Wednesday, September 19th, 2007

Time	Event
7:47a	Science fiction poem; "When We Learned That God Was Real" [Page 26, Twenty-One Novel Poems; Sam's Dot Publishing 2007] When We Learned That God Was Real When we learned that God was real (oh, we had always known that, of course, but we hadn't really known that), when it turned out that God was truly real the way rocks are real, when we were shown that there was no way out of that conclusion because God had lost all patience with us at last and provided a demonstration -- "Now I will do [X]!" -- and it came to pass, there was confusion. "I will make a clear blue sky to be everywhere over all the world, everytime over all the world, with not one cloud and not one smallest scrap of darkness," God had said. "Pay attention!" And it came to pass. It was on CNN; it was on Fox News; it was outside. We all saw it. All of us. Scientists were weeping in the streets. Physicists were shaking their magic markers and shouting. "We are keeping the faith! We refuse to have seen it happen! It cannot be replicated! It was not observed with detachment! It was not measured with scientific instruments! It was not peer-reviewed! It did not happen!" And a whole chorus of voices were answering: "Hey! Guys! It came to pass!" We could not be sure anymore that e equaled mc squared. We could not be sure that pi was till that number we never can remember. We had no choice but to set aside the speed of light. We no longer knew the right answers. God had reached out and yanked that rug of right answers out from under our feet. Some of us were stubborn, and so God said: "You will try me too far. Get ready: I will now make every living thing accordion-pleated and paginated! Pay attention!" That struck terror in our hearts, and we fell to our knees and we begged God not to do that. "Thank you, God," we said, when it did not come to pass. "Thank you for not doing that." "I could do it," God said. "I could do it at any moment. Hold that thought." Now, we are tiptoeing around in the world. (72 Comments | Comment on this)
8:32a	Linguistics; political language; ethical question; part two Thank you for all your excellent and thoughtful comments and responses in this discussion; they're very much appreciated. And I'm so pleased. Because it seems to me that you've more than adequately answered the question (with its clarification) that was posed by starcat_jewel, and there appears to be a near-consensus on these two points: 1. It's not ethical to use a story that you know is false just because you know that it will work -- whether your goal is to get a spirited discussion of an issue going, or to persuade others to change their perceptions of that issue, or both. 2. That doesn't mean you can't use the story. It just means that you have to word it in such a way that it will be easily recognized as a parable, or as some analogous hypothetical form, rather than as a factual report. And you suggested a variety of different ways to put that second point into effect. So suppose we start with that infamous story of The Wicked Welfare Queen, which almost everyone has agreed would be unethical to use in the form that Ronald Reagan presented it... Generic Version "You know what really gets to me? Makes my blood boil? I work like a dog, just trying to keep a roof over my family's head and food on our table, and I pay every last damn penny of my taxes! And what does the government do with my money? Hey... let me tell you what they do with it! They give it to a Welfare Queen that drives around in a fancy pink Cadillac, and wears a mink coat, and has $150,000.00 in her bank account.... You know what's in my bank account? Maybe enough to pay my phone bill, if I'm lucky! And you know why that is? It's because most of my money, what I make working my tail off every single day, goes to the damn Welfare Queens!" ... and we revise it to make it clear that it's not intended to be factual; like this, for example: Revised Generic Version "You know what really gets to me? Makes my blood boil? Hearing people tell that crazy story about a Welfare Queen that drives around in a fancy pink Cadillac and wears a mink coat and has $150,000.00 in her bank account, when they know perfectly well that there's no such person and never has been any such person!" I think that would be just as effective as a way of getting a discussion going and would introduce the same conversation points, without introducing the ethical problems. [I have not forgotten, however, that many of you would prefer a more elegant English register than the one I use; feel free to post alternative revisions that you'd be more comfortable with.] (24 Comments | Comment on this)
1:16p	Recommended link; Madeleine Engle... Powell's Books has a very nice blogpost -- with comments -- titled "Remembering Madeleine Engle," by Melissa Hart, at http://tinyurl.com/22wfxb . Recommended. (4 Comments | Comment on this)

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