying it in context with my wife. I can hardly wait until God is done cooking the feast that He is preparing for my future wife and I. We will feast on love in His presence. But until He is done cooking, I am glad to wait.

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19 September 2006

Craniums and Containers. (Language and Group Identity.)

So pilots, especially fighter guys, talk funny. Not just on the radio. There is some governing dynamic to this. Considering how young aviation is, this gives us a very interesting offshoot of English from which to study language’s cultural and functional evolution. A more fascinating study would be the tactical dialect of aviation, but for reasons that should be self-evident, we won’t be deconstructing that here. Instead, we’ll use ICAO (civilian) pilot-speak, as well as out of the cockpit fighter-speak. Of course, by using fighter pilots as a case study, I won’t be doing any favors to my previous argument that the military is not misogynist. But that is neither here nor there. The real point is at the end of the post, but ‘ya have to read through the rest of it to get there. I’ll spoil it a little: its about Christians being relevant to their culture.


“I was flyin’ out at Nellis, doin’ Dark Grey WIC support,
I was out there by my lonesome ‘cause my buddy was a mort,
And I saw that big, fat ****** in a turn off to my right,
He was either lost or he was looking for a fight,
So I put him in my HUD, and I almost flipped the switch,
But then I thought, how could I miss, ‘cause that’s a huge *****,
And only a big ***** would use two Fox ones,
It’s time to get medieval, Im goin’ in for guns.”
- Dos Gringos, 'Goin' in for guns.'

The most fascinating aspect of Tolkien’s universe is the interplay between language and culture. Races develop a language to suit their world, yet that language shapes them even as they are shaped. Activities require words to be described, yet the words available in turn shape the activities, which writ large shapes culture. Because of this, you can tell much about a people’s culture and environment by their language. Specifically, the language will tell you much about the world it was shaped in, and the concerns of the people who shaped it. Language, then, becomes a stabilizing force to a culture, as it is difficult to form thoughts outside of the mainstream functional areas of the language. Language changes over time, as environments change and cultures change. This process can be unintentional, due to mountain ranges or migrations, or can be the intentional result of linguistic politics, a tool to establish cultural boundaries and an exclusive identity.

Most languages developed during a time when work life was the same as home life. There was then no need to have two vocabularies to describe two different worlds, as there is in the more segmented world of modernity. MBA-speak or computerese will not do much to ask one’s wife how the day went or vice versa. Therefore, as a function of the modernistic split between work and home, we have uniquely ‘work’ dialects. These evolve to represent the rapidly changing world of technology. There is an interesting parallel here between the technological world and the tribal world here. A language that evolved in the far north may have many words for snow, while an equatorial culture may have no words for snow. When confronted with snow for the first time, that culture may have to conglomerate the word for snow from a few extant words (e.g. very cold rain.) They may simply incorporate the word into their language from another language for the new concept. The technological word faces the unique challenge of creating things that have never existed anywhere before, for which no other languages have words that can be appropriated. They have to use the conglomerating tactic. Note, however, that instead of using clunky English combos, they generally go back to Greek and Latin for the roots to words. Latin seems to be a more ethereal language than English, where abstract concepts can be communicated more precisely with fewer words. There is an important point here. Within a language, the central concepts to its developing culture will be the easiest to express.

Consider this in English. Old words like ‘live, die, eat, buy, kill, love, war,’ are very short and easy to express. Words like ‘confiscate’ take longer to communicate, and are a bit clunkier. To a more highly structured and authoritarian culture than the Anglo-Saxons, perhaps a less unwieldy word would be used to describe that concept. So it seems that simplicity of words can be used as a measure of what is considered most familiar to an originating culture. Prefixes and suffixes adapt these words, but the root word is definitionally older, hence generally more central. Precision of words can also be considered. Where English has one word for love, the Greeks used four. Therefore, the Greek description of love can be considered more precise than the English description, which would imply that love was a more significant concept to the Greeks. So, as a closet engineer with a half-hearted MBA, I start to see metrics here. Let’s define some axes by which we can classify a language and learn about its originating culture.

Metrics. So I’m making this up as I go along. This ended up being more interesting than I thought it would be. I still fully intend on talking about airplanes. I’ll get around to it. Four metrics seem to work: reflectivity, grounding, precision, and flexibility.

Reflectivity. This axis is defined by the language‘s ability to communicate thoughts rapidly. One side of the spectrum is the reflective language, where it takes a long time to say anything. Consider the language of the Ents. They sacrifice quickness of communication for depth and deliberation. The other side of the spectrum is an operative language, where data is conveyed very rapidly so as to be quickly applied. Here is pilot-speak. A pilot desires to communicate maximum data in minimum time, and sacrifices depth to do so. A language’s position along this spectrum can be assessed by measuring memes (thoughts) expressed per unit time. On a macroscopic level (between languages), this variable tells much about the ‘speed’ of a given culture and the demands placed on it. On a microscopic level (within the language), areas within the language which are more operative indicate subjects which demand quicker responses within the cultural context, and more reflective areas indicate topics the culture deliberates upon.

