Life isn't fair and Eat, Pray, Love

One of the smartest people I know recently wrote a blog post on Eat, Pray, Love and the backlash against it; the post was something of a defense against that backlash.

She was speaking of a different type of backlash (namely women who've taken up Yoga and Spirituality and suffered dearly), whereas I belong to another group that's pretty well known: guys who hate Eat, Pray, Love. Hate is probably too strong a word, allow me to elaborate.

First things first: no, I haven't read it. I probably won't, either, so feel free to add that to a long list of reasons to discredit or grain-of-salt this post, because there are a many. But my criticism isn't so much based on the book itself, which I'm sure is fine, but on its cultural impact based on how I've observed other people react to it.

I'll start by citing a tweet: when PZ Myers was being criticized for being too mean to his opponents (calling them idiots, frauds, etc.), he more or less brushed it off. But then someone mentioned that many of his targets don't deserve it, as they're normally acting out of ignorance. His response floored me with how he could, in 140 characters, point it out so clearly:

"Deserve" is a red herring. Life isn't fair, you don't get what you deserve...just have to hope you get what you need.

My major problem with Eat, Pray, Love is that it is a product of - while bolstering - a vague, responsibility-absolving entitlement to "happiness," comfort, "enlightenment," and self-satisfaction. And that this is inevitable (you are a strong, wonderful person! You deserve it) and can be lots of fun! Note that while this book is overwhelmingly more popular with women, my observation is that the previous point affects both men and women pretty hard. Tons of guys I know get distraught over the fact that they don't feel good warm things all the time. I'll address the gender differential in the specific case of the book later.

Maybe it's just from attending private school followed by Brown, but I'm always observing people who are pretty lucky in their lives, are well-educated, but just don't feel happy, and feel deep anguish that they don't know what the meaning of their lives are.

I hate to burst your bubble, but you shouldn't. "Happiness," "inner peace," "enlightenment"... these aren't finish lines. You won't reach a point in your life when you're like *BAM*! I'm happy! Things are good! And I will never be insecure about my talents or role in the world again!

It's kind of like getting your first sexual urges in Middle School: sorry, but you will always feel this way. You never reached a point in your life where you suddenly stopped getting horny. You just acknowledged the urges, and learned to deal with them, incorporating those feelings in your life in a more healthy, day-to-day way.

Note that until you did, you struggled with the insecurities, exacerbated loneliness, and questions about sex and sexuality in society that came (lol) with those new sexual urges. It takes years (and some people never get there) to get over the social cattiness and mess that arises from those insecurities. There's a teething phase.

Similarly, there are big points in your life when you feel miserable, and mostly, untapped. You feel your life is shallow, you haven't made a dent in the world, your talents are unappreciated; you especially feel guilty that this bothers you because you are better off than many others.

To which I say it's true: you are shallow, you're not impacting the world that hard, and there are people who are much worse off. But that's just life, and it's no weakness or inadequacy on your part. There isn't anything you're missing (or that you reasonably could do with any significant probability) to change any of it. So learn to live with it, because, as we say in software, there is no silver bullet. Yoga might help, but probably won't. Same with eating in the long term.

Though, here's the hardest one: you have no guarantee (or even an unofficial right to the prospect) of a magical person you find lovely, wonderful, and attractive will walk into your life and love you. This might have nothing to do with how wonderful you are as a person; you can be the kindest, smartest person on Earth, and while this bumps up your odds a little, there's never a guarantee. You don't get what you deserve, just hope you get what you need.

As to how EPL fits in to all this, and why it bothers me: EPL shows the story of someone we (privileged, educated unsatisfied people) can all relate to and shows her either crossing the finish line, or making giant, giant steps toward it. It (without meaning to) exploited our misunderstandings and fetishism of Eastern Mysticism and Hot Ethnic Love Abroad and pushed desperate people wildly in that direction.

I feel about Elizabeth Gilbert and her talks, writing (i.e. the magazine articles I've read) the way I feel about most priests: you clearly believe what you preach and live pretty happily by doing so. You have every right to do it and I won't stop you. But overall, I happen to think your messages are snake oil/placebo, and ultimately takes us down further down a path I think we're already too far into.

People then start looking at Yoga, travel, and Eastern Mysticism and get conned they way they do at homeopathy, or chiropractors (note that I don't find the exercise component of Yoga nearly as toxic as those two. But lots of those "gurus"? Most definitely). I just wish people would stop looking for silver bullets, and I feel that EPL puts a toy carrot in front of everyone.

Regarding the gender difference: I think the book and its reception really highlights the impossible situation women are put into. See the Male Privilege Checklist: women are expected to be superbeings with contradictory measures of success, and we are taught that they fail if they don't.

So if you're a woman, you get told by society as a whole, implicitly and explicitly, that you're a failure or 'failing to perform' much more often than guys. Guys like you a lot less, unreasonably soon.

Given all this, I find it not at all surprising that when you read a book that appeals to your wants and wishes, that you too could go to eat and pray and love and feel warm and fuzzy and find what you've lost and oh my god it's you!, that they love it. Again, guys fall for this mindframe too, but this book in particularly highlights the troubling situation women are in.

