August 2

So, life is interesting sometimes. I have had some seriously philosophical talks the last few days, and many of them I haven’t yet had time to digest, but sometimes I’m not sure what I think until I try to explain it to others, so that’s what this is. I talked with Megan for a really long time, and we covered many topics from how we will become undevelopment workers in N. America to why I can never be a part of organized religion to justifications for not having sex before marriage. I am realizing (in Africa, strangely enough) that there are segments of American culture that are equally foreign to me as Rwandese culture is. It’s weird to realize that while I have no problem sitting in my Arabic classes talking with veiled women, it makes me really uncomfortable to have people greet me by saying “Praise Jesus.” Slowly, I am pinpointing why I feel that way, and it is bringing a lot of things to light.

I have learned a lot about American culture on this trip, and that is something I hadn’t expected at all. It’s weird for me to admit this, but in a way I have had a very narrow view of some ideas/philosophies/ways of life. This was shaped in part I think by growing up in Portland, by my education, by the generation I’m part of, and partly it’s just the way I make sense of the world. Ironically, the ideas I have been unwilling to entertain are ideas that the people who share my intellectual/philosophical culture (those blasted pinko hippie environmentalist freaks) love to call rigid and narrow-minded. But the truth is, I had simply never allowed myself the occasion to discuss these ideas with someone who could relate them in a logical way. I had only ever seen them put forth by crazy people (televangelists, for example) who presented them in off-putting or hateful ways, which made it very easy for me to write them off as psycho right-wing Evangelical neo-con gay-hating freaks. Much the same way they dismiss the dreadlocked vegan anti-capitalist freaks. Coincidence? I think not.

It’s very easy to ridicule an idea or a philosophy if you manage to keep your understanding of it simple and one-dimensional. Illegal immigrants would be a good example. If you remain ignorant and disconnected from them, it’s pretty easy to argue that they are a burden, that they’re the reason the public schools and emergency rooms are so overloaded, that we should ship them all back and build a wall between Mexico and the U.S. But if you actually hear them out, and realize that as long as life is bad enough in their home countries to make it worth risking their lives to come to the U.S., arguing that the solution is building a wall sounds juvenile and poorly reasoned. It’s not comfortable for me to say this, but I definitely had a (carefully-guarded) simplistic view of certain segments of American culture. Specifically, social conservatives and Evangelical Christians. I realize that these two groups do not always align on all the issues, but in general they have many points in common, so just bear with the generalization for this blog entry.

I was always taught that people are basically good, that we are all equal, that people should be judged based on their individual merit and not based on race, religion, creed, etc. My liberal education, specifically at SMA and Scripps, seemed to put forth a very relativist philosophy. Whether it was intended or not, I (and I think most of my classmates as well) came out of that with the idea that there are many points of view that command equal merit. Our teachers rarely told us that there was one right answer (except in math class) and the rule of thumb was that you can pretty much argue any viewpoint you like, and as long as your defense is clear, consistent, well-supported, well-documented and logical, you aren’t ‘wrong.’ It was the argumentation that counted most, not your premise. Which is a great way to teach kids how to analyze, how to deconstruct an argument, how to intelligently discuss nearly anything, and to equip them with the tools they need in order to weed their way through the many misleading propositions they will be confronted with both in and out of school.
But, it also creates a climate where logical, analytical argument is king, and anyone who makes the leap from logic to inherent belief loses some credibility.

Due to that basic paradigm, I pretty much viewed anyone who claimed that there was one absolute truth (religious, philosophical, moral, etc) as slightly less than credible. Same goes for hard-line social conservatives: Who gave them the right to determine what is okay for me? Isn’t that a great thing about America, that no matter your personal views or private actions (private: i.e. not harmful to the public good), you’re still entitled to the same liberties and freedoms the constitution provides? But instead of actually engaging in conversation about some of these questions, and trying to understand how they arrived at their conclusions, I decided that somehow they were less worthy of dialogue than people who shared my perspective. [I would like to put in my disclaimer now, which says that I am not necessarily any more in agreement with the aforementioned ideas than I was before this series of enlightening conversations. But I am able to entertain the thought that these ideas can have well-reasoned arguments behind them, and that not everyone who thinks this way is insane. Some of them are, to be sure, but then so was Tre Arrow.]

Megan is my window into conservative America, or Evangelical Land as she likes to refer to it. Although we are in line philosophically on many things, especially social justice issues, we come from such radically different backgrounds that we always seem to approach things from the opposite perspective, which is awesome and really interesting for both of us. For example, in our talk the other night, we somehow meandered onto the topic of abstinence. She has made the decision not to have sex before she gets married, and I asked her if she could just talk to me about how she came to that decision, etc. She did, and it was really interesting. I wasn’t raised in a culture that pushed the no-sex-before-marriage idea. It was more like no-sex-before-committed-adult-relationship. She was raised in a family/church/culture that definitely expected people to wait for marriage, but it also seems to be a very personal decision for her. She was funny about it, saying that in order to be the token prude she has to assume that role and joke about it, or else people think she’s weird, which is an awesome attitude to have. There was a serious explanation as well, which I’m probably not able to relate eloquently, but at the end of the conversation I respect her more for having that well though-out a philosophy, and the conviction to stand by it for quite possibly a long time.

The following day, I went to dinner with Megan and Janine, and a three-hour long conversation about religion and theology sprung from a question I have had for a long time: What do people mean when they say things like “by the blood of Jesus?” I seriously didn’t know what that meant. It seemed like a catchphrase to be used when you want to be dramatic. And Megan said that most Christians she knows probably don’t really know what it means either but they never ask about it in any case. In other conversations we’ve established that she has more in common with me and my questioning of religion/faith than she does with people at her church who are so sure about everything. Megan and Janine talked about their spiritual journeys and why they stick with their religions despite the fact that they have lots of criticisms of the church, its leaders, its actions, etc.

They tried to explain a lot of concepts that I’m not really sure I can understand, but it was definitely enlightening and I feel like I understand people better now. I can never explain exactly what I mean about issues like this, so I hope this was somewhat coherent at least. But, one good thing about being here is you get used to not being able to fully explain yourself, and it becomes no big deal, so oh well!