Grounding. This axis is defined by the language’s ability to communicate ethereal thoughts easily. One side of the spectrum is the ethereal language, one specifically adapted to communicating abstract concepts. Latin and Japanese could be considered ethereal languages, where the theoretical is expressed with ease. The other side of the spectrum is the corporeal language. Consider English, Anglo-Saxon or Aboriginal languages, where words like dirt are easy, but words like philosophy are hard. A language’s position along this spectrum can be assessed by measuring the relative effort (syllables or time) it takes to communicate an abstract concept (analogies, theories) vice a concrete concept (things you can touch.) On a macroscopic level, this variable tells us much about the demands of economic life on the culture, ie. The more agrarian the culture, the closer its language will be to the dirt. (Etruscan v. Latin would be an interesting study here.) This variable doesn’t do us that much good on a microscopic level, because it uses a relative measure within the language. (I’m using a totally parallel structure for this section because I’m lazy and didn’t pay attention in writing class.)

Precision. This axis is defined by the ability to use different gradations of words to express a concept. One side of the spectrum is the precise language, where multiple words are available to describe a single concept. Consider the four words for Love in Greek, vice the one in English. The other side of the spectrum is the general language, where context forms the basis for understanding gradations in words. Spanish would be a good example. (I would guess that general languages prefer tenses to cases, but I don’t know enough to speak meaningfully to this.) A language’s position along this spectrum can be assessed by measuring the average number of words associate with each core concept in the language. On a macroscopic level, if you want to kick it like Weber, you could associate the ‘accuracy’ of the culture by this measure. On a microscopic level, it tells us what things the culture spends effort on describing in detail, and hence what it needs to describe in detail.

Flexibility. This axis is defined by language’s ability to adapt structures and words to describe new (foreign) concepts. One side of the spectrum is the rigid language, where more effort is required to accommodate the new concept within extant vocabulary and structures. English is such a language, which is why we need to take technology words from Latin and Greek. The other side of the spectrum is the flexible language, where new concepts can be rapidly incorporated within the language. (Note that in such a language, words for new technologies would sound more natural and less foreign.) Russian is a flexible language, though it takes the German tack of making really, really long words with a lot of prefixes or suffixes. This variable can be measured by determining what degree the language has to borrow words from other languages to describe newly evolved concepts. On a macroscopic level, perhaps if were going to rock the Durkheim party, we could try to assess the premium the culture places on progress with this variable. (This doesn’t seem to fit with the Russia example, but the Russian linguistic adaptability is a function of Stalinism and its progress fetish. Czarist Russian didn’t play the pronoun game to the same degree. ) On a microscopic level, perhaps this tells us something about where the culture is progressing the fastest. Note that this somewhat changes the French critique on ‘too many English words spreading.’ Most English techno-words aren’t really English, but Latin or Greek words placed into English grammar. Anyways.

Case Study. Now we have metrics. Yay. (This is somewhat ironic, given my diatribe against the quantitative fetish of social scientists in the last post.) Back to airplanes, and our case study of Pilot-speak and Fighter-speak.

‘Southwest 1359 is final approach fix, with the gear, for the option, will follow company traffic.’

What? Doesn’t make much sense, does it. Here’s the thing. Language always requires context. You don’t make words for things you never encounter, because you don’t have any need or reason to. If you’re a pilot flying on instruments, coming in for landing, it means a lot. So let me translate, and then we‘ll deconstruct later. I promise.

‘Southwest 1359.’ - The speaker is identifying himself.
‘is final approach fix,’ - They are located at a point in space along the approach to the runway.
‘with the gear,’ - They have lowered their retractable landing gear.
‘for the option,’ - They are intending to either stop on the runway, or take off again after landing.
‘will follow company traffic,’ - They will fly behind another Southwest aircraft on the approach.

So before deconstructing, let’s figure out the grammar. Here we are faced with a choice, this Pilot-speak is one of two things. It could be an ‘acronymized language‘, simply an abbreviated English, where words are omitted or shortened, but grammar is unchanged. The other option is that Pilot-speak is a pigdin form of English, a unique form of the language where both words and usage are changed. If this were true, Pilot-pigdin would have different grammar rules than the original language. So let’s go back to our translated sentence, and see if we can just add words and reconstitute the meaning. (In a sense, an acronymized language is ’freeze-dried,’ if you add words according to some standardized structure, you get the root language and meaning back.) If we can’t transform the Pilot-speak into normal English by adding words, then it is a pigdin, a uniquely transformed language. (This, in turn, would mean that the originating culture of the pigdin is actually significantly different in some regard from the general community of the language.) Let’s play.

‘Southwest 1539’ - [This is the] Southwest [flight] 1539. So far so good.
‘is final approach fix,’ - [the aircraft] is [located at the] final approach fix. A little more work, but okay still.
‘with the gear,’ - with the [landing] gear [down.] Still works, but ‘our’ instead of ‘the’ would seem to work better.
‘for the option,’ - […] for the option [to land or do a touch-and-go] Hmmm. ‘For’ seems to be an action verb here, but according to English, ‘for’ not a verb. Let‘s put a verb in here, and see if it works, like ‘bought shoes for running.’ [Approaching the airport] for the option. Oops. This is not what the phrase means. If a pilot were to explain ‘for the option,’ they would not describe it like this. Problems starting… it doesn’t look like we can add any reasonable sequence of words that will let us retain the meaning within English rules of grammar.
‘will follow company traffic,’ - [we] will follow [the] traffic [from the same] company. Problems. First, the word ‘traffic’ here is non-standard usage. Second, we have to restructure the sentence in order to get the word order right. Most importantly, though, we have to do backflips to make the tenses of the entire sentence agree. ‘Is’ seems to signify 3rd person, but ‘will’ here implies agency and hence the 1st person unity between the speaker and action. There seems to be much looser tense rules here, implying somehow a unity between the pilot and the aircraft. In order to reconstitute this sentence, we need to do some pretty significant grammatical gymnastics. Let’s try another one.