Personally, I'd rather put energy and resources in addressing the sexism in society, trying to prevent insecurity and doubt becoming a problem in the first place, rather than setting people up to fail by filling their heads with fantasies of ashrams and vague, impossible notions of fulfillment.

I'll end with a favorite quote. It comes from _why the lucky stiff, a minor genius of our time, more or less prescribing what I think is the best way out of these loops of self-futility and doubt: create. Write plays, or short stories, or code, or fan fiction, or sand castles, or design model trains. Do something you care about and can share with people. Give back. As he says:

When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. so create.

One of the more convincing arguments for atheism...

... for me, anyways, was the size and scope of everything that has nothing to do with us. Statements like "If the whole history of the universe were as long as your arm span, you can eliminate the entire history of humanity with the scrape of a fingernail." (I can't find the official reference, but it's used in the irrelevant introduction to this Ruby talk, until I can find the real one).

If God existed, and cared at all about us, why would he also create so much universe, and have it exist for so much time?

Even as someone who already feels this way, this graphic surprised me:



You can't see it, but to the left is our Sun. You really need to see the original image, and note that the Sun is represented by 1 pixel (the image itself is 10,173 pixels by 2500).

Also remember that the Sun contains 99.99% of the matter in our galaxy.

In a related note, Pharyngula points us to some video added to Carl Sagan (kind of) on the matter.

On Freedom of Speech

Back in DC, my family is hosting an international student for a few days as part of a summer program, and she had a wonderful conversation with us regarding her faith and country. She's a Muslim, and her progressiveness, eloquence, and intelligence really gives a jaded, disillusioned person like myself hope for the future.

That being said, she brought up Everyone Draw Mohammed Day, clearly unhappy with it, and attributing it to Muslim hatred, as this came up in the context of post-9/11 hatred in the United States.

I attribute her reaction mostly to the press in her country, which was inaccurate and unfavorable (her description of it had factual errors, and she didn't really address the cause). It wasn't the time or place for me to defend it in person. But as a participant, allow me to go into detail.

First, watch this 1:25 video of Phillip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials, discussing the offense caused by the title of his new book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ:

Yes, it was a shocking thing to say, and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it.

And if they open it and read it, they don't have to like it. And if you read it and dislike it you don't have to remain silent about it; you can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book.

You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book, no one has the right to stop it being published, or sold, or bought, or read. And that's all I have to say on that subject.

I participated to condemn acts of violence upon those who were exercising their rights to free speech. Again, if you don't like what I produce, you can choose not to consume it, and you can choose to argue with me about it, you can post rebuttals, and we can have a free exchange of ideas.

Victims of violence get no such choice. This professor of Mayalayam, a language of India, did not choose to have his hand cut off when in a simple language exam ("find the grammar errors in this passage") he used the name Mohammed for a character.

Theo van Gogh did not choose to get killed. Lars Vilks didn't choose to get attacked.

To any who say or believe these victims "chose their fates by their actions": you are agreeing with murderers and barbarians on the tactics used, and wish to stifle free speech. It is comparable to blaming rape victims for their rapes. That is not an opinion, it is a fact. In what twisted world is the appropriate punishment for saying something, drawing something, or singing something death and/or mutilation? No, these victims didn't choose this in the way someone offended by the content of a blog can just choose not to look at it. If the appropriate response to a question or an idea is aggression, than your ideas are weak, you have the mind of an 8-year old, and you live in the 12th century.

On a larger point, no topic of discussion should be off the table because some arbitrary group of people doesn't want it discussed. By this (lack of) logic, suppose I have billions of followers and I demand and order the killing of anybody who uses the letter "v". Suppose you used "v". Better, suppose I just thought you used "v," when you feel like you didn't. Would you actually deserve death?

While the arbitrary selection of a letter in the alphabet is ridiculous to almost everyone, to a large number of people in the world like myself it's just as ridiculous as depictions of a man who lived over a thousand years ago.

To be clear, our student does not agree with any of the violence propagated by murderers, barbarians, and extremists, and is as quick to condemn them as I am. But she (like many progressive, modern Muslims) was still angered by Everyone Draw Mohammed Day.

To her, and the rest: take back your religion. It's easy to pass the buck by calling the perpetrators "not real Muslims," and mentioning that Islam is primarily about Peace and Tolerance, etc., but it is cold comfort to those of us who feel threatened (not offended, mind you, which we can deal with) by people justifying their actions by citing hadith and the Koran. As long as a bunch of idiots are going to threaten me and my peers in the name of your religion, I and others will do what we can to point out the absurdity. Please, fight them, don't fight me.

My choice to participate was not because "I hate Muslims," it was because "I hate those people calling themselves Muslims who are threatening me for exercising free speech."

Also, remember I'm an equal-opportunity blasphemer. See this post on Christianity in the news, with this favorite video of mine (language NSFW):

I'll close with a buddy, Bill Maher, who states it simply: Freedom of Speech is non-negotiable. This isn't uniquely Muslim hatred; if it were Buddhists we'd be pissing off Buddhists, if it was McDonalds we'd be protesting McDonalds.