‘Texan 43, request start clearance on Alpha 1, with information Oscar, clearance on request.’

‘Texan 43’ - Same deal as before.
‘Request start clearance on Alpha 1,’ - [I/we] request clearance [to] start [engines, we are located] on [parking spot] Alpha 1. Sort of awkward. Non-standard usage of ‘on,’ where ’at’ would be more appropriate. The other awkward part is the big chunk in front of the on. What was one coherent fragment needs to become two in order to be reconstructed.
‘with information Oscar,’ - [we have] information [from the ATIS, of the designation] Oscar. Not good. Split one coherent fragment into two upon reconstitution, ‘with’ seems to mean ‘we have.’ Very non-standard usage, though evolution of the thought can be traced.
‘clearance on request.’ - Not even going to try. Doesn’t work.

Different grammar, non-standard usage, this isn’t really English. At least, not the kind of English that I’m currently writing. This isn’t just an instance of just filling in the blanks on a form. We aren’t just missing some vocabulary. We actually changed grammar here to suit our purposes. We have adapted English to suit our needs. One of the hardest things for a student pilot to learn are radio comms. It isn’t just learning to expect certain things at certain times. It’s actually learning a language. You start with canned radio calls, but just like with any new language, the structures start to make sense after a while. This seems to lend credence to the idea that this Pilot-ese is a pigdin. So, if it is really its own language, what can this language tell us about the culture from whence it came? Let’s try out our metrics.

Reflectivity. This is an almost totally operative language. A language for a culture that favors data flow over deliberation, for a fast paced environment. Precision. This language is tremendously precise for certain things. (Landing = Full Stop, Touch-and-go, Stop-and-go, Land and hold short, Low Approach, or the Option.) This language is for a culture tremendously interested in accuracy in certain things, and not so interested in other things. Grounding. This is a very strongly grounded language, one for practitioners, not theorists. Well suited to a culture and an environment which understands concrete outcomes. Flexibility. This language’s syntax cannot readily adapt to new concepts outside of extant parameters. ILS becomes MLS or LAAS fairly easily, but anything outside the bounds of normal aviation experience cannot be adequately described in Pilot-speak. This is a language for a very structured culture, where certain things happen at certain times. An operator’s language, one built for an environment and culture that is practical, perfectionist, and fast-paced. Check.

Evolution. Remember when we were talking about the bifurcated work/home life of modern society? Here’s where it comes back into play. English is a language built for farmers and peasants. The world that an IT professional faces is far different from the world of an English serf. Languages change over time, as do cultures, but technology creates a unique challenge to the adaptive abilities of a language. The IT world is simply different from the real world. The IT type who has a life outside of that world (which is, of course, not all IT types) must have a different language for dealing with work and real life. Work language is full of jargon and acronyms, shaped by a small group with unique shared experiences. Real life language is more generally understandable, more the common tongue defined by the larger culture and experience. So we see in this a practical function of language, developing modifications of root languages to allow sub-groups to deal with the uniqueness of their situation. There is also a cultural function of language, which unites a group as a whole (excluding those outside the group.)

There are two paths for linguistic development we have seen so far. First is the ancient pathway, where the practical language and the cultural language develop indistinguishably along parallel paths. The second is the pathway of specialization, where as a culture branches out into differing professional areas, a common cultural language is maintained as the street and home language, where the practical language is developed by sub-groups to suit the reality of their work, and is usually left at their work. Note that the function of cultural language in the second pathway here is inclusive. The IT professional probably wants to downplay his professional language if he is to get dates… he wants more to be seen as a member of the society as a whole than to distinguish himself as an IT professional. Say, for the sake of argument, you had a group who thought their job was so cool, that they wanted to continue the evolution of their practical language into a cultural language, distinct from the society as a whole. Then, interestingly, the group would be using language as an exclusive tool to proclaim sub-group identity (hence reducing allegiance to the group as a whole.) Let’s look at a case study of this: Fighter-speak.

First, I should explain Fighter-speak. As an out-group person myself, I am not going to get it all the way right, but let me give it a shot. Fighter guys (gender neutral) don’t ever say ‘head,’ they say ‘cranium.’ They don’t ever say ‘box,’ they say ‘container.’ They point with their elbows, so as to not have three fingers pointing back at them. Finally, whenever anybody says anything which remotely has any sexual connotations, such as ‘I’m going downtown,’ a fighter guy has to say ‘so to speak.’ Fighter guys don't ever call their aircraft by their official designation... a F-16 pilot will call their aircraft the 'Viper,' never the 'Fighting Falcon.' (Viper comes from the original Battlestar Galactica series, which was coming out about the same time as the -16.) Also, fighter pilots will refer to themselves generally as 'fighter pilots,' but not as pilot in regard to their specific airframe. When talking about flying their specific aircraft, its always 'driver,' like 'Viper driver,' or 'Mudhen driver.' I probably forgot some stuff. With that done, let’s explore the functional and cultural categories of language further to apply them to our case study.

Functional Language. Functional language is an adapted language by which a sub-group deals with the peculiarities of that sub-group’s experience. This can be due to geographical isolation, professional realities, or any other reason that causes the sub-group’s experience to be different from the experience of the root language members as a whole. This is a necessary adaptation which allows a culture to grow. The functional language will be more different as the experience of the sub-group is more different. The world of aviation is very different than the world in which the mass of users of modern American English reside. Before aviation, we had no need for words to describe what it looks like on the inside of a cloud. The need for such a descriptor (IMC) is a reality of the aviator’s function. We have already discussed the peculiarities of Pilot-speak.

Cultural Language. Cultural language is the language used in daily life. It can be used by the culture as a whole to enhance unity, through the inclusive function of language (everyone speaking the same language on the streets.) It can also be used by a sub-group to set themselves apart, using the exclusive function of language (the cool kids talk like this and you don’t.) The variations that groups use to set themselves apart usually arise as a function of practical language and make their way into professional language. With enough time, if the sub-group’s professional language may seep into their cultural language. (‘Let’s leave.’=‘Pull chocks.’) This pathway is regulated as a function of the strength of the sub-group identity vice the group as a whole. For instance, IT professionals might go pretty far out of their way to not talk like computer programmers in bars. On the other hand, there is a pretty common joke about pilots: ‘How do you tell if there’s a pilot at a party? Don’t worry, he’ll tell you.’ For the latter group, the peculiarities of their professional language (though softened to a degree where communication becomes possible) become the defining characteristics of their cultural speech. For fighter guys, this difference is even enhanced by replacing common use words like ‘box,’ with ‘container,’ in order to express certain things about the way they see the world (like through the eyes of a really smart, immature and very competitive 15 year old. Which is funny, usually.) These words are not functional, but rather anti-functional, as they impede out-group communication, and have more syllables, slowing in-group communication. Yet, these words set the group off from the whole, announcing a strong exclusive identity. These words function as markers. On a much less light-hearted note, we can see the roots of linguistic politics here. (Ukraine, Slovakia.) In these cases, peculiarities in language are so emphasized that they legitimate an identity split between groups previously united. The application point here is that a group interested in effectively communicating with the larger culture will partake more strongly in the inclusive function of the larger culture’s language, in diminishing its cultural linguistic differences. A group interested in setting itself apart (toward either elitism or secession,) will emphasize its sub-group’s linguistic differences in order to take part in the exclusive function of language.

Academia. Academics have their own unique language, as well. Theirs stands in pretty much diametric opposition to Pilot-speak. Academic-speak is a deeply contemplative and reflective language, one that reflects a high degree of nuance, one very comfortable with ethereal concepts. One much closer to Entish, for trees grow slowly and nothing in the academic world happens faster than the speed of sound (except, perhaps, in physics labs.) Given the nature of academic work, this language was developed as a functional dialect. It was necessary for a very speculative group to have a very speculative dialect. I would argue, however, that the academe, similar to pilots, uses its practical language as a means of establishing an exclusive cultural language. ‘Problematic’ does mean something other than ‘bad,’ but is used interchangeably with ‘bad,’ in most academic circles. Words like ‘dynamic tension,’ (I’m a total hypocrite here) indicate ‘I have some sort of advanced degree.’ Here’s the thing. A lot of stuff, especially MBA-stuff, isn’t as hard as the cultural dialect would lead one to believe. Multi-syllabic words become the linguistic distinction by which the sub-group ‘academe’ separates itself from the larger society. This isn’t normative yet, but of course I have my biases. It isn’t hard, so to speak, to tell what they are (pilots.) You can’t beat the view out of my office. (I still kind of like academics, though, but I totally won’t admit it.)

Christianity. I am going to be very normative now. This was sort of my point all along, and everything else was just the long, meandering path to get here. There is a functional language to Christianity. We need words to describe concepts like grace, sanctification, and predestination. It is simply too clunky to try to use normal culture words for that sort of internal dialogue. This is why functional language exists, to allow a sub-group to more effectively deal with their unique environment. Here’s the thing, though. The point of the Great Commission is to bring other people into this unique environment, so we must consider our interaction with the larger society in that light. There is without a doubt a Christianese dialect of American English. We use it to set ourselves apart culturally. We appeal to the exclusive aspect of language, and strongly self-identify in away that keeps us safe. This is not holiness. We are not set apart by culture. This is the mistake that Paul so aggressively addresses in his discussion of circumcision. We are set apart by the Spirit of God, and He calls us to be in the world, even as we are not of it. This is a call to relevance. We need to consider what effects our language has upon our ability to interact with the larger culture. Our practical language, by definition, must be our own, but we must take on an inclusive cultural language. A missionary would learn the language of the culture they set out to reach. We must learn to do the same. Jesus Christ understood more about sanctification and grace than any of us ever could. Yet when He spoke to farmers, He told them of spiritual things in the language of farmers. We should go and do likewise.