(Also, for those who missed it, Boobquake!).

Quickie on Atheism

I love Andrew Sullivan's blog. It offers excellent analysis containing many sides of the news; what separates it from other blog is the conversations he mediates with the readers.

One topic of great discussion is divinity: Sullivan himself is a Catholic (an exemplary one, I would say, of the compassion and humility the faith claims to provide) and he frequently discusses religion and the many conversations around it.

He recently posted a letter from an atheist reader that echoes how I feel about (what is being branded as) the New Atheists: yes they are loud, and their tone does little to persuade believers in an honest debate.

But their contributions to the atheist community isn't persuasion of believers, it's more a declaration of the right to exist, and a place in the discussion. Like the earliest gay pride parades, they are there to say "We're here, our lack of belief is legitimate, and we won't be bullied out. We won't settle for less respect. Get used to us."

It was their voices, their arguments, and their courage that allowed me to come out to the world as an atheist.

An excellent, excellent debate between Andrew Sullivan and Sam Harris, a prolific atheist, is over at Belief Net.

Assorted interestings

I've always loved the Google "Did you mean?" (favorite is recursion), but this one came up recently while helping my sister with some definitions:



---

There are some words that people invoke to give false credence to ideas. The most obvious case is God; if you mention him/her, you can convince people of pretty much anything.

In non-God cases, it's normally an abstract term we use as shorthand but don't have a solid, working definition for. I've written about Art being a stupid word, and today I read an interesting blog post adds 'neuroplasticity' to the list.

I read the news

If you aren't head-explodingly outraged with the Catholic church, you aren't paying enough attention (or, alternatively, you're incapable of independent thought).

With that in mind, this video tickled me (language NSFW).

Unsurprisingly, I agree with the Hitchens/Dawkins initiative to have the Pope brought to court.

Edit: I realize this was an inflammatory post, especially since I don't provide any links to what's going on, or the conversation in place. Here are a few articles that guided my understanding:

• Andrew Sullivan in invaluable in this discussion, as a compassionate Catholic who isn't afraid of following the truth where it lies. He's written a great article for The Times that lays it all out pretty well.


• Sullivan continues with more damning (literally, I hope) facts. The Vatican's response so far has been along the lines of calling this 'petty gossip,' seemingly unaware that the documented rape of hundreds children (and documented ignoring of calls for help) does not constitute gossip. It is fact, and there is a difference.


• How have Church representatives responded? By blaming the Jews, blaming the gays, and when that didn't work, blaming those slutty children who were totally asking for it.


• This has raised the question, can the Pope be fired? As in, suppose tomorrow we find out he also burned orphanages, uses performance-enhancing drugs, was in Arizona illegally, and was actually not even Catholic. Could the Vatican defrock him? Turns out, they can't. Surprisingly, the Catholic hierarchy has no real systems for accountability.


• Some bishops do step down, however. The timing suggests they're not so sorry that they did it as they are that they got caught.


• Christopher Hitchins was on Bill Maher's show, and while both are polarizing atheists who don't generally resonate well with believers (they're pretty inflammatory), this video lays it out pretty simply: would you accept a child molester (or someone who aided one) in your company? In your country? Then why is this any different?
  


• The Onion, a satirical publication, wins with the best headline though: Pope Vows to get Church Pedophilia Down to Acceptable Levels. The funny thing is, he hasn't even done this.


• In a major breakthrough, however, the Vatican may apologize in some way shape or form in June. Again, I have a feeling this is only happening because we're making such a big stink about it, since the abuse has happened over the last century (at least) and nobody from their end has said a peep about it, other than blaming.

The Vatican, like Phil Donahue and most other shills, have demonstrated themselves to be incapable of owning up to this, and have only shown their incompetence by blaming others. The best defense of the Catholic Church came just this morning, by Nick Kristof of the New York Times.

He basically says "don't mock so hard or cruelly, because these idiots in the Vatican aren't the entire Catholic church; many priests and nuns on the ground give their lives selflessly in the true spirit of the organization, and the mockery/criticism belittles their unmatched generosity."

Dan Savage addresses this, and I more or less agree. Standard accountability models are necessary, but mockery (especially honest and well-produced mockery, as in the video at the top of the post) will accelerate the response from the Church while they continue to earn it. Until that response comes, the good, "real" representatives of the Catholic faith will not be represented by the organization they deserve to be, and the churchgoers will suffer as they always have.

Until then, regarding Ratzinger, fuck the motherfucker.

Edit 2 (5/3/2010): More from Andrew Sullivan, reflecting on the NYT summary published yesterday. I also left out the reporting on Marcial Maciel, the Legion of Christ, and other establishment blights that further illustrate how horrible the whole situation is (Sullivan, National Catholic Reporter).

Edit 3 (5/11/2010): Ratzinger finally says something more substantive. This doesn't put him off the hook for the scandals he's been a part of, and I'm still waiting for him to do something. Took long enough, but it's better than blaming outsiders or the victims.