Addendum to Craniums.

Thanks to Corban B. for this one.

We can examine language groups, sub-groups, and perhaps individuals with these metrics. We can apply them to different levels of analysis, as long as you set a baseline appropriate to the level of analysis. We can look at a culture by examining their language in the context of other languages. We can examine a sub-group within a culture by examining their dialect against the baseline of the root language. We may be able to analyze an individual by examining their manner of speech vice that of their sub-group. In each case, we will look to the offsets from the baseline. There will likely be resolution issues, though, in the case of the individual. There may be individual discrepancies between the language imprinting process and the individual development of consciousness which would cause the application of these metrics to become problematic (not bad) past a certain point. Above this level, though, there should not be a problem applying these metrics to different levels of analysis.

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External and Internal Identities.

I am fascinated by the formation of synthetic identities, where regardless of background, one can be considered a full member in an identity through some voluntary process. Where the identity is composed entirely of volunteers, merit seems to consistently emerge as communal capital. I see some fascinating analogies between American military culture (juxtaposed with the American civilian society) and America itself. This is not to say that America has the only synthetic identity out there. Liberia’s initial national identity formation is intriguing, as are the struggles to create national identity in post-colonial states. France makes an interesting counterpoint to the American identity; to be American is to buy into American ideals, to be French is to buy into French culture. This has the interesting effect of some Chadian elites referring to France as ‘home,’ even though they have never been there. Also, commercial flights between Niger and Chad go through Paris, even though the two countries are neighbors. (I would chalk this up to the French intentionally ordering to their own continuing benefit the consequences of their colonial adventures (usually to the detriment of the former colonies.)) The point being that the American identity has something to do with voluntary acceptance of a set of ideals, and this has much in common with the identity formation patterns involved in a professional military.

How can understanding this benefit us? There are some very interesting social dynamics that occur in the military that would generally be considered as positive if the construction of a meritocracy is considered an American ideal. In terms of promotion, the military is the closest thing to a meritocracy in this country. There is far less in the way of whispering of ‘he just got the job because he’s X,’ and the like. In the dispensing of justice, the military consistently stacks up favorably to civilian courts in regards to being color-blind. The military has differences in the ethnic composition of its officer corps and its enlisted force, but because a commission is a function of a college degree, a large chunk of this can be ascribed to educational inequities in the society as a whole. When this is taken into account, the military stacks up favorably to the civilian world, not in some small part due to aggressive promotion of education in the enlisted corps and Green-to-Gold type commissioning programs. Citibank does not take promising tellers and send them to Wharton to come back as executives. The military does. If we can understand this culture of meritocracy in the military, perhaps we can in some way use that understand to reduce inequality in the country as a whole. (I love the irony, an overwhelmingly conservative group achieves progressive metrics more effectively than groups that call themselves progressive. By the same token, the K-School Christian Fellowship was percentage-wise the most diverse group on campus, and we weren’t even trying.).

Let me first say that I am totally and unequivocally opposed to the use of the military as a social engineering tool or as a sociology laboratory. Let me also annotate that the military is far from perfect, as it is composed of human beings. This is not a apologetics or propaganda exercise; I am not trying to write Henry V type inspirational speeches here. Most of the sociological work on the military has been second-wave feminist type stuff accusing us of all sorts of misogyny, and attacking us as the last bastion of traditional maleness. Of course, I find most of this stuff offensive and ignorant, suffering from in-group/out-group problems. I also find a conspicuous lack of charity in the research, normal benefit of the doubt that would certainly be extended to any indigenous group is totally lacking, as is any real cultural context or understanding. Something akin to ‘I watched ‘The General’s Daughter’ once so I understand the military, which is equivalent to the totally offensive assertion that ‘I watched ‘Spanglish’ so I understand the experience of a Mexican illegal immigrant.’ An example of this was the incessant questions about the USAFA Scandal while at the K-School. As my female friend B. points out (who worked on the assault crisis hotline at USAFA,) the static average rate of assaults at Harvard College was higher both per (female) capita and in absolute numbers than the Academy at the height of the scandal. Zero is the only acceptable rate, and I want to express my absolute abhorrence of that horrific crime, but if USAFA is to singled out, then a discussion of context is appropriate. Context didn’t matter much to most of the people who confronted us about it, they had already made up their minds. That is a much longer topic, one that I don’t care to discuss. The military is not the only place where in-group/out-group understandings of identity exist, though, it is the only place I can speak to them meaningfully (although the movie Something New addresses the in-group/out-group identity issue in depth.) So that is the real topic: the difference between the identity that is presented to the out-group and the identities that exist on the inside of the group. All the rest of that was background. Don’t you wish I had said so earlier? Hahaha.

If anyone wants to plagiarize this, feel free… I’d recommend taking out all the parentheses or making them footnotes…(you still probably won’t get a good grade, though.)

So you roll up to some people who are arguing about something or other. You try to insert yourself into the dispute, but you are surprised to find that when you do so, the fissures between them magically disappear as they assert themselves as a united front against you? Yeah, I don’t recommend doing that. But it illustrates a point. In West Side Story, the cop asks two gangs who were obviously just fighting with each other what was going on. He clearly favors the WASP-ish gang against the Puerto Rican gang, and offers to pin the whole thing on the Puerto Rican gang if the WASP one will give him some information. Both gangs, previously occupied by bashing each other’s skulls in, now present a united front against the clearly out-group cop. They stake out a very opaque perimeter around their identity, ensuring that the out-group member does not have access to internal group politics or information. Let’s call this a ‘perimeter identity.’ A specific brand of exclusive identity, usually a super-strate identity, the perimeter identity ensures external uniformity while allowing (even facilitating) internal diversity. It increases the span of an inclusive identity by allowing it to manage a higher degree of tension within its bounds. The perimeter identity correctly identifies that the gravest threat to its continued existence is not its internal fissures themselves, but external exploitation of those fissures. By maintaining an opaque screen to the outside world, the perimeter identity ensures that external forces will not be able to exploit these fissures. The perimeter identity has three critical aspects that we will explore here: external unity, internal diversity, and transition processes.

External Coherence. The perimeter identity, viewed from the outside, is without fissure. It is unitary, and any attempts to create division are resisted fiercely as interference from an interloper. The identity group members will have distinguishing characteristics which to the external observer will indicate sameness. The window to the internal workings of the group will be opaque to non-group members. Before passing through the identity ‘membrane,’ the group will seem to move and act as one. Note that this does not necessarily mean that those actions will seem rational to the outside observer. Identity politics (in the broadest sense of politics) has as much to do with the interactions between the sub-groups of the identity as they have to do with rational plans of the whole. Without access to any understanding of or information about the sub-groups, the actions of the group will seem at least to some degree mysterious to the observer. This is not unintentional, as it greatly limits the influence an outsider can wield in group workings. The observer has to be brought into the group, transported through the membrane, before he is allowed a window on group understanding. This barrier can be constructed through dialect, space, or external identification (clothes, etc.) The barrier can be transparent (limits functional access but not information,) but the stronger boundaries are usually translucent to opaque (limiting both access and information.) Using military culture as an example, five USAF Academy graduates / Kennedy School students were attending a lecture on harassment in the military. These five students were fairly diverse, in terms of backgrounds and political views. Yet when the discussion turned inevitably into an inquisition on the USAFA scandal, the Academy grads answered basically as one to the accusations leveled. Any of the Academy grads’ answers to any question were basically interchangeable with what the others would have answered. It was amazing to see five people who were so different all at once become one fissure-less united front. (This does not mean that we were not forthright, much to the contrary. But we moved as one instinctively when the identity was questioned.)

Internal Diversity. Once one spans the gap from outsider to member, they see all the internal diversity of the group that seemed so fissure-less from the outside. The same distinguishing characteristics that indicate sameness to outsiders actually indicate difference to the group members. We will explore this point further through the use of the uniform later. The opaque membrane belies tremendous complexity in its internal workings. The external narrative may differ greatly from any of a number of internal narratives. Actions that previously seemed mysterious will intuitively make sense, although in the process of crossing the membrane some degree of objectivity will likely be lost. There may be a tremendous degree of dynamic tension contained with the identity, which may be the engine by which it moves or adapts. Fostering internal competition can be a regulatory mechanism, and one that would be transparent to the outsider unable to understand the differences. Within the bounds of the identity, difference may actually be emphasized rather than mitigated in order to take advantage of this dynamic tension. Therefore, the perimeter identity in some ways serves as a containment vessel for a group. In terms of this internal diversity, consider the tremendous differences between the Army and Air Force sub-cultures contained in the perimeter identity ‘military.’ Or consider the rivalry between the F-16 and the F-15C communities contained in the very strong perimeter identity ‘fighter pilot.‘ To the outside observer, one might say, ‘what’s the big difference,’ but to the Viper driver, the difference is enormous. Internal and external identities can be layered. Under military, you have Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps, all of which see themselves as tremendously different from the other. Under Air Force, you have rated (flyers) and non-rated , both of which go out of their ways to emphasize their differences. Under rated, you have pilots, which see themselves as very different from navigators. Under pilots, you have fighter pilots and heavy pilots. Under fighter pilots, you have F-16s and F-15s. Under F-16s, you have different squadrons. This may be the limit of resolution, unless one wants to make the fairly conclusive argument that the fundamental unit of analysis for the fighter pilot is the self.

Transport Mechanisms. If a perimeter identity is to maintain itself (other than by simple reproduction,) it must have some mechanism by which an outsider becomes an insider. This should be one-way (barring excommunication,) and must cause the outsider to take on whatever defining characteristics indicate sameness to the outsider and difference to the initiated. There must be a socialization process by which the new group member is stamped. Rites of Passage are one common socialization method used to imprint and indicate entry into a group. An example of this military basic training, or the barriers to exit involved in gangs, not that this makes the most complimentary analogy. In the transport mechanism, we can understand why these identities are usually the stronger ones. An identity with weak barriers to entry can be redefined fairly easily by those without strong allegiance to the group (a sort of Bleeding Kansas of identity definition.) However, one with such strong barriers to entry ensures that only the ’true believers’ of the group will be able to define it. (This sets up a possible principal-agent problem when the gatekeepers from the Osmotic model of the last post act in their own interests a la Sharpton.) Equally importantly, the imprinting process ensures that the ‘defined by’ rather than the ‘defining’ part of the identity dialectic is strongly favored in the acolyte, at least initially. In this process, the perimeter identity enforces its dual roles as containment vessel and defense mechanism. It ensures only authorized members will reach positions where they can shape the identity, for interlopers will be identified and be rejected as foreign intervention.

Uniforms. I find the uniform as a case study fascinating. It is the quintessential symbol of the perimeter identity. They are an indicator of sameness to the outsider, but difference to the group member. The function of the uniform is not to eliminate differences, but to standardize and confine them. To the military member, much more information can be gleaned from a uniform than from street clothes. In fact, in the same way that uniforms may look the same to a civilian, civvies may look fairly similar to a military member. Consider a flight suit. Almost all of it is the same, but the differences are all in the same places. One patch is for wings and names, where the way the name is written may indicate information about the community the wearer is from. Another patch indicates command, another for unit, another for a flag or a weapons school patch, depending on whether the wearer has earned it. The shoulders indicate rank, confusing to the uninitiated but instantly identifiable to the member. The modifications on the flight suit indicate community as well. Interestingly, the different levels of identity are allocated their own territory on the uniform (command, wing, squadron, etc.) Whatever area remains unregulated becomes a nexus for expressing individuality. This could be haircut, or the Velcro on the pen pocket, usually used for humorous morale patches. Therefore, a uniform does not eliminate differences, it just standardizes them and assigns space to them. The uninitiated will be unable to read the language of the uniform, therefore the overwhelming sameness of it will be the only thing he sees. Therefore, the uniform allows the perimeter identity to camouflage itself in plain sight. The military uniform is not the only uniform out there. Gangs certainly uses uniforms, as do corporate types or punk rockers. I can’t read a corporate uniform. A Brooks Brothers suit and a J.C. Penney suit look about the same to me. Yet this difference conveys information to those who can detect it, as do college rings and a doctor‘s white coat. This method of standardizing differences within an overwhelming sameness does not only apply to uniforms, but after 3 minutes I couldn’t think of another good example, so I’m going to keep going. Anyways, the uniform epitomizes the semi-transparent boundary by simultaneously informing difference between the initiated, and portraying sameness to the uninitiated.

So that’s the theory. Perimeter identities. I haven’t figured out how this is useful, and considering my closet engineer teleological fascination, this frustrates me. Wait… here’s one. Quantitative vs. Qualitative research. There seems to be a quantitative fetish amongst social scientists. While quantitative research offers a better degree of objectivity and allows higher degrees of certainty, there seems to be an element of compensation in this. There seems to be a deep insecurity about being ‘real’ scientists, the way ‘hard science‘ types are. So to be cool and taken seriously like physicists, there is a strain within social science (UCLA’s Poli Sci department) that wants to have the certainty of numbers and laws. I think that is why there is such a ruckus about Democratic Peace Theory or whatever (the one that says that democracies never go to war with each other.) While generally true, there is still this desire to make it a Maxwell’s Equations-type law, 100% right and all. The gymnastics it takes to do this (American Civil War, Serbia, Former Yugoslavia) leave me somewhat unconvinced. What I mean to say is there is some strong preference for quantitative research over qualitative research. As a guy who likes numbers and hard science-type laws, I sympathize to some degree, but if you don’t know where to find the variables, your regression won’t work out. If you use the wrong variables, then you will probably reach the wrong conclusions. Qualitative research tells you which are the important variables. Qualitative research allows you to crack the shell of a perimeter identity. While you can’t ‘go native’ doing quantitative research, quantitative research can’t always wrest reliable conclusions from inside an opaque identity membrane. The two methodologies complement each other. Chaotic hypervariate problems require intuition to get a handle on them (consider donut solutions from Chaos theory.) Once you have pinned them down, then pull out your F-stats and R-squareds. Point: Qualitative research is good and necessary.

Next time we’ll conclude our ‘sociology of the military’ discussion and steal a page from Tolkien in order to examine the interaction between language and culture. Good times.

13:05 Posted in Boring Theories (Social Sciences) | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this

18 September 2006

Inclusive and Exclusive Identites

It occurs to me, at the McClure-DelCastillo engagement party (two of my friends here,) that a pretty huge number of my military friends have multi-ethnic marriages (like upwards of 30%.) This is not as true for my civilian friends, but is somewhat true of my Christian civilian friends. At the K-School, this was not true at all. It was a big deal for someone to even have a multi-ethnic relationship, and had some pretty huge social ramifications, whisperings about ‘selling out,’ and ‘sleeping with the enemy,’ and the like. This never made much sense to me. Nonetheless, for some reason, within the extended military community (active duty, spouses and children of career military,) multi-ethnic marriages are both very common and viewed as normal. I, for obvious reasons if you read any of my other posts, think this is great. There must be some math, some magic to this. There must be some governing dynamic. This post is an attempt to find it. On a mostly unrelated point, I’d like to like to thank Nate and Natasha (those two friends) for proving to me that purity is possible, even when you’re 29 years old. They’re saving their first kiss for their wedding day. Administrative note: if I wasn’t lazy I’d find some actual statistics. Instead, I’m going to use the time-honored tack of using my friends as my sample, along with ’stuff I heard’ as data. I also highly advocate TLAR Navigation. (TLAR=That Looks About Right.) By the way, as a ‘not get fired’ note refer to my ‘who I am’ page for my disclaimer that I do not represent any views other than my own here.

Definitions. Any time you classify anything, you must trade some nuance for understanding (reference Uncertainty post.) This discussion is an attempt to classify different identities in regard to the direction of definition (from within or from without.) This discussion must therefore speak in very broad terms, and generalize to a great degree. If I step on anybody’s toes in doing so, I apologize. Returning to the previous post on dimensionality, our discussion will limit itself to one dimension at a time within the huge multiple regression that exists in each of us. (For each dimension in which we are defined, such as race, class, gender, etc., there are complex allegiance and identity interactions. We’ll just talk about one at a time, acknowledging the concomitant loss of the total picture.) The milieu of this discussion will be the questions of immigration. And, even though identities are dialectical (defining those who define them, and vice versa,) our view is macroscopic, so we’ll just assume that dialectic. Anyways, to the question at hand.

Exclusive Identities. An exclusive identity is defined as simultaneously being something, and therefore not being something else. More succinctly, ‘I am X, and therefore not Y.’ Inherent in the definition of the identity is the negation of some competing identity. An exclusive identity tends to be far stronger, but is not generally accessible. The identity remains ‘pure’ as defined by its participants, and is disinclined, at least to some degree, to participate in the larger context. In order to meet the needs of its members, the identity may create parallel or alternative structures to provide basic services. Barriers to participation in the larger context push an identity more in the direction of exclusivity. An exclusive identity’s distinguishing characteristic is distinctness. In the immigration context, most community identities start as exclusive identities, and then either remain so, or evolve into inclusive identities as barriers to participation are overcome. Specific examples: The African-American community, has to some extent, maintained an exclusive identity forged by history (and necessity.) Evidence of this is the parallel structures of the traditionally black colleges (Morehouse, Spelman, etc.) This identity was initially imposed from without (shamefully through slavery,) but is currently maintained largely from within. Initially, the Italian-American immigrant community had an exclusive identity imposed from without (not being accepted, being called epithets, etc.) The Mafia’s early role was filling in the security gaps left from failure of the police. (Similar to the development of the PIRA in Ulster in the first half of the last century.) The American military could be said to have an exclusive identity, but one imposed from the inside. We will explore this in ’External and Internal Identities.’ The important point is that an exclusive identity is defined as much by what it is not as by what it is. Therefore the members of an exclusive identity must continue to not be the antithesis of the identity as they inhabit the identity.

Inclusive Identities. An inclusive identity is the first of an exclusive identity without the second. It is defined as being something, without precluding being something else. Simply ‘I am X.’ There is no required negation of the opposite, in fact an inclusive identity can embrace the opposite and be both at once. This sort of identity tends to be weaker, but far more accessible. In fact, the identity can spread beyond the original group members, both in general influence and in specific shaping of behaviors within the larger community. This sort of identity finds it strength in participating in the larger context, as its accessible nature allows it to exert influence proportionate with its participation. It rarely establishes parallel institutions, but instead spreads its most effective institutions throughout the whole, reshaping the whole. In time, particularly appealing parts of the inclusive identity may supplant aspects of the collective identity (more salsa is sold than ketchup in America.) Diffuseness is the identifying aspect of an inclusive identity.
(In this sense, perhaps, it is the relative truth of an identity system, making the exclusive the absolute truth of the system. The absolute system defines the origin.) Examples include the current Irish-American identity (St. Pat’s day, people who are like 1/32 Irish are all like ‘Kiss me I’m Irish,’ Boondock Saints is a uniquely American movie, even though it is uniquely Irish-American.) The current influence of Latino culture in contemporary music, food and films (Fast and the Furious, Y Tu Mama Tambien, yuppie burritos are the current food of choice for the larger culture, even though they are as Latino as American pizza is Italian (not much.)) is certainly shaping the larger culture, indicating a transition from a more exclusive to a more inclusive identity. The Asian-American inclusive identity has imprinted itself very strongly on Saturday Morning cartoons, which are more formative that one may think. By the power of Grayskull. Growing up in the 80s. Fun. (Sort of on this topic, one could make an argument that the assimilationist impulse in the first generation Asian-American community was so aggressive as to create a backlash within the second generation toward recovering the identity, seen in movies such as Joy-Luck Club.) The important point here is that the member of the inclusive identity says ‘I can be this and something else.’

I am not trying to make any normative statements here. My impulse would be to prefer inclusive identities over exclusive ones, but that is because I am to some degree a member of the majority culture. Simultaneously, I would argue that in being a military member, I am a member of an exclusive identity, for to some degree, I identify myself as ‘not a civilian.’ These are different slices of reality though. My point is that inclusive identities are not necessarily better. Under certain circumstances maintaining exclusive identities may be necessary or beneficial. One such circumstance is in the face of an overwhelming majority identity. In order for the identity to maintain itself, it must set and keep itself